People Before Profit blog

United States adds bases in South America

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Until recently, the United States has operated 22 U.S. military bases in Latin America, 800 worldwide. Now there are two more, one in Chile and another in Argentina, the first in either country. The purported justification is humanitarian.

U.S. diplomats and Chilean military chiefs gathered April 5 at the Fort Aguayo naval base in Concón, 90 miles northwest of Santiago, Chile's capital, to inaugurate a recently completed eight-building complex intended as a training prop for mock urban battles. The U.S. military's Southern Command provided $460,000 for construction. Training will be consistent with U.S. military doctrine known as Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT).

Opening ceremonies took place even as U. S. and Chilean military personnel were teaching 300 junior level military and police personnel from 17 countries. The course there covers police training, convoy movements, crowd control, and helicopter tactics. Students are being prepared ostensibly to deal with natural disasters or national emergencies, specifically for United Nations "Peacekeeping Operations." Joint Chilean and U.S. military experience in post-earthquake Haiti in 2010 is cited as a model.

Chilean defense officials and U.S. Southern Command head Douglas Frazier prepared the way with an agreement signed on September 10, 2011. The accord allows U.S. troops to deploy in Chile whenever "the Chilean Army finds itself overwhelmed by some emergency situation [like] a natural disasters," or when international aid with "military components" is required, or when "national emergency scenarios [prompt] a state of exception and suspension of constitutional guarantees." .

Critics recall participation by U.S. military and intelligence services in the violent overthrow of President Salvador Allende's government in 1973, and U.S. collaboration afterwards with the Pinochet dictatorship. Some worry that carabineros, Chile's militarized police notorious for political repression, will train at the new base.

Communist Party Congressman Hugo Gutiérrez objected to "training for the Armed Forces to combat a civilian population." Human rights activist Alicia Lira indicated that, "when the United States is involved in this militarist, interventionist practice, we have to be worried." For Patricio Labra, head of the SERPAJ - CHILE human rights group, "this supposed training for peace is a cover for preparing military forces to contain and repress citizen's legitimate reactions to unjust situations."

Indeed, Chile's right wing government headed by billionaire Sebastián Piñera faces increasingly militant domestic opposition. Students demanding free high-quality education demonstrated repeatedly last year. Cities in remote Chilean Patagonia are alive with protests. Indigenous peoples, despite incarceration, terror, and deaths at the hands of security forces, are intensifying their long fight for land and sustenance.

By 2013, the U.S. government will over six years have funneled $45,105, 001 in "military and police aid to Chile." U.S. - Chile military cooperation entails joint military exercises, troop exchanges, Chilean participation with U.S. National Guard training, and military purchases worth almost $1 billion over 20 years. Chile has sent almost 4000 soldiers to the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (now the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation"), averaging 190 students annually over the past decade. Chilean as well as Colombian military trainers traveled to post-coup Honduras to support security forces there.

In Chaco State, Argentina, construction is underway at the Resistancia airport of a so-called "humanitarian aid center" for dealing with natural disasters. At a planning meeting in December, 2011 attended by Chaco Governor Milton Capitanich, U.S. Embassy official Jefferson Brown identified the project costing $3 million as a high U.S. priority. Military attaché Col. Edwin Passmore, in charge, indicated the Southern Command would be paying.

For some, giant antennae springing up at the site as betray espionage and surveillance purposes. Venezuela expelled Passmore in 2008, when as military attaché at the U.S. Embassy, he was accused of spying. In 2011 he arranged for a U.S. military plane to land unannounced and unexplained in Buenos Aires loaded with electronic monitoring equipment, medications, and intelligence transmission devices.

Observers say location of the facility in Chaco relates to the Guarani Aquifer underneath, one of the world's largest reserves of fresh water; to the nearby Triple Frontier region, entry point for illicit drugs and home base for terrorist planning, say U.S. officials; and to abundant, exploitable natural resources throughout the region. The United States unsuccessfully tried to persuade previous Argentinean governments to permit a military base in Misiones Province, also close to the Triple Frontier. Parliamentary Deputy Victoria Donda, victim of Argentina's "dirty war, was hardly alone in noting "overwhelming evidence that in Latin America the strategy of the Southern Command is to disguise its intelligence activities as humanitarian aid and international cooperation."

Reacting to the Fort Aguayo installation, the Ethics Commission against Torture, a Chilean NGO, spoke for many: "Sovereignty rests with the people. Security cannot be reduced to protection of the interests of the transnationals... The armed forces are supposed to protect national sovereignty. Its bending to the dictates of the North American army constitutes treason to the homeland." And besides, "People have the legitimate right to organize and to demonstrate publically."

Damascus rocked by more attacks

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:02:00 +0000

Syrian rebels launched a series of attacks in Damascus on Tuesday, further undermining the shaky two-week-old UN-backed ceasefire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an intelligence official had been killed in the Barzeh neighborhood and state media reported that "a retired colonel and his brother" were killed in a different attack.

Three people were hurt when an army lorry was blown up as it drove through Damascus. Police said they did not believe the driver was involved and that explosives were planted on the vehicle.

UN monitors were said to be visiting the capital's Douma suburb on Tuesday but opposition activist Mohammed Saeed said he had no information about the visit and reported "tanks and shelling and gunfire" in the area.

"The army has prevented fire engines from entering the city," he claimed.

The 11-strong team of monitors is supposedly observing the ceasefire and preparing for a larger team to arrive, but the Syrian government cites ongoing attacks on military convoys and army checkpoints as reasons for not withdrawing its troops from all urban areas as demanded by UN envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan.

Opposition fighters say the government keeps attacking civilians and accused it of retaliating against people who greeted the team with anti-government protests.

A day after the monitors' visit to Hama on Sunday, over 30 people were allegedly killed by security forces.

Videos posted online by the opposition show corpses covered in white cloths, though the exact details can't be verified.

The UN says that over 9,000 people have been killed since the uprising began 13 months ago.

The World Food Programme said on Tuesday it would deliver food aid to 500,000 people in Syria "in the coming weeks."

The figure is a tenfold increase in aid since December but the agency warned that it would still leave a million Syrians without enough food.

With help from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the UN body began feeding Syrian refugees in Jordan this week and plans to get food to Homs, Hama, Idlib and Damascus soon.

Morning Star

Photo: In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a UN observer, left, speaks with Syrian citizens during their visit to the pro-Syrian regime neighborhoods, in Homs province, central Syria, on April 23. United Nations observers monitoring Syria's shaky cease-fire visited a string of Damascus suburbs Monday, while the European Union looked set to levy new sanctions to increase the pressure on President Bashar Assad's regime. SANA/AP

Billy Bragg and Maxine Peake: Jarama Valley/Brigadista

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:28:00 +0000

Jarama Valley, the song inspired by one of the key battles of the Spanish civil war, gets another lease of life on a new CD marking the 75^th anniversary of the conflict.

It features singer-songwriter Billy Bragg and actress Maxine Peake, with the Bard of Barking performing the Jarama anthem that has been sung by generations of anti-fascists ever since.

The Battle of Jarama southeast of Madrid claimed the lives of 150 members of the British Battalion of the International Brigades in February 1937 when General Franco's fascist forces tried unsuccessfully to surround the Spanish capital.

Written anonymously, it became the unofficial anthem of the British volunteers and has been sung by veterans and their supporters to this day at events to commemorate the legendary International Brigades.

Brigadista Reprise features Peake, backed by The Urban Roots dub ensemble, as she delivers the famous speech by Spanish Republican leader Dolores Ibarruri* - La Pasionaria - at the farewell parade to the International Brigades in Barcelona on October 28 1938.

Specially produced for the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT), the artists have donated their talents for free and proceeds from the CD go towards the trust's work.

The IBMT keeps alive the memory of the 2,500 men and women who went to Spain from 1936-39 to join the International Brigades to help the Spanish republic as it tried to put down the military revolt launched by Franco with support from Hitler and Mussolini. The civil war is regarded by many historians as a prelude to the Second World War.

As well as the Battle of Jarama, this year sees the 75^th anniversaries of the battles of Brunete, Belchite and Teruel, in all of which the British Battalion took part.

And today marks the 75^th anniversary of one of the most notorious crimes of the civil war, the bombing of the defenseless civilian population of Guernica by planes of Franco's German and Italian allies, the subject of Picasso's famous painting.

"The International Brigade volunteers were part of a generation of anti-fascists who stopped the Blackshirts at Cable Street and then fought Hitler, Mussolini and Franco on the battlefields of Spain," Billy Bragg says.

"While their own government was appeasing the fascist dictators, these brave volunteers knew that fascism had to be defeated and were prepared to die in order to do so. I'm proud to play my part in preserving their memory.

"They will continue to be an inspiration to all of us involved in anti-fascist campaigns today."

It was Peake's grandfather who first told her about the heroism and sacrifice of International Brigade volunteers.

"When I came to London in the 1990s I was lucky enough to meet some of them. They were wonderful men and women and still an inspiration to me," she explains.

"The words of La Pasionaria eloquently express everything that needs to be said about the International Brigades. I'm honored to be able to recite her speech and help make sure that their example of international solidarity and anti-fascism is remembered today."

The Jarama Valley/Brigadista reprise CD is available exclusively from the IBMT and can be ordered for £5 plus £14.99 international shipping from www.international-brigades.org.uk (accept payment by MasterCard, Visa, American Express; can use PayPal).

Morning Star

*They Shall Not Pass: The Autobiography of La Pasionaria, Dolores Ibarruri, International Publishers, 350 pages, paperback, $9.00.

