People Before Profit blog

Will Wikileaks flap impact Peruvian elections?

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:44:00 +0000

Wikileaks is the gift that keeps on giving, a cornucopia of surprises for politicians and statespersons worldwide.

Now it is Peru's turn, as this South American country of 28 million people heads for national elections on April 10.

In the runoff phase of the last presidential elections, in 2006, the candidate of the center-left Peruvian Nationalist Party, Ollanta Humala, had built a solid lead over right-wing opponents. Then a short while before the elections, a story was circulated in Peruvian media that while Humala had been an army officer in the 1990s, during the war between the government of Alberto Fujimori and the Maoist "Shining Path" rebels, he had been responsible for human rights abuses against the civilian population. Humala was subsequently exonerated by an investigation, but the scandal was enough to knock him out of first place in the presidential race, and he lost to Alan Garcia of the venerable APRA (American Popular Democratic Alliance) Party.

APRA was founded in 1924 by populist politician Victor Raul Haya de la Torre. In his time, Haya de la Torre was considered such a radical firebrand that the military moved several times to block his imminent election by means coups d'état. But APRA long ago morphed into an establishment party which supports neo-liberal (free trade) policies.

APRA's Garcia had been president of Peru from 1985 to 1989 but his administration had racked up such a record of corruption and abuse, not to mention raging inflation, that it was seen as a minor miracle that he could make a comeback in 2006.

And true to form, the Garcia administration has squandered any goodwill that accompanied it into power in 2006, especially by its heavy handed methods of trying to browbeat indigenous Peruvians in the Amazonian regions into accepting the rape of their lands by outside mining, oil and logging interests.

Now the latest set of Wikileaks documents made available to the Peruvian daily El Comercio show that in 2006, numerous prominent anti-Humala politicians, including the interior minister of former President Alejandro Toledo, had been popping in and out of the U.S. embassy in Lima, evidently requesting help from the Bush administration in stopping Humala.

Though the content of the cables released so far is suggestive rather than providing a smoking gun, it does show the degree to which politicians in Peru see the U.S. embassy as the "go-to place" when left-wing forces appear to be near to taking power.

And more cables relating to Peru are due to be released.

As for the elections themselves, Humala is running again, as the candidate of the Nationalist Party and the GANA PERU (Peru Wins) alliance. He is supported, also, by a left wing bloc of parties including the Peruvian Communist Party, the Socialist Party of Peru, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and others.

Peru's other Communist Party, Patria Roja (Red Homeland), initially supported another social democratic party, Social Force, for the presidency, but the latter rudely repudiated this communist support.

Patria Roja expresses some doubts about Humala, whose program they see as vague and whose military officer background they mistrust, but may well end up supporting him also.

Under Peruvian law, a president can not serve two consecutive terms, so Garcia's APRA put forth former Economics Minister Mercedes Araoz as their candidate, but she has withdrawn due to internal differences with other APRistas. The "Alianza por el Gran Cambio" (Alliance for Big Change) Party has put up former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who has strong connections to international mining interests and Wall Street, as their candidate. He is also far behind in the polls.

Doing much better are Keiko Fujimori, the 35 year old daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, the candidate of Fuerza 2011, and Luis Castañeda Lossio of the National Solidarity Alliance, as well as ex President Alejandro Toledo of Alianza Peru Posible. These are all considered right wing candidates who support neo-liberal policies of "free" trade and privatization.

However, voters' opinions are still in flux and there could be changes. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, the two highest polling candidates will go into a runoff.

Humala, who opposes neo-liberal policies including the new U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement, and would bring Peru closer to the left-center bloc of South American governments, is in fourth place. But as more Wikileaks are revealed, it remains to be seen if this will produce surprise results.

Photo: From Peru with peace. (CC)

Libya’s Gaddafi wages bloody war against protesters

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:52:00 +0000

Libya is not Egypt, or Tunisia. Unlike its two neighbors, Libya is a major oil-producer. And it has been ruled for 42 years by a loose-cannon leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has flip-flopped through a mix of nationalism, authoritarianism, pseudo-socialism, his own brand of Islam, anti-imperialist rhetoric, support for terrorism, and finally neoliberalism and free-market privatization.

Now facing an uprising that threatens to topple him, Gaddafi, in a televised speech Tuesday night, called the protesters "cockroaches" or "rats and mercenaries" who deserve the death penalty. He urged his followers to "cleanse Libya house by house" unless the protesters surrender.

That night, Gaddafi's interior minister, Abdel Fattah Younes al Abidi, resigned and announced his support for the opposition. Al-Jazeera aired video footage showing Abidi at his desk reading a statement urging the Libyan army to join the people and their "legitimate demands."

Al Abidi told CNN on Wednesday that Gaddafi had ordered the people of Benghazi - Libya's second largest city, now reportedly under control of the opposition - gunned down with machine guns, and said he had argued with Gaddafi's intention to use airplanes to bomb that city.

In the eastern town of Al Bayda, resident Marai Al Mahry told Reuters by telephone that 26 people including his brother had been shot dead overnight by Gaddafi loyalists.

"They shoot you just for walking on the street," he said, sobbing uncontrollably as he appealed for help. Protesters were attacked with tanks and warplanes, he said.

"The only thing we can do now is not give up, no surrender, no going back. We will die anyways, whether we like it or not. It is clear that they don't care whether we live or not. This is genocide," said Mahry, 42.

In the capital, Tripoli, news reports said government forces were shooting protesters in the streets, while planes dropped "small bombs" and helicopters shot from above. "It was an obscene amount of gunfire," said one witness, according to the New York Times. "They were strafing these people. People were running in every direction."

Estimates of the deaths in the week of protests so far range as high as 1,000.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called on Tuesday for an international investigation into Libya's attacks on protesters, saying they may amount to crimes against humanity. She said, "The callousness with which Libyan authorities and their hired guns are reportedly shooting live rounds of ammunition at peaceful protestors is unconscionable."

The Libyan people are "tired of corruption," unemployment and of having their rights ignored, Pillay said.

The UN Security Council, also on Tuesday, condemned the violence and said those responsible must be held to account.

The Arab League has suspended Libya's participation.

On Wednesday, President Obama condemned the use of violence against protesters and said the U.S. was speaking with other countries about possible actions. But the U.S., because of its adversarial relationship with Gaddafi, is considered to have little leverage with him. And, as in the case of Iran's Ahmadinejad regime, anything the U.S. does can give Gaddafi more excuse to claim that the protests are foreign-backed.

In addition to the interior minister, other top officials have quit, including envoys to the United States, India and Bangladesh. The ambassador to India, Ali al-Essawi, told Reuters, "The fall of Gaddafi is the imperative of the people in streets."

News reports indicate that eastern Libya, where Benghazi and most of Libya's oil is located, is no longer under Gadaffi's control. Long-standing opposition circles are said to exist there. They include tribes who resent mistreatment by Gaddafi. But in the capital, Tripoli, and elsewhere in the country it is not clear whether or to what extent the protests have an organized leadership.

This seems to echo Libya's past as three separate entities: Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. They were unified in 1951 when Libya gained independence from British-French control. (Libya was an Italian colony between 1911 and World War II. Britain and France took over after Allied forces ousted Italy in 1942.) Cyrenaica is now the eastern part of Libya.

Gaddafi took power in a 1969 coup that ousted Libya's monarch, King Idris, in the era of Arab nationalist leaders who used anti-imperialist and socialist rhetoric along with political repression. He does not hold a formal government position, but is officially referred to as "Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" (people's state).

Gaddafi implemented a top-down mixture of nationalist, socialist-seeming and authoritarian policies. Political parties were banned in 1972 and independent nongovernmental organizations were suppressed. No trade unions are known to exist outside of the government-linked National or General Trade Union Federation.* Thus there are said to be few national structures that could provide a firm basis for a democratic movement.

Internationally, Gaddafi long presented himself as an anti-imperialist, with provocative rhetoric. His government was also implicated in numerous violent incidents in other countries. This provided President Reagan with a rationale for sending war planes to bomb Libya in 1986, killing more than 100 people including Gaddafi's daughter. UK Guardian commentator Brian Whitaker noted that Gaddafi's speech Tuesday cited the fact that his regime had withstood bombing "by 170 aircraft under the leadership of nuclear countries like America, Britain and NATO" - implying that because they failed, today's Libyan rebels cannot succeed.

Libyan agents were charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

In 2003, after years of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Britain, Gaddafi made a deal with them, saying he had given up terrorism and pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie attack, agreeing to pay compensation to the victims' families.

Libya, the fourth largest country in Africa, has recently ranked as having the highest Human Development Index and fourth highest gross domestic product per capita in the continent, largely due to its oil industry and small population. Libya has only 6.4 million people, in contrast to Egypt, for example, which has a population of over 80 million in a much smaller territory. These factors are one reason why more than a million of Libya's residents are migrants from other African countries.

Libya is a major world oil producer, rank seventh among OPEC members.

Yet Libya also has the highest unemployment rate in the region, at 21 percent.

Oil was largely nationalized in the early 1970s. But since 2003, when Gaddafi reconciled with the U.S. and other Western countries, he has adopted neoliberal economic policies, including privatization of oil and other formerly publicly owned industries and services.

Political scientist Benjamin Barber says media portrayals of Gaddafi as a buffoon or maniac are wrong and misguided. He calls Gaddafi a "crafty and intelligent survivalist."

Whether he will hold onto power now remains to be seen.

*Updated 2/24/11 to add mention of government-linked trade union federation, which is "an integral part of the political system" according to the International Trade Union Confederation. Foreign migrant workers, a substantial portion of Libya's workforce, are barred from membership.

Photo: Anti-regime placards and images are placed in front of the courthouse in Benghazi, Libya, in the early hours of Tuesday, Feb. 22. Writing on poster of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Arabic reads, "A flood of freedom, topple the idols of oppression, 42 years of repression and darkness, in four days the regime fell, toppling the human idols is a religious and national duty." (AP/Alaguri)

World Notes: Cuba, France, Iraq - and more

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:39:00 +0000

Colombia: Cordoba arranges prisoner release

Colombians for Peace founding member Piedad Cordoba, a campaigner for peaceful resolution to Colombia's armed conflict and release of prisoners, was instrumental in the staggered liberation from Feb. 9 -16 of six prisoners held by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. Cordoba once more facilitated unilateral prisoner releases, this time by coordinating efforts of the FARC, the Colombian and Brazilian governments and the International Red Cross Committee. She is optimistic, TeleSur reported, that all FARC prisoners may soon be released and the "possibility of arriving at a dialogue for peace." On Feb. 21 in Buenos Aires, Cordoba joined activists and intellectuals from three continents at an international symposium on "Making Peace in Colombia."

