Zionist and right wing Christian evangelists exploit US freedom of speech by fuelling sedition and hate between two great religions.
On the other hand, right wing religious elements are manipulating Muslims’ righteous indignation by turning lawful protests into demented violence.
In the US, it is argued that inflammatory speech is protected in the first amendment.
Yet I know of eight people who were unjustly dragged through Los Angeles federal courts for 15 years, accused of distributing less than 50 copies of a news magazine, which highlights the hypocrisy.
It seems the latest Islamophobic film Innocence of Muslims is part of a trend designed to deceptively turn the memories of 9/11 into a lasting conflict between Islam and the West, just one facet in a calculated Zionist crusade to discredit anyone challenging Israel.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it emerged producer Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was only a front for a pro-Israeli US group.
Nakoula, a bankrupt felon who spent 21 months in jail and was fined more than half a million dollars, lacked financial resources to make the movie. His earlier assertions that he collected millions from Jewish donors provide possible clues about the real culprits.
The unsubstantiated pro-Israeli media spin, which suggested his wife’s family in Egypt financed the film, is most likely a diversionary smokescreen to inflame sectarian rift in Egypt.
Israeli pundits have been trying to divide Egypt for 30 years. In 1982, the journal for the World Zionist Organization Kivunim published a treatise declaring that: “Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel.”
In addition, the timing of the film’s release was undoubtedly aimed to coincide with the US presidential election.
It couldn’t be just a coincidence that four years ago Clarion Fund – a shadowy American, pro-Israel, non-profit, tax-exempt organization – produced a similar anti-Muslim movie called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.
As with this latest movie’s timing, seven weeks before the 2008 presidential election, the fund, along with the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), spent more than $17 million to distribute 28m DVDs in a major mail campaign and inserting copies in more than 100 newspapers and magazines in swing voter states.
The fund was founded by two Israeli-Canadian brothers, movie producer Raphael Shore and Rabbi Ephraim Shore of the Aish Hatorah, another tax-exempt, pro-Israel organization.
EMET’s advisory board includes leading Islamophobic figures such as Daniel Pipes, Frank Gaffney and former Israeli ambassador Yoram Ettinger.
Sadly, while Christian evangelists were coalescing with Zionists to mock the Prophet of Islam, Jewish settlers were vilifying Christ in his native land.
Earlier this month, Jewish settlers, empowered financially by the same tax-exempt US organizations, attempted to set fire to a Christian church in Jerusalem after writing on the walls “Jesus is a monkey”.
It is critical to recognize that this latest repulsive movie is part of a growing Islamophobic industry, promoted and financed by one-issue, tax-exempt Zionist organizations.
The West must deal firmly with this irrational yet measured phenomenon intended to incite and cause harm.
In the east, Muslims must be circumspect when rejecting hate-inspired provocations. Violence only plays into the hands of those attempting to divide followers of religions who share the same reverence for Jesus and God.
– Jamal Kanj (www.jamalkanj.com) writes frequently on Arab issues and is the author of Children of Catastrophe, Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America.
It is August 28th in Vallecito, Colon on the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Unceasingly heavy winds and rain pound a small encampment of 200 Garífuna families throughout the night. The families came from more than a dozen of the 46 Garífuna communities that dot the Honduran coastline, in order to set up camp, staking claim to ancestral lands they mean to recover. Not tonight, nor any other since their arrival here on August 26th, do their worries stem from the violent rains or turbulent sea that Isaac has brought. No, Isaac is merely one of 20 or so hurricanes that could show its fury on the Garinagu[i] coast this year.
The Garífuna drums echo robustly and the people’s fervor rises with the tension in the camp as the tarps sound thunderously as they are jarred to and fro in the gale. It is impossible to distinguish the faint movement of people outside the main tent in the absence of the moon and her stars. Suddenly, out of the darkness that surrounds the encampment like an ocean fog that encroaches silently from afar, enveloping everything in its path, heavily armed men wielding sophisticated weaponry burst onto the scene unleashing a barrage of gunfire above the camp. They arrive mounted in pairs on motorcycles, an act in and of itself illegal in Honduras[ii]. They move rapidly from one edge of the camp to the other, relentlessly firing a hairs shot above anything they encounter in their trail. They are uniformed, but not with official police or military uniforms, but well uniformed nonetheless.
“Yes!” insists Alfredo López, Vice-President of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), founder of the first Garífuna radio station, Faluma Bimetu (Sweet Coconut) and coordinator of the Garífuna Radio Network; they are “paramilitaries linked to drug trafficking and Reynaldo Villalobos, the man who has invaded five of the six associative businesses[iii] with over 700 hectares [1730 acres] of land” here in Vallecito. Still a doubt remains as to whether the mercenaries are actually Miguel Facusse’s, the“Palmero de la Muerte” or Palm Owner of Death, as he is known, whose vast extensions of African Palm plantations completely surround Vallecito, with exception of the beach. Regardless, says Alfredo, “against their weapons, our drums are all that we have,” as the drums sound with greater vigor through the camp, exhorting Isaac to unleash a fury of rain to dampen the mercenaries notorious taste for blood. They have already harassed the camp for three enduring nights.
There were no massacres nor was anyone injured last night but the message of the regional plantation owners is dead clear says Alfredo, “They are treating us like trespassers in our own home and instead of receiving help from the authorities, it seems that they are in collusion too.” Despite the fact that no one has slept a wink in three nights, the people here knew what they were getting into by setting up this camp. They came to participate in a non-violent action to recover ancestral garífuna lands that legally and legitimately belong to the garífuna people. They mean to pressure the National Agrarian Institute (INA) into properly surveying the 700 hectares pertaining to the 6 garífuna “associative businesses” [Empresa Ruguma, Saway, Saway Sufritiñu, Walumugu, Satuye, Sinduru Free], and demand that the state guarantee the necessary security conditions for the Garífuna to live and work on this land. The Garífuna, reiterates Alfredo, are no strangers to persecution nor to resistance, “We have been fighting for many years, hundreds of years, and we are not going to give up now because of the sordid interests of a government as irresponsible as Honduras.”
The Land
OFRANEH´s, Report on the Territorial Defense of Vallecito in Colon, indicates that “Historically, Vallecito belongs to the Garífuna people who, in response to pressure from the Spanish after 1804, began to move from the Trujillo bay to the Sico River” in search of fertile land for farming with access to the ocean for fishing, activities that form the backbone of the Garífuna culture. As a result of this displacement and their search for better living conditions than to be exploited workers for the Spanish in Trujillo, at least 24 Garífuna communities began to emerge along the coastal region. Essentially, the Garífuna began to inhabit Vallecito 17 years prior to the Honduran independence from the Spanish Crown in 1821.
The current attempt by the Garífuna, organized by OFRANEH and the Iseri Lidamari Movement, is not their first effort to recover their ancestral lands from the economic interests of the Honduran oligarchy or of the foreign interests that forced their displacement. Shortly after the Garífuna arrived at Vallecito, the story is told, “around 1820, the Scottish pirate Gregor MacGregor ‘purchased’ the Serrania de Payas territory between Trujillo and the Sico River from Georges Frederick I, King of the Moskitia, allegedly in exchange for two bottles of Whiskey.”[iv] This was the first heist, a foreign attempt to appropriate, develop and sell without the people’s consent the Garífuna’s new lands.
In 1887, the first process to title Garífuna lands began near Puerto Cortez, now under the tutelage of the independent Honduran state. The relative peace for the Garífuna communities along the Honduran coast did not last long. The turn of the century proved to show the new face of colonization, manifested in the arrival of the Banana Republic, with its reinvigorated exploitation of natural resources and forced labor. Immense quantities of cultivable lands were turned over to three banana companies, the United Fruit Company (Chiquita), the Standard Fruit Company (Dole), and the Cuyamel Fruit Company. They received 1,235 acres of land for every kilometer of rail they lay for trains in Honduras. By 1929, the United Fruit Company controlled the principal ports and approximately 741,000 acres or nearly a thousand square miles of fertile lands for the banana boom, including the majority of maritime access on the Atlantic coastline.[v]
The Honduran transition from Spanish colony to Banana Republic defined a new era of forced displacements and territorial resistance by the Garífunas due to the pressures and expansionism of the banana companies who rabidly accumulated land and workers. This process provoked major state complicity in order to provide new land titles for the banana companies, ignoring the existing process that began to title land in favor of the Garífuna at the end of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the banana plantations proved, in many cases, too large to completely control.
“In 1997, the Iseri Lidamari movement, accompanied by OFRANEH, met with the National Agrarian Institute (INA) to obtain land titles in the [Vallecito] territory for six “associative businesses”; as a result, they obtained legal documents that recognize 2,700 hectares of land as Garífuna property,” states OFRANEH’s Report on Territorial Defense in Vallecito, Colon. However, the same report indicates:
“Since that date, intruders have attempted to take over that territory. Miguel Facussé planted 100 hectares of African Palm in Ruguma, one of the six “associative businesses” but the Supreme Court (CSJ) ruled in favor of the Garífunas, annulling Facussé’s claims to that land. Despite this [ruling], in recent years the area has turned into a corridor for organized crime and drug trafficking, causing the number of residents in the area to diminish.”
According to Teofilo Colon Jr., a Garífuna journalist and researcher in New York City, the creation of said corridor of organized crime and the usurpation of lands has provoked the following results, “In the last 18 years, 86% of Garífuna land has been seized by non-Garífunas.”[vi] The situation has become acute since the 1990’s, as the introduction of the war on drugs has intensified. OFRANEH highlights this in a communiqué:
“Since 2005, people associated with organized crime impose a reign of terror on the Limon- Punta Piedras corridor, forcing Garífunas living in Vallecito to reduce their presence and activities on land belonging to their “associative businesses”. Subsequently, foreigners arrive, taking over 900 of the 1,600 hectares of Garífuna land recognized by the National Agrarian Institute (INA).”[vii]
Despite the persistent threats, the coup d’etat in 2009 and the corridor of terror created in the Vallecito region, in 2010 OFRANEH was able to secure a signed agreement with delegates of the INA where they committed to surveying the “associative businesses.” But according to Miranda, “the intruders [Facussé and Villalobo] denied entry to members of the INA and the Attorney General,” preventing them from opening the gates and re-measuring the fenced-in “associative businesses”, a necessary step towards repopulating their land.