Photo: Billy Bragg performing at South by Southwest in 2008. Kris Krug, CC BY-SA 2.0

Germany aggrieved about Günter Grass

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:15:00 +0000

BERLIN -- It's rare that poems cause such anger and excitement. The only other case I can recall was Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" which once "awoke a perfect storm of derision and abuse". That was a century and a half ago, but somehow Grass still awakens "derision and abuse". But this time it's Günter Grass, a Nobel Literature Prize winner, with his poem "What Must Be Said". And the subject matter is war and peace.

Grass denies the right of any country - and he is courageous enough to include Israel - to wage a heavily armed first strike against Iran based on the possibility that Iran might also acquire atomic weapons.

What is said in "What Must Be Said"

He neither praises the Iran government in any way nor does he speak in any way against the people of Israel, for whom he stresses his lasting sympathy, but he does indeed warn of the terrifying imminence of war and points out that Israel already has atomic bombs, while Iran does not. He also denounces Germany's sales of potentially atomic-armed submarines, one after the other, to Israel and calls for international inspection and control of all atomic weapons in the area, whether present Israeli ones or possible future Iranian ones, in the hopes of saving the entire region - or far more - from catastrophe.

In a personal note, he admits his hesitance in issuing this warning earlier because of his own biography and because of the danger of being accused of anti-Semitism. But in his waning years, with his "last ink", as he puts it, he finds it impossible to keep silent in the light of so much hypocrisy - and such a menacing situation.

Attacks on the poem and the poet

Immediately after the poem was published, virtually the entire German media jumped on him - before some critics even bothered to read it. This ignorance of its contents or, more likely, an unwillingness to discuss them with a shred of open-mindedness or even fairness, led to attacks on both the poem and the poet for three main reasons:

Reason one: Grass is an old man.

His last best seller was some years ago; he now putters about with arts and crafts. He should sit by his hearth and mind his own business. His best days are past. A response to this is obviously difficult; he is undeniably 84.

Reason two: (which recalled the old attacks against Walt Whitman) The poem was not really poetry; without either rhyme or meter it was really disguised prose.

As if lyric quality really mattered - it was the content which counted. After all, Grass had already received the Nobel Prize and many other prizes (mostly for his prose) and was seeking no additional laurels for timeless literature. But he had something to say!

Reason three: constantly alluded to, was his participation during World War Two in a unit of the Waffen-SS, a particularly nasty section of Hitler's military forces.

Most critics disregarded or dismissed the fact that he was only 17 when he was assigned to this military unit and was in it only from November 1944 until he was wounded in April 1945. He claims that he never fired a shot himself but did help load artillery shells. Frequently mentioned is the fact that he kept this secret until late in life, most probably due to shame.

But it must be asked: Did this past secret disqualify him from uttering any political view for the rest of his life? Or didn't his writings, most notably his famous novel "The Tin Drum" (filmed by Volker Schlöndorf), a dramatic, deeply engaged attack on the entire fascist structure and crimes of the Nazis, make good for those juvenile five months?

A little West German history

Then too, during all the decades since 1945 the very same media now attacking him so self-righteously almost totally "neglected" the fact that all West Germany was dominated to an amazing extent by former Nazi bigwigs - up until they finally died out. And not by such young recruits but by the bloodiest of generals who completely built and commanded the new army.

A host of incriminated ex-Nazi diplomats represented the Bonn government abroad; the police departments, secret services, courtrooms, academic lecture rooms and government positions up to the topmost heights were heavily laden with truly guilty men.

Indeed, the mighty giants behind the swastika flags, those who profited from the conquests and the slave labor, not the individuals but banks and corporations with names like Krupp, Siemens, Bayer, BASF and Deutsche Bank, still dominate the scene today.

And many newspapers currently attacking Grass were built up after 1945 by editors who won their spurs as propagandists for Hitler. Unlike Grass, few of all these men ever confessed their former sins - or publicly regretted them.

Cynical use of "anti-Semitism"

Except in one question. The new ruling powers in West Germany found very quickly that all those sins, not just those of the past but present and future ones, were mildly overlooked if they loudly and stoutly rejected open anti-Semitism while embracing any and all policies of the Israeli government. This rule, carefully watched over, provided the entrance ticket for an ascent into the so rewarding ranks of the western democracies. And this strategy, at first more a mask than anything else, soon developed into a close bond between all ruling parties in Germany and the far right forces in Israel, up to and including the openly racist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

This largely one-legged posture explains why any questioning of the top-level German-Israeli alliance represents an earnest threat and must immediately be squelched. Over the years the taboo was rarely violated; this explains the malevolence of the attacks against Grass.

But there is now a new worrisome element explaining the vigor of such attacks against anyone undermining this status quo. In the face of recent Israeli actions -- the terrible civilian casualties in the attack on Gaza, the fearful attack on the Mavi Marmara in the Mediterranean, a seepage of information about the oppression of Palestinian villages in the occupied areas, the refusal to suspend the expansion of Jewish settlement in these areas and, indeed, the construction of a Wall reminiscent of Berlin, have been having an effect on public opinion and, much delayed, even on a few public figures eager to win votes -- or becoming simply honest.

Germany and Israel today

Shortly before the Grass poem, Sigmar Gabriel, head of the Social Democratic Party, wrote in Facebook after a visit to the West Bank city of Hebron that there was no justice for Palestinians there, that it was an "apartheid regime" for which there could be no justification. He, too, was immediately attacked but at least partially stood his ground. No, he had not meant to equate Israel and its government with the old apartheid regime in South Africa, he wrote, he was a friend of Israel, but he considered the Israeli settlement policy to be wrong. "The humiliating treatment of Palestinians in Hebron ...is a cause of really great anger, even with someone like myself who supports Israel. This is what I tried to express."

Such open sentiments are on the increase. What makes this issue so much more complicated here is of course Germany's unparalleled guilt against the Jewish people. This demands that any criticism of Israeli policy must scrupulously avoid any implied equation of the Netanyahus with the Jewish people, in Israel or anywhere else, especially since there is a numerically small but potentially dangerous pro-Nazi element eager to take advantage of any feelings against Israel to rationalize Hitler's genocide.

At the same time the present leaders of the Jewish community (or the official ones, in any case), while necessarily opposing real anti-Semitism, also use that same label in attacking any and every form of criticism of Israeli policy, especially if it comes from the left - or from even mildly leftish people like Günter Grass. (Strangely enough, some far-right Netanyahu fans suddenly find themselves on the same wagon with some neo-Nazis, who are down-playing anti-Semitism in order to attack the much larger, more vulnerable and far more easily identifiable target, the allegedly common enemy, the Muslims.)

At least one important Israeli fueled the fires in such an arrogant manner that they soon backfired. Interior Minister Eli Yishai proclaimed Günter Grass persona non grata and said he would not be welcome in Israel. This riled many in both countries who otherwise denigrated the Grass poem. Some journalists noted that Grass had no such travel plans anyway.

Opposing views

Others, in Israel, pointed out that the very same views, the rejection of any "pre-emptive" military strike against Iran, have been stated over and over by many Israelis, including Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad espionage organization. Others worried that while someone like Grass or Noam Chomsky is barred from the country, vicious racists like the Dutch rabble-rouser Geert Wilders or the French neo-fascist presidential candidate Marie Le Pen are welcomed. And for German leaders, who have always demanded freedom of speech and press in Russia, East Germany and currently in Syria or Iran, such a ban because of a poem is embarrassing to say the least.

While some noted personalities, especially those who have been waving the anti-Muslim banner most fervently, continue with their attacks, the effects of his clear and quite moving words have undoubtedly had an effect. His books, though usually best-sellers, were not too easily digestible except for intellectuals, but a recent poll showed that well over 50 percent of the population now support him, with a large number stating that they do not consider his words to be anti-Semitic. It seems undeniable: his poem has led not only to much controversy but also with it to wide-spread thinking and re-thinking.

Postscript on May elections:

Although they tend to stress local issues, elections in May in Schleswig-Holstein and the key state of North-Rhine-Westphalia are already affected to a degree by the poem.

Social Democratic leaders, with a few notable exceptions, have said they no longer wish any support from Grass, who in earlier years was a favored campaign speaker on their behalf. The other big party, the Christian Democrats, certainly will have nothing to do with him.

But, aside from such leaves - or sharp blades - connected with Grass, both elections will be of special importance to the four smaller parties for other reasons.

The Free Democrats, still members of Angela Merkel's national coalition but internally split, are virtually fighting for their political survival. The Greens, though certain of remaining in the legislatures in both states, face the possibility that they will be shoved under the table at a wedding of the two main parties, as in Saarland after a recent election there. They may even be overtaken by the young new party, the Pirates, which hopes to break its way into both state legislatures and has good chances of becoming a new political factor nationally, although - aside from free internet use and political transparency - it remains vague on almost all major issues, national or international.

The Left Party, which has some seats in both legislatures, may well miss the 5 percent hurdle and lose them all due in great measure to its difficult internal situation in the past year - now complicated by the decision of Gesine Loetzsch to resign as co-president because of the illness of her husband and remain only as Bundestag delegate from her East Berlin election district. The Left too is affected by the Grass poem, for some leading members are basically pro-Netanyahu, while others active support secular and democratic Palestinian positions. One drama follows the other, in Germany as elsewhere.

Photo: Günter Grass at a book reading in Berlin in 2006. Fritz Reiss/AP

Britain's crimes of empire revealed

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:56:00 +0000

LONDON - The government belatedly released secret files April 18 dating back to British colonial rule in Kenya, Malaya and elsewhere that were once claimed to have been lost.

The government was forced to admit in January 2011 that 8,800 files had been secretly "migrated" to Britain from colonies prior to their independence.

Its admission followed a High Court case brought by four elderly Kenyans who alleged they had suffered torture and brutality at the hands of British forces.