Iraq: Human rights are unprotected

"Human rights abuses are commonplace," asserts a recently released Human Rights Watch report identifying women, journalists, religious minorities, and prisoners as particularly vulnerable. The Iraqi government has generally failed to investigate and prosecute perpetrators, according to findings derived from 178 victim interviews in seven cities. HRW urges Iraq's foreign allies to insist upon legal reforms there and support for displaced persons, also to "ensure that no one at risk of torture" goes to jail. Women and girls subjected to abuse and sex trafficking are "the biggest victims," claimed one activist quoted by IPS.

Ethiopia: NATO joins with African Union

According to the Feb. 18 issue of Africa Review, which cited an African Union official, a NATO legal team visited recently AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. This visit, says the Review, signifies preparation for a NATO - AU military cooperation pact. NATO will open a liaison office there and has provided transport and logistical support for AU operations in Sudan and Somalia. And crucially, according to analyst Rick Rozoff, NATO offers "capacity building support" for the AU's African Standby Force, "a joint project of NATO and U.S. Africa Command." Rozoff sees NATO's African buildup as aimed at Russian and Chinese oil and natural gas ventures and arms sales. NATO, he points out, "set itself a target to be a global 'security guarantor' by the year 2020."

South Korea: Deportation of migrant leader is condemned

Philippines native Michel Catuira arrived in 2007, finding work in a small shoe factory. Two years later he became president of the Migrant Trade Union, which, founded in 2005, has resisted abuse from employers and frequent deportations of workers by the government. The International Labor Organization had earlier protested the deportation of five MTU leaders. Pressure against Catuira increased last year as the MTU, denied legal status, resisted arrests and the police killing of a protesting Vietnamese worker. Alleging Catuira had faked his employment, the government lifted his visa in February, reported the MTU website. His threatened deportation on March 7 has elicited protests from the KCTU labor federation, the Asian Human Rights Commission, and Amnesty International.

France: Wealth tax may go

Budget Minister François Baroin on indicated Feb. 16 that the Sarkozy government would soon remove the "solidarity wealthy tax." Introduced by socialists in 1981, the tax has symbolized government dedication to wealth redistribution. Individuals' assets worth more than 790,000 euros each are presently taxed at rates up to to1.8 percent. Dropping the tax, which accounts for 1.5 percent of all revenue, would deprive the treasury of $5.41 billion annually. As if to compensate, the government is considering removal of a "shield" restricting taxation to the first 50 percent of wealthy person's income. L'Humanite, the newspaper of the French Communist Party, speculates that abandoning the wealth tax is aimed at shoring up conservative electoral support for Sarkozy. He claims the wealth tax gives Germany a competitive edge.

Cuba: International Book Fair

The twentieth annual Havana book fair began on Feb. 10. After ten days, it is to move on to other cities, ending up in Santiago de Cuba March 5. The fair this year honored Paraguay and a bevy of national and international writers. The extravaganza was dedicated to the bicentennials of "the first independence of Latin America" and "the First Declaration of the Abolition of Slavery," and the 220th anniversary of the Haitian revolution. "Two hundred personalities" from four continents received special invitations. Readings, concerts, theatrical and dance programs, colloquia, round tables and individual presentations took place in 800 venues. The Fair in Havana, attended by 360,000 people and 14 Latin American culture ministers, featured 158 publishers' exhibits from 27 countries. Six million books and 2,400 titles were on hand, of which four million and 513, respectively, were Cuban. Some 700,000 books were purchased, reported cubadebate.cu.

Drama in Hamburg: Germans vote amid political turmoil

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:56:00 +0000

BERLIN - In Hamburg the Christian Democrats (CDU), Angela Merkel's party, just took their worst beating in sixteen years. The mayor and his party, after ruling in an uneasy coalition with the once leftish Greens, dropped to 21.9 percent, causing national leaders to quickly claim this was only a local matter, irrelevant to six more state elections this year. The Greens, who had hoped to switch to a coalition with the Social Democrats, were also disappointed. With their poll numbers high on a national level, their Hamburg result, 11.2 percent, was only a small gain, and they will not be needed in the new government of Germany's second largest urban center.

They reason was that the Social Democrats (SPD) won an amazing victory, with 48.3 percent. This gives them 64 seats in the legislature; only 61 are needed to govern alone.

The new mayor will be Olaf Scholz, 58, a lawyer. Like so many, he was a left-winger in his youth, but later a supporter of Merkel's predecessor as Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder and held many leadership positions in the SPD.

His only claim to fame goes back to 2001 when, in charge of police in Hamburg, he insisted on the forced use of emetics against suspected drug dealers, even after this caused the death of one prisoner and was condemned by doctors and the European court in Strasbourg. But all that was mostly forgotten as he and his party joyfully celebrated an even larger than expected victory.

The two smaller parties? The Free Democrats (advocates for capitalism), nationally in a popularity crisis, mostly because people seem sick of their head, Foreign Minister Westerwelle, got 6.6 percent and thus succeeded in getting back into the legislature.

As for the Left Party, it had been a cliff-hanger. In 2008 they won 6.4 percent, giving them seats in the city-state legislature. But 2010 was a rough year, with both internal quarrels and a mass attack by all other parties after co-president Gesine Loetzsch dared utter the word Communism as a possible goal for a future society. Failing to get the required 5 percent in Hamburg would be a heavy blow, politically and psychologically. Supporters everywhere held their collective breath!

And breathed a sigh of relief! The result, exactly like 2008, was 6.4 percent! No gain, but no loss either, and both Dora Heyenn, who heads the party in Hamburg, and national leader Gesine Loetzsch looked very happy. They pledged to fight harder than ever for decently-priced homes, free kindergartens, no college tuition fees, public projects, not only for the wealthy, and environmental gains.

Keeping their eight seats in the legislature may help in the fight to get into the legislatures of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wurttemberg in southwestern Germany and possibly win first place in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. All three states vote on March 20^th.

I will close with a note about that glamorous Defense Minister, Baron von und zu Guttenberg . After it was found that his long doctorate thesis about constitutional law in the USA and Europe contained almost a hundred text sections from other sources without quotation marks or footnotes, this go-getter type was again in a corner. He insisted that he had not committed plagiarism, but would drop his title of doctor until the university made its decision. But the suspicion arose, as yet unproven, that he actually did not plagiarize, but that the whole lengthy thesis was written by one or more ghost-writers, possibly research aides in the Bundestag and paid for with taxpayer money.

Meanwhile more German soldiers he had sent to Afghanistan were killed and wounded, shot by an Afghan soldier in uniform, trained by NATO to take over. Such training was the rationale for sending foreign armies there in the first place.

Photo: Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and chairwoman of the German Christian Democrats, Feb. 21, one day after Merkel's party suffered a crushing defeat in Hamburg's state election after 10 years in power there. (Michael Sohn/AP)

Cairo looks for debt relief

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:50:00 +0000

Egypt's Finance Ministry asked Britain Feb. 22 for its support in seeking debt relief from Europe in order to boost an economy bruised by weeks of upheaval.

Finance Minister Samir Radwan said that the current government's immediate priority was enacting quick measures to boost the economy.

The protests that led to Mr Mubarak's departure ravaged Egypt's economy, forcing banks to close, businesses to shut down and the stock market to halt operations.

They also sparked massive trade union protests and strikes.

Workers in virtually every part of the public sector have been demanding better pay and conditions, as well as a shift from temporary contracts that deprive them of basic benefits such as health care and pensions.

The strikes and unrest, which have spread to the Suez Canal Authority, also forced the banks to shut for a week on two separate occasions.

In a rare incident of the strikes turning violent workers at the Kafr el-Dawar textile company stormed the office of Mohammed Rifaat El-Geneidi, the company's deputy head, today and beat him to death.

Mr Radwan said that he would like London's help in either securing full debt relief or at least relief on the interest on the loans.

Egypt owes the EU member states about $9 billion. The country's total foreign debt stands at about $34.7 billion.

European foreign ministers have already been discussing a comprehensive economic and trade package to help countries in north Africa that have been affected by the turmoil.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit yesterday and said the EU was studying ways to help Egypt's transition to democracy as well as steps the bloc could take to rebuild the economy.

She said that Brussels could provide expertise and resources but that it was up to Egyptians to determine their own future.

The government has cut its forecast for growth by almost half and has estimated that the unrest cost the nation about $1.7 billion, with more than half that figure stemming from tourism losses.

Officials have said more than 210,000 tourists fled the country in the last week of January and the first few days of February.

This article and accompanying photo originally appeared in Morning Star, Britain's daily newspaper of the left.

Video: World support for Mexican miners

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:18:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Last week, thousands of workers around the world protested the Mexican government's attack on unions, especially Los Mineros (the Mexican Miners Union). These demonstrations were coordinated by labor federations and unions from the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America, and took place in 35 countries, including cities across the US. (See video below from the Chicago action sponsored by the United Steelworkers.) Thousands of letters were delivered to Mexican Embassies and consulates demanding that the government of President Felipe Calderon end violations of union freedom, stop repression of workers, prosecute those responsible for the Pasta de Conchos mine disaster that killed 65 miners and stop the persecution of the Los Mineros union.

Many also took note of the developing actions in the US against union busting in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.

Also in Mexico City last week, the SME (Mexican Electricians Union), the CNTE (the education workers union) joined Los Mineros in a whole day of demonstrations that tied up traffic throughout the city. Los Mineros also marched on the headquarters of Grupo Mexico, the mining transnational and the teachers marched on the Department of Public Education.

Los Minores demo Feb 19 2011 from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.

Amid political turmoil, Germans rally against neo-Nazis in Dresden

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:50:00 +0000

BERLIN - By sailing up the Elbe past a dozen famous castles and cathedrals, the traveler reaches Dresden, capital of Saxony in Germany's southeastern corner, bordering Poland and the Czech Republic. In 2009, Dresden gained notoriety when there the neo-Nazi NPD party got the biggest pro-Nazi vote in all Germany, 5.6 percent, and eight deputies in the state legislature. This presence gives them a propaganda platform and a source of government euros dealt out on the basis of election returns.

And they've held annual "memorial marches" on the anniversary of the controversial 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allies (the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force) which killed at least 25,000 people and the resulting firestorm destroyed 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of the city center. Playing on the strong feelings in the city, the NPD misused the commemoration by claiming that this had been Dresden's Holocaust which had balanced out "that other one".

Last year anti-fascists found this intolerable. Fascism is not an opinion but a crime, they said, and 10,000 people, an alliance of left-wing groups, sat down for a long day in icy weather, blocking off all streets around the station where the Nazis inside choked with helpless anger at the dramatic defeat. But the Nazis vowed to make up for it this year.

The right-wing court, in a final decision, gave the Nazis the permission they needed. At the same time, under public pressure nationally, the mayor of Dresden, a woman from the Christian Democrats, organized a human chain around the whole downtown area, 14,000 strong last year, 17,000 strong this year, joining hands for two minutes while bells tolled to commemorate the dead of 1945 and oppose misuse of their memory. It was a good measure in its way, but stopped no Nazis, who planned, after a preliminary gathering on that day, February 13^th, to set their big event for February 19^th, last Saturday. 7000 or more of their number would be in Dresden for a rally and marches in various areas.