In 2008, Miriam Miranda was unanimously elected president of OFRANEH by the general assembly of Garífuna communities. OFRANEH was founded in 1978 with the express mission to “represent and defend the interests of the Afro-Caribbean Garífuna minority in Honduras with a mandate to protect the capacities of the Garífuna community and their self-determination through programs promoting political, social, economic, and cultural development.” Miranda took over the presidency of OFRANEH shortly after the previous president, Gregoria Flores was forced to seek asylum in the United States, fearing the constant death threats she was receiving.
Unfortunately, Miranda states in the Vallecito report, “The President [Porfirio Lobo Sosa] considers Vallecito to be uninhabited.” This territory, defined as “uninhabited” or vacant is fundamental in order to understand the most worrisome threat to the garífuna at present, the arrival of so-called “Special Development Zones” (RED) or “Charter Cities.” OFRANEH has emphasized there has not been a threat as severe as the one posed to the Garífuna by Latin America´s first Charter City since the arrival of the banana companies a hundred years ago. What Miranda considers the beginnings of the “deterritorialization garífuna,”[viii] which “intensified in the 1990s due to real estate speculation fueled by tourist mega projects” on the Caribbean Coast.[ix]
The Arrival of Charter Cities to Honduras
The so-called, “Special Development Regions” (RED) or “Charter Cities” are the brainchild of Paul Romer. Romer is the son of former Colorado Governor Roy Romer. He is a recognized economist educated at the University of Chicago and currently teaches economics at the NYU Stern School for Economics. He has devoted the last years to designing and promoting “Charter Cities” while searching for uninhabited territories in close proximity to exploitable natural resources in a carefully profiled country (a country with an on-going major disaster) where he can sell his first “Charter City” in order to produce a new era of development for the world.
Concluding a May 2012 New York Times Magazine article titled “Who Wants to Buy Honduras?” the author, Adam Davidson coincides with Romer’s perspective writing, “It’s easy to criticize experimenting with the livelihoods of the poor, but having spent time in the chaotic slums of Honduras, Haiti, Jordan and Indonesia, I’ve found that the poor are already conducting daily experiments in how to make life better outside the formal economy. By and large, it isn’t working. We have to try some new things.”[x]
In effect, says Miriam Miranda in an interview with journalist Giorgio Trucchi, “In the name of development, Honduras is up for sale; this fact alone reflects a failed state that has yet to recover its institutional legitimacy following the [2009] coup.” Indeed the goal of the May 5th and 6th 2011 conference in San Pedro Sula properly entitled, “Honduras, Open For Business” was to attract major foreign businesses to invest in Honduras, selling off crucial areas of interest. The mega expo, attracted the likes of corporate magnates such as Siemen Phillips, Mexican Carlos Slim (Fortune 500 World’s richest man), and 325 other corporate giants where they were pitched six primary areas for lucrative foreign investment by Honduras’ most powerful businessmen; Energy, Infrastructure, Maquiladora (sweatshops) and Transformation Services, Agro-Business, Forestry and Tourism, reassuring that “access to the most important markets in the world, with investment guarantees and clear rules, would be among the clear advantages that investors will have in Honduras.”[xi]
An article published in the conservative Honduran daily newspaper El Heraldo, offered a list of FAQ´s promoting “Charter Cities” in Honduras explaining that, “The REDs [Special Development Regions] will enjoy a high-degree of autonomy. The rules regarding health, education, justice, and security in the RED can be different from those in the rest of the country.” By definition, according to the Charter City’s official website in Honduras (www.red.hn), the RED will be practically an autonomous city-state inside of another state, with the express mission of producing economic profits in the name of development for the underdeveloped, as a means to combat poverty. Nevertheless, in order to launch and development a Charter City (RED) they first require an “A vacant piece of land, large enough for an entire city, voluntarily contributed by a host government.”[xii]
Contrary to the philosophy of the North American economist, the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano wrote years ago that, “Underdevelopment is not a stage of development. It is its consequence.” Paraphrasing, poverty is not eradicated with economic developmental experiments designed to tenfold the wealth of transnational corporations, theoretically trickling down in the wake of their riches. Rather, the ferocious development schemes based on the savage exploitation of natural resources, the forced relocation of traditional peoples and exploitation of forced labor contribute to and foment the exponential growth of disparities between the world’s wealthiest and poorest.
In order to launch the Charter City project in Honduras, Romer requires an “uninhabited” piece of land. For President Lobo and the Honduran Congress, this ambiguous concept already existed in Honduras when they began to “FastTrack” the necessary constitutional reforms in late 2010. Honduran prosecutors and lawyers have questioned said constitutional reforms. In October 2011, they submitted the first formal petition to the Honduran Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the legislative decree that created the Special Development Regions. They argue that the decree openly relinquishes or indefinitely leases national territory to foreign interests in order to create a “state within a state,” in turn, violating Honduras’ sovereignty.
OFRANEH has also emphasized Romer’s erroneous understanding of Honduras, illustrating the potential consequences of his theories, which are on the verge of being implemented. “Paul Romer’s propaganda talks about building Charter Cities in uninhabited places. Unfortunately, in Honduras they are trying to dispossess the Garífuna people of half of our territory in order to create the RED (Special Development Region). The level of disinformation and violence that exists in this country reveals that multiple human rights violations will be caused by the establishment of a neocolonial project in the 21st century.”[xiii]
The Crisis
Yet, the economic crisis already exists. More importantly the general lack of security and un-governability of Honduras has become ever more acute since the consolidation of the coup d’état on November 29, 2009 with the election of Porfirio Lobo Sosa as Honduras’ President. Romer, who patented the phrase in 2004 “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste,”[xiv] found in Honduras the perfect lab to perform a field test of his vision. To promote the reduction of poverty, enhanced security and a stable economy in a country where none of these elements exist is an immensely attractive proposal for legislators who will form the first line of potential investors and occupants of said “Charter City.”
To date, Honduras continues to be the country with the highest per capita rate of homicides in the world. According to the United Nations 2011 report, there are an average of 82.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants a year in Honduras. We can compare this to Mexico with an average of 20 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants despite a high intensity war on drugs that has claimed at least 50,000 lives in the last 6 years, or New York City where the homicide rate in 2010 was 6.4 per 100,000.[xv] According to the Tegucigalpa based Committee for the Freedom of Speech, C-Libre, Honduras also holds the world record for the highest per capita rate of journalists that are violently killed. There have been 33 journalists assassinated in the last 10 years in Honduras, and 28 of them since the June 29, 2009 coup d’état.[xvi]
The recent visit to Honduras by the International Mission on the Verification of Human Rights Violations in the Bajo Aguan summarized in a public hearing that Honduras has become characterized as a country where there is a systematic killing of campesinos. They cite in their report that, specifically in the Bajo Aguan, Colon, there have been at least 50 campesinos assassinated with total impunity in the last two years by mercenaries that protect the interests of wealthy landowner Miguel Facussé, who has boosted his African Palm production and biofuels exportations.[xvii]
Simply put, the favorable conditions necessary for the implementation of a Charter City culminated quickly in Honduras following the 2009 coup d’état. On January 19th 2011 the Honduran National Congress approved the Law for Special Development Regions (RED).[xviii]
Honduran journalist Sandra Marybel Sánchez, who also raises the concerns of Hondurans that feel that the country’s sovereignty is being compromised, highlights the most important concessions made by the Honduran Congress to investors in order to implement the Charter Cities in an article she wrote:
1. They will be autonomous, will be legally incorporated, will have their own administrative system, they will emit their own rules (Laws) and they will have their own legal jurisdiction… composed of national or international experts.
2. They will be authorized to enter into international agreements and treaties related to trade and cooperation in matters within their competence.
3. They will be able to enter into agreements with national or international intelligence services to combat organized crime.
4. They will be authorized to have and operate their own police force, which may be strengthened by entering into bilateral agreements with other countries and regions.
5. The REDs will have their own budget, to fix the taxes/rates they will charge and to collect and manage their own taxes.
6. They will be able to establish their own migration and immigration policies and rules, and control whatever transportation system that is admitted within its area of control/jurisdiction. Sea and air craft/vessels will have assured access to the RED.[xix]
Echoing the observations made by Sandra Marybel Sanchéz, Jari Dixon, a lawyer and ex- federal prosecutor now with the Association of Judges for a State with Rights, argues that the RED (Charter City) violates a series of Honduran laws. “In the RED, autonomous powers serve as the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, which is completely unconstitutional. Moreover, by indefinitely handing over part of the national territory to foreigners, the sovereignty of the country is being violated,” stated Dixon.[xx]
On September 5th, Dixon, Sánchez and members of several Honduran social organizations were illegally detained at the Honduran Supreme Court as they attempted to submit a formal petition to the court questioning the constitutionality of the congressional modifications made to the constitution, creating the RED. While being held arbitrarily for several hours before being able to submit the petition, Dixon manifested, “this is the first example of what to expect with the Charter Cities. Here, a wall separates them from the rest of Honduran society, revealing exactly what the State loses when it auctions off the country: nothing less than its sovereignty.”[xxi]
Back in the Vallecito camp on August 30th, OFRANEH, now accompanied by members of the Espacio Refundacional[xxii] and human rights organizations hold a gathering called the Meeting of Cultural Resistance Against Charter Cities. Miriam Miranda asserts: “On several occasions, the Executive and Legislative Powers indicated that the first RED in Honduras will be located between the Trujillo Bay and the Sico River, an area that includes 24 Garífuna communities, which are considered the cultural sanctuary of the Garífuna people. Moreover, some have mentioned creating RED’s in order to produce biofuels, presumably in the tropical forests of the Honduran Moskitia. There are major interests and tremendous potential in this area for the de facto powers in this country– the economically powerful, the oligarchy that has hijacked this country.”