The 1,200 records published April 18 are the first of six tranches due to be made public at the National Archives by November 2013.

The papers cover controversial episodes including the 1950s Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and the Malayan "emergency" - in which the Daily Worker exposed atrocities by British troops against communist freedom fighters.

They also revealed efforts to destroy and reclassify sensitive files.

The Foreign Office claimed it was releasing "every paper" it can.

But David Anderson, an adviser to the Kenyans and professor of African history at Oxford University, said there was still a "lurking culture of secrecy."

"The British government did lie about this earlier on. This saga was both a colonial conspiracy and a bureaucratic bungle," he said.

Martyn Day of law firm Leigh Day, who is representing the Kenyans, said: "We are pleased to see the release of so many documents relating to the colonial era.

"It is shocking that their release has taken over 50 years and took the claim brought by our four Mau Mau clients before these sensitive documents were 'found.'

"More so-called 'top secret' files which are relevant to the case are still missing and we call on the FCO to renew their efforts to find those documents."

[The FCO is Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth office.]

Only a third of the Kenyan files were released April 18 but a memo dated May 1961 sets out the criteria under which papers were to be "migrated."

Then-colonial secretary Iain Macleod said the aim was to ensure no files were passed to a post-independence regime which might "embarrass" the British or other governments, members of the police, military forces, public servants or police informers, "might compromise sources of intelligence information" or "might be used unethically by ministers in the successor government."

This article was originally published in Britain's Morning Star newspaper. Photo: Statue of Dedan Kimathi in Nairobi, Kenya. Kimathi was a Kenyan rebel leader who fought against British colonization in Kenya in the 1950s. He was convicted and executed by the British colonial government. Photo via Wikipedia.

UK fracking firms face surge of protests

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:15:00 +0000

LONDON - News that a gas extraction process which triggered two earthquakes is likely to resume brought a surge of protest bubbling to the surface on Tuesday.

A government-appointed panel of experts said that fracking in Lancashire could continue under strict conditions. But environmental activists Frack Off branded their report "a seriously dangerous distraction" which only scratched the surface of the problem. Frack Off said local groups were springing up across the country to fight the spread of fracking in the wake of last year's quakes.

The process involves pumping water and chemicals into shale rock at high pressure to extract gas. Test fracking near Blackpool, Lancashire, by energy firm Cuadrilla stopped in 2011 when two earthquakes were felt at the surface in April and May. The panel's report, commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, gave the green light to continue provided there are monitoring systems to halt extraction if a quake looks likely.

But Frack Off activist Elsie Walker said the report focused too narrowly on earthquakes and "misses all the real issues."

The group warned that fracking can cause "groundwater contamination, severe methane leakage, air pollution, accelerated climate change, industrialization of the countryside and potentially radioactive waste."

Walker also pointed to quakes' "potential effects on sensitive infrastructure like nuclear power stations and railway lines."

Frack Off said local groups concerned about groundwater contamination as well as earthquakes were being formed to fight planning applications, many of which have already been approved, for fracking as well as other processes.

The activist group emerged from the Camp for Climate Action when it disbanded. Its activists tour new local groups - many of which are being set up around Lancashire.

Walker said: "Cuadrilla wants to drill 800 wells in Lancashire alone. There are several companies going after several types of unconventional gas in Britain and all potentially on a similar scale to Cuadrilla."

The group said fracking is used not just to get shale gas but also to get at gas trapped in unmineable coal seams, known as coal-bed methane. Another form of unconventional gas extraction is underground coal gasification, where unmineable coal is burnt underground and gas is collected at the surface.

Ms Walker said it's been known that fluid injection can cause tremors since at least 1967 and it has resulted in serious earthquakes in the US, Germany, the North Sea and Uzbekistan.

Report author Prof Peter Styles claimed that any earthquakes are "not likely to cause significant damage."

Cuadrilla chief executive Mark Miller welcomed the report and said the company had already begun to amend procedures in light of expert advice.

A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: "No decision has been taken on whether to allow fracking to resume at Cuadrilla's sites in Lancashire.

"Responses to the call for evidence will be carefully considered before ministers make a final decision."

This article was originally published in the Morning Star. Photo: Progress Ohio // CC 2.0

Americas summit displays "consensus without Washington"

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:22:00 +0000

Western Hemisphere political leaders 18 years ago began gathering off and on for the Summit of the Americas, a project of the U.S. -dominated Organization of American States. Yet, this sixth summit, held April 14-15 in Cartagena, Colombia, demonstrated unprecedented Latin American and Caribbean unity in the face of contrary U.S. views and policies.

The agenda included cross-border workers, decriminalizing drug consumption and the flood of dollars and Euros pouring into Latin America and disrupting economies. Poverty, technology access and natural disasters were other items.

Heads of state left without signing the traditional political declaration, signifying consensus. The United States and Canada nixed that customary document because it contained proposals that Cuba should attend future summits, and another that Argentina should regain possession of the Malvinas Islands, now occupied by Great Britain.

The Organization of the American States, having expelled revolutionary Cuba in 1962, readmitted the island nation in 2009. Cuba, however, rejected stipulations imposed by Washington and remained outside.

Earlier this year the nine-member Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) insisted on Cuban attendance at the Cartagena Summit. Following Colombia President Juan Santos' trip to Havana on March 8 to inform Cuban leaders of U.S. disapproval of the idea, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced that, as a result, his nation would be unrepresented at the Summit. President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua followed suit.

Greeting delegates, President Santos backed future Cuban participation. He condemned the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade as "an anachronism anchoring us to a long ago era of the Cold War." President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina concurred: "This has to be the last American summit without Cuba."

Latin American and Caribbean delegates also backed Argentina's demand upon Great Britain for return of the Malvinas Islands (called the Falklands by the British) - a "struggle against colonialism," Kirchner said. With the discovery there of underwater oil, control now takes on geo-political significance, lacking in 1982 when British troops expelled Argentinean occupation forces.

Speaking to delegates, U.S. President Barack Obama avoided mention of these contentious issues. He lamented being "caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy and Yanquis and the Cold War."

Obama assured El Tiempo newspaper of his "commitment to support the Cuban people." They ought to be "less dependent on the state that denies them their universal rights," he said.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro replaced ailing President Hugo Chavez at the Summit. Reacting to U.S. and Canadian vetoes on Cuba and the Malvinas, Maduro critiqued an approach that "has nothing to do with the world now existing in Latin America and that is being built throughout the planet."

"There are two Americas," he said, "one that is ours - fraternal, with solidarity, where we treat each other in terms of equality, and another that's in decline, with its archaic, obsolete, imperial vision. We are in a new time, from 'Washington Consensus,' to consensus without Washington."

Prioritizing trade relations, Obama joined Santos, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and U.S. business representatives at a parallel Economic Forum. U.S. news media had already highlighted U.S. trade growth with Latin America, new Chinese trade advances in the region, and commercial opportunities in Colombia. Indeed, according to NPR: "Colombia is seen as South America's rising star.... Foreign investment has quadrupled over the past decade, and Colombia was recently awarded investment grade status."

At a press conference Obama and Santos announced that the U.S. - Colombian so-called Free Trade Agreement (FTA) - "a win for both our countries," said Obama - would take effect in mid May.

What that means, claims United Steelworker lawyer Dan Kovalik and colleagues, is that Colombian and U.S. workers [will] lose their last bit of leverage to stem the tide of anti-union violence and defend the rights of Colombia's most vulnerable populations." They point to 30 trade unionists killed last year, six so far this year, and recent paramilitary ransacking of a unionist friend's home.

The Fifth Summit of the Peoples, the Fourth Summit of Indigenous Leaders of the Americas, and scandal involving President Obama's security detail also played out in Cartagena.

Heavy drinking and use of prostitutes led to 11 Secret Service operatives returning home and five U. S. soldiers being reassigned, with no gain in U.S. prestige.

Poor and indigenous persons were removed from Cartagena streets beforehand. Some 15,000 troops were on hand. President Obama went from airport to hotel accompanied by 30 vehicles. Colombian police blocked unionists and dozens of students attending the Summit of the Peoples from staying at hotels near the Summit of the Americas location.

Photo: President Barack Obama talks with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at the Summit of the Americas, April 15. (AP/Carolyn Kaster)

What's behind savage beatings, killings of metal fans?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:31:00 +0000

In what appears to be part of a recent uptick in prejudicial attacks on the heavy metal community, 16 year-old metal fan Ben Moores was brutally kicked and beaten by a gang in Lancashire, England.

Moores believes he was attacked because of his style of dress, taste in music, and long hair. He was assaulted near a supermarket in the small town of Waterfoot, where fifteen 'gangsters' stamped on him, punched him, pulled out clumps of his hair, and hatefully called him "mosher," and "freak."

"They were doing it because of the way I look; because I've got long hair and I like metal music," Moores told Noisecreep. "It's all because I dress a bit different and have different interests."

Though he survived without life-threatening injury, Moores suffered severe bruising to his head and body, and is missing patches of hair. "When they got me on the ground, I thought I was going to die," he said. "There was no stopping them; they wouldn't let me up. I had blood all over my face by the end. When I was getting kicked and stamped on my head and on my wrists, there was nothing I could do. Thinking about it now makes me shiver in shock."

Moores enjoys metal, an often-misunderstood music genre that is falsely believed by the misinformed to perpetuate hate or violence.

Moores was not the first 'metalhead' to be attacked for his fashion and beliefs. In fact, just two miles away from where he was attacked was the place where, in 2007, a gang savagely beat 20 year-old 'goth' Sophie Lancaster to death, while her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, suffered permanent brain damage. The couple was ambushed and simply attacked "for being goths."

