lazylafargue

"Australian foreign minister unveils plans for the colonial occupation of East Timor"

2006-06-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

From World Socialist Web Site:

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer visited East Timor last weekend and laid out the broad outlines of Canberra’s plans to establish a long-term colonial-style occupation of the country. Downer arrived in Dili on Saturday amid continuing looting and violence by rival street gangs, despite the presence of an Australian-led force of more than 2,000 troops and police.

It is now clear that Canberra’s military intervention was aimed, not at ending the disorder in Dili, much less at assisting the estimated 100,000 displaced persons living in squalid camps. Rather its purpose has been to enable the Howard government to dictate terms to East Timor’s leaders and preempt Australia’s Asian and European rivals, most notably the former colonial power, Portugal.

The continuing chaos in Dili is serving as a useful political lever to achieve these ends. While Downer was in Dili, Australian Justice Minister Chris Ellison was at the UN in New York pressing for agreement with an ongoing Australian-led operation, along the lines of Canberra’s takeover of the Solomon Islands in 2003. Under the guise of assisting a “failed state”, Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomons Islands (RAMSI) controls all the main levers of executive power—finance, the police, courts and prisons—in the country.

Monday’s Sydney Morning Herald provided details of Downer’s three key proposals for a new UN mandate in East Timor. He argued firstly for “a large police force, comprising officers from a broad group of countries, preferably under an Australian commander.”

“Second, it [Canberra] wants a more capable UN role in helping the East Timorese with governance and administration. East Timor has a budget surplus yet scant investment in vital infrastructure, shoddy systems of administration and justice, and no serious economic activity beyond the oil sector,” the article explained. Finally, Downer proposed that “a role for the UN in reconciliation of a shattered society”.

In effect, the Howard government is demanding control of East Timor’s administration via a large, permanent police presence, the installation of Australian officials in key positions of finance, justice and security, and the means for political manipulation via “reconciliation”. Completely absent is any desperately-needed aid to provide basic services including welfare, education and health for the poverty-stricken country—one of the poorest in the world.

What “reconciliation” means is indicated by the ongoing efforts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, regarded as too closely aligned with Portugal. In less than a fortnight, Alkatiri has been compelled to cede substantial control over the country’s security forces to President Xanana Gusmao and has lost two close allies—the defence and interior ministers—who have been forced to resign.

While Downer declared on Saturday that he would not take sides in East Timor’s political conflict, Australia is obviously backing moves against Alkatiri. Yesterday, around 2,000 anti-Alkatiri demonstrators were shepherded into Dili by Australian troops to protest outside the current session of parliament and demand the sacking of the prime minister. At the same time, Major Alfredo Reinado, an anti-government “rebel leader”, who, in other circumstances would be treated as a renegade and terrorist, is being feted by Australian military commanders, officials and media as a political leader-in-waiting.

The hypocrisy and cynicism of the military intervention is highlighted by the abrupt reversal of the Australian government’s position on extending the UN mandate for East Timor. In early May, Washington and Canberra vigorously opposed calls from the East Timorese government and the UN special representative Sukehiro Hasegawa for a one-year extension of the UN Office for Timor-Leste (UNOTIL). UNOTIL had organised police, military and civilian advisers in all the areas outlined by Downer.

Both the Bush administration and the Howard government regarded UNOTIL as being too closely aligned with Alkatiri—and with Australia’s rivals in Portugal and elsewhere. With UNOTIL’s mandate due to expire on May 20, Washington and Canberra initially opposed any renewal, then, on May 12, reluctantly accepted a one-month extension.

On the same day, without informing Dili, Prime Minister Howard announced that Australian warships would be deployed to waters near East Timor, then boarded a plane for Washington. Less than a fortnight later, using the pretext of violence stirred up by figures such as Reinado, Australian troops began landing in Dili.

Now Downer is demanding a mandate for a long term UN presence—dominated by Australian officials and police. Not surprisingly, he has also called for the current UN representative Hasegawa to be replaced and has objected to Portuguese paramilitary police operating independently of Australian military command.

At a regional security conference last weekend, Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson called for Asian countries, including Singapore and South Korea, to contribute to the international force on East Timor—a transparent attempt to further dilute any Portuguese or European involvement.

A “weighter role” for Australia

While Downer was careful to use diplomatic language in Dili, Murdoch’s Australian has felt no such constraint. In his comment last Saturday entitled “A weightier role in Dili”, editor-at-large Paul Kelly drew attention to Downer’s plan, endorsed by cabinet’s National Security Committee, for “an Australian military-civilian strategy for East Timor’s future”. “This envisages that Australia will control military security in the short term through the Australia-led coalition that now exists and influence East Timor’s military structure in the long run. The aim is to minimise the influence of the UN or other nations, notably Portugal, on East Timor’s military structure,” he explained. The UN could be confined to “a stronger civilian role in East Timor’s governance, its civil service and its police.”