This court ruling meant the anti-fascist actions to block them were only semi-legal, but even so they were decried by the right-wing parties (the CDU and Free Democrats) who rule Dresden and Saxony and always condemn "both right and left wing extremists" as equally harmful!

Just the same, over 250 anti-Nazi buses rolled toward Dresden from all over Germany, with some from neighboring countries as well. Many more came by car or train. The final number was estimated at well over 15,000, mostly but not only young people. I, surely one of the oldest, was in a bus that left Berlin at 5:30 a.m. and reached Dresden after 9. My young partners in this exercise in civil disobedience were all friendly, helpful and full of respect that an 82-year-old joined them. But none of us were respected by the police!

At the city limits sign we had to leave the buses and walk, walk and walk, well over five miles, with cordons of heavily armed and visored police at every turn, blocking us off and splitting the group into smaller and smaller units, with helicopters circling overhead and snarling, barking dogs on the ground. Some groups were met with tear gas and water cannon, but we were luckier.

Sometimes using side streets and paths through backyards, our group of about a thousand of us reached a spot within sight of Dresden's main station where most Nazis were due to arrive. A police barricade prevented us from getting closer, and we saw nothing of them. So we simply stayed put all day, sitting or standing in the blocked-off street. It was a damp, freezing day, but people kept their good mood the whole day.

Our group came from the youth and student sections of the Left party, from youth sections of the Greens and Social Democrats, from unions, from some direct antifascist organizations, at least one atheist group, some with a sign "Queers bash the Nazis" and some anti-fascist transvestites. I also saw Turkish, Kurdish, Iranian and Chilean immigrants or exiles and quite a few anarchists with their flags.

We learned per mobile telephone that similar groups and some much larger had assembled, despite police chicanery, at other spots around the main station.

How many Nazis showed up? Estimates ranged from 800 to 3000. No one really knows since the police, to prevent pitched battles, kept them in the station just like they did in 2010.

One possible exit point was suddenly blocked by 200 young people shouting a new slogan: "Alerta! Alerta! Antifascista!" There were simply too many of us! The police saw no way of letting the Nazis go to their meeting site, where only about 40 locals waited disconsolately. Finally, totally frustrated, the Nazis gave up; about 500 took the train to Leipzig, Saxony's second city, but were not allowed to demonstrate there.

Late that night the media reported briefly that there had been violence by a group of so-called autonomists. The main organizers of the action had prepared all of us in the buses and had stressed our non-violent methods, but there are always one or two who seem happy to provide the desired nasty headlines for the mass media. Many suspected that provocateurs had again been at work. This gave the police, who had been sent in from the most distant regions of Germany, an excuse to attack the press center of the anti-fascist demonstration in the building of the Left party, kicking in doors, hurting one person and seizing computers. They claimed they "suspected plans for violence."

But at the end of the day as our thousands made our way through town to get to our buses (I was back in Berlin at 10.30 p.m.), we were certain that we had once again used a form of civil disobedience in the spirit of Thoreau and Martin Luther King. But also in the fighting spirit of the anti-fascist volunteers in the Spanish Civil War 75 years earlier, still using the slogan No pasaran!, They shall not pass! We had been able to prevent at least one fascist march. The Nazis remained a hateful menace, but had suffered one more real defeat and would perhaps give up on Dresden in future. It was a hard day, especially for elder participants like me, but more than satisfying.

Photo: Police officers blocking the entrance to the the train station in Dresden, Feb. 19. Pawel Sosnowski / AP

Security council tells Gaddafi to stop the killing

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:12:00 +0000

(Morning Star) Western nations urged the UN Security Council today to demand an immediate end to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's crackdown on civilian protesters and strongly condemned the violence.

The UN body met behind closed doors to discuss possible council action, demanding an immediate end to the crackdown and calling on all parties to act with restraint and respect human rights and international law.

The council met as the bodies of slain protesters littered the streets of the Libyan capital.

Frightened residents stayed in their homes as government forces sought to crush anti-government demonstrations by shooting anyone outside on sight.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who spoke to the Libyan leader on Monday, warned that the attacks on protesters were "a serious violation of international humanitarian law."

President Gaddafi appeared on state TV in the early hours today to show that he was still in charge, brandishing a large umbrella and denying reports that he had left the country.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that at least 250 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in the crackdown on protesters in Libya, though its officials said the true number was not known.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Mr Gaddafi to "stop this unacceptable bloodshed" and said the world was watching the events "with alarm."

This article originally appeared in the Morning Star, the daily newspaper of the British left.

Flip-flops and elections in Germany

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:56:00 +0000

BERLIN - So much happening in and outside Germany! Most dramatic were the revolutionary events on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Aside from amazement that those decade-long dictators and crooks could be forced out by the will of the people, there were some worries among sun-seeking German vacationers who annually flee the icy waters of the Baltic and North Sea and swarm to Tunisian and Egyptian beaches, the equivalent of the Caribbean for some Americans. But their worries faded next to those of political leaders of the main parties here. For years they, like Americans and other Western Europeans, had been so chummy with Mubarak and the others! They had also exported all kinds of military supplies to them, even the water cannon used to knock down demonstrators. Now they had to do a rapid flip-flop and pretend they had really always favored democracy and human rights. And the tortures they had so lightly overlooked? Tortures? What tortures! "We wish the new governments well," they swore, and would gladly advise them all about democracy, while insisting that they keep to the same crooked Near East policies they had all been so happy with.

Flip-flops were nothing new. Both the Social Democrats and the Greens, when in power, had created a mixture of jobless insurance and the dole which puts fear into the hearts of all those faced with a loss of their jobs. They would not starve, it is true, but could soon be reduced to a loss of apartment and all property or savings, and perhaps be forced into a worse job at far less than minimal pay - or lose even minimal benefits.

The German Supreme Court - more human than the one in Washington - had ruled that the amount granted was not enough to live on decently, especially for children. The government decided to grant some money for children's activities while cutting some benefits but granting an additional 5 Euros more a month - currently less than $7.

The Social Democrats and Greens assumed a defiant posture." Not with us!" they declared, as if it had not been their parties which originated this so-called Hartz IV program (named for a Volkswagen-backed politician, long since on parole after a bribery scandal). The government could not get its new rules through the Upper House or Bundesrat without Social Democratic or Green support so the four parties wrangled for weeks and weeks, while both tried to adapt minimum wage proposals swiped from the Left party. It is now possible the four will compromise, not at 5 but at 8 euros ($11) monthly.

It is a very open secret: behind the wrangling was the fact that seven important state elections are due this year and every party wants to be seen as generous, or at least determined. And the tactic is to act as if the Left party, die LINKE, is not even in the running. After its long inner problems and quarrels, and vitriolic attacks because its chairwoman briefly mentioned communism as a future possibility, die LINKE is not in a favorable position, but still hopes to squeeze into two more West German state parliaments in March with a vote over the 5 percent mark. At the moment it is hovering around 4 percent. In eastern Germany, with more than 20 percent, it hopes to win second or even first status in two votes.

The first election is due on Sunday, February 20, in Hamburg, where the Greens and the Christian Democrats had been united in a very uneasy relationship ending finally in divorce. It seems certain that the Social Democrats will win this one; the question is whether they get a majority and can rule alone or only a plurality and have to let the Greens hold a few cabinet posts. Any victory will help them out of two years of doldrums and miserable poll results. For the Left, it would seem they can again get more than 5 percent in Hamburg. Nothing is certain, however.

But pity the poor Christian Democrats. Not only do they have a snowball's chance in hell in the big port city of Hamburg, but Angela Merkel's star is generally shining less brightly these days. And real floundering is being demonstrated by her defense minister, Herr Baron von und zu Guttenberg, the handsome young knight in shiny armor from Bavaria who had the highest popularity ratings in all of Germany. In a previous report some of his recent embarrassments were mentioned; the latest one is bigger yet.

It has been found that his book on political questions, a summa cum laude thesis which got him his doctorate (and that Dr. title is far more important in Germany than elsewhere), contained pages and pages of text copied from other people's writings while neglecting to mention these borrowings. Guttenberg quickly flew to Afghanistan to check over the situation there once again and has not yet either come clean or denied the growing number of accusations by plagiarized authors. The professors in Bayreuth University will take two weeks to decide on the matter. Even if their knees weaken, a distinct possibility in a case involving so many noble and wealthy titles, his reputation will never be the same, and he may just have to retire to his ancient castle in the mountains. This might also affect results for the two allied "Christian" parties in the coming elections.

Happily, there is also another world in the news these days. The film festival in Berlin is nearing its end; for a week movie theaters all over town were filled with film-lovers, or those who can afford the tickets. There are not just feature films but documentaries, children's films, shorts and others, but the main attention is on films in competition and on stars, old and new. Among them was an aging but still lively Harry Belafonte, who brought a film of his own.

One poignant angle is that a seat in the jury remained empty; it was for the director Jafar Panahi who is in prison in Iran for six years, with a 20-year ban on film-making. There was a combined demand for his freedom. A film by another Iranian director is being shown and not a few films from the "developing countries."

It would seem that none of the offerings have been heaven-stormers this year, though one favorite for the Golden Bear, by two German-Turkish sisters, illustrates life in Germany for Turkish immigrants and their kids and in Turkey for returning, Germanized Turks. It's no angry protest but a fine comedy and perhaps one more answer, like the wonderful scenes from the Arab world, to the ugly racist Muslimophobia which was spread so nastily this past year in Germany and elsewhere.

But the winners are still undecided. We will know everything by Sunday, also the results of the Hamburg election, the first of this year's important series. And things keep moving fast down in Bahrain, Libya and elsewhere. There's lots of news to expect; my next bulletin will tell about them.

Photo: German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Guido Westerwelle, from left, speak at a news conference in Berlin, Feb. 16. (AP/Michael Sohn)

Egypt’s revolution: diary of an “intellectual guerilla”

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:15:00 +0000

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - The January 25, 2011, "white revolution" triumphed against tyranny in Egypt by a combination of the youths' vision and their technology expertise, good luck, in addition to the armed forces' tacit endorsement of their fundamental legitimate demands for democracy, a respect for human rights and social justice.

Their good luck lay primarily in the government's slow-motion response to few of their demands, coupled to Hosni Mubarak's much-delayed arrogant speeches. This led to their realization that the whole regime had to be abolished.

When we all worried that the demonstrators would suffer from exhaustion, or that the protests could fizzle out, a number of tragic events outraged public opinion greatly, namely, what we now call the "battle of the camels," which left many young bright promising protesters dead ... and the public breakdown in tears, on a TV channel, of Wael Ghoneim, a Google manager in Dubai and online activist. He had just been released, after being arrested and kept blindfolded for 12 days, shortly after the protests began. So, the crowds kept streaming to Tahrir Square over the following days, but they never lost their courtesy, grace and humour.