Doug Henwood, special editor at The Nation, asserts in an interview with Al Jazeera that:
“It’s interesting how the charter cities concept unmasks the libertarian dream as deeply undemocratic. The compatibility of [Augusto] Pinochet and Milton Friedman offered plenty of hints, but this Honduran experiment looks like conclusive proof. First you need a coup. And then you need to set up a zone of freedom – but a special kind of freedom. Not the freedom of association, or of individual expression and development, but the freedom of maneuver for an economic elite to do as it pleases under a special kind of state protection. Milton’s grandson, Patri Friedman, one of the charter city pioneers, has declared that democracy is ‘unfortunately… ill-suited for a libertarian state.’”
The Honduran Charter Cities promise to create precisely this type of libertarian and laissez-faire state, attractive to investors that share a similar vision and dream about a city-state subject only to laws that guarantee, without restrictions, the absolute free flow of capital with zero interference.
The Deal
On September 4th in Tegucigalpa, The Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Alliance, COALIANZA, a commission created by the Honduran congress, signed a fifteen million dollar contract with an investment consortium headed by Michael Strong to begin construction on Honduras’ first Model City. During the signing ceremony, Juan Orlando Hernández, president of the Honduran Congress proclaimed, “This is an extraordinary moment for our country, for this generation of Hondurans and for the generation of politicians, academics, and advisors who have decided to look to the future and not fear change.” Carlos Pineda, the president of COALIANZA, described the project as having “the potential to turn Honduras into an engine of wealth,” and a “mechanism for development typically belonging only to first world countries.”[xxiii]
Strong, founder and CEO of NGK, stated that “the future will remember this day as the day that Honduras began developing,” because “we believe this will be one of the most important transformations in the world, through which Honduras will end poverty by creating thousands of jobs.”[xxiv] Strong further emphasized that “this is a collaboration between a diverse group of investors, businesses and experts that aim to eliminate poverty through the creation of wealth in Honduras by means of Special Development Regions.”[xxv] Although the details of the deal are unclear, apparently Canada and South Korea will be the initial investors in the project, which is expected to break ground in Puerto Castilla, on the Trujillo Bay.[xxvi]
There are many sketchy details about the US based consortium NGK, who have estimated that they could create as many as 200,000 jobs for Hondurans over the next couple of years.[xxvii] Even the mainstream media are confused about the name of the consortium; the AP, ABC, The Guardian and The Independent have cited the company as either “NGK” or “MGK.” Even the highlighted article on the Honduran Congress’s website ran contradictory information about the consortium, citing “MGK” in the headline and title of the article while referring only to “NGK” in the body of the very same article. Extensive searches for information in regards to either name or any consortium run by Michael Strong return null, leading to a series of doubts as to whether Honduras has signed an 15 million dollar contract with a ghost company.
Furthermore, Paul Romer in his blog on www.chartercities.org wrote on September 7th, “Here at Charter Cities, we’ve received several requests for comment on recent press reports of an agreement with investors to develop the Honduran Special Development Regions (REDs). We learned of these agreements from the media and have no knowledge of their terms, so we’re unable to offer any comment about them.” Romer concludes by stating that members of the Transparency Commission (the supposed governing apparatus for the Charter City) have written to the Honduran President to clarify the situation.[xxviii] The Transparency Commission was named by the President Porfirio Lobo Sosa in December 2011 and includes Paul Romer, George Akerlof, a Nobel Laureate in Economy and Permanent Resident at the International Monetary Fund, Nancy Birdall, an ex Vice-President at the Inter American Development Bank, Boon-Hwee Ong, an ex-general in the Singapore Armed Forces, and Harry Strachan, the Director Emeritus at Bain & Company (founded by US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and documented to have funneled El Salvadoran death squad funding during the 1980’s Central American civil wars).[xxix]
Nonetheless, Strong maintains that “We will work closely with the governor of the Charter City to assure that the region is equipped with the best police force, the best jurisprudence, legal system and transparency. The main goal of our project is to create the foundation of a safe and prosperous community for Hondurans.”[xxx] Furthermore, it turns out that Strong is not just the CEO of the controversial NGK or MGK consortium, but also the CEO and co-founder of FLOW (Freedom Lights Our World) and “flow-idealism” an organization built on libertarian and Friedmanite economic philosophies and theories.
Strong, who considers himself a leftist, is closely connected to and funded by Whole Foods CEO and FLOW’s other co-founder John Mackey. He goes so far as to relate the concept of “Free Cities” to an “anarcho-capitalist-paradise” that will be much more efficient in eradicating global poverty than the “euro-socialism” so feared by the “whackos” in the Tea Party.[xxxi] This is how Strong presented his philosophy and project to an elite group of global libertarians in April 2011 at an exclusive resort on Roatán, a Honduran Island in the Caribbean. Patri Friedman and Mexican Ricardo Valenzuela, CEO of Free Cities LLC were among the special guests. During his presentation in Roatán last year, titled “Marketing Free Cities as a Mainstream Solution to Global Poverty,” Strong repeated numerous times that one distinguishing factor between he and others that promote similar types of projects is that “We are on the side of the angels,” supposedly emphasizing his humanistic, transcendental and new-ageist traits that represent his particular line of thought among the diverse tangents in the libertarian movement.[xxxii]
The Relocation, Resistance and Dance
Roatán is the island where the Garífuna people first stepped on what is now Honduran soil, on April 12 1797. The Garífuna were banished to a tiny island, Baliceaux, following two ensuing wars that their leader Satuyé and his wife Barauda unleashed against the English in Saint Vincent, where they arrived from Africa shipwrecked but free of slavery in 1635. On Baliceaux, more than half of the 5,000 Garífuna banished there died, before the remaining 2,026 Garífuna were again relocated by the English and subsequently abandoned with minimal provisions for survival on Roatán in 1797.[xxxiii] Nevertheless, the Garífuna survived the relocations like so many times in their history, being torn from their native Africa in the chains of slavery, yet emerging from the coffers of the wrecked slave ships on the coasts of Saint Vincent as the only Africans to arrive to the Americas as free blacks. They were taken in and promptly mixed with the Arawak and Carib indigenous peoples to from the Garinagu or Garífuna people.
Now, August 30th, 2012, in the Vallecito encampment, Miriam Miranda has the word and turns it towards the government, citing its complicity in authorizing Honduras’ Charter Cities and the lack of human rights guarantees for pre-existing peoples such as the Garífuna. “Vallecito is the heart of the territory where they are promoting the creation and installation of Honduras’ Charter City. So, we are not only up against the interests of organized crime; we’re up against the interests of a government that—without consulting us—makes decisions about our territory.”
Miranda’s sentiment was echoed in early August 2012 when Frank LaRue, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, made an official visit to Honduras and submitting among others the following recommendation:
“I believe that establishing so-called development programs outside of the territorial authority of this country, such as the Charter Cities, which would displace populations and seek to create a legal system that is separate and autonomous of the State, are a violation of national sovereignty and the responsibility of the State to protect and promote the Human Rights of the population in its territory. I recommend that the Honduran Government extend an invitation to the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers to organize a mission that could assist in combating impunity and contribute positively in processes to combat impunity.”[xxxiv]
For Miriam Miranda, Alfredo López and the 200 families that arrived to Vallectio reclaiming their land for the Garífuna people, the lack of response by the government has had a resonating impact. Miriam explains by cell phone, as the drums in the camp sound in the background:
“In this country, the government has no will to respond to the demands of our communities. The ‘preventative measures’ [already issued to Vallecito and other Garífuna communities by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights] don’t stop paramilitary attacks. It’s unbelievable! At this point we haven’t received any answer [from the government]; it’s a very clear message that we are in a state of ingovernability, that we’re in a failed state, and it’s a very clear example of how the state responds because they’ve reacted to requests to protect Miguel Faccusé’s African Palm plantations by mobilizing the entire Honduran army! Yet in our case, it hasn’t even been possible for them to send four police officers to protect the process of issuing our land titles, the process of surveying Garífuna communities. We are in the middle of an undeclared war zone where highly armed groups are protecting their own interests—they control this territory. We’re asking for something very easy, something simple: that the state come and says, ‘Yes, we issued that land title to you in 1997 and we are reiterating that this is your land.’ Now we are up against the silence and complicity of the state, the government, these groups with power, and their plans; for us, this is very serious.”
On September 12th, Miranda, Dixon, and Sanchéz accompanied by members from various social, indigenous and popular movement organizations mobilized once more to the Honduran Supreme Court as well as to the Attorney General’s office. This time they submitted a formal lawsuit accusing President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the 162 congressmen that signed the changes to the constitution, of “committing treason against the country and abuse of authority.” The next day, the Garífuna people in Vallecito accompanied by OFRANEH and the National Agrarian Institute broke through the “door of shame” that had previously prevented them from surveying their land. They promptly re-surveyed and measured the five Garífuna “associative businesses” in Vallecito achieving their first goal towards returning to their land in this region.