Kelly, who had clearly been briefed by the government, made no bones about the object of the exercise. “The lesson Australia has drawn from the intervention is that its security views cannot be marginalised any longer as they were ignored at the time of independence. The feature of East Timor’s brief history is that Portugal has exercised more influence than Australia, notably on its language, constitution and institutions. This is one of the reasons for its failure. It is obvious that as ultimate security guarantor, Australia must exert a greater authority,” he wrote.

Kelly’s call for Australia to become a regional hegemon was, however, quite restrained compared to what foreign editor Greg Sheridan penned on the same day. In his column entitled “Throw Troops at Pacific Failures”, he argued for a far broader and more aggressive Australian role, writing: “Australian policy in the South Pacific has been undergoing an agonising and profound revolution, from hands-off respect for South Pacific sovereignty to deepening involvement. But it may be that we still have not conceived of our involvement in the most useful strategic terms.”

Sheridan openly called for Canberra to use its power and influence to get rid of Alkatiri. “Certainly if Alkatiri remains Prime Minister of East Timor, this is a shocking indictment of Australian impotence. If you cannot translate the leverage of 1,300 troops, 50 police, hundreds of support personnel, buckets of aid and a critical international rescue mission into enough influence to get rid of a disastrous Marxist Prime Minister, then you are just not very skilled in the arts of influence, tutelage, sponsorship and, ultimately, promoting the national interest,” he declared.

Sheridan went on to outline his vision for the region, insisting: “It is perhaps time that Australian conceived of itself as the ‘US of the South Pacific’.” He attempted to blunt the sharp edge of his message by referring to America’s post war role in East Asia, but then continued: “Like the US in Asia, we should do this in part through a system of military deployments, though naturally we would not call them Australian bases... What I am arguing is that, as part of a wider program of assistance involving lots of Australian personnel operating in South Pacific government agencies, deployments of Australian soldiers should be semi-permanently stationed in East Timor, Solomon Islands and, if necessary, other regional basket cases.”

Sheridan is simply stating what the Howard government is actually doing. Having secured the backing of the Bush administration by extending unconditional support for the US military subjugation of Afghanistan and Iraq, Australian imperialism is aggressively carving out its own sphere of influence in the South Pacific. Its strategy involves, not just transforming “failed states” into dependent vassals, but setting the course for broader inter-imperialist conflicts throughout the region.

Theatrical adaptations.

2006-05-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

"Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq" (NBC News, 03/03/04).

"Zarqawi has warned of attacks on the majority Shia population with the aim of provoking a Sunni-Shia civil war to wreck the US plans to pull out of Iraq on 30 June" (Independent of London 03/03/04).

"Gen. John P. Abizaid said raids by American Special Operations forces and efforts by the Iraqi police against militants associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had thwarted a major attack in Basra" (New York Times 03/03/04).

"There is growing evidence that a terrorist [Zarqawi] with ties to al Qaeda was behind this week's bombing in Iraq" (Christian Broadcasting Network 03/04/04).

"Every soldier in Iraq is looking for Zarqawi," says Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt (Houston Chronicle 02/22/04).

...some critics of the war say the Bush Administration has deliberately skewed the level of Zarqawi's involvement in an attempt to portray the insurgency as a war waged by foreign Islamic terrorists.

The playbook:

“French imperialism is never short of arguments in favor of its privileges and its behavior. Among the thousand and one means that it uses in this domain, we should note two ways that it impresses itself upon world public opinion. The first argument consists in presenting the nationalist movements of Algeria as racist and xenophobic with a basis of religious fanaticism and chauvinism. The second set of arguments consists in presenting these movements as being foreign-inspired.”
Messali Hadj, “Mémoire aux Nations Unies” (c. 1950).

The Power and the Peace is in the People.

2006-05-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

From Kahentinetha Horn:

MNN. May 27th 2006. During the past 88 days of Six Nations activism to reclaim our land near Caledonia, we have received thousands of emails and calls from people all over the world. There were days when we just could not answer them. The support and ideas that we’ve received have been tremendously gratifying and helpful. We thank you all. Without this solidarity from natives and non-natives, the Ontario Provincial Police would have had their way. Blood would have been spilt. Never mind the return of our land, though we are still waiting on that one.