For 18 long days, those who remained at home like me held their breath. But then, I've never been good at protest rallies. A few years ago, as I was stepping out of the Royal United Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London (RUSI), having attended a meeting there, someone berated me for not having demonstrated for one cause or another ... I can't remember which. Before I could answer, my good friend Dr. Afif Safieh, the former Palestinian ambassador to London, Washington and Moscow, retorted, saying, "She's an intellectual guerrilla." Well, I'm still doing what I do best ... for the Palestinian cause, for the plight of the Iraqis and the Kurds under Saddam Hussein, for my beloved Egypt always.

Right after the parliamentary "elections" [November-December 2010] I had absolute proof that the powers-to-be were watching Internet traffic, but I continued doing what I could to support ‑ and garner support for ‑ the legitimate fundamental rights that we were demanding.

Now that our youth have freed my country, memories, emotions, facts keep coming back to me. For the sake of my grandchildren and their generation, I'll try to write my impressions about that wondrous event, how it developed, its highlights, and its climax.

Jan. 26, 2011:
The Internet is not available at times. Nevertheless, the government denied tampering with it, or with Facebook, Twitter, and websites of local opposition papers, as well as foreign papers and satellite TV stations. Today, the authorities said they will do so tomorrow. My God, I thought, we've become so dependent on the Internet. Also, mobile phones weren't operating.

I decided to stop buying Al-Ahram newspaper, as did many of my friends.

Jan. 30:
A TV crew discovered 23 bodies in the Alexandria mortuary, shot by the police. Several had ghastly mutilated faces. Their families, assembled there, screamed for retaliation against the police.

Feb. 3:
For the past few days, I could hardly sleep ... three hours at the most, and I'm unable to do anything except watch quickly developing events ... statements ... interviews, both in Egypt and abroad, on TV stations. The Internet is back thanks to the new prime minister's orders. Ahmad Shafik has taken over at a difficult time. He seems to be trustworthy, but I'm in a wait‑and‑see mode to judge his performance, despite his excellent career history, whether military or civilian. He is reputed as being competent ... an achiever, and his character is a mix of flexibility in methodology, i.e., ready to listen to others' opinions and adopt them if they're good, while decisive in firing under-performing people. I met him officially once last July, when we were seated next to each other over lunch, and found him extremely polished, diplomatic and courteous, with a low-key sense of humour. One of my 31 first cousins (on my mother's side), a retired air force general, was his assistant for many years.

Feb. 4:
Thank God for blessing me with many friends, even among my daughters' friends, and the younger generation of family members, who phone me daily, sometimes more than once, to make sure I'm alright, safe, in need of nothing, offering their services, and also to pick my brain about developments, analysis and predictions ... though in this extremely fluid situation, internally and internationally, when events are moving so quickly, no one can claim to foresee what is in the cards. Today is decisive. May God Almighty save Egypt from any mischievous forces, local or foreign, at this grave historical juncture.

As for provisions and petrol for the car, I had to drive outside of Alexandria about 60 km to refuel and refill. Most petrol stations are shut, while others had long, long queues. Shelves in supermarkets in town are emptying, while crowds are of a number unseen before. Apart from that, I had to remain at home since the 25th.

Feb. 5:
A New Yorker article on the newly appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman made for chilling reading. I received it from sources outside Egypt. Mubarak's going-away "present" to us, Suleiman, the perverse head of the feared Mukhabarat [secret police], would have thrown Egyptians under the yoke of a sadistic leader, one worse than his master. He is said to have enjoyed personally supervising the torture of the people "renditioned" by the U.S., and even devised new ways of abuse. He is very popular with the Israeli government, and had a direct hot phone line to Israel. "Bibi" [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] was overjoyed by news of his appointment. I suggest he be "exported" to the U.S. or to Israel, once the regime is toppled, hopefully. I'm sure he'll be highly appreciated there. Ha! Ha!

Feb. 7:
Very few of the "mafia" oligarchy, who amassed fortunes illegally, were named, and will be prosecuted. Many more, from the lists I have, should also be brought to justice, and, if found guilty, have their fortunes, in the Swiss banks, or elsewhere, returned to their rightful owner - Egypt. These funds could pay back Egypt's foreign debt; establish labour-intensive infrastructural projects and industrial and agricultural enterprises that would absorb the hundreds of thousands of unemployed, or underemployed and underpaid youths; also substantially increase wages; create a fund for the unemployed; and improve health and education, and other services.

Feb. 10:
I'm infuriated, nauseated, and much more, after Mubarak's speech. He has no shame, no pride. Benjamin Netanyahu must have been cheering that his buddy is still here, and must have popped more than one champagne bottle.

Feb. 11:
FINALLY!!!! At hearing the news of Mubarak's capitulation, in a terse 50-word communiqué by Omar Suleiman, I could not help myself jumping up and down, screaming, laughing, crying.

I can once again be proud - very proud - of being an Egyptian. I'm unbelievably happy to feel that my country, hijacked long ago, has been returned to me by these valiant youngsters, who kept to their promise to march peacefully, despite attacks by criminal NDP [Mubarak's National Democratic Party] thugs, the only time they had to be violent in self-defence. They proved that they could be stronger than one of the worst tyrannies.

Thank God for ridding Egypt of Mubarak's going-away "present." Finally, young Egyptians have given us an "ex‑president." We never had one, except for Mohammad Naguib, who remained under house arrest until his death.

Feb. 12:
The channels I watched during the past 17 days, by order of priority, because of their objectivity and credibility in my view, were France 24 in French and English (Arabic was canceled), and BBC World (English and Arabic). Sometimes, I used to turn to Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera International (Arabic was canceled, then restored later), though the latter often aired news that it was forced to deny later. Al Arabiya seemed to side with Mubarak, or at least, was wary about the democracy movement gaining ground. Statements by American very senior officials on CNN were often contradictory, mirroring policies that seemed vacillating, which I saw as the dilemma/conundrum they were faced with, namely, side with the ideals of the revolutionaries, who demanded democracy, and on the other hand, the pressures by Netanyahu, who was markedly frantic, during a press conference with Angela Merkel. Israel even allowed the Egyptian army to deploy some units to Sharm El Sheikh. Did Bibi know that his buddy would eventually move there? I never watched Egyptian TV, but will start now that the regime fell, and that consequently, the Minister of Information, Anas El Feqi, was removed. He reminded me of Saddam Hussein's El Sahhaf, at the time of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. I strongly feel that this post should be scrapped, and Egyptian TV and radio turned into a corporation, independent of government influence.

Feb. 13:
One of the guests on the Andrew Marr show this morning on BBC TV was the Egyptian ambassador to London, H Seif el Nasr. Although he made a very good impression, both in replying to probing questions and fielding others, I was infuriated. Asked whether Mubarak should be put on trial, because of the billions he had amassed, he said that that was not the Egyptian's way - that we retained a certain deference for our leaders.

"Deference" for a corrupt and corrupting "leader"?!!! How can Mr. Ambassador - or anyone else for that matter - have "deference" for a swindler-in-chief, who not only sucked Egypt's resources dry, but also allowed his sons and their cohorts to embezzle in a grand manner, to terrorize the population, and to kill and maim with impunity.

I won't apologize for my outburst, as there's too much on my chest.

I find it revolting that a clique - quite a large one as a matter of fact - have skimmed off Egypt's resources, then claimed that our country's economy has grown in the past five years, under their stewardship, while ignoring the fact that half the population lives in abject extreme poverty ... that the education system and health "services" couldn't be worse (which forced the poor to go to private doctors, and pay for their medication, and hire private tutors for their children - private tuition fees in Egypt totalled approximately LE5 billion last year [Egyptian pounds, about $850 million in current dollars] ... that university graduates' monthly wages were LE300, while some ministers' was LE2 million a month, such as the former Minister of Interior, Habib El Adly ... and some senior police officers' pay was five and six digits, while policemen's were a mere couple of hundreds, sometimes less, which led the latter to terrorize small merchants and the poor to pay them "mafia type protection" or a bribe to do the job they were supposed to do ... and more and more.

******

As for Tahrir Square, based on TV, the Internet, reports I received from others and my own observations:

1. The demonstrations were peaceful at all times, except when they had to defend themselves against the NDP thugs, who used rocks, Molotov cocktails, and even stormed in on camel and horseback, one night. They were even targeted by snipers on rooftops, and those killed had bullet wounds to their heads and chests.

2. Neither American nor Israeli nor any other flags were burnt.

3. While thugs manhandled and arrested foreigners, protesters were friendly towards them, and never attacked any of the hotels.

4. When the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to shout Islamic slogans, they were silenced, once and for all, by the other participants, and modern‑attired young women were seen having serious friendly discussions with bearded Islamists.

5. Egypt's streets were notorious for sexual harassment ... not one case was reported;

6. In the beginning, the participants were the educated middle-class and upper middle‑class computer‑savvy male and female youth, followed later on, as their movement seemed to gain popularity by their sheer resilience, by families from all walks of life, members of professional syndicates and labour unions, artists (singers, actors, painters, musicians, etc.), authors, poets, opposition politicians ... thousands waved the Egyptian flag, and either sang patriotic songs, or newly created ones ... evenings, they listened to poets and singers, cracked jokes about Mubarak and the regime, and, more seriously, planned for their next steps.

7. They regularly swept the square and even hired mini-trucks to take the garbage to the dumps.

8. Families, individuals and the troops distributed food, some cooked in homes, and some from delivery shops, as well as water bottles.

9. Doctors and surgeons, elderly and young, assisted by their nurses, left their private hospitals, provided sophisticated medical equipment, medicines, bandages, etc., and set up field hospitals across the square, the biggest in the well-known Omar Makram mosque (where my mother's funerary service took place, one year ago).

10. Homes surrounding the square provided the girls with the opportunity to rest a little and use their bathrooms, while shops, cafes and other establishments allowed boys to use their toilets.

11. Later on, public toilets in the square, shut by the government previously, were opened and refurbished by the participants ... the sign on it read Maqar al Hizb al Wati, a play on words by removing the noun (meaning the headquarters of the NDP).

12. Apart from those who demanded that Mubarak must leave, for the regime to fall, for the NDP to be banned, some placards, used by the demonstrators, affirmed the Egyptians' sense of humour, such as, "Mubarak, leave, my wife is in labour and the baby doesn't want to see you" ... "Mubarak, leave, I miss my wife (I've been married for 16 days)", "Mubarak, I'm a carpenter, tell me what glue you use" ... "Suzanne, if you love him, take him away" ... "Mubarak, I've been holding this sign for too long, leave, my arm is hurting" ... "America has Batman and Spiderman, Egypt has Suleiman"...

13. To show the regime their resilience ... their decision to remain in the square until their demands were met, and that life would go on regardless, two young fiancés had their marriage ceremony performed by a sheikh in the square ... the bride wore her wedding dress, while the crowds cheered and offered their congratulations, along with sweets and sherbet.