Lancaster's mother, Sylvia, commented on the recent attack on Moore, noting, "It's disgraceful, what has happened. The fact that young people gang together like that and think of it as fun is just wrong. People have no right to do this -- it's beyond me why they think it's okay." Sylvia was deeply saddened to know that, nearly five years after her daughter's death, "there have [still] been no lessons learned."

"We were proud to know our daughter," Sylvia had said of Sophie. "She was a beautiful girl with a social conscience and values which made her a joy to know. The thing that makes me most angry is that it is seen as an isolated incident. These attacks are far from isolated. Just because you follow a different culture, you are targeted; you are seen as easy pickings."

Seven of the fifteen who attacked Moores - ranging in age from 14 to 18 - were arrested in connection with the incident.

Members of metal communities and underground subcultures are also at risk elsewhere. In the Middle East, Iraqi youth who identify with heavy metal are being targeted and killed by extremist death squads.

Death squads circulated flyers throughout Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, warning that those who "dressed metal" would be killed, and that "God's punishment" would rain down upon them. They also associated some metal fans with the LGBT community, making similar threats to gay teens and young adults.

Thus, for gay men in Iraq, the threat has been just as serious: Militias have killed more than 50 people who led alternative lifestyles in the past week, according to reports.

"What do you see about me that is so wrong?" said one Iraqi youth who did not want to be named. "I'm a normal guy. But I almost wish I could die, rather than live like this."

These developments come just weeks after the headquarters of the Iraqi Communist Party's newspaper were attacked and ransacked by Iraqi federal police.

In response to the intolerance that metal fans and other alternative youth face, Sylvia is campaigning for attacks against people based on appearance to be recognized by lawmakers as hate crimes, and addressed appropriately.

In 2009, she made headway in this regard: After meeting with the London Justice Minister, Sylvia was told that although Straw could not alter the hate crime law itself, he would propose changes to sentencing guidelines for judges.

Kate Conboy-Greenwood, manager of the Stamp Out Prejudice, Hatred, and Intolerance Everywhere (S.O.P.H.I.E.) campaign, remarked, "What we are asking for is that when it comes to sentencing, judges are given guidelines to treat attacks like those [on 'goths' and metal fans] as they would if it were a racially motivated assault, or a homophobic incident.

"People from alternative cultures need to know that there is protection in the law."

One of the Iraqi youth being persecuted, Noor (20), said her style was simply about "self-expression," and that, due to the hatred she was exposed to, she and her family have fled north. She didn't know when she would feel safe enough to return.

"Is this what we get," she said, "because we dress in black?"

Photo: Sophie Lancaster, a goth, was kicked and stomped to death by a mob of youths, due to dressing differently and belonging to a misunderstood and feared subculture. Lancashire Police/AP

Argentina takes control of oil firm

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:43:00 +0000

The European Commission scrapped a meeting with Argentinean officials on Tuesday, April 17, in protest at a decision by the country to renationalize its largest oil company.

European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said a trade meeting scheduled for tomorrow had been shelved until further notice.

"We are at the moment giving political support to Spain while also exploring all options," Ms Hansen declared.

"This creates an uncertainty which is not helpful to our economic relations and to the economy as a whole."

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said he was "seriously disappointed" by Argentina's decision to bring YPF back into public ownership by taking control of 51 per cent of its shares currently held by Spanish transnational Repsol.

Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez presented a Bill to Congress on Monday that would empower her government to regain the majority stake.

The expropriation requires the approval of two-thirds of legislators in Congress, but Ms Fernandez decreed that the state was putting the company under immediate state intervention.

Addressing citizens massed in Buenos Aires shouting slogans, waving national flags and carrying banners supporting the takeover, Ms Fernandez said: "We are the only country in Latin America, and I would say in practically the entire world, that doesn't manage its own natural resources."

She said the nationalization was about "recovering sovereignty."

Rightwingers blame the government for an energy shortage and high petrol prices.

But Ms Fernandez said the shortage was the result of Repsol's failure to invest in YPF.

She said that Argentina had a deficit of £1.9 billion [$3.03 billion] last year partly due to energy imports.

Ms Fernandez did not say whether Repsol and its stockholders would be compensated.

Repsol has released a statement promising to protect the interests of its shareholders. It called the move "unlawful and gravely discriminatory."

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry backed Ms Fernandez's decision to renationalize YPF.

"Venezuela puts all its technical, operational, legal and political experience of Petroleos de Venezuela at the disposition of the government and its people to strengthen the state oil sector."

Originally appeared at MorningStarOnline http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/117933

Photo: Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez motions for silence while her proposed bill to nationalize Spain's controlled oil company YPF, is read aloud at Government House in Buenos Aires, April 16. Fernandez said in an address to the country that the measure sent to congress on Monday is aimed at recovering the nation's sovereignty over its hydrocarbon resources. Natacha Pisarenko/AP

Controversial new president inherits changing World Bank

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:12:00 +0000

Jim Yong Kim, the Korean-American president of Dartmouth College picked to lead the World Bank by President Obama, was confirmed today by a vote of the institution's 25-member executive board.

Kim will fill the bank's top role at a time when the institution is changing in an attempt to become more transparent and helpful to developing nations.

The new president, who was educated as a physician, helped to develop innovative treatment methods in Haiti and went on to advise the head of the World Health Organization during a period when the organization sought to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to millions in African countries.

Kim's selection by Obama is a surprising departure from previous practice: he is the first scientist or medical professional to lead the bank. Previous presidents have been economic, political, or legal figures. This includes Kim's immediate predecessor Robert Zoellick, a Bush nominee who was a Goldman Sachs managing director prior to his position at the World Bank.

The new president, who is to assume office July 1, was surrounded by some controversy, but this is focused on his nationality more than his background. Developing countries sought to break the U.S. hold on the presidency of the bank, and nominated former Colombian and Nigerian finance ministers to the position.

There has long been an unofficial agreement between the U.S. and Europe in selection of bank leaders. Europe supports the American nominee for World Bank president, and, in return, the U.S. supports the European nominee for leader of the International Monetary Fund.

Kim also came under fire from neoliberals, who took issue with positions in a book he helped to edit, Dying for Growth. The book criticized multinational institutions that promoted economic growth at the expense of the world's poor and working people.

The bank, officially the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association, has been changing recently, perhaps in response to criticisms like those in the book Kim edited. The bank had been criticized often for structural adjustment loans given to countries that were in economic crisis. The loans contained demands for adjustments that often resulted in austerity and a worsening of the economy. The bank has since backed off these policies.

Earlier this month, the bank launched the "Open Knowledge Repository," which will become the organization's "official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products."

As of July, all knowledge produced by the World Bank will be deposited into this repository, "allowing any user in the world to read, download, save, copy, print, reuse and link to the full text of the work, free of charge."

The idea is that the free flow of information will help policymakers and academics in nations around the world better access to development information, making development itself more closely in reach of those in the developing world.

Photo: Jim Yong Kim at a meeting with Brazil's Economy Minister Guido Mantega in Brasilia, April 5. Eraldo Peres/AP

Portugal imposes "rule of lead," left wing charges

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:47:00 +0000

Portugal has become the first European country to approve the European Union's fiscal compact, known to critics as the "permanent austerity" treaty. The country's parliament made the move Friday, and also approved the European Stability Mechanism - the much derided long-term "bailout" fund.

Portugal is one of three eurozone countries to be "rescued" by the EU and the International Monetary Fund as alarm over the state of public finances pushed up borrowing rates on international bond markets to unsustainable levels first for Greece and then Ireland.

The country is also one of the 17 eurozone countries having the greatest difficulty in meeting deficit targets thanks to punishing austerity measures demanded last year by the troika (EU, IMF and European Central Bank) in exchange for its 'rescue' package.

Portugal's ratio of debt to gross domestic product is expected to hit 115 percent at the end of the year and then gradually decline. Debt was 93.3 percent of GDP in 2010.

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, arguing strongly in favour of the pact in a speech on Thursday to parliament, where he has a comfortable center-right majority, said that the budget pact "represents our refusal to repeat the errors of the past."

The Socialist party, the main opposition force, voted in favor, so as not to undermine the "credibility" of the country.

Despite arguing that the pact does not give enough attention to growth and jobs, Socialist leader Antonio Jose Seguro said that "it is in the name of the option for Europe chosen by Portugal that we shall vote in favor."

Ahead of the vote the Socialist Party had originally said it would suspend the whip but changed its mind when a number of rebels - Pedro Nuno Santos, Isabel Moreira, Pedro Alves (leader of the Young Socialists), Rui Duarte, Duarte Cordeiro e João Galamba - indicated they would vote against.

The Socialists, who were ousted from power in elections in June last year by Passos Coelho's right-wing coalition amid rising unemployment and social misery, backed the 2011 Troika austerity program.

The EU Fiscal Compact was signed in Brussels on Mar. 2 by 25 of the European Union countries after negotiations, but it was not signed by Britain and the Czech Republic. Ireland has signed the pact but is putting it for approval by referendum.

In Germany, the biggest eurozone economy, the opposition Social Democrats wanted the pact to include more measures to encourage growth. The country may ratify the pact only at the end of the year even although the government has said it would like to see approval at the end of May.

In France ratification of the pact depends on the outcome of upcoming presidential elections. French Socialist presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande has said he would like to renegotiate the pact to include more steps to boost economic growth.

Italy's Senate was set to take a vote earlier this week, but this has postponed until Apr. 17-18,and campaigners who on Apr. 11 staged a 'sit in' of the upper parliamentary house in Rome in anticipation of the vote have promised a repeat protest next week.

Officially known as Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance, the pact requires the budget of a country to be in balance or in surplus, which means that in structural terms - that is excluding one-off items and business cycle variations - the deficit is capped at 0.5 percent of GDP.