In a surprise turn of events, late on Saturday September 15th as Honduras celebrated its Independence Day with marches, the Attorney General’s office announced that they had determined “Charter Cities” to be illegal, unconstitutional and that the reforms that permit them represent a crime. Nonetheless, Daniela Ferrera, the Director of Prosecutors at the Attorney General’s office stated, “the Honduran Supreme Court does not have to emit a resolution in order for us to determine what constitutes a felony or whether a felony has been committed. There are resources available to both institutions for use, but it is important that all channels be exhausted, so, as long as the Court does not define the constitutionality or not of the decree, the Prosecutor’s office will have to wait” to proceed in taking legal actions against the responsible parties.[xxxv]
Isaac’s rains have diminished; now the sun struggles to burst through the dense clouds and the heat permeates the camp. Alfredo comments through the unique and cynical smile of a man that spent seven years as a political prisoner, the Honduran State later receiving international condemnation for his unjust imprisonment. “It seems that the mercenaries have lost their appetite or maybe they just ran out of bullets and decided to go home,” said Alfredo. So here in Vallecito the drums sound the vigor of Garífuna rhythms without the interference of automatic gunfire overhead, and now the rhythm of the Yancunú: Guanaragua, Maladi Yancuru or Dance of Masks is resonating through the camp. Yancunú is the maximum expression of Garífuna rebellion and territorial defense. It is the dance that was used by Garífuna men during their 1773 rebellion in Saint Vincent.[xxxvi] They descended from their mountain hideouts disguised as women to a celebration the English soldiers were having, luring and seducing the soldiers with a spectacular dance before revealing their deadly machetes from beneath their skirts, to defeat the soldiers. The same machetes that defeated the English soldiers are the machetes that today continue to work the yucca, coconut, fishing and land in Vallecito. They pertain to the Garinagu people that once more defend their land against the new faces of material exploitation.
To Listen to Audio Reports Covering Garifuna Resistance to Charter Cities Click Here, Here, and Here
[i] El pueblo Garinagu es el nombre original del pueblo garífuna después de haberse mezclado africanos naufragados en San Vincente del Caribe con los pueblos indígenas Arawak y Carib.
[ii] A principios del 2012, el congreso hondureño pasó una resolución la cual prohíbe que se monte más de una persona sobre una motocicleta debido al alto nivel de asesinatos atribuidos a gatilleros montado como pasajeros en motos, quienes rápidamente huyen de sus crímenes.
[iii] La empresa asociativa es la calificación legal de tierras otorgada por el Instituto Nacional Agraria. No se ha permitido una titulación comunal como cooperativa en los últimos años en Honduras, sobre todo en el Aguan y el departamento de Colón.
[iv] “Piratas en Honduras: De Gregor Macgregor y la República de Poyas, a la Ciudad modelo de Paul Romer” OFRANEH. Julio 18, 2012
[v] John Soluri, Banana Culture: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States (Austin: University of Texas Press: 2005)
[vi] “Garífuna People of Honduras Begin Land Recovery Campaign on MONDAY August 27th 2012,” by Tio Teo. Being Garífuna
[vii] “Pueblo Garífuna reocupa tierras usurpadas en Vallecito (Limón)” Comunicado de OFRANEH, 26 de Agosto del 2012. http://albatv.org/Pueblo-Garífuna-reocupa-tierras.html
[viii] “216 años de la muerte de Satuye y la nueva expulsión del pueblo garífuna del Banana Coast (Honduras),” OFRANEH, 14 marzo 2011.
[ix] “216 años de la muerte de Satuye y la nueva expulsión del pueblo garífuna del Banana Coast (Honduras)”, comunicado de OFRANEH del 14 de Marzo 2011
[x] “Who Wants to Buy Honduras?” por Adam Davidson, The New York Times. 8 mayo 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/who-wants-to-buy-honduras.html?pagewanted=all
[xi] http://www.cohep.com/l/content/%E2%80%9Chonduras-open-business-el-puente-ideal-para-los-negocios%E2%80%9D
[xii] http://chartercities.org/esp-concept[xiii] “Golpes de estado en Madagascar y Honduras” OFRANEH. http://ofraneh.org/ofraneh/ciudad_modelo_articulos_ingles.html
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya called on Argentina to cease the eviction of indigenous communities from their lands, during the presentation of the annual report of his office before the UN Human Rights council in Geneva.
The usurpation of indigenous lands is common practice argues Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya The usurpation of indigenous lands is common practice argues Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya
The report requests “the suspension of all process and administrative actions to evict indigenous communities from their lands until a full technical-juridical procedural survey of lands occupied by the indigenous peoples is completed”.
“The grave legal insecurity in indigenous lands has been reflected in the high number of indigenous communities’ evictions” points out the report elaborated on data collected by Anaya during a mission to Argentina in 2011. Anaya and his staff besides Buenos Aires City visited ten of the 23 provinces and completed 170 testimonies.
The Argentine delegation replied that under the current Emergency Law, (26.160) evictions from these lands has been suspended until 23 November 2013, but admitted that “after verifying the absence of the requirements demanded, there have been evictions”.
Argentina’s ombudsman office supported the report saying he “continues to receive” claims from members of the “Mapuche community Lof Paichil Antriao in the province of Neuquén, the Qom people of Formosa, the Omaguaca people of Jujuy and the Wichi from Salta”. They all claim that the Emergency Law is not being complied.
The head of the Argentine NGO Human Rights Standing Assembly, Rodrigo Gomez Tortosa has been quoted saying that the emergency law has “a very low degree of compliance” and accused the authorities from the northern province of Formosa for “the threats and aggressions suffered by the indigenous leader from the Qom community, Felix Diaz, who is in litigation “over the usurpation of land by provincial officials.
According to official data the indigenous population totals 600.329, which is equivalent to 1.7% of the 42 million Argentines, although other sources mentioned by Anaya estimate the number closer to 2 million made up of 30 autochthonous peoples, settled mainly to the north and south of the country.
The problems of Argentina’s indigenous stems from the “historic de-possession of vast tracks of their lands by ranchers and the big farming, oil and mining corporations which operate in the lands claimed by these communities” which lack “a legal acknowledgement of their lands according to their forms of use and occupation” concludes the report presented by Anaya.
Last Tuesday, over a million people took to the streets in a European city that has, in recent years, become one of the more popular tourist destinations in the world.
And as anyone who was there to witness the run-up to the event in recent weeks and months knows, this was no routine exercise in blowing off steam.
No, this was a march in which nearly one fifth of the population of the Catalonian Autonomous Region —led by a who’s who of its long-cautious and decidedly non-radical political class—took to the streets to show support for the idea of seceding from the rest of Spain.
Most well-informed Europeans and Americans are aware that a sizable part of the population of the Basque Country–which straddles the Spanish-French border on the Atlantic end of the Pyrenees—do not consider themselves Spanish or French and would thus be quite content to have a state of their own.
What most of these same people don’t know, however, is that in Catalonia, which straddles the same Spanish-French mountain border on its Mediterranean extreme, the population’s sense of belonging to a society that is quite distinct from that of the rest of Spain–in language, in culture and, yes, basic modes of social comportment—is probably just as widely subscribed as it is in the Basque Country.
The big difference in this game of perception is the role that strident rhetoric, and with it, carefully planned acts of violence, have played within each nation’s drive for greater political power.
Since the late 1950s, a small but important faction of the Basque nationalist movement has spoken openly about independence and how one is justified in using violence to achieve that end. Though most of these same groups have now renounced the use of force, their half-century record of bombings and assassinations are hard to overlook, especially for a media establishment that craves blood-soaked story lines.
During the same period, neither the rhetoric of independence nor the mythology and practice of armed struggle were ever major parts of the of the Catalan nationalist movement.
True to their deeply ingrained tradition (forged during their thousand year experience as traders all across the Mediterranean basin) of resolving social conflicts through negotiation rather than violence, the Catalans have always sought to pursue their national interests through pacts with the national government in Madrid.
This, despite the fact that Madrid has never shown much reticence about using violence to quash Catalan national aspirations whenever it felt the need to do so, as was the case in 1714, 1923, and most recently, during the nearly four decades of the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975).
To put it simply, if the Basques are the wild children of the Iberian mix of nationalities, then the Catalans are the prudent uncles, always careful to choose their words and avoid the possibility of unnecessarily inflaming tensions with the rest of Spain.
In this sense, we can speak of Jordi Pujol, the man who led the Catalan Autonomous government from its inception in 1980 until 2003, as being an emblematic figure within the country. A doctor by training and a banker by vocation before entering politics, this Catholic father of seven is admired for building the region’s (but in his view, his nation’s) modern political and cultural infrastructure.
His long tenure in office was marked, to the frequent chagrin of his critics in both Catalonia and Madrid, by endless triangulations and obfuscations regarding the once and future role of Catalonia within the Spanish state.
Needless to say, he never came close to speaking about independence during those more than two decades in power.
Well, guess who proudly and prominently marched in last Tuesday’s million-person demonstration in Barcelona?
You guessed it, Jordi Pujol.
And almost all of the significant figures from across today’s Catalan political spectrum were right there with him.
After watching Walter Cronkite editorialize on the futility of the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson is said to have exclaimed to his assembled aides, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America”.
Well, Spain is now having its Cronkite moment with Catalonia.
During the last few months, I have talked with hundreds of Catalans (a number of whom are quite prominent members of the academic, journalistic and policy-making sectors of the society) about their relationship with Spain. In these conversations, I have heard people who as recently as two years ago would never have dreamed of supporting independence, now saying in clear and matter-of-fact-tones, that it is the only truly sensible destiny for Catalonia.
A big story right?
I can see the headlines now.
“Millions in Spain’s Richest Region March for Independence”
Or if you prefer the personal interest approach,
“Many in Mild-mannered Country Can No Longer Take It. Set to Ask for Divorce after Years of Neglect and Abuse”
Well, that’s not exactly how it played out.
The evening news on the Spain’s publicly-funded national network (widely seen as being a plaything of the deeply centralist, conservative ruling party) put the story at 22-minute mark of a thirty-minute broadcast!
And Madrid’s El País, which likes to think of itself as the Spanish-speaking world’s New York Times (and has the smugness and cozy relationships with officialdom prove it), gave the march and its many important related stories the minimalist treatment.
Seeing the way its journalistic cousins in Spain dealt with the event, the New York Times dutifully followed suit, publishing short reports that studiously avoided explaining any of the historical backdrop to the present Catalan dissatisfaction. Rather, they sought to frame—as did the ruling PP Party and the state TV it controls–as an annoying, but largely insignificant sideshow within Spain’s larger financial crisis.
And as we all know, if the New York Times decides that something overseas is really not news, seldom will anyone in the US journalistic establishment ever dare try and prove the contrary.