14. They showed their inventiveness in many ways, from setting up tents, mainly for the female participants to sleep under more comfortably, as well as to shelter under when it rained; to connecting to the street lights to charge their mobiles, or to boil water for hot drinks; to establishing a supervised nursery, with kids given toys, colour pencils and papers; water and food distribution, as well as garbage collection points (the latter also with a humorous sign saying "NDP MPs [members of Parliament]"); and more; in fact, Tahrir Square became a well-organized mini-state.

15. The male demonstrators formed a circle, holding hands, and guarded a "lost-and-found" display in the middle, where many, many IDs, mobile phones, even cash and other objects were exhibited;

16. Most importantly, despite Pope Shenouda's call to the Coptic community [Pope Shenouda is the head of the Coptic Church in Alexandria] to stay away from the demonstrations, thousands of his parishioners joined, as a show of solidarity with Muslims.

On 6 January, the Coptic Christmas eve, Muslims from all walks of life had held vigils as human shields at churches across Egypt, following the New Year's Eve massacre at a church in Alexandria (now documents have proven that it has been the work of the police, under the supervision of the former Minister of the Interior).

I was deeply touched when I saw the Copts holding hands and encircling the Muslims at prayer times, to guard them, while the police, assisted by their hired thugs, used water cannons, bludgeons, machetes and swords, live and rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas canisters against them all.

The Copts also helped their Muslim brethren in the pre‑prayer ablutions, by pouring water for them ... and because the youngsters didn't have enough mikes for all those in the square to hear the words "Allahu Akbar" [God is great] which is repeated during prayers to sync their movements when they bend and prostrate, the young Copts relayed the words to those far from the mikes, and could be seen and heard shouting "Allahu Akbar." I still get goose pimples, even while I'm writing.

17. As a final act, the demonstrators decided to clean up the square, one more time, before going home, and even gave a "bath and scrub" to the two lions at the entrance of Kasr El Nil bridge, and painted the walls and the pavement stones that had been damaged.

******

Across Egypt, when the police forces vanished, the youngsters were stationed at street intersections. Never was traffic as regulated as when they were in charge, and drivers cooperated beautifully. No driver tried to "burn" a red traffic light, something unheard of for many years.

At the same time, when garbage collectors also disappeared, housewives and twenty-somethings and teenagers swept the streets, gathered the garbage in sacks and stacked them at streetcorners, painted tramway stations and walls that had been damaged by anti-Mubarak graffiti. I saw one of them, Safiyah, the daughter of the late prime minister of Egypt under the monarchy, Nuqrashi Pasha, who was killed by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1948. In some neighbourhoods, including mine, mini-trucks were hired to take the garbage to the dumps. This is continuing until now, and the streets in some areas have never been cleaner.

When the police opened the prisons, freed thieves, burglars and other criminals, abandoning their weapons before disappearing, neighborhood watches were established right away. In the evenings, fathers kept watch in front of the buildings, armed with iron pipes, wooden sticks, kitchen knives, and, in rare cases, licensed pistols or shotguns. From midnight on, the sons took over that responsibility.

In tandem, the army deployed tanks to sensitive areas. For instance, because I live about two hundred meters from the residence of the Alexandria governor and the Jewelry Museum on one side, and two presidential residences on the other, several tanks have kept my building safe. Nevertheless, male residents also spent the night guarding us.

The Swiss Federation of Banks froze the Mubarak assets half an hour after he resigned. Bravo. I hope that Egypt will recalibrate its relations with other countries, based on their willingness to do the same. Some of the countries named in that respect are the U.S., the UK, France and Brazil, and probably many others. Calls have already moved to follow the Swiss example and freeze assets, but I wonder whether it makes a difference that Mubarak's wife and son are said to be British.

As for Tahrir Square, it has been vacated by most. A score have remained. Those are the families of those assassinated in the square, asking for the perpetrators of violence and assassinations to be found, arrested and brought to justice, in addition to the families of the "disappeared" during the protests, demanding that their whereabouts be revealed and released.

Strikes are nationwide. In the past six years there were 2,500 strikes, and last year, 56 workers committed suicide.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is facing an extremely challenging task, nevertheless, their communiqués are focussed, wisely and matter-of-factly worded, and their actions up to now have been applauded by the people (suspension of the Constitution, dissolution of the two Chambers, prosecution of a number of senior officials and the freezing of their assets, orders to the border police to prevent former officials from travel abroad).

Feb. 15:
My inbox is swollen, what with more and more people becoming keen to exchange information about the revolution (articles, YouTube new patriotic songs and poems composed in the square, slogans, photos of people in the square and elsewhere across Egypt ‑ from Aswan to Alexandria and from Marsa Matrouh to Suez and the Sinai, etc.) - so much so that I'm swamped and overwhelmed.

Feb. 16:
TV satellite programmes, with graphic photographs of some of the torture chambers in police stations, including one in Alexandria, have shown the instruments used against the population. The death under torture of a young man last spring in my city of Alexandria actually was one of the sparks that led to the revolution. A new opposition movement was formed at the time, and became part of the core of the protest organizers. In addition, families now speak openly about what their sons suffered at the hands of the Mukhabarat, after having been muzzled by the perpetrators of those crimes, with threats of retribution.

One of them is my husband's grand‑nephew. The young man had absolutely no political activities, but was picked up while on his way home, one night. For ten days, his mother didn't know his whereabouts, until she contacted her cousin, a close friend of Suzanne Mubarak. He was released, on condition he and his family don't ever reveal what happened to him during his detention, but the boy seemed psychologically broken.

Feb. 17:
Of course, everyone is speculating about what the future might hold. Let's hope for more of what we all had dreamt for. May God Almighty save Egypt, and may its courageous young women and men be graced with health, happiness and prosperity.

Dr. Nadia E. El-Shazly is an Egyptian international relations scholar and author of "The Gulf Tanker War: Iran and Iraq's Maritime Swordplay" (1998).

Photo: Cairo, Feb. 4, 2011. Twitter user Gsquare86 via mikeporterinmd

Ecuadorian judge says Chevron must pay $8 billion

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:24:00 +0000

After a 17-year trial, Judge Nicolas Zambrano of the Sucumbios, Ecuador, provincial court, ruled on Monday, Feb. 14, that the U.S.-based petroleum giant Chevron must pay $8.2 billion plus costs to plaintiffs in an environmental pollution suit brought by mostly indigenous residents of the oil rich Ecuadorian Amazon. Plaintiffs' attorney Pablo Fajardo praised the ruling as historic, but both sides are likely to appeal: Chevron because they say that they consider the ruling fraudulent and unjust, and the plaintiffs, who number over 30,000 people, because the award is such a small proportion of the $113 billion they were originally asking.

In the 1970s, Texaco operated the drilling operations in the Amazonian jungles of Ecuador, jointly with Petroecuador, the national oil company. Plaintiffs and environmental and indigenous rights activists accuse the company of engaging in practices that allowed large amounts of oil and byproducts into the local water supply, damaging the environment and poisoning both livestock and people. Perhaps as many as a thousand deaths from cancer and other diseases have been attributed to these abusive practices.

In 2001 Chevron bought out the operations from Texaco (making Texaco-Ecuador a subsidiary of Chevron). Under international and Ecuadorian law, this made Chevron responsible for cleaning up the environment and paying compensation to the victims. However, Chevron has been fighting the charges both in the courts and through a media campaign that seeks to portray the Ecuadorian judiciary as corrupt and the plaintiffs and their attorneys as being out for a quick profit. Chevron has challenged research results on the environmental and health damage, saying environmentalist groups have influenced it.

Chevron won a ruling against the government of Ecuador on March 30, 2010, in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The victory was based on the slowness of the Ecuadorian justice system, which Chevron alleged violates the bilateral investment treaty between Ecuador and the United States. The ruling requires Ecuador to pay $700 million in damages to Chevron. Also, on Feb. 9 of this year, the Court of Arbitration preemptively ordered Ecuador to suspend any payment of judge Zambrano's judgment.

In the U.S., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District issued a temporary restraining order against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their lawyers to prevent them from taking further action to collect on Jude Zambrano's ruling.

This brings to light the tug of war between the sovereignty of an independent nation like Ecuador and its right to maintain its own legal system, and the infringement of that right under some aspects of corporate globalization, always in favor of big corporations and wealthy countries.

Ecuador's progressive president, Rafael Correa, has been fighting for his country to get a bigger share of the profits from foreign oil companies, and for a greater degree of control over national resources. Correa had angered Chevron by openly siding with the plaintiffs' in the case. Correa came to power in the 2006 national elections with the help of large mobilizations of indigenous people, but since then has had some difficulty in satisfying the demands of this important sector of his political base. Some indigenous organizations feel that he has not gone far enough in restoring sovereignty over Amazonian forest regions to their original inhabitants.

Should the money ever be handed over to Ecuador, most of it is to go to restoring contaminated soil and water, with an additional amount to deal with health needs of the people of the area. Judge Zambrano ruled, also, that if Chevron does not apologize for the damage they did within 15 days, they would have to pay even more.

At writing, the plaintiffs had just announced that they will appeal the size of the award, which they consider insufficient. Chevron has said it would also challenge the ruling.

The story of the local litigation in Ecuador, including commentary by local residents affected by the environmental contamination, can be seen in the fascinating documentary film "Crude: The Real Price of Oil" by Joe Berlinger. Image courtesy Rainforest Action Network // CC BY-NC 2.0

World Notes: Cuba, Afghanistan, Italy and more

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:48:00 +0000

Argentina: U.S. military brings in contraband

The manifest didn't mention communications equipment, machine guns, rifles and narcotics, so customs officials commandeered the 1,000 cubic feet of material on board a U.S. Defense Department plane flying into Buenos Aires Feb. 10. The supplies were to be used by U.S. marines offering the police a five-week course on hostage rescue. That course was postponed last August, reports Pagina 12, on interruption of a similarly illicit shipment. This time the U.S. ambassador's insistence that one container remain sealed caused a two day airport standoff. Marines rotated the duty of sitting on the box, while the foreign minister and U.S. military personnel hovered. Once the box was opened and contraband seized, the supplies went on to the U.S. Embassy.

Italy: Berlusconi must go, say women

Less than half of Italian women are employed, while the European average is 60 percent. That, plus reduced pensions, skewed family support policies and media stereotyping of women were issues bringing over a million women into the streets of 280 cities Feb. 13. The trigger for the unprecedented outpouring was anger at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's much publicized flamboyant relations with underage sex workers, for which he will soon go on trial. Pina Nuzzo, president of the Italian Union of Women, told IPS, "The common thought is that, towards the economic crisis, dismissing a woman is less grave. For young women - those who don't take the path of sexual shortcuts - it is still hard to get a job."