Only countries which have debt to GDP ratios significantly below 60 percent can have a bigger structural deficit, but not more than 1 percent of GDP. A country with public debt higher than the EU limit of 60 percent of GDP has to reduce it by one twentieth a year as a benchmark.

The SCG, described by critics as the Permanent Austerity treaty, is set to come into force once it has been passed by the parliaments of at least 12 countries that use the euro currency or at least by 1 January 2013.

The Portuguese government's spending cuts and tax rises to meet the terms of the 78 billion-euro aid plan from the EU and the International Monetary Fund have allowed it to slash Portugal's budget deficit to 4.2 percent of output last year, less than half of the 9.8 percent reported for 2010.

But the austerity has plunged the country into a deep recession. The Portuguese economy is expected to contract by over three percent this year while the jobless rate will surpass 14 percent.

The austerity package has included the privatisation of several industries, cuts to public sector wages, deeply backward reforms to employment laws, and a rise in taxes, including the socially regressive value added tax.

Death rates are increasing in part because of because health service cuts.

Poverty rates, already highest in the EU, are rising with 2.7 million living below the poverty line of 434 euros a month. And there's growing in-work poverty too, with half a million people under-employed, that is working less than they would like or need.

The austerity measures sparked a general strike last month and a string of mass protests in recent weeks and months.

The Left Bloc and Portuguese Communist Party said that the change to the Portuguese constitution implementing the new EU Fiscal Compact imposed "a rule of lead" on the Portuguese economy and would limit the options of governments "forever."

The Left Bloc's Ana Drago accused the prime minister of 'a pure negation of truth' in his opening remarks backing ratification and rejected the claim that there was a general consensus on the Pact.

After criticizing the right-wing PSD / CDS-PP government she described the pact as "a contract to kill the European social model."

The Left Bloc MP recalled the position of foreign minister, Paulo Portas, when a few years ago he called for a referendum on Treaty of Lisbon.

"What do you fear? If [the treaty] is so important, put it to the Portuguese people?"

The parliamentary leader of the Portuguese Communist Party, Bernardino Soares, stated that the Treaty was "a violent attack on national sovereignty and independence" condemning Portugal to the "prior approval of Germany." He accused the government of rushing through the law for "fear that the Portuguese become aware of what is at issue and spoil the little arrangement."

"At stake," he said, "is a huge counterfeiting operation."

Guinea Bissau: From Africa’s bright hope to narco state?

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:29:00 +0000

On Thursday Apr. 12, elements of the armed forces of the small West African Republic of Guinea Bissau (population 1.6 million) seized the capital, Bissau, and arrested Acting President Raimundo Pereira and the former prime minister and probable successor as president, Carlos Gomes Junior.

The coup perpetrators announced that they had no desire to take power, but had been forced to move when they discovered a document which, they claim, proved that Angolan troops in their country on a training and technical assistance mission had been authorized by Gomez to "annihilate" the Bissauan army command.

Of all the tragedies that have been happening in Africa, this may be the most saddening. In the 1970s, when Guinea Bissau was engaged in armed struggle to liberate itself from the colonial control of fascist Portugal, it was the bright hope of many.

That hope was raised by the outstanding revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973). An inspiring leader and a lucid writer on revolutionary methods, Cabral, like Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was a figure who influenced young revolutionaries worldwide, as well as in Africa.

But Cabral never saw the victory for which he had laid the foundation. The Portuguese regime had infiltrated his ranks with agents, one of whom assassinated Cabral on January 20, 1973.

When Guinea Bissau, joined with the Cape Verde Islands (from where the Cabral family hailed), got its independence from Portugal after the Carnation Revolution, Amilcar's half-brother Luis became the first president. The party Amilcar had founded, the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), became the sole ruling one. Cabral attempted, with help from the socialist bloc, to create a socialist state in this poorest and least developed of African countries. Among the projects initiated in Guinea Bissau was a major adult education effort led by the famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire.

However, in 1980, Luis Cabral was overthrown by his own military commander, Joao Bernardo Vieira. The unity between Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde was also broken.

No president of Guinea Bissau since independence has been able to finish his term in office. In the coups and counter coups, there has been much violence. Vieira himself, coming back to power after a long hiatus, was hacked and clubbed to death in 2009. And as recently as Dec. 29, 2011, there was an unsuccessful attempt at a coup.

What are the dynamics behind the current coup? It seems very likely that the international drug trade is somehow involved. In recent years, the Bijagos Islands, a sparsely populated archipelago off Guinea Bissau's west coast, have become a major transshipment point for cocaine being moved across the Atlantic Ocean from South America to Europe. Fishermen in the Bijagos Islands claim that they can no longer make a profit because fuel for their fishing boats has become so expensive, and so are tempted to work with the drug smugglers as an alternative.

There are also signs, in Guinea Bissau and neighboring countries, of large scale money laundering.

For several years, international observers and agencies have also been warning that the military, and some politicians, in Guinea Bissau are enriching themselves by taking rake-offs from the drug trade. After Thursday's coup, the mutineers accused Carlos Gomes of drug involvements, but his supporters threw the charge back in the faces of the mutineers, saying instead that the aim of the coup is to prevent military drug dealing from being stopped.

The military in this small country is all out of proportion to national defense needs, and acts like the Praetorian Guards that made the lives of so many ancient Roman emperors so exciting, and sometimes so short. In theory, this is why the Bissauan government brought in a 200 man Angolan military aid contingent with a mission of shaping up its own army and, importantly, reducing its size.

At the end of 2011, the President of Guinea Bissau, Malam Bacai Sanha, went to France for medical treatment, where he died in January, and was replaced on an interim basis by Mr. Pereira. There was an election on Mar. 18, in which former Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, candidate of the PAIGC, got a plurality, but not a majority of votes. The run off was originally scheduled for Apr. 29. The man who got the second largest number of votes, Kumba Yala, a former president (overthrown by a coup in 2003) said to be connected to the military, denounced the election as fraudulent, and called for a boycott of the runoff. Yala threatened dire consequences for anybody who campaigned.

At writing, the president, prime minister, and perhaps the commander of the army are being held by the mutineers, while other officials are in hiding. The coup has been denounced by neighboring countries and various international bodies, as well as the U.S. and the UN.

The mutineers have called for an all party interim government, but the PAIGC, which still is the largest party in the legislature, refuses to cooperate, and there are signs of the beginning of street protests against the coup.

There are offers of mediation by Presidents Alpha Conde of Guinea and Jose Ramos Horta of East Timor.

Photo: From an exhibition "Life and Writings of Amilcar Cabral" held at the Universidade de Cabo Verde http://www.unicv.edu.cv/ in January, 2012.

The U.S. and the Afghan train wreck

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:51:00 +0000

The recent decision by the Taliban and one of its allies to withdraw from peace talks with Washington underlines the train wreck the U.S. is headed for in Afghanistan. Indeed, for an administration touted as sophisticated and intelligent, virtually every decision the White House has made vis-à-vis Afghanistan has been a disaster.

On Mar. 15 the Taliban ended preliminary talks with Washington, because, according to a spokesman for the insurgent organization, the Americans were being "shaky, erratic and vague." The smaller Hizb-i-Islami group followed two weeks later.

That both groups are refusing to talk should hardly come as a surprise. In spite of the Obama administration's talk about wanting a "political settlement" to the war, the White House's strategy makes that goal little more than a mirage.

The current U.S. negotiating position is that the Taliban must cut all ties with the terrorist group al-Qaeda, recognize the Afghan constitution, lay down their arms, and accede to a substantial U.S. military presence until at least 2024. The U.S. has 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, its allies another 40,000. The current plan calls for a withdrawal of most of those troops by the end of 2014.

What is hard to figure out is why the White House thinks any of its demands-with the exception of the al-Qaeda proviso-have even a remote possibility of being achieved? Or exactly what the Americans think they are going to be "negotiating" with Mullah Omar of the Taliban, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of Hezb-i-Islami, or Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Group?

The Obama administration's initial mistake was to surge some 33,000 troops into Afghanistan with the aim of beating up on the resistance and forcing it to negotiate from a position of weakness. That plan was always an illusion, particularly given the ability of the insurgents to fall back into Pakistan to regroup, rearm, and recruit. In any case, the idea that 140,000 foreign troops-the 330,000 member Afghan National Army (ANA) is incapable of even defending itself-could defeat a force of some 25,000 guerillas fighters in a country as vast or geographically formidable as Afghanistan is laughable.

As a series of recent attacks demonstrate, the surge failed to secure Kandahar and Helmand Province, two of its major targets. While NATO claims that insurgent attacks have fallen as a result of the U.S. offensive, independent data collected by the United Nations shows the opposite.

In short, after a decade of war and the expenditure of over $450 billion, Afghanistan is a less secure place than it was after the 2001 invasion. All that the surge accomplished was to more deeply entrench the Taliban and elevate the casualty rate on all sides.

The second U.S. error was to estrange Pakistan by wooing India in order to rope New Delhi into Washington's campaign to challenge China in Asia. First, Obama ditched his campaign pledge to address the volatile issue of Kashmir, the flashpoint for three wars between Indian and Pakistan. Second, the White House ignored India's violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and allowed it to buy uranium on the world market-the so-called 1-2-3 Agreement-while refusing that same waiver to Pakistan. Add the American drone war and last November's deadly attack on Pakistani border troops, and most Pakistanis are thoroughly alienated from the U.S. And yet a political solution to the Afghan war without Islamabad is simply impossible.