That would take actual work and, perhaps more significantly, it would expose those pursing this contrary path to the possibility of being seen as an outlier, the ultimate stigma for “journalists” on the make in today’s America.
The million or so Catalans marched through Barcelona the other day know what they did, and why they did it. It seems, however, that the rest of the world, taking its cue from big media, is bent on pretending it didn’t really happen, or that if it happened, it really wasn’t that significant.
It will be interesting to see who has the last word in this struggle to control the world’s perceptions of Catalonia’s shouts for freedom.
Thomas S. Harrington teaches in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College.
While routinely touting the necessity for tighter controls over the Internet in the name of cybersecurity, the U.S. government has again been caught creating computer viruses to wage cyber warfare in the Middle East.
Researchers working for both Kaspersky and Symantec have separately discovered that the United States is almost certainly responsible for three new viruses that are being used in Lebanon and Iran to conduct espionage, having already been identified as the culprits behind the 2010 Stuxnet virus and this year’s closely related Flame virus.
Kaspersky and Symantec experts are still unsure as to what the newly discovered viruses are designed to do, but have confirmed that they are operating in the Middle East, including Iran and Lebanon, and that the, “approach to uploading packages and downloading data fits the profile of military and/or intelligence operations.”
The new viruses, programs code-named SP, SPE and IP, use malware packages that try to “communicate with command and control servers.” The new viruses could be offshoots of the Flame virus or completely different pieces of software.
“The findings are likely to bolster a growing view that the U.S. government is using cyber technology more widely than previously believed to further its interests in the Middle East,” reports Haaretz.
“The United States has already been linked to the Stuxnet Trojan that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 and the sophisticated Flame cyber surveillance tool that was uncovered in May.”
As the Washington Postreported earlier this year, the United States and Israel were also responsible for jointly developing the Flame virus, a huge malware assault that monitored Iran’s computer networks.
Despite months of inaccurate speculation blaming Russia or China for the outbreak of the 2010 Stuxnet virus, it was eventually admitted by theNew York Times that, “US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop a destructive computer worm to sabotage Iran’s efforts to make a nuclear bomb.”
The U.S. government’s continual efforts to develop computer viruses as a tool of cyber warfare might be more palatable were it not for the constant push by the executive and legislative branches to censor and regulate the Internet domestically in the name of cybersecurity.
Urging President Obama last month to pass an executive order that critics have denounced as another federal power grab over the Internet, Senator Jay Rockefeller justified the EO by claiming it was needed “to protect this country from the cyber threat,” even as the U.S. simultaneously launches aggressive cyber warfare campaigns against other countries.
Indeed, viruses created by the United States and Israel have even been cited as proof that restrictive cyber security legislation needs to be rubber stamped – by the very same government allied with the intelligence networks creating the viruses.
As we reported back in 2011, despite initial evidence clearly indicating the U.S. and Israel were behind the Stuxnet attack, a fact that was subsequently confirmed, major news websites still parroted the official narrative that Russia or China were to blame, even going to the lengths of ridiculing anyone who suggested otherwise as paranoid conspiracy theorists.
While claiming that it needs more power over the world wide web to prevent the spread of hostile computer viruses that could cripple U.S. infrastructure and sensitive networks, the U.S. government itself is creating those very same computer viruses to spy on and attack infrastructure and sensitive networks in other countries.
September 13, 2012 was a historic day at the United Nations and in the Marshall Islands. On this date, in this seventh decade of the nuclear age, the UN Human Rights Council considered the environmental and human rights impacts resulting from the radioactive and toxic substances in nuclear fallout.
And, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, Marshallese citizens stood before a United Nations Council in defense of the human rights of their communities, with survivor testimony on United States nuclear weapons fallout, environment, health and human rights consequences, and the ramifications of continuing failure to achieve environmentally sound management and disposal of the hazardous substances and toxic wastes resulting from US military activities in the Pacific Proving Grounds.
This moment was generated as a result of the work of Mr. Calin Georgescu, Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and waste, who presented the report of his mission to the Marshall Islands and the United States and his findings and recommendations on the human rights consequences of nuclear contamination.
In his visit the Marshall Islands in March 2012, Mr. Georgescu reported that the communities affected by nuclear testing over sixty years ago in the Marshall Islands are still adversely affected by the radiation and near-irreversible environmental contamination from US weapons tests. In his report, the Special Rapporteur noted that these injuries had been most recently confirmed in the 2008-2009 President’s Cancer Panel which recommended that the US “honor and make payments according to the judgments of the Marshall Islands Tribunal”. Yet, for these and other reasons, the Marshallese have yet to find durable solutions to the dislocation to their indigenous ways of life.
As residents of a United Nations designated trust territory governed by the United States, the Marshallese people endured the loss of traditionally-held land and marine resources without negotiation or compensation; were exposed to fallout contamination compromising the environmental health of individuals, communities, and an entire nation; suffered through the documentation of health hazards through a decades-long medical research program that included human radiation experimentation; and, when negotiating the terms of independence in free association with the United States, were severely hampered by the US refusal to fully disclose the full extent of military activities, including the scientific documentation of the environmental and health impacts of serving as the Pacific Proving Ground for weapons of mass destruction
In his visit the Marshall Islands in March 2012, Mr. Georgescu reported that the communities affected by nuclear testing over sixty years ago in the Marshall Islands are still adversely affected by the radiation and near-irreversible environmental contamination from US weapons tests. The Marshallese have yet to find durable solutions to the dislocation to their indigenous ways of life.
Observing that prior efforts to provide redress had been limited in scope and scale, and recognizing that reparation should ideally be restoration of what has been lost, the Special Rapporteur noted that in this case what has been lost is a healthy environment that sustains a viable and culturally distinct way of life. Thus, the principle goal of reparation requires a comprehensive approach for securing the rehabilitation and long-term sustainable development of the Marshallese people. He recommended the immediate development of a national and regional plan for attending to the many ulcerating issues identified in his report, similar to the initiatives undertaken for the benefit of affected-populations by States that historically carried out and continue to carry-out nuclear testing programmes. And outlined an array of specific recommendations which collective represent a framework by which truth, justice, and reparation might achieved through actions involving the Government, the United States, the UN and its specialized agencies and institutions, and members of the international community.
Responding to the Special Rapporteur’s report, Marshall Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs Phillip H. Muller acknowledged that efforts been undertaken by the United States to address the impacts of its nuclear weapons testing program, though “much more remains to be done to address the past, present, and future such impacts on the basic human rights of our Marshallese communities… Adjudicated claims of property loss and personal injury remain unfulfilled… Two UN resolutions on nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands remain the only instances in which the UN ever explicitly authorized the testing of nuclear weapons. Adopted in 1954 and 1956 in rejection of our petitions to halt the testing, those resolutions made specific assurances of fairness, justice and respect for human rights, which have never been met. This continued denial of justice to our people is completely unacceptable.” “This report,” Minister Muller observed, “tells the world that the Marshall Islands is entitled to know the truth, to be treated with dignity, and to have all those human rights which should never have been lost.” The Marshall Islands welcomed the Rapporteur’s recommendations and urged the United States and the international community to do likewise.
The United States response, delivered by State Department Counselor Arselan Suleman, appreciated the opportunity for constructive and open dialogue on the issues and agreed to continued assistance, while reiterating their objection as to the validity of the Special Rapporteur’s major findings. “The United States feels strongly that nuclear testing is not, fundamentally, an issue of ‘management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes.’ Particularly when described in terms of ‘improper’ or ‘environmentally sound’ management.” The US disagreed with a number of assertions of human rights law within this report, and disagreed that there is a continuing obligation by the international community to encourage a “final and just resolution” of the issue. The United States position is that it has “acknowledged and acted responsibly upon the negative effects of the nuclear testing” as evidenced by “the full and final settlement of all claims related to the testing contained in the 1986 Compact of Free Association.” Citing expenditures of $600 million to date for various technical problems, including $150 million to settle all nuclear claims, the United States assured the United Nations that “Experts and scientists from across the U.S. Government will continue their decades long engagement in the Marshall Islands to address the issues that arose from our nuclear testing.”
In the ensuing dialogue between nations, institutions, and non-governmental organizations, speakers recognized the continued presence of radioactive contaminants in the Marshall Islands and reaffirmed the existence of a special responsibility by the United States towards the people of the Marshall Islands, and the need for continuing and increased levels of bilateral cooperation. They also called for radioactive waste, environmental contamination, and related human rights issues of nuclear militarism to be adequately addressed bilaterally and through the United Nations system.
Algeria said this report confirms unequivocally the cause and effect relationship between nuclear testing and violation of the right to health, damage to the environment and the displacement of populations and confirms the right of affected populations to an effective remedy. While recognizing that each situation has its own peculiarities, my delegation would like to know if the lessons and recommendations presented in the report of the visit can be extended to other situations of nuclear tests in the world?
Australia said that it had joined with other Pacific Leaders at the Pacific Island Forum in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, in August 2012 in reaffirming recognition of the special circumstances pertaining to the continued presence of radioactive contaminants in the Marshall Islands. Australia welcomed the report of the Special Rapporteur as a contribution to stimulating dialogue between the parties in the spirit of understanding and reconciliation for the benefit of the Marshallese people.
Cuba said that the United States has a responsibility and a debt to the people of the Marshall Islands, which has suffered and continues to suffer the harmful consequences of U.S. nuclear testing program in the territory. They believe, like many other countries, the United States must provide adequate compensation to the victims of their actions to restore their dignity, contribute to the resettlement of displaced populations displaced by the product of radioactive contaminants and also to revive the economic productivity and human development in the affected areas. The negative implications for the enjoyment of fundamental human rights such as food and health should be reversed immediately.
New Zealand, speaking on behalf of the Cook Islands, Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, said during the Forum’s meeting last month in the Cook Islands, leaders had recognized the special circumstances pertaining to the continued presence of radioactive contaminants in the Marshall Islands and reaffirmed the existence of a special responsibility by the United States towards the people of the Marshall Islands. They also called for the issues to be adequately addressed through the United Nations system.