Senegal: Dakar hosts World Social Forum

Ten years after the Forums began in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the World Social Forum, gathered in Dakar, Senegal, Feb. 6-11, attracting 75,000 participants from 132 countries. They attended 1,200 workshops, cultural events, seminars and panels. Bolivian President Evo Morales opened the event, calling for a "mobilization against imperialism" and denouncing privatization of basic services and natural resources. Planning had focused on "three strategic axes" - analysis of the world economic crisis, strategies for resistance and democratic alternatives. Principal "protagonists" on hand, says the TeleSur report, were "women with their organizations and networks, small farmers [fighting] against land concentration and, especially, migrants." Eyes, however, were on Egypt: "Many other African presidents today are trembling in fear on seeing what's happening there," observed Senegalese intellectual Demba Moussa Dembélé.

Global: World labor group issues jobs report

The International Labor Organization released its annual report on Global Employment Trends in late January. It reviewed employment status worldwide during the period of global recovery from economic crisis. Data from 2010 show unemployment remaining high while other indicators, among them global GDP, consumption, trade and equity markets, are improving. Worldwide unemployment at 6.2 percent exceeds the 5.6 percent level of 2007. One in five workers, 630 million in all, earn $1.25 per day or less. They include 40 million additional workers who recently entered that category due to the economic crisis. The report warns prioritization of fiscal deficit reduction over job creation could jeopardize job prospects for last year's 205 million unemployed workers.

Afghanistan: U.S. military would remain

Speaking to reporters on Feb. 8, President Hamid Karzai indicated plans were in the works for permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan, although he insisted his government and a tribal council, known as a Loya Jirga, would have the final say. Quoted by PressTV, Karzai explained, "We believe that a long-term relationship with the United States is in the interest of Afghanistan." He insisted such bases would pose no threat to neighboring countries. In mid-January, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, visiting the country with six other Republican senators, suggested long-term U.S. bases there would serve the interests of both countries. The U.S. government last year strengthened its forces in Afghanistan, but indicated the host government would assume security responsibilities beginning in 2014.

Cuba: Chinese solidarity builds

Interviewed recently on Rebelion.org, Chinese Ambassador Liu Yuquin points out that his country's commercial dealings with Cuba, second only to Venezuela's, contribute to improved living conditions there. Chinese importation of Cuban sugar, rum and bio-medical products complement Cuban purchases of cars, buses, refrigerators, electronic devices and communications products from China. Bilateral trade rose from $800 million in 2006 to $1.8 billion last year. The newly opened Gran Melía-Shanghai Hotel, in addition to plans for a hotel near the Hemingway Marina, typifies expanding joint venture projects. Chinese technical teams, already involved in modernizing Cuban telecommunications, will join in putting the new Venezuelan - Cuban undersea fiber optic cable into service. Cuba recognized the People's Republic of China in 1959, a Latin American first.

Honduras powerbrokers beat up on the poor

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:26:00 +0000

Former President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya offended established classes by allying Honduras with the left wing ALBA Latin American solidarity alliance and calling for a minimum wage for Honduran workers, so he was removed from office in a June, 2009 coup. In the year after Porfirio Lobo became president of Honduras the disaster for the Honduran people has become clear.

The toll of political murders under Lobo rose to 64 victims last month, reported human rights leader Bertha Oliva. According to the Global Peace Index, Honduras last year was Latin America's second-most violent country.

After protesting school privatization plans and reduced school salaries, a teachers' union paid the price: soldiers occupied their headquarters and a member was murdered. On January 25, tear gas and helicopter flyovers ended a street protest by another teachers' union and four leaders were jailed on sedition and terrorism charges.

Kidnappings, death threats, military occupations, and victimization of reporters are pervasive. Human rights worker "Yuli X" told an interviewer of paramilitary intrusions in her community, a death threat against her 19-year-old daughter, and blacklisting. She went into exile after a comrade's family members were killed. "State terrorism is the government's policy against people who've decided not to be quiet," she explained, but "people are in the streets and they aren't going to be silent."

The opposition National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) is under siege. After two days of police torture, FNRP leader Juan Chinchilla escaped on January 10. In hiding, he told an interviewer: "We are in struggling against the landowners ... the government favors them and not the people."

Chinchilla helps direct the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA), engaged in fighting big landowner takeovers of small farmers' ancestral land in Bajo Aguan. A court decision last year nullified the Zelaya government's agrarian reform Decree 18-2008 that enabled thousands of farmers to remain on their land.

The Lobo government designated much of Bajo Aguan as a "special administrative district," thereby opening the door for public and private security forces to secure land for entrepreneurs like Miguel Facussé. He and others claimed vast acreage to produce palm oil for bio-fuels, A local priest, Fausto Milla reports that fighting over the contested lands has taken 35 lives.

In January soldiers and privately hired thugs occupied the Buenos Amigos community and burned homes. In Sabá 80 gunmen removed 120 MUCA-affiliated families. They hunted down MUCA leaders and jailed two of them. In Tocoa, armed men expelled 15 farm families and jailed 21 people including five women and five children.

The Garifuna people's ancestral land rights in northeast Honduras are under similar attack. Their OFRANEH advocacy group says illegal land sales there to big buyers are multiplying. Community leaders and the community radio station director have received death threats.

The opposition is against the development of plants to convert African Palm residue into bio-gas. Facussé's Dinant Group has attracted over $100 million in potential international investments for their plant. The bio-gas project is hyped as ideal for rich and poor nations to exchange carbon gas emission limits as prescribed by the Kyoto protocol and implemented under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism. But on February 4, 78 environmental and human rights groups, OFRANEH among them, petitioned Great Britain to deny authorization and funding for the project.

These abuses play out with U.S. involvement under the guise of fighting drug trafficking. According to Wikileaks cables, U.S. embassy communications labeled the 2009 military coup as "totally illegitimate." Nevertheless, Washington's support for the post-coup governments continued. Other leaked cables show a just-elected Porfirio Lobo calling at the U.S. embassy to receive instructions on appointing his cabinet.

General René Osorio helped plot the coup. As of January, the School of the Americas graduate heads the armed forces. Early February visits to Tegucigalpa from U.S. Defense Department officials led to announcements that Honduras' armed forces would expand, that a Plan Central America similar to Plan Colombia was contemplated, and that "regional security" would protect against drug trafficking.

The U.S. is building two new military bases in Honduras. Washington provides police training and has installed a military communications center for the Central American region. Drones now operate out of the Soto Cano Air Base (commonly known as Palmerola Air Base), a Honduran military base used by the U.S. military.

President Porfirio Lobo supports legislation that would remove the constitutional ban on presidential reelection. The FNRP is rejecting participation in elections set for 2013, opting instead for a constituent assembly approved by 1.3 million signatories on a petition the FNRP circulated last year. On January 26, 28 thousand regime opponents observed the one year anniversary of the Lobo presidency with anti-Lobo demonstrations.

Photo: A protest against on the attacks on journalists in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. International human rights monitors are investigating. The banner reads in Spanish "Journalists for life, truth and justice." (Fernando Antonio/AP)

Support for Cuban Five in U.S. capital

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:53:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Nearly 100 students, faculty and local residents turned out Feb. 8 at Howard University for a panel discussion on the Cuban Five.

On the panel were attorney Luis Rumbaut of the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund; Carl Gentile, who is helping to coordinate labor outreach for the sponsoring group; Kathryn Striffolino, Amnesty International's associate director of international advocacy for Latin America; artist Kamau Benjamin, chair of the DC Metro Committee to Free the Cuban Five and Howard University Professor John Trimble.

Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González - the Cuban Five - infiltrated exile groups, who sponsor the anti-Cuba terror, in Miami to find out their plans. They collected 64 files worth of information and turned them over to the Cuban government, hoping to stop the attacks. The Cuban authorities gave the files to U.S. security officials, hoping that the American authorities would stop the terrorist attacks coming from within its borders.

Striffolino discussed the trial that resulted in the conviction of all five Cubans. In Miami, the atmosphere towards Cuba is hostile and many actual terrorists and their supporters live there. Consequently, a change of venue petition was filed - and denied. Further, it has now come to light that journalists were paid to write stories to increase the anti-Cuban Five hysteria during the trial. The jury was composed of people who were from this community, and many believe that in such an atmosphere even the semblance of a fair trial was impossible.

The U.S. government seized materials from the houses of the Five that were needed by the defense and marked them "top secret," making it nearly impossible for the defense lawyers to get to the materials.

The Five were charged with conspiracy, but months later a second charge was added, after Cuba shot down a plane flown by one of the groups. "Brothers to the Rescue," the group, had often flown over Cuban airspace previously and had been warned against doing so. This time the Cubans shot down the plane and two members were killed. The planned flight was common knowledge in Miami.

Gerardo, the prosecution argued, knew of plans to shoot down the planes. He was given two life sentences, although he had no more knowledge than the average man on the street. When a person is accused of conspiracy they do not actually have to have committed the crime to be convicted. Thus the charge is often used in cases where political, racial and other issues can sway the juries.

The first trial in Miami convicted the Five but, the judge threw out the case on appeal and the men should have been freed. However, President Bush and then-Attorney General Gonzalez were furious and demanded a hearing before the full 12 judges of the appeals court.

The majority again convicted them and sent them back to 17 months in isolation and then to five different maximum-security prisons.

Only the outrage of international jurists and support groups around the world has helped. Amnesty International has written a detailed document about the unfairness of the trial and the cruelty that two of the wives have not been allowed to visit their husbands in 10 and 12 years respectively. To read more about Amnesty International's position on the case of the Cuban Five, see AI's report on the topic.

The lack of impartiality and fairness has also violated UN standards on human rights, said Carl Gentile, who spoke on behalf of labor groups that are preparing their second support trip to Cuba. The first visit, he said, was a tremendous learning experience, and the Cuban people appreciate the support of Americans for their compatriots.

Panelists painted pictures of the Five as the human beings they are. They have written poetry both in and out of prison, and an exhibit of the cartoons that Gerardo has drawn was brought from the Cuban Interest Section and displayed at the meeting. Antonio paints as well, creating works that have been on exhibit around the country. Antonio learned his art from a fellow prisoner. They all wish they could return to their homeland, and see their loved ones.

The Five have also inspired art: Kamau Benjamin; a labor union support representative for friendship with Cuba, painted a banner of the Five, which was on display in the room.

The program ended with plans to build the Washington chapter of the Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and listed three demands: for President Obama to pardon the Five, to allow visas to all wives of the Five and to arrest and punish the real terrorists who have caused such death and damage the Cuban people.

According to organizers, letters are received by the Cuban Five with great joy, so people were asked to write notes of kindness and solidarity. Their addresses are available here.

Corrected Feb. 16, 2011. Due to an editing error an earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed comments to Kathryn Striffolino of Amnesty International. Amnesty International recognizes the seriousness of the charges for which the five have been convicted; however, AI does not take a position on whether the Cuban 5 are innocent or guilty of those charges and says it is not in a position to call for the release of the Cuban 5. After following and reviewing the case extensively over a number of years, AI says it believes that there are serious doubts about the fairness and impartiality of their trial which have not been resolved upon appeal. AI therefore does not call for the release of the five individuals. A link to the AI report has been added into the text above. Also due to an editing error, an earlier version of the article incorrectly identified some of the panelists. We apologize for the errors and thank those who called them to our attention.