The U.S. demand to keep Special Forces troops in Afghanistan in order to continue its war on "terrorism" is not only a non-starter for the insurgents-the Taliban are, after all, the target of thousands of deadly "night raids" carried out by these same Special Forces-it is opposed by every country in the region save India. How the White House thinks it can bring the Taliban and its allies to the table while still trying to kill and capture them, or maintain a military presence in the face of almost total regional opposition, is hard to figure.

The more than 2,000 yearly night raids have eliminated many of the senior and mid-level Taliban leaders and atomized the organization. When it comes time to negotiate, NATO may find it has literally hundreds of leaders with whom it will have to cut a deal, not all of whom are on the same page.

That the insurgency would lay down its arms has a quality of magical thinking to it. Not only is the insurgency undefeated, but according to a leaked NATO report, captured Taliban think they are winning. The report-based on 27,000 interrogations-also found that "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governancy over GIROA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan], usually as a result of government corruption, ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders."

There is no popular support for the war, either in Afghanistan, the U.S., or among its allies. The most recent ABC Poll found that 69 percent of Americans want the war to end, and according to a poll in the Financial Times, 54 percent of the British want to withdraw immediately.

As for supporting the Afghan constitution, why would an undefeated insurgency that sees its enemies in disarray and looking at a 2014 U.S.-NATO withdrawal date, agree to a document they had no part in drafting?

None of this had to happen. Back in late 2007, Saudi Arabia carried a peace offer from the Taliban in which they agreed to cut ties to al-Qaeda-a pledge they reiterated in 2008-and accept a time table for foreign troop withdrawals. In return, a national unity government would replace the Karzai regime until elections could be held, and the constitution would be re-written.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations ignored the offer, apparently because they thought they could bring the Taliban to heel. It was thinking that verged on the hallucinatory.

The trump card holders these days are holed up in the high peaks or hiding in plain sight. Opium is booming in Helmand Province because the Taliban are protecting farmers from drug eradication teams, even blowing up tractors that are used to plow the crop under.

As the 2014 withdrawal date looms, the White House's options are rapidly narrowing. If it holds to its plans to quarter troops in Afghanistan, the insurgency will fight on, and Washington's only regional ally will be India, a country that can deliver virtually nothing toward a peace agreement. If it insists the insurgency recognize the Karzai regime and the constitution, it will be defending a deeply corrupt and unpopular government and a document that excluded the participation of country's largest ethnic group, the Pashtun. Pushtuns make up the core of the Taliban.

How the U.S. managed to get itself into this mess needs to be closely examined. The State Department under Hillary Clinton has become little more than an arm of the Pentagon, and the White House has shown an unsettling penchant for resorting to violence. In the meantime Afghanistan is headed for a terrible smashup.

The World Bank estimates that 97 percent of Afghanistan's economy is military related. The war is drawing to a finish, and there is no evidence that the U.S. or NATO has any intention or ability to keep the aid spigots wide open. Europe is in the middle of an economic meltdown and the U.S. economy is struggling.

NATO provides about $11 billion a year to support the Afghan army, a figure that will probably drop to about $4 to $5 billion after 2014. There is already talk of reducing the 335,000-man Afghan army to a more manageable and less expensive force of 230,000.

There is a window of opportunity, but only if the Obama administration takes advantage of it. A strategy that might work-when it comes to Afghanistan there are no guarantees-would include:

A ceasefire and stand down of all offensive operations, including the highly unpopular "night raids."

Shelving any long-term plans to keep combat troops or Special Forces in the country, and shutting down the drone war in Pakistan.

Urging the formation of a national unity government and calling for a constitutional convention.

Sponsoring a regional conference aimed at keeping Afghanistan neutral and non-aligned.

Insuring aid continues to flow into Afghanistan, particularly aimed at upgrading infrastructure, improving agriculture, and expanding education.

At home, the Congress should convene hearings aimed at examining how the U.S. got into Afghanistan, who made the key decisions concerning the war and regional strategy, and how the country can avoid such disasters in the future.

It may be too late and, in the end, NATO may tuck its tail between its legs and slink out of Afghanistan. But the deep divisions the war has created will continue, and civil war is a real possibility. The goal should be to prevent that, not to pursue an illusory dream of controlling the crossroads to Asia, a chimera that has drawn would be conquerors to that poor, ravaged land for a millennium.

This article originally appeared in Dispatches from the Edge. Photo: U.S. Army Soldiers of Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment move into position to support the Afghan National Police who are moving to apprehend a suspect during a cordon and search in Pana, Afghanistan, June 9, 2007. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michael L. Casteel)

Hemispheric leaders divided on drug policy, Cuba

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:38:00 +0000

President Obama attended the sixth Summit of the Americas over the weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, where he and regional leaders wrestled over a range of politically sensitive issues.

The 33 heads of state discussed the war on drugs, energy, trade, and the United States' ongoing embargo on Cuba. Deep disagreements over certain issues underscored America's waning influence in Latin America.

"I feel that the agenda of the U.S. and the agenda of Latin American countries, instead of moving in parallel to each other, or converging, are taking paths that separate them, that distance them," said right-wing president of Guatemala, Otto Perez Molina.

The war on drugs drew the sharpest contrast among the leaders, with the U.S. on the defensive over how to deal with drug trafficking.

Latin American leaders urged American officials to decriminalize marijuana in order to deprive drug cartels of revenue sources and quell violence related to the drug trade. Obama welcomed the debate but said, "I personally, and my administration's position, is that legalization is not the answer."

Many analysts see the recent united and open criticism of U.S. drug policy as a watershed moment in regional politics concerning prohibition. Only Canada fully backed the U.S.'s position of maintaining the status quo.

"The prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global policy today is based on a false premise: that global drug markets can be eradicated," said Molina, who was recently elected in November. He and other officials called for a global approach that regulates the consumption and production of drugs like tobacco and alcohol.

Absent from the meeting was president of Cuba, Raúl Castro. American officials insisted on excluding the sole communist-led nation in the Western Hemisphere ahead of the gathering.

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador boycotted the meeting over the issue, calling Cuba's exclusion "intolerable." Hugo Chavez, who was receiving medical treatment in Havana, sent Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro to head the Venezuelan delegation.

Obama received heavy criticism over his decision to bar Cuban representatives from the summit. Latin American leaders, including the host and long-time U.S. ally, Colombian President Jose Manuel Santos, vowed that Cuba will participate in future Summits of the Americas.

"This is the last Summit of the Americas unless Cuba is allowed to take part," Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told the Associated Press.

There was no joint political declaration at the end of the summit. A declaration of support for Argentina's claim on the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, which the U.S. opposed, failed after hours of negotiations. Venezuela, Argentina, and Uruguay refused to sign the final declaration due to the U.S. and Canada's veto of Cuban participation in future summits.

The rise of leftist governments and China's growing influence in the region has made it difficult for the U.S. to maintain its hegemony in the region. Ever since 1995, when then-President Bill Clinton hosted the first meeting in Miami, the U.S. has been unsuccessful in its attempt to create a hemispheric free-trade area.

In spite of these deep disagreements, officials called the summit a success. The leaders did agree on greater energy integration, student exchange programs, and expansion of broadband Internet access in the region.

Initially, the summit was marred by controversy when eleven U.S. Secret Service agents were sent home for alleged "misconduct" involving prostitutes in a hotel. Five military service members may have been involved in the incident, according to the U.S. Southern Command.

Although they could not come to a consensus on the final declaration, Santos said the leaders agreed to meet again in Panama in 2015 and that "hopefully within three years, we can have Cuba" at the summit.

Photo: Obama attends the Summit of the Americas. Carolyn Kaster/AP

Gaitán, OAS, and Cuba: from tragedy to farce

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:30:00 +0000

"Hegel remarks somewhere that history tends to repeat itself. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"

Karl Marx, The 18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonapart

On April 9, 1948 in Bogota, Colombia, an assassin's bullets killed the eloquent, populist Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Onlookers murdered shooter Juan Roa Sierra, variously described as deranged or a fascist. Radio broadcasters quickly blamed the assassination on the government and its Conservative Party leaders. For months, police and paramilitaries had been eliminating adherents of a newly unified Liberal Party widely expected to propel Gaitán into the presidency in the 1950 elections.

The assassination was tragedy, and so too was violent upheaval that within 48 hours took 330 lives in Bogota and killed 3000 people throughout Colombia over two weeks. Then ten years of conflict between guerrillas identifying with Gaitán's Liberal Party wing and military forces of governments led by the Conservative Party or by dictator Rojas Pinilla caused over 200,000 deaths. Beginning with the early 1960's, war between leftist insurgents and the government's U.S. supported military machine killed tens of thousands more.

Congressman Gaitán, condemning the 1928 massacre of United Fruit Company banana workers, castigated a "government [with] its tremulous knee on the ground before Yankee gold." The young lawyer founded the short-lived National Revolutionary Left Union as a vehicle for land reform. Rejoining the Liberal Party, Gaitán served as Bogota mayor in 1936 and later as national education minister and labor minister. The branch of the Liberal Party headed by Gaitán called for agrarian reform, poverty alleviation, and poor people's rights. Party disunity led to Conservative Party victory in the 1946 presidential elections.

On February 7, 1948 in Bogota, a "silent march" ended with Gaitán's famous "Oration for Peace." Mr. President," he said, "We ask you for deeds of peace and civilization...We deeply love this nation, and we don't like that our victorious ship has to navigate rivers of blood."

Colombians intent upon preserving Gaitán's memory have long regarded April 9 as a day for public observances. Gaitán may no longer be the primary focus of that day. The 2011 Law of Victims and Restitution of Lands redefined April 9 as a catch-all "Day of Memory and Solidarity with Victims."