Maldives took note of the first report submitted to the Council by the Special Rapporteur on hazardous substances and said that the effect of nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands must be examined from several aspects, such as its impact on the health of the population and the environment. The support of the international community in this regard was very much needed because many small island States were struggling with multifaceted challenges and did not have the capacity to deal with such adverse impacts on the environment.
Malaysia agreed with the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur for a just and lasting solution to the continuing plight and suffering of the Marshallese People due to the effects of nuclear testing. They asked the Special Rapporteur to clarify whether that obligation rests on the international community, which had placed the Marshall Islands under trusteeship, or the relevant State actor, in its capacity as trustee, which had conducted the nuclear tests.
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said that the compensation and remediation provided by the United States for the nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands had been insufficient to fully attend to the healthcare and socio-economic needs of the Marshallese people. The international community, the United States and the Government of the Marshall Islands must develop long-term strategic measures to address the effects of the nuclear testing programme and provide adequate redress to the citizens of the Marshall Islands.
Physicians for Social Responsibility provided an eyewitness account of the nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands by the United States by Jeban Riklon, who had lived on Rongelap Atoll, where no one knew that the United States had planned to test the Bravo bomb on that day and did not know that precautionary measures should have been taken. The population had been evacuated by the United States only two days later and brought into a military encampment and enrolled in Project 4.1 to study the effects of radiation on human beings.
Cultural Survival also provided an eyewitness account of the nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands by the United States by Lemeyo Abon, President of the ERUB (damaged, broken) association of Marshallese nuclear survivors. Ms. Abon described the explosion of the bomb Bravo on Bikini Atoll, just 180 km upwind from Rongelap Atoll where she had lived. The immensely painful consequences were felt even today, with birth of babies with missing limbs and other congenital defects.
In the General Debate, an additional statement was made by Cultural Survival/ Iju in Ean club by Abacca Anjain-Maddison, to reiterate the Marshallese civil society delegation’s endorsement and appreciation of the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur and they look to the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council to work collaboratively with all parties to move the recommendations into action. Concern was also expressed that “the ultimatum of the United States to force the Rongelap community to return to a contaminated environment will represent a new level in human rights abuses perpetuated by the US against the Marshallese.”
In his response to comments, Special Rapporteur Calin Georgescu addressed the US position that consideration his of contamination from nuclear weapons testing was not included in his mandate, stating that “the long history of nuclear weapons testing on the Marshall Islands has produced a significant amount of nuclear radioactive waste which is indubitably toxic in nature and less health and continue to have several impacts to the ability of the Marshallese people to enjoy the full scope of their human rights.” With regards to the question of liability, the Rapportuer stated “I completely support that the international community has to be involved in this process; it is not only bilateral aspects.”
The UN report concludes with significant, wide-ranging recommendations to address the ulcerating legacy of nuclear militarism in the Marshall Islands.
The Marshall Islands should request the assistance of relevant UN agencies and bilateral partners to;
Improve water, sanitation and waste management, health and education infrastructure, and to carry out independent, comprehensive radiological surveys of the entire nation similar to those conducted by the IAEA on testing sites in other countries.
Strengthen health infrastructure to address concerns of the whole population.
Turn Marshall Islands biodegenerative environment and health history into asset by taking the lead in hosting and fostering collaborative partnerships to develop and implement innovative approaches to monitoring, assessing, and caring for a contaminated environment, human health and well-being.
The United States should;
Continue to support the Marshall Islands in efforts to protect the environment and safeguard the health of its people.
Support Marshall Islands efforts to conduct a comprehensive survey and mapping of the radiogenic and other toxic substances remaining in the terrestrial and marine environment from US military activity in that nation.
Continue to provide assistance and the means to secure, contain and remediate hazardous sites.
Provide full funding for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal to award adequate compensation for past and future claims, and exploring other forms of reparation.
Adopt a presumptive approach to groups currently excluded from the special healthcare programmes created by the US to assist survivors of nuclear testing.
And, given the role of the United Nations in establishing the strategic trusteeship of the United States, the international community should;
Recognize and act upon its ongoing obligation to encourage a final and just resolution for the Marshallese people.
Support bilateral and multilateral action to assist the Marshall Islands in its efforts to regain use of traditional lands, including the knowledge and means to identify, assess, remediate and restore a sustainable way of life.
Invest and participate in collaborative partnerships to develop and deploy technologies and methods to monitor and remediate environmental hazards and reduce health.
Support nationally-owned and nationally-led development plans and strategies.
Mitigate the effects of climate change.
Monitor, secure and remove nuclear wastes on a scale and standard comparable to the clean-up of domestic testing sites in the United States, as part of an international response to nuclear legacy issues.
In his informal remarks during the informal panel Human Rights Impact of Nuclear Testing (organized by Reaching Critical Will and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), Mr. Georgescu acknowledged that his recommendations are ambitious and in a world where so many other issues compete for attention a full measure of reparation may be difficult to secure. Yet, he pointed out, it is these other competing issues that make attention to the Marshallese situation so urgent. The failure to fully protect the health and well-being of the Marshallese nation, and the failure to fully and adequately respond to the environmental health disaster resulting from nuclear testing and fallout, has generated an ever-expanding array of rights-abusive conditions that are persistent, pervasive, and alter the very fabric of life.
The urgent need to act is echoed in Lemeyo Abon’s testimony:
“We have a saying jej bok non won ke jemake which means ‘if not us, who?’ We have to act now, we have to let peace prevail, this is our time for the future of our children and grandchildren. I urge this council and the members of the United Nations to take action to not only help us help ourselves, but to make sure that such miseries do not occur ever again.”
As Jeban Riklon noted in his statement to the Human Rights Council, “I am especially happy to be here because it is my right, as a human, to voice and make a plea before this Council for what we have been going through for many years.” After so many decades of silent anguish where Marshallese complaints have been too often been ignored or dismissed, this report, the testimony of Marshallese elders, and the response by assembled nations represents an essential element of reparation. A small measure of dignity has been restored.
Full video of the Special Rapporteur report on his Mission to the Marshall Islands and the United States begins at 03:36. Webcast of individual comments is also available.
Three parallel events were sponsored by civil society to inform the Human Rights Council on the human rights implications of nuclear militarism in the Marshall Islands, and the consequential damages of a flawed radiation health science; human environmental rights conditions resulting from the military use of deleted uranium in Iraq; and a comparative consideration of experience and response to human rights impact of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan, and Australia. Organizers and cosponsors for NGO panels and speakers included Center for Political Ecology, Reaching Critical Will/Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Center for Political Ecology, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Union of Arab Jurists/European Radiation Risk Committee, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Cultural Survival. For additional information on presentations and the underlying issues, contact:
A few weeks ago, Washington Post ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton published a revealing column in which he delved into the nettlesome question of why the Post rarely writes about Israel’s actual nuclear arsenal, even as it devotes intensive coverage to Iran’s nuclear program, which remains far short of producing a single bomb.
Pexton deemed concerns about this imbalance “a fair question” and dug back through a decade of Post articles without finding “any in-depth reporting on Israeli nuclear capabilities.” He then explored some reasons for this failure, including sympathy felt toward Israel because of the Holocaust and the difficulties that journalists confront in addressing the topic.
“But that doesn’t mean the media shouldn’t write about how Israel’s doomsday weapons affect the Middle East equation,” Pexton wrote. “Just because a story is hard to do doesn’t mean The Post, and the U.S. press more generally, shouldn’t do it.”
Yet, there are few signs, if any, that the Post and other mainstream U.S. news outlets are heeding Pexton’s criticism. Obviously, one way to alleviate the imbalance would be to mention that Israel has an undeclared nuclear arsenal in every story that discusses Iran’s nuclear program, which Iranian leaders insist is for peaceful purposes only.
The fact that Israel has a large and sophisticated roster of nuclear weapons is surely relevant in evaluating why Iran might want a nuclear weapon of its own and why Iran would not want to provoke a war with Israel even if Iran did manufacture one or two bombs. Yet this context is almost never included in U.S. news stories.
U.S. journalists and their editors also might stop including hyperbolic statements that exaggerate the potential Iranian threat to Israel, such as the discredited claim that Iran has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map,” an oft-repeated refrain that resulted from a mistranslation of a comment by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
However, that seems to be too much to expect from major U.S. newspapers. For instance, on Friday, the New York Times in an article by Mark Landler and Helene Cooper not only fails to mention Israel’s nuclear arsenal but inserts the provocative claim that “Iranian leaders have repeatedly threatened [Israel] with annihilation.”
The article offers no quote to back up this assertion. It simply stands as a form of boilerplate, as if everyone knows it to be true. But the reality is that Iranian leaders may wish that the Zionist government of Israel ultimately disappears to be replaced by a non-religious state, but that is a far cry from threatening to annihilate Israel militarily, which is the clear implication from Landler and Cooper.
Repeat Offender
Landler, the Times’ White House correspondent, also has been a repeat offender in this journalistic malpractice. For instance, on March 5, he appeared on MSNBC and offered this account of the Israeli-Iranian tensions:
“The Israelis feel the window for that [denying Iran the capability to build nuclear weapons] is closing and it’s closing really fast, and if they allow it to close without taking military action, they would find themselves in a position where the Iranians suddenly are in possession of nuclear weapons, which they’ve threatened already to use against Israel.
“As the Israelis always say, that’s an existential threat to Israel, which is something we don’t necessarily feel here in the United States.”
Landler’s account was hair-raising, claiming that Iranians have “threatened already to use [nuclear weapons] against Israel” which the Israelis understandably perceive as an “existential threat.” But Landler’s statement simply isn’t true.
Iranian leaders continue to deny that they even want nuclear weapons, so it makes no sense that they would threaten to use them against Israel.
In February, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who controls the armed forces, called “the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin” and said “the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.” He insisted that “the Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons.”