Image: Mural by Kamau Benjamin

Puerto Rico: police violence against striking students

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:49:00 +0000

Pepper spray and clubs were the methods used by police in Puerto Rico against protesting students at the University of Puerto Rico's main campus at Rio Piedras near San Juan on Wednesday, Feb. 9. But the students are getting more support from the general public and show no sign of giving in.

The current series of protests began in April of 2010, when the administration of the right-wing governor, Luis Fortuño of the New Progressive Party (PNP), finding itself faced with a major budget crunch, proposed a sharp cut in the budget for the university system. This cut was to be paid for by increasing registration fees per student by $800 and implementing severe program cuts. Students at Rio Piedras and several others of the 11 campuses reacted angrily. They charge that these measures will force up to 10,000 students out of the university, as well as damage some of its most prestigious programs.

Consequently, they have been carrying out a series of militant but peaceful demonstrations.

The cuts in the university programs and the rise in fees is part of a right-wing assault by the Fortuño administration in which thousands of public workers have also been laid off and their union contracts cancelled.

Again in December 2010, there were clashes between protestors and police, as students struck in anticipation of the implementation of the $800 fee in the coming session. On that occasion, there was a sharp reaction by the police. On Thursday Jan. 27, students marched to the capitol building in San Juan, and were subjected to a police attack in which, according to observers, pressure holds amounting to torture were employed by police. In addition, female students were sexually molested. They marched again on Feb. 7. Police were waiting for them, but were deflected from attack by a mass mobilization of non-students, including professors, non-teaching personnel and other members of society who interposed themselves between the police and the students, preventing what could have been an ugly clash with possible injuries.

On Feb. 9, two days after classes resumed, students massed again to protest on the Rio Piedras campus, but were confronted once more by police on horseback and on foot, who used pepper spray and clubs to attack students who were demonstrating and painting protest slogans on the sidewalk. Many students, including student leader Adriana Mulero, were arrested, bringing the number arrested this year to over 150.

After Wednesday's arrests, the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors announced that it was staging a 24-hour strike to protest the police presence on campus and the mistreatment of the students. The union representing the university's non-teaching employees, the Brotherhood of Exempt non-Teaching Employees, is also participating. Important sectors of labor and other social sectors continue to be supportive of the students. On Feb. 5, a resolution was presented to the Chamber of Deputies by four women members, who called for an investigation of police abuse of the students. Students and their allies are also angry with the University of Puerto Rico administration for its hostile attitude and for facilitating the presence of police on campus.

Meanwhile, one of several pro-independence groups, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, charges that persecution of its members by U.S. authorities is on the uptick with searches of members' homes and phone taps by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. National Party Chairman Francisco Torres claims that on his recent return from Spain via New York City, he and his wife were arrested for several hours without cause.

Puerto Rico, originally a Spanish colony, was seized by the United States in the so-called "Spanish American War" of 1898, and never given independence. It is currently ruled as an "Associated Free Territory" or "Commonwealth" of the United States, but is seen as a colony by many in Puerto Rico and beyond. Over the years, there have been frequent clashes, some armed, between supporters of independence and U.S. and local authorities. During part of the 1940s, the U.S.-installed authorities made it illegal to advocate independence for the island, or even fly the Puerto Rican national flag or sing patriotic Puerto Rican songs. Though this "gag law" (Ley de Mordaza) is no longer in force, complaints of police spying on and harassment of the opposition are a continuous feature of life on this island, and of members of the numerous Puerto Rican communities in the United States.

Image: Aaron Goodman // CC BY-ND 2.0

Mubarak’s fall poses new challenge for U.S.

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:44:00 +0000

The fall of President Hosni Mubarak, greeted with jubilation in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, came after a wave of strikes this week demonstrated the depth and breadth of the Egyptian uprising. The numbers were so large - an estimated 200,000 took part - and the participants so wide-ranging - port workers, textile workers, postal workers, transport workers, farmers, the unemployed, journalists and more, from the Nile Delta to the Suez Canal, - that even the New York Times featured the story on its front page.

With developments in Egypt changing moment by moment, two things are clear: This is a revolution that will profoundly impact not only Egypt but the wider region as well. And it has forced the U.S. to a foreign policy crossroads, compelled to choose a path as the freight trains of history rush by at breakneck speed.

The Obama administration has shifted its response considerably since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ill-advised response on the first day of the uprising, Jan. 25, when she said that "the Egyptian government is stable."

During that first week, many complained that the White House was giving mixed messages, with Vice President Joe Biden saying of Mubarak, "I would not refer to him as a dictator," while President Obama was calling reform "absolutely critical for the long-term wellbeing of Egypt."

By the end of that week, the White House said the United States would review the $1.5 billion yearly aid it provides to Egypt (nearly all of it military aid), and Obama publicly expressed displeasure with Mubarak and said he had pressed the Egyptian ruler to make major reforms "to meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people." After Mubarak reshuffled his government and named intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as vice president, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley tweeted that Mubarak "can't reshuffle the deck and then stand pat." On Feb. 1, when Mubarak said he would not run for re-election in September, Obama took on a sharper tone, telling the Egyptian ruler that "an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now."

The White House has maintained that position since, but it took no further public steps, despite many calls for it do so.

There were growing calls for the U.S. to cut off military aid to Egypt as a way to exert pressure for change. Now, with Egypt's military playing a leading role in the post-Mubarak period, such calls may subside. But they will undoubtedly rise again if real changes demanded by the Egyptian people don't happen immediately.

The announcement of Mubarak's departure said he was handing over power to the military. While rank and file soldiers come from the masses, the military elite has been characterized as an oligarchy. Suleiman's role remains unclear. U.S. diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks described Suleiman as Mubarak's "consigliere." As head of Egyptian intelligence since 1993, Suleiman directed the regime's apparatus of repression.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the diplomat who has emerged as a significant opposition leader, said Thursday it is the new forces, not the outgoing regime, who should be in charge of what happens next. "There is no credibility in either Mubarak or Suleiman or anybody who is associated with that regime," he said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.

Egyptians are looking for substantive changes. Immediate demands are for a transitional national unity government that includes the movements that organized this revolution, and an interim constitution that guarantees human rights and a democratic process for September's presidential elections. The protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square are highly unlikely to accept a military dictatorship of any kind.

Beyond that, as this week's strikes indicate, they are looking for steps toward economic and social justice.

Commenting on the U.S. response, ElBaradei said, "Events have gone so fast, you know, nobody predicted. It's like the 1979 Iranian Revolution in that things took everybody by surprise, including us even. And they had to adjust their policy every half hour. As you remember, it started with Hillary Clinton saying ‘we assess that the government of Egypt is stable.' I took issue with that on CNN; I said she must have a different definition of stability than I do - stability meaning repression, poverty."

The U.S. will have to decide if it will continue to trumpet "stability" at the expense of the Egyptian people. Much to the surprise of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, the Egyptian people themselves have shown that this is no longer a viable policy.

Photo: Suez Canal Company workers rally as they began an open-ended strike in front of the company's headquarters in Ismailia City, Egypt, Wednesday, Feb. 9. Workers demanded the resignation of their immediate boss Admiral Ahmed Fadel, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority. They also demanded a pay increase and social equality. (AP Photo)

Arrest of human rights activist in Colombia under scrutiny

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:11:00 +0000

Liliany Obando, a sociologist, documentary film maker and mother of two children, was serving as a fundraiser and human rights director for the Fensuagro agricultural workers' union in Colombia when she was arrested on Aug. 8, 2008. A few weeks earlier, her report on 1,500 union members who had disappeared or were murdered had been published.

Fensuagro, with 80,000 members and 37 union affiliates, is Colombia's largest farm workers union.

Many Fensuagro members, subjected to paramilitary terrorism, have been driven off small land holdings, which are now in the possession of big landowners. Engaged in large scale agricultural, mining and infrastructure projects, landowners see unions like Fensuagro as contrary to their interests.

Four million Colombians have been pushed off their land, half of rural Colombians live in poverty and thousands of unionists, indigenous peoples, students and leftists have been killed or disappeared. Prisons and detentions are links in a chain of repression serving the well-to-do. The U.S. government has lent a helping hand through Plan Colombia, its massive military aid program. It makes sense that the growing movement of solidarity with Colombian political prisoners is an international one.

For foreign unions and human rights groups supporting her, Liliany Obando has achieved emblematic status among Colombia's 7,500 political prisoners. In January, she gave an interview that has circulated widely on Spanish language political websites, and she participated in the latest in a long series of hearings in her case.

A security official's testimony at the hearings was consistent with information Obando's lawyers had extracted from witnesses at two brief trial sessions and other hearings over her years of incarceration. The whereabouts over three days of supposedly incriminating computer files turns out to be as much a mystery now as it was almost three years ago. Documentation of a chain of custody back then is still lacking. The files turned out to be easily altered documents rather than emails, as claimed by the Colombian government. And the government did manipulate the files, suggests Obando's lawyer.

The Colombian military allegedly took custody of the files from computers seized when it overran a campsite of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in March, 2008. A U.S.-assisted raid caused the death of FARC commander Raul Reyes, the computers' owner. The government says material found in the files showing Obando in league with Reyes proves the charge of terrorism against her.

Although 11 other opposition activists and journalists have been investigated on similar charges, she's the only one who went to jail. Judgment in her case has once more been put off. The defense is trying to secure Canadian unionists' testimony to the effect that their donated money was going to Fensuagro rather than to insurgents.

Obando has a lot of company. The U.S. government has funded rebuilding of Colombian prisons, thereby contributing to an increase in prisoners from 63,000 in 2007 to 106,000 in 2010. In the past four years, there's been a 300 percent hike in arbitrary jailings.

Interviewed in late January, Liliany Obando not only provides a first-hand view of a political prisoner's struggles and hopes, but also assures her supporters that resistance in prison is a collective struggle.

For text of the interview with Liliany Obando, see here.

Vietnam's Communist Party meets

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:36:00 +0000

The goal for the Vietnamese Communist Party's (CPV) 11th Party Congress was to “enhance the Party's leadership capacity and combativeness, promoting the nation's synergy, comprehensively boosting the doi moi (renovation) process, creating the fundamentals for Vietnam to basically become a modern-oriented industrial country by 2020.”

The gathering in Hanoi January 12-20 attracted little U.S. media coverage, no small irony given obsessive U.S. interest decades ago when millions died, U.S. society fractured, and advanced weaponry and a rich nation's resources were turned against a nation of poor farmers.

At five year intervals, the CPV Congress chooses party leaders and determines short and long term national goals. This time, 1,377 delegates participated, representing 3.6 million CPV members, organized in 54,000 party units. Retired party leaders and foreign guests attended. A newly elected Central Committee, which meets twice yearly, replaced one third of the 17 person Political Bureau with younger members.