In 1948, the government quickly, and erroneously, attributed violence and Gaitan's killing to communists wanting to eliminate a rival and bring down the state. Colombia cut relations with the Soviet Union. John C. Wiley, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia in 1946-1947 had reported that Gaitán "blindly promoted state socialism" and "would deplume our eagle."

Simultaneously, amidst shootings, fires, and tumult, the ninth Pan American Conference was meeting in Bogota. For safety, delegates retreated to a secure warehouse. U. S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall was on hand to promote establishment of the Organization of American States and thereby create an institutional framework for cold war in Latin America. Marshall explained to reporters that chaos enveloping the city and nation represented "the first important communist attempt in the Western hemisphere since the end of the war." He reiterated that theme in radio broadcasts to Colombians.

U.S. Ambassador Beaulac had warned Gaitán earlier of supposed communist plans for an uprising that would be blamed on his Liberal Party. An Embassy official supposedly offered Gaitán a prestigious European academic position in return for leaving Colombian politics.

History did repeat. The Organization of American States (OAS) returned to Colombia on April 14-15 as the 6^th Summit of the Americas, which it sponsored. News coverage centered on Cuba's exclusion from the meeting situated in Cartagena. Evidently Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa regarded Cuban absence, a non-event, as farce. His government stayed away.

The OAS, having expelled Cuba in 1962, worked afterwards to isolate and enforce continent-wide hostility against revolutionary Cuba. Under Latin American pressure, the United States relented in 2009 allowing the OAS to readmit Cuba, which remains a non member.

The "Bogotazo," as the leaderless rebellion following Gaitán's killing is labeled, manifested another Cuba connection. Young Fidel Castro was in Bogota at the time representing the (Cuban) University Student Federation at an international student conference. He consulted with Gaitán.

And CIA operative John Mepples Espirito was in Bogota in 1948 monitoring leftist students. Later in Cuba he fought against Batista and was jailed for complicity in the death of a comrade. Mepples' revelations to Cuban intelligence officials about helping to assassinate Gaitán for the CIA became the basis for a documentary film shown to Gaitán's daughter Gloria in 1961. Verification problems prevented its release. Later jailed as a counterrevolutionary insurgent, Mepples in 1980 told more in return for release from prison. He claimed he and others had set up Juan Roa Sierra as the assassination's "fall guy."

U.S. lawyer Paul Wolf eventually gave up on Freedom of Information requests to secure U.S. intelligence material on the assassination. The CIA refused to release relevant microfilms, and, according to Wolf, the FBI had disposed of hundreds of files.

Prior to the Summit of the Americas, host President Juan Manuel Santos announced he'd urge the U.S. government to let up on Cuba. That too may end as farce.

Big push for freedom for the Cuban 5

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:51:00 +0000

A broader-than-ever coalition of organizations, activists and well-known artists will be going to Washington D.C. the week of April 17-21 to break through the wall of silence that is squashing information about five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters who have been languishing for years in American jails.

The five were monitoring tultra-right Cuban exiles here who, with the support of successive U.S. administrations, committed acts of terrorism against Cuba and its citizens that Cuba says have resulted in 3,400 deaths in that country.

In the late 1990s, the Cuban government had presented evidence gathered by the five to the U.S. government. Instead of following up on the evidence U.S. officials arrested the five. They were indicted for conspiracy to commit espionage, and one of them, Gerardo Hernandez, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder,

Since then, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino and Gerardo Hernandez have been condemned in what international observers have described as a biased trial,.

They have been incarcerated in various prisons while their appeal process drags along. A. authorities have denied two of the five, Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, the right to receive visits from their wives, Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, respectively.

Rene Gonzalez has now been released with the requirement that he stay in the United States for an additional three years, and that he not frequent areas where terrorists might be found. Recently, the original judge in the trial granted him permission, over the objections of the federal government, to go to Cuba temporarily to visit his critically ill brother.

The April 17-21 activities have been organized at the initiative of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, and are endorsed by hundreds of prominent organizations and individuals from around the world.

U.S. organizations endorsing the activity include Global Exchange, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, the National Network on Cuba, the Communist Party USA, the National Lawyers' Guild, School of the Americas Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Venceremos Brigade, the William Velazquez Institute, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and many others.

Artists and public figures endorsing the activity include Nobel Peace Prize winners Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Social scientists, activists and artists include Danny Glover, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, Ed Asner, Elliott Gould, Esai Morales, Pete Seeger, Martin Sheen, Michael Parenti and scores of others.

The week will kick off with a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill on April 17. The following afternoon there will be a get-together hosted by Wayne Smith, who was former President James Carter's chief diplomatic representative in Cuba, and is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy. The guest speaker will be Canadian author Stephen Kimber, whose new book "What Lies Across the Water" goes into detail on the flaws in the original trial of the Five. That evening, Saul Landau's documentary "Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up" will be screened.

Activists will spread out across Washington on April 19 to staff information tables on the Cuban 5. In the afternoon there will be an event for the Five in Takoma Park, Maryland, a Washington suburb.

On April 20 farmworker and social justice activist Dolores Huerta will be the keynote speaker at a downtown Washington event which will also feature actor Danny Glover as a special guest.

On April 21 there will be a march and rally in front of the White House demanding freedom for the Cuban 5.

A complete list of events, venues, endorsers and speakers, as well as detailed information on the Cuban 5 and their trial, are available from the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5.

Photo: J G Blanchard Lewis // CC 2.0

Global warming does not benefit plants: new study

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:32:00 +0000

The grass is always greener on this side of global warming, it seems.

According to a the results of a study by researchers at Northern Arizona University , somewhat rosy predictions about purported beneficial effects of global warming on plant life are likely not true.

According to current scientific thought, though global warming is an overall negative in the world's environmental status, it can have a positive effect on the growth rate of some plants.

According to the United States Global Change Research Program, "Crop responses in a changing climate reflect the interplay among three factors: rising temperatures, changing water resources, and increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. Warming generally causes plants that are below their optimum temperature to grow faster, with obvious benefits."

The U.S. research agency does go on to warn that climate change is still a problem, and that these changes affect only some plants. However, even these limited benefits are challenged by the Arizona research. According to the researchers, there was a boost in plant growth - but only at first.

According to Zhuoting Wu, a doctoral graduate who was part of the research team, "We were really surprised by the pattern, where the initial boost in growth just went away As the ecosystems adjust, the responses changed."

The problem with current models is that they are based only on short-term, greenhouse studies, say the NAU scientists. Their study took place in more natural conditions over a period of ten years.

The team moved four ecosystems from higher to lower elevations over the course of the study to simulate warmer environments expected from global climate change. In addition, they controlled for the variance in rainfall that would be expected due to the warming. They found that the effect of the change was beneficial for the first year, and that over the remaining nine years, the benefit grew smaller, eventually reaching zero.

In addition, the warming meant the loss of native species, and invasion by warmer-weather species, leading less productive plant species to predominate in the ecosystem. While current models suggest that warming will increase nitrogen availability, and therefore bring about a sustained increase in plant production, the researchers found that the warmed ecosystems more quickly cycled through nitrogen, meaning that much of the nitrogen was lost to nitrogen gas.

Bruce Hungate, an NAU professor who was the study's senior author, said, "Faster nitrogen turnover stimulated nitrogen losses, likely reducing the effect of warming on plant growth. More generally, changes in species, changes in element cycles - these really make a difference. It's classic systems ecology: the initial responses elicit knock-on effects which here came back to bite the plants. These ecosystem feedbacks are critical. You just can't figure this out with plants grown in a greenhouse."

Hungate continued that he thought "there are more surprises in store" as the study progresses over the next five years, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Photo: Local maize affected by drought, Tanzania. CC BY- NC-SA 2.0

Lawmakers grant Suriname president immunity for murders

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Lawmakers granted Suriname President Desi Bouterse immunity on April 4 for murders alleged to have taken place during the 1980s. Suriname's unicameral National Assembly, which is dominated by the president's NDP coalition, passed the law in a 28 to 12 vote.

Bouterse seized power in a 1980 military coup and faces charges, along with 24 others, for abducting and murdering political opponents in December 1982. Among the victims were 15 journalists, union leaders, attorneys and activists executed during a period when no independent media were permitted to operate in Suriname. The 24 co-charged were also granted immunity.

Bouterse, who is on trial now, has refused to attend hearings and denied he was present for the killings, a claim challenged by witnesses in a trial that has been repeatedly stalled since its beginning in November 2007. It's unclear, in the wake of the law's passage, whether the trial would proceed. The trial's prosecution had been scheduled to make a closing speech on April 13.

Suriname is a former colony of the Netherlands, with which it has had a complex and often strained relationship since gaining independence in 1975. Situated on the Northeast corner of South America, the country of less than half a million people is home to emerging oil and gold industries, reducing its traditional reliance on aluminium ore and Dutch aid.

Bouterse's ruling coalition does not hold an outright majority in the legislature but was able to secure support from two other party groups including A-Combination (AC), a group heavily favoured by Suriname's Maroon communities. Contemporary Maroons are the descendents of former slaves who escaped captivity and formed independent communities throughout the Americas. Suriname's Maroon population was particularly affected by the 1986-1992 Suriname Guerrilla War, a conflict centred around control of the country's cocaine trade, and has struggled to maintain access to public services and recognition of land rights.

AC leader Ronnie Brunswijk joined governing NDP legislators in supporting the measure, albeit "with a lot of pain in my heart," he said. Brunswijk apologized to victims but said "the country could not afford to have its president convicted at a trial," and also surprised observers by being frank about lawmakers' desire to keep the president out of jail.

"Let's not beat around the bush: The amnesty is intended to prevent Bouterse's conviction, and if [NDP] members are afraid to say so, that's their business, but I'm not and will come out and say it straight: he must not be convicted", he said in an interview on Tuesday. Brunswijk is a former enemy of the president, leading the opposition to his regime during the war.