Further, the U.S. intelligence community reported in 2007 that Iran stopped research work on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and has not resumed that effort. That assessment has been reaffirmed periodically and remains the position of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
Beyond that, for Iran to threaten to “annihilate” Israel would represent one of the strangest threats in world history. Here is a nation without nuclear weapons – and whose top leader disavows any intent to get nuclear weapons – supposedly threatening to use those non-existent weapons against a nation which has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
You would think, at minimum, that Landler would be expected to cite an actual Iranian official making a specific threat. But he doesn’t and apparently no one in power [at the NYT] demands that he do so. His claim that Iran has threatened to attack Israel with a nuclear bomb is simply accepted as what everybody knows to be true.
Explaining the Failure
That is the sort of ludicrous propaganda that has become commonplace in the U.S. news media, a topic that the Post’s ombudsman addressed gingerly on Aug. 31. Pexton offered mostly innocent explanations for this journalistic misfeasance.
“First, Israel refuses to acknowledge publicly that it has nuclear weapons,” Pexton wrote. “The U.S. government also officially does not acknowledge the existence of such a program. … Because Israel has not signed the [nuclear non-proliferation] treaty, it is under no legal obligation to submit its major nuclear facility at Dimona to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.
“Iran, in contrast, did sign the treaty and thus agrees to periodic inspections. IAEA inspectors are regularly in Iran, but the core of the current dispute is that Tehran is not letting them have unfettered access to all of the country’s nuclear installations.
“Furthermore, although Israel has an aggressive media, it still has military censors that can and do prevent publication of material on Israel’s nuclear forces. Censorship applies to foreign correspondents working there, too.”
Plus, Israel has demonstrated that it will deliver harsh punishment on any Israeli who does divulge secrets about the nuclear program, as nuclear technician Mordechai Vununu learned in 1986 when he became a whistleblower about the secret Israeli arsenal. He was then kidnapped, taken to Israel against his will, and imprisoned for 18 years, much of it in solitary confinement.
Pexton added that “perhaps most important, Americans don’t leak about the Israeli nuclear program either.” He cited the inclination to protect a friend and ally, as well as the reality that deviating from this silence “can hurt your career.”
Pexton quoted George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as saying: “It’s like all things having to do with Israel and the United States. If you want to get ahead, you don’t talk about it; you don’t criticize Israel, you protect Israel. You don’t talk about illegal settlements on the West Bank even though everyone knows they are there.”
However, the job of journalism should be to present all the relevant facts in context, especially on life-or-death issues like war and peace.
When the New York Times and the Washington Post institute systemic bias in their coverage of such an issue – as the two newspapers also did in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq – they not only fail to uphold the principles of journalism, they risk becoming complicit in the slaughter of innocent people.
~
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com.
In an extraordinary paper released this week, former US Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, outlined a range of military, financial and diplomatic measures that the US should be prepared to take against the Chavez government after the coming elections on October 7th.
In the paper, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, Duddy’s recommendations include that in the event of “an outbreak of violence and/or interruption of democracy” the US should use various means to “to communicate to the Venezuelan military leadership that they are obliged to uphold their constitution, respect human rights, and protect their country’s democratic tradition” and “organize a coalition of partners to limit an illegitimate Venezuelan administration’s access to government assets held abroad as well as to the international financial system.”
The former Ambassador was expelled from Venezuela in 2008 after the Chavez-led government cited an American-supported plot by military officers to topple it. Having initially served under Bush he returned to Venezuela at the start of Obama’s term of office.
In the paper he outlines an even wider list of options that the US may engage in. These includes that the United States “could demand that the Organisation of American States declare Venezuela in breach of its obligations as a signatory of the Inter-American Democratic Charter” or it could “bring the issue of Venezuelan democracy to the United Nations Security Council” or “freeze individual bank accounts of key figures involved or responsible and seize assets in the United States”. He suggested the US “could also arrange for the proceeds of Venezuelan government–owned corporate entities to be held in escrow accounts until democracy is restored [and] …block access to [Venezuelan government owned] CITGO’s refining facilities in the United States and consider prohibiting [Venezuelan state] oil sales to the United States”.
Duddy dresses these up as options for the US to take “in the event that the government either orchestrates or takes advantage of a violent popular reaction to Chavez’s defeat…to suspend civil liberties and govern under a renewable state of exception”.
However there are obvious concerns that this fits neatly with the objectives of those within the right-wing opposition in Venezuela who are planning for the non-recognition of the coming elections if, as expected, Hugo Chavez wins. With the polls showing strong leads for Hugo Chavez, a campaign is already underway by sections of the right-wing opposition coalition to present any electoral defeat as being down to Chavez-led fraud. This has seen baseless attacks on the independent National Electoral Council (CNE,) which has overseen all of Venezuelans’ elections described as free and fair by a range of international observers. The opposition has announced plans to place tens of thousands of ‘witnesses’ at polling stations on election day and then, illegally to release its own results ahead of the official results in a clear bid to discredit them. These plans have sharpened fears that opposition-led disruptions and destabilisation will follow their defeat. This could easily meet Duddy’s condition of “an outbreak of violence and/or interruption of democracy”.
Clearly the paper raises the spectre that, as with the US-backed coup in 2002, the US could seek to blame any right wing opposition-led post election disruption on the Hugo Chavez government, with the US then taking the measures Duddy suggests.
The “options” suggested by Patrick Duddy’s, a former Bush era Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, form part of ongoing hostilities to the democratically elected Chavez government from neo-cons in Washington. Connie Mack, chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, has openly advocated that Venezuela is added to the US lists of states that sponsor terrorism. Whilst Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney earlier this year attacked Venezuela during the US Presidential campaign as a threat to national security and accused Venezuela of “spreading dictatorships & tyranny throughout Latin America”.
With less than one month to go until the Venezuelan people go to the polls, and with it looking likely that they will re-elect Hugo Chavez, solidarity in defence of the right of the people to choose their own government free from outside intervention clearly remains vital.
Israel duped the United Stated into believing that “thousands of terrorists” remained in west Beirut following the expulsion of Palestinian fighters 30 years ago, providing cover for the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, according to recently declassified Israeli documents.
The documents include verbatim transcripts of meetings between US and Israeli officials before and during the three-day massacre led by the right-wing Lebanese Christian Phalange militia that left roughly 2,000 people dead, mostly children, women and elderly men.
“[The transcripts] reveal that the Israelis misled American diplomats about events in Beirut and bullied them into accepting the spurious claim that thousands of “terrorists” were in the camps,” The New York Times, which obtained the documents, reported.
“Most troubling, when the United States was in a position to exert strong diplomatic pressure on Israel that could have ended the atrocities, it failed to do so,” the newspaper added.
The Palestinian fighters had previously been evacuated from Lebanon in a US-coordinated effort whereby they provided assurances to protect the camp’s residents, which included both Palestinians and Lebanese.
On 16 September 1982, the first day of the massacre, US envoy to the Middle East Morris Draper met with Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon who justified Israel’s occupation of west Beirut by claiming that “2,000 to 3,000 terrorists” remained in that part of the city.
Draper, according to the documents, was furious to learn that Sharon wanted to allow the Christian militiamen into west Beirut to root out what he claimed were terrorists.
Later that evening, word began to spread in Israel that a massacre was taking place in Sabra and Shatila.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister David Levy reportedly remarked: “I know what the meaning of revenge is for [the Phalanges], what kind of slaughter. Then no one will believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame.”
The following day, while the massacre continued, Draper, who had not yet learned that the Phalangists had entered the camp, met with high ranking Israeli officials including Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Shamir had known of the slaughter in the camp, but failed to inform the US diplomat.
Sharon, also at the meeting, continued to insist that the “terrorists” in west Beirut needed “mopping up.”
When Draper demanded that the Israeli forces immediately pull out of the area, Sharon responded with outrage: “I just don’t understand, what are you looking for? Do you want the terrorists to stay? Are you afraid that somebody will think that you were in collusion with us? Deny it. We denied it.”
According to the transcripts, Draper continued to insist that the Israelis leave, but eventually backed off once they agreed to a “gradual withdrawal” to allow for the Lebanese Army to enter the city.
The Israelis insisted, however, that they wait 48 hours before allowing the plan to take effect.
Draper reminded the Israelis that the US had facilitated the departure of Palestinian fighters from Beirut in order to prevent Israelis from occupying west Beirut. “You should have stayed out,” Draper said at the meeting.
The argument persisted, but it ultimately allowed Israel the cover it needed to allow the Christian fighters to continue its slaughter of the camp.
By the next day, September 18, when details of the massacre had become widely known, US President Ronald Reagan expressed “outrage and revulsion over the murders.”
US Secretary of State George Shults later admitted his country bore partial responsibility for the massacre since they “took the Israelis and Lebanese at their word.”
It happened thirty years ago – 16 September 1982. A massacre so awful that people who know about it cannot forget it. The photos are gruesome reminders – charred, decapitated, indecently violated corpses, the smell of rotting flesh, still as foul to those who remember it as when they were recoiling from it all those years ago. For the victims and the handful of survivors, it was a 36-hour holocaust without mercy. It was deliberate, it was planned and it was overseen. But to this day, the killers have gone unpunished.
Sabra and Shatila – two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon – were the theatres for this staged slaughter. The former is no longer there and the other is a ghostly and ghastly reminder of man’s inhumanity to men, women and children – more specifically, Israel’s inhumanity, the inhumanity of the people who did Israel’s bidding and the world’s inhumanity for pretending it was of no consequence. There were international witnesses – doctors, nurses, journalists – who saw the macabre scenes and have tried to tell the world in vain ever since.
Each act was barbarous enough on its own to warrant fear and loathing. It was human savagery at its worst and Dr Ang Swee Chai was an eye witness as she worked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on the dying and the wounded amongst the dead. What she saw was so unimaginable that the atrocities committed need to be separated from each other to even begin comprehending the viciousness of the crimes. [1]
People Tortured. Blackened bodies smelling of roasted flesh from the power shocks that had convulsed their bodies before their hearts gave out – the electric wires still tied around their lifeless limbs
People with gouged out eye sockets. Faces unrecognisable with the gaping holes that had plunged them into darkness before their lives were thankfully ended.