Retiring CPV Secretary General Nong Due Manh assured delegates of the nation's “aspiration to establish its fundamental economic base of socialism with a superstructure of politics, ideology, and culture directed at building a prosperous nation.” Emphasizing scientific and technologic education, he called for a “socialist oriented market economy” with a “high sense of independence and self sufficiency.”

Documents submitted to the Congress included an updated “Draft Platform on National Construction in the Transitional Period toward Socialism,” a proposed “Socio-economic Development Strategy for 2011-2020,” and a report “reviewing the leadership and guidance of the 10th Party Central Committee.”

According to official news sources, discussion covered “the Vietnamese revolutionary process” and “fundamental directions in the process of socialist construction. Delegates “assessed the achievements, shortcomings, weaknesses, reasons, and lessons” stemming from previous strategies. They considered “directions for Party building in terms of ideological training, virtue, ethics, [and] improving Party members' quality.”

For Political Bureau President Nguyen Minh Triet, opening the Congress, this was “a very crucial moment,” particularly because this was the 25th anniversary of “doi moi,” or renovation. That comprehensive program of political and economic changes has enabled socialist Vietnam to join capitalist oriented, international economic and financial networks. Review and reappraisal were due, he said.

Analyst Alberto Cruz cites present Vietnamese determination to maintain “social well-being,” provide employment through joint ventures with foreign corporations, and “protect the population [through] lines of credit for small and medium size businesses.”

Despite the world economic crisis, the country's growth rate, maintained over recent years at an average 7.2 percent annual rate, fell only 37 percent. By contrast, Malaysia's growth rate declined 137 percent and U.S. and Eurozone growth rates dropped 219 percent and 224 percent respectively. Over 10 years, Vietnam's GDP and export yield have increased by factors of 3.5 and five, respectively. Average schooling is up almost two years per child since 1990. From 1970 on, life expectancy advanced 26 years. Per capita income is up threefold over 10 years. Severe poverty has fallen from 37.4 percent in 1998 to ten percent last year. CPV leaders are attempting to balance funding demands of large infrastructure projects with support for social, energy, and communications programs, which also entails some controversy.

Vietnam certainly has problems, among them widening inequalities despite the drop in poverty, corruption, high food prices and a serious trade deficit. There has been controversy about policies toward Chinese bauxite mines and the management of the state shipping industry. Some have suggested that the “socialist market” economic policies have led to a waning interest in Marxist teachings among the young. However, notwithstanding these difficulties, the Congress ended on a high note of optimism.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tran Dung was re nominated to his post, though the National Assembly must approve this in May. New faces in the national leadership will include CPV Secretary-General Nguyen Phu Trong, the former National Assembly head who helped engineer the Assembly's recent rejection of a proposed Japanese designed high-speed railway from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. Nyguyen Trong Sang was nominated as president of the country. The outgoing president and general secretary are retiring for age and health reasons.

Independence leader Ho Chi Minh, honored at the CPV Congress, long ago reflected on goals not met, battles not won. “If it cannot be done because there are too few people, let many join their efforts. If it cannot be completed by the present generation, it can be finished by the next.” Time and persistence will tell, he was saying.

Image: Communist Party of Vietnam's website.

World Notes: Sudan, Colombia and more

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:23:00 +0000

Sudan: Darfur fighting re-ignites, civilians lose

Fighting between the government and rebels in the Darfur section of Sudan has displaced 40,000 people over two months. According to the UN's IRIN news agency, forced migrations mounted while the world's attention focused on Southern Sudan's recent independence referendum. Human rights groups say both sides are targeting civilians based on their ethnic identification. Meanwhile UN peacekeeping forces and humanitarian agencies are barred from areas of crucial humanitarian need. A Medicins Sans Frontieres hospital, caught in crossfire, had to be abandoned. Fighting has caused 300,000 civilian deaths since 2003, the UN reports. "Peace can only be achieved through an inclusive political process, not through the use of force," declared regional UN Special Representative Ibrahim Gambari.

Colombia: Sintracarbon mine workers win wage hike

Sintracarbon, the union representing 4000 mineworker employees at Cerrejon, the world's largest open pit coal mine, had been negotiating with the mine's multinational corporate owners since early December. The issues, as reported by Reuters, included salaries, pensions, the status of contract workers, and redress for the company's maltreatment of local indigenous people displaced during mine expansion. On January 28 the mineworkers overwhelmingly voted to launch a strike. On February 6, however, they accepted a final company offer of a 6.5 percent wage hike, thereby forestalling the shut down of a mine that supplies over 30 million tons of high quality coal annually to European countries and China.

Iraq: Social demands trigger street protests

This February, hundreds had been demonstrating nationwide for days. One organizer, quoted on thenational.ae website, predicted "a revolution of the hungry and the jobless in Iraq, just as there was in Egypt." Protesters cite the 45 percent jobless rate. food shortages, official corruption, and the flaunting of wealth by a tiny minority as reasons for the street action. In reaponse to the protests Prime Minister al Maliki announced he'd not seek a third term. Police in the southern town of Hamza killed one demonstrator and wounded more after their headquarters were stormed. University professor Nidal al Sarmad gave this analysis "The change the Americans brought has brought us a new set of thieves, a new set of dictators, not justice and freedom." Al Maliki added he would return half his salary.

Switzerland: No safe haven for torturers

Switzerland may have a reputation as a very safe place for visitors, but dangers there were enough to make former U.S. President George W. Bush change plans. On February 12 in Geneva he was to have keynoted a charity event which the sponsoring Keren Hayesod group was forced to cancel. Bush would have faced streets protests along with criminal allegations of torture. Human rights organizations cited by Reuters attributed that action to Bush's desire "to avoid our case," a reference to their 2500-page report on Bush's role in torture and abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo. The message from human rights groups is: "If you're a torturer, be careful in your travel plans."

Australia: Undocumented refugees seek justice

"The Australian government appears determined to join the front ranks of the heartless," says the Guardian newspaper as it condemned a recent Australian-Afghan accord expediting asylum applications. While the immediate objective of persuading detained Afghans to end a hunger strike was successful, observers anticipate renewed efforts toward mass forced repatriations or deportation to detention centers in third countries like East Timor. "Offshore processing" of migrants has increasingly relied on arguments of improving conditions in Afghanistan to justify asylum denials. Two months ago the Australian High Court ruled that such decision-making procedures violated Australian law. The decision revived efforts to send "unprocessed" refugees to third countries. Suicide attempts betoken migrants' despair: a Myanmar refugee set himself ablaze on January 30.

Cuba: More CIA links to Posada revealed

A February 6 report from Trinidad and Tobago detailing U.S. intelligence files on Luis Posada, now on trial in the U.S. for lying to immigration officials, is big news in Cuba. http://www.newsday.co.tt/sunday_special_report/0,135310.html

Released in 2007 by the National Security Archives, the files relate to the in-flight bombing October 6, 1976 of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 off Barbados. Trinidad and Tobago Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis Ramdwar's statement October 28, 1976 is included. Ramdwar documents his investigation of Venezuelan citizens Freddy Lugo and Ricardo Lozano, who confessed to placing the bomb and being Luis Posada employees. Ramdwar reported Lozano as saying http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB202/19761026_ramdwar.pdf

"He was a member of the CIA, that he was recruited by the CIA in Venezuela between 1970 and 1971." Lozano then recruited Lugo for the CIA. The Newsday report also documents the two men's complicity in bomb attacks on Cuban consulates and air travel facilities elsewhere in the region.

Photo: UNAMID peacekeepers patrol near trucks loaded with new arrivals of displaced Sudanese at a refugee camp outside the Darfur town of al-Fasher, Sudan. (Nasser Nasser/AP file photo)

Governing party candidate excluded in Haiti runoff elections

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:26:00 +0000

Under intense international pressure, Haiti's election board has announced that it is excluding Jude Celestin, candidate of President Rene Preval's INTE Party, from runoff presidential elections scheduled for March 20.

The November 28, 2010 national elections were chaotic, having taken place during a cholera epidemic and in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people and destroyed vast amounts of infrastructure.

The popular Fanmi Lavalas Party, headed by ex-President Aristide, was not allowed to run because of a technicality. Turnout was only 22.79 percent, and there were widespread complaints and irregularities, including ballot stuffing, intimidation and the illegitimate exclusion of thousands of people from the voting rolls.

The top-polling candidates, according to the Provisional Electoral Authority (CEF) appeared to Mirlande Manigat of the Rally of Progressive National Democrats Party with 31.37 percent, Jude Celestin of the INTE (Unity) Party with 22.48 percent, and Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly, of the Repons Peyizan Alliance of parties with 21.84 percent. .

Manigat is the wife of former president Leslie Manigat, who was seen as a stooge of the military when he was president for a brief period in 1988.

Martelly is a popular musician with strong ties to the disbanded military and to elements connected with the former dictators, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean Claude. He has stated that if elected he would restore the military which was disbanded by populist president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Celestin has been a functionary of the current government.

The votes had not been fully counted when all the major candidates except Celestin called for the results to be nullified because of the irregularities. However, when Manigat and Martelly found that they were pulling ahead, they withdrew from this demand.

Because of the many complaints, the Organization of American States sent in an "expert mission" to review the election results and report back to the Haitian people and the world community. The "expert mission" was composed of one Chilean, one Jamaican, two French women, four men from the United States and one Canadian.

The United States, France and Canada have been asserting the right to strong influence in Haitian affairs, which is criticized by many people in and out of Haiti; this led to widespread doubts about the impartiality of the "expert mission."

The mission did a selective review of ballot counting, and concluded Jan. 13 that Mrs. Manigat should stay on the ballot for the runoff but Celestin should be removed and Mr. Martelly put into the runoff in his place.

The Haitian government and its elections authority initially objected to this.

The major powers put pressure on the government of President Rene Preval to remove Celestin from the lineup for the runoff election, now scheduled for March 20 with the United States freezing the multiple entry visas of some Haitian officials.

The INTE Party announced that Mr. Celestin, its candidate, was withdrawing from the runoff, but Mr. Celestin ended up opposing the decision. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Haiti last Monday to push for a Manigat-Martelly runoff. Finally, the government of President Preval announced that Celestin would not be in the running.

Meanwhile, the surprise return of former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier is seen as a possible attempt by him to recoup up to $5.7 million that was confiscated from his Swiss bank account and is to be handed over to the Haitian government. Read more here.

Will there be another surprise return? Ex-President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown, for the second time, by a coup cooked up among the Haitian right and the U.S. and French governments in 2004, has also been saying for a long time he wants to return.

Last week, the Haitian Foreign Minister told the media that it is only a matter of Aristide asking for a valid Haitian passport so that he can traverse other countries on his way to Haiti from his exile in South Africa. However, some technicalities have arisen, and Aristide has not been issued the document.

Meanwhile, the possibility for further instability is high, because Preval is supposed to leave office on February 7 but the results of the runoff election will not be announced until the end of March. The betting is that a way will be found to keep Preval in office until then.