Ronny Abasina, a legislator from the governing coalition, chose to abstain from voting, citing the presence of victims' relatives at the debate. "When I look up, I see the pain in his eyes," he said. "How can we so carelessly talk about the suffering of the relatives?"

Along with granting the president immunity from the murder charges, the legislation also strips immunity from soldiers involved in the 1986 Moiwana massacre, which killed 39 Maroon villagers.

Lawmakers agreed to establish a truth and reconciliation commission to examine the 1982 killings. The changes failed to satisfy opponents who condemned the legislation.

Chandrikapersad Santokhi, an opposition lawmaker and former justice minister, said the legislation's passage meant that "the separation of powers has been trampled," while Amnesty International called it a "flagrant attempt... to evade investigation for human rights abuses."

Ronnie Venetiaan, also an opposition lawmaker and former president, said that the legislation "underlines lawlessness and gives lawlessness a false legal basis."

Following the 1982 killings, the Netherlands suspended foreign aid to Suriname. Though Bouterse's power was reduced after the adoption of a new constitution in 1987, he famously dismissed the government by telephone in 1990 and remained a powerful figure thereafter.

Bouterse was elected in 2010 following a poll that CARICOM (Caribbean Community) and Organization of American States reported to be mostly free and fair, though the election authority was later criticized by some opposition politicians for not enforcing a law regarding the timing of candidate list submissions.

Bouterse already faces an international arrest warrant issued by Europol after being convicted in absentia for cocaine trafficking in the Netherlands, but Surinamese law prevents extradition of their citizens. A Wikileaks cable published in 2011 also reportedly reveals other involvement in the cocaine trade and its acknowledgement by U.S. diplomats.

Responding to the legislation's passage, Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal said that there "would be consequences for Suriname" and called the law's passage "extremely disappointing." The Netherlands recalled its ambassador and barred all suspects of the crimes from entering the country. Relations between the Netherlands and Suriname had already been strained, with Rosenthal's predecessor remarking that Bouterse was not welcome in the Netherlands "apart from in jail" upon his election, while the Dutch government also revealed that it had detailed plans to invade Suriname and depose him in 1986.

Unions and rights groups are planning a silent protest march against the immunity legislation. Victim's families and opposition politicians are consulting on ways to overturn the law.

Photo: Suriname President Desi Bouterse (Wikipedia)

Former Guatemalan strongman, on trial, may beat genocide rap

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:03:00 +0000

With CIA backing, General José Efraín Ríos Montt seized power in Guatemala in March 1982. With two co-conspirators soon abandoning the coup, Rios Montt ruled alone until August 1983. He now faces trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. The army he commanded accounted for 200,000 murders during a 36-year civil war. Soldiers terrorized and murdered at record levels during his tenure.

Judge Carol Patricia Flores indicted Rios Montt Jan. 26, placing him on house arrest. Another judge quickly denied his petition for amnesty stemming from immunity he enjoyed as a parliamentarian. Rios Montt's trial begins in mid April.

Ending the investigatory phase of the proceedings, Human Rights Prosecutor Manuel Vásquez on March 27 presented evidence to the Supreme Court showing that, on Rios Montt's watch, three adjacent municipalities in Quiche department experienced 11 massacres, 1,771 people murdered, 1,485 women raped, and 29,000 people displaced. Soldiers surrounded towns and denied residents food, health care, and water. Victims were of Mayan Ixil ethnicity.

That four other former military leaders also face prosecution suggests civil war-era impunity may be weakening somewhat. Claims of serious illness have delayed proceedings for two of them. Three army officers were jailed in 2009 for carrying out "disappearances" in El Jute in 1981. Low ranking soldiers were sentenced earlier for the 1982 Rio Negro massacre. On March 12, former School of the Americas instructor Pedro Pimentel, extradited from the United States, joined four previously tried counterparts in receiving a 50-year jail sentence for murdering 201 indigenous inhabitants of Dos Erres in 1982. All were members of the abusive Kaibiles counter insurgency force.

The national Congress on Jan. 26 approved Guatemalan affiliation with the Statute of Rome that in 1998 launched the International Criminal Court, which adjudicates crimes against humanity.

Rios Montt's fate is uncertain. His lawyers say jurisdiction in his case lies with military courts exclusively. They are appealing his loss of amnesty as a former parliamentarian. Regular criminal charges do not apply to Rios Montt's role during the civil war. That's because on Dec. 27, 1996, as peace was being concluded, Guatemala's Congress enacted its "Law of National Reconciliation," which relieves insurgents and soldiers alike of criminal responsibility for crimes committed during the war. It does allow prosecution for genocide, torture, and civilian "disappearances." Violence attending a politically motivated war thus morphed into the category of "political crimes," subject to amnesty.

Rios Montt's defenders say civil war was fought to liberate Guatemala from threatened communist take-over. Indeed, the political nature of that war - non-genocidal in character, they say - was evident in President Ronald Reagan's kind words in Guatemala City for host Rios Montt in 1982: "a man of great personal integrity and commitment. ... I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice."

Proving genocide is not easy. The Statute of Rome requires that intention be established and that genocide be defined as prioritized extermination of a national, religious, or ethnic group. By this reckoning, Armenians killed by Turks in 1919, Jews dying during the Holocaust, and Rwandan Tutsis murdered by Hutus in 1994 were victims of genocide. But half a million or more leftists killed in Indonesia in 1965 were not. There and in Guatemala, political objectives were foremost - or so goes the argument recounted by analyst Carlos Figueroa Ibarra. Besides, prioritization remains obscure in Guatemala, especially with 83 percent of civil war soldiers and police sharing Mayan ethnicity with victims.

Guatemala's efforts to shed impunity are pulled one way by the shared interests of those in charge, including military veterans, and another way by international observers. Polarity is reflected in remarks by new President Otto Pérez Molina, who recently declared: "[H]ere in Guatemala there was no genocide. What typifies genocide is when there is extermination of a race by reason of its being a race." But late last year, while campaigning for the presidency, he assured Reuters that, "I'm going to be respectful of the law... Justice has to take its course."

In 1982 Army officer Pérez served as intelligence head in Nebaj, Quiché - one of the three municipalities designated as massacre sites in accusations against Rios Montt. According to the National Security Archives, Pérez "participate[d] in former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt's counterinsurgency and 'scorched earth' campaigns in the Quiché region." A patrol led by Pérez caused the "death of four civilians and the capture of 18 adults and 12 children." Pérez Molina graduated from the U.S. Army School of the Americas, served as intelligence head both of the brutal Kaibiles unit and of the Army itself. He represented the Army in peace negotiations.

Reporting on testimony against Rios Montt in Spanish court proceedings, Reuters cites one witness claiming that Pérez, "ordered the burning of towns," another that soldiers under Pérez 's command tortured him, and a third that Pérez burned a community and killed residents.

Yet international human rights advocates are paying attention: notably, recently interviewed European Parliament members. And to end impunity in Guatemala, Norway in recent years has contributed $2,619, 052; Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, $8,292,480. "Guatemala has the opportunity to be an example to the world," writes David Tolbert, President of New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice. He adds, however, "The crime of genocide is rarely tried in a national court."

“Third Man” Mélenchon can no longer be ignored

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:26:00 +0000

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical Left Front's presidential candidate, has gained four percentage points in two weeks in opinion polls, a result that would see him take the third spot in the first of the two round vote for France's head of state.

He would win 15 percent of the first round on April 22, the LH2/Yahoo poll suggested, overtaking far-right Marine Le Pen who was on 13.5 percent.

The same poll gave Socialist Francois Hollande victory in the first round with 28.5 percent of the vote, against 27.5 percent for incumbent right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy. For the May 6 second round vote, Hollande would garner 54 percent and Sarkozy 46 percent. Hollande has lost one point since March 18, while Sarkozy has gained one.

Mélenchon's success suggests his radical leftwing programme and moves to steer Hollande's agenda left are having an impact.

The Socialists have already responded to Mélenchon's rising star by proposing a 75 percent top income-tax rate. Last weekend Arnaud Montebourg, Hollande's "spécial représentative," said he believed it would be possible to 'negotiate with Jean-Luc Mélenchon' when it came to legislative elections in June. When pressed by journalists on Thursday, former Socialist labor minister Martine Aubrey said that yes, communists in a future Socialist-led government were a distinct possibility.

"The Socialists don't know what to do," said François Delapierre, head of Mélenchon's campaign. "Their strategy was 'let's ignore him' but they are now forced to change that."

Former socialist Mélenchon, who drew 120,000 people to a rally in Paris on March 18 and has attracted thousands to local events around the country since his campaign started, is planning to intensify mass public meetings with one a day planned until the vote. Up to 40,000 people were expected at a rally in Toulouse on Friday.

The Left Front (Front de Gauche) is an alliance of the Communist Party and Left Party, which in turn is formed of former Socialists, people who hadn't been members of a political party before and dissidents from the Green Party. They first stood in the 2009 European elections.

Their program calls for control over the banks, a completely new relationship based on "solidarity" between France and other European countries, "ecological planning" and dismantling NATO.

The Left Front calls for stronger workers' rights, new powers for workers "to pre-empt" or "requisition" plants faced with closure, a ban on lay-offs for companies that have paid dividends to shareholders and measures to make it unattractive to relocate industries to countries where the cost of labor is lower.

Fears that Mélenchon, a former teacher and government minister, may cut into the Socialist vote appear unfounded. Overall the Left vote has never been higher and Hollande is seen as comfortably defeating Sarkozy in the second round of the elections expected on April 5, when Mélenchon's supporters will rally against the detested incumbent.