Women raped. Not once – but two, three, four times – horribly violated, their legs shamelessly ripped apart with not even the cover of clothing to preserve their dignity at the moment of death.
Children dynamited alive. So many body parts ripped from their tiny torsos, so hard to know to whom they belonged – just mounds of bloodied limbs amongst the tousled heads of children in pools of blood.
Families executed. Blood, blood and more blood sprayed on the walls of homes where whole families had been axed to death in a frenzy or lined up for a more orderly execution.
There were also journalists who were there in the aftermath and who had equally gruesome stories to tell, none of which made the sort of screaming front page headlines that should have caused lawmakers to demand immediate answers. What they saw led them to write shell-shocked accounts that have vanished now into the archives, but are no less disturbing now. These accounts too need to be individually absorbed, lest they be lumped together as just the collective dead rather than the systematic torture and killing of individual, innocent human beings.
Women gunned down while cooking in their kitchens. [2] The headless body of a baby in diapers lying next to two dead women. [3] An infant, its tiny legs streaked with blood, shot in the back by a single bullet. [4] Slaughtered babies, their bodies blackened as they decomposed, tossed into rubbish heaps together with Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey. [5] An old man castrated, with flies thick upon his torn intestines. [6] Children with their throats slashed. [7] Mounds of rotting corpses bloated in the heat – young boys all shot at point-blank range. [8]
And most numbing of all are the recollections of the survivors whose experiences were so shockingly traumatic that to recall them must have been painful beyond all imaginings. One survivor, Nohad Srour, 35 said:
“I was carrying my one year-old baby sister and she was yelling “Mama! Mama!” then suddenly nothing. I looked at her and her brain had fallen out of her head and down my arm. I looked at the man who shot us. I’ll never forget his face. Then I felt two bullets pierce my shoulder and finger. I fell. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I pretended to be dead.”[9]
The statistics of those killed vary, but even according to the Israeli military, the official count was 700 people killed while Israeli journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk put the figure at 3,500. [10] The Palestinian Red Crescent Society put the number killed at over 2,000.[11] Regardless of the numbers, they would not and could not mitigate what are clear crimes against humanity.
Fifteen years later, Robert Fisk, the journalist who had been one of the first on the scene, said:
“Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world’s press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila.”[12]
Thirty years later it is no different.
The political developments
What happened must be set against the background of a Lebanon that had been invaded by the Israeli army only months earlier, supposedly in ‘retaliation’ for the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador in London on 4 June 1982. Israel attributed the attempt to Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) then resident in Beirut. In reality, it was a rival militant group headed by Abu Nidal. Israel wanted to oust the PLO from Lebanon altogether and on 6 June 1982, Israel began its devastating assault on the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian population in the southern part of Lebanon. Lebanese government casualty figures numbered the dead at around 19,000 with some 30,000 wounded, but these numbers are hardly accurate because of the mass graves and other bodies lost in the rubble. [13]
By 1 September, a cease-fire had been mediated by United States envoy Philip Habib, and Arafat and his men surrendered their weapons and were evacuated from Beirut with guarantees by the US that the civilians left behind in the camps would be protected by a multinational peacekeeping force. That guarantee was not kept and the vacuum then created, paved the way for the atrocities that followed.
As soon as the peacekeeping force was withdrawn, the then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon moved to root out some “2,000 terrorists” he claimed were still hiding in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. After totally surrounding the refugee camps with tanks and soldiers, Sharon ordered the shelling of the camps and the bombardment continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening of 15 September leaving the “mopping-up” of the camps to the Lebanese right-wing Christian militia, known as the Phalangists. The next day, the Phalangists – armed and trained by the Israeli army – entered the camps and proceeded to massacre the unarmed civilians while Israel’s General Yaron and his men watched the entire operations. More grotesquely, the Israeli army ensured there was no lull in the 36 hours of killings and illuminated the area with flares at night and tightened their cordon around the camps to make sure that no civilian could escape the terror that had been unleashed.
Inquiries, charges and off scot-free
Although Israel’s Kahan Commission of Inquiry did not find any Israeli directly responsible, it did find that Sharon bore “personal responsibility” for “not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre” before sending the Phalangists into the camps. It, therefore, lamely recommended that the Israeli prime minister consider removing him from office. [14] Sharon resigned but remained as Minister without portfolio and joined two parliamentary commissions on defence and Lebanese affairs. There is no doubt, as Chomsky points out “that the inquiry was not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty”, but it certainly gained support for Israel in the US Congress and among the public. [15] It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was “directly responsible” because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. [16] Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a “criminal massacre” and declaring it an act of genocide [17], no one was prosecuted.
It was not until 2001 that a law suit was filed in Belgium by the survivors of the massacre and relatives of the victims against Sharon alleging his personal responsibility. However, the court did not allow for “universal jurisdiction” – a principle which was intended to remove safe havens for war criminals and allow their prosecution across states. The case was won on appeal and the trial allowed to proceed, but without Sharon who by then was prime minister of Israel and had immunity. US interference led to the Belgian Parliament gutting the universal jurisdiction law and by the time the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague the following year, the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre could no longer be tried because its terms of reference did not allow it to hear cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide pre-dating 1 July 2002. Neither Sharon nor those who carried out the massacres have ever been punished for their horrendous crimes.
The bigger picture
The length of time since these acts were carried out should be no impediment to exposing the truth. More than 60 years after the Nazi atrocities against the Jews in Europe, the world still mourns and remembers and erects monuments and museums to that violent holocaust. How they are done, to whom they are done and to how many does not make the crimes any more or less heinous. They can never be justified even on the strength of one state’s rationale that another people ought to be punished, or worse still, are simply inferior or worthless beings. It should lead all of us to question on whose judgment are such decisions made and how can we possibly justify such crimes at all?
The atrocities committed in the camps of Sabra and Shatila should be put in the context of an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. The MacBride report found that these atrocities “were not inconsistent with wider Israeli intentions to destroy Palestinian political will and cultural identity.” [17] Since Deir Yassin and the other massacres of 1948, those who survived have joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing a litany of massacres committed in 1953, 1967, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the killing continues today. The most recent being the 2008-2009 Gaza massacre – that 3 week merciless onslaught, a festering sore without relief as the people are further punished by an impossible siege that denies them their most basic rights.
Thus were the victims and survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre gathered up in the perpetual nakba of the slaughtered, the dispossessed, the displaced and the discarded – a pattern of ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the Zionist plan to finally and forever extinguish Palestinian society and its people.
This is why we must remember Sabra and Shatila, thirty years on.
Sonja Karkar is the founder of Women for Palestine (WFP), a Melbourne-based human rights group and co-founder of Australians for Palestine (AFP), an advocacy group that provides a voice for Palestine at all levels of Australian society. She is the editor of the website http://www.australiansforpalestine.com . Her email address is sonjakarkar@womenforpalestine.org
Footnotes:
[1] Dr Ang Swee Chai, “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, Grafton Books, London, 1989
[2] James MacManus, Guardian, 20 September 1982
[3] Loren Jenkins, Washington Post, 20 September 1982
[4] Elaine Carey, Daily Mail, 20 September 1982
[5] Robert Fisk, “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War”, London: Oxford University Press, 1990 [6] Robert Fisk, ibid.
[7] Robert Fisk, ibid.
[8] Robert Fisk, ibid.
[9] Lebanese Daily Star, 16 September 1998
[10] Amnon Kapeliouk, “Sabra & Chatila – Inquiry into a Massacre”, November 1982
[11] Schiff and Ya’ari,, Israel’s Lebanon War, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1984,
[12] Robert Fisk, Fifteen Years After the Bloodbath, The World turns its Back, shaml.org, 1997 [13] Noam Chomsky, “The Fatal Triangle” South End Press, Cambridge MA, p.221
[14] The Complete Kahan Commission Report, Princeton, Karz Cohl, 1983, p. 125 (Hereafter, the Kahan Commission Report). [15] Chomsky, ibid. p.406
[16] The Report of the International Commission to Enquire into Reported Violations of International Law by Israel during Its Invasion of the Lebanon, Sean MacBride, 1983 (referred to as the International Commission of Inquiry or MacBride report) [17] United Nations General Assembly Resolution, 16 December 1982
A US judge in the State of Wisconsin has struck down an anti-union law signed by the state’s Republican governor in 2011, reigniting a controversial issue that prompted recall elections just weeks before Election Day.
Wisconsin’s Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colas ruled on Friday that the law, curbing collective bargaining for most public employees, violates both the state and the US Constitution and infringes on free speech and association rights.
The judge’s ruling represents at least a temporary defeat for Governor Scott Walker, who promptly censured the decision on Friday but further expressed confidence that his state would launch an appeal against it.
“The people of Wisconsin clearly spoke on June 5,” said Walker. “Now, they are ready to move on. Sadly a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor. We are confident that the state will ultimately prevail in the appeals process.”
The state law struck down by the Wisconsin judge was at the core of Walker’s legislative agenda following his 2010 election victory and its passage triggered a chaotic political situation in the state throughout most of 2011 and 2012.
The bill included a provision curbing collective bargaining for most public employees. It was passed, and Walker subsequently signed it into law over angry protest rallies by labor activists who stormed the state capital in early 2011.
The Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees celebrated the ruling and tried to portray it as an obvious reprimand to the Republican governor.
“Today, Governor Scott Walker was rejected by the courts again,” said AFSCME Council 48 Executive Director Rich Abelson. “Today’s ruling shows that his attempt to steal the rights away from working men and women in Wisconsin was unconstitutional. We have always believed that Governor Walker and the state legislature overstepped their authority by taking away the rights of public employees to collectively bargain.”
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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