This solidarity that we are experiencing between natives and non-native people is a revival. The British promised to protect the Six Nations on the Haldimand Tract that our people are defending began with this solidarity. The Six Nations were allies of the British. It was this alliance that lead to the formation of modern Canada. Because of this alliance we were pushed out of the Mohawk Valley in what is now New York State where our people had lived since the beginning of time. The Mohawks were valiant allies of the British during the American Revolution. Mohawks have always been on the front line every time Britain needed defending - in the Battle of Queenston Heights 1813, in World I and World War II and other actions. The Haldimand Tract is on traditional Rotino’shon:ni/Iroquois territory. The tract was guaranteed to the Mohawks in 1784. The Six Nations have always been willing to put ourselves on the line for our Canadian allies. It is gratifying to see that the majority of people support this alliance and are willing to stand up for us.

Our tradition has been to work together. Unfortunately, the Canadian government, particularly Indian Affairs, was taken over by people who did not want us to work together. They wanted to be boss, kings of the castle. So they betrayed us and the Canadian people. Instead of treating us honorably like allies, they abused us. They stole our land, stole our resources and schemed to kill us off. They pretended that we were children who could not look after ourselves. They depleted our trust funds with illegal investments in flaky financial schemes run by their friends.

Instead of treating us like allies, they pretended that we were British subjects. You may wonder why we did not protest over our lack of rights in Canada. That’s because we aren’t Canadians. We were minding our own business. We organized everything on our territory and paid for it ourselves.

We thought the problem was just the people in Indian Affairs and that our relationship with the Queen remained on an honorable footing. We were wrong.

The original Haldimand promise was that there was to be no encroachment ever. In the end the Canadian government, not the Canadian people, was the source of our beef.

Ontario, and the rest of Canada for that matter, is intent on diminishing Indigenous land holdings not only on the Haldimand Tract but everywhere. It is being diminished through outright theft. The aim of not giving one inch of land back is not for the benefit of the people of Ontario. It’s to support the business interests that are intent on exploiting our resources with no regard to the environment or the present and future generations of the people who must live on it. It is the billionaires who really run the governments. Welcome to the pretend democracy of Canada.
We now assume stewardship over our illegally occupied lands. Until now we have invested a lot of resources into historical and legal research and actions for the last 200 years. Anytime the facts were put on the table Canadian officials were shown to have mismanaged Canada and mistreated Indigenous people. We’ve borne the brunt of it. It is over now! This rot also affects the Canadian people. They do not have a government that looks out for them and the future generations. That’s the heart of the problem.

What is government and what are their functions? Is it a vehicle that allows a few greedy individuals to live parasitic lives off the work and possessions of others? Or should government bring people together so that we can put our minds together, solve problems and make a better life for everyone? The basic rift is between our Indigenous philosophy coming from our constitution, the Kaianereh’ko:wa/Great Law, and the philosophy of the people running the government. We’ve learned in dealing with the Canadian government that the Canadian government does not represent the Canadian people.

We never lost jurisdiction over our ancestral lands. We’ve had a deep sense of betrayal and anger over our horrific historic experience with the colonizers. Would giving us back our illegally occupied land be ''too disruptive'' to the parasites lodged in the Canadian government? Never mind that the government allowed and encouraged its own citizens to encroach on our land and gained private and institutional land titles in violation of the laws. They let Americans come up and take our land too! It’s all part of their 100 year plan to get rid of the “Indian problem” as described by that complete maniac, Duncan Campbell Scott of Indian Affairs. A lot of the early settlers on our land were Americans who had taken part in pushing us off our land in the Mohawk Valley. They came up here and liked what they saw here too and began squatting!It’s also interesting that a large percentage of Canadians consider that we got robbed and that we deserve our territories free of colonial jurisdiction. In the Six Nations issue the public in Canada, the United States and worldwide have given us strong support. We hope, for the sake of Mother Earth, it is because many in Canada realize how important our philosophy of caring for the land is?

Unless, of course, we are in the way of corporate “progress”, that is, exploitation of our lands and resources by a few foreign based interests who operate through corporations. They operate with no obligations to anyone but themselves and no concern for the people, native and non-native. We are all just pawns in their schemes. The way to overcome all this is to assert our title to Turtle Island and to turn it back to its proper role as a “cornucopia” for the people.

Even though there is wide support for us, there is tremendous opposition by the corporate interests which function through the governmental quagmire. They put pressure on any of their institutions that could give us justice. These interests manage to brainwash and manipulate their “flag-waving” super nationalists to make a lot of noise in the media and to attack us. This is what happened at the “Bread and Cheese Fight” in Caledonia on May 22nd 2006 when government instigated rioters came and tried to attack us. But the general public isn’t buying it.

The main anti-Indian argument to stop Indigenous jurisdiction from being asserted is because they don’t want us to grow, expand and become independent. Why do they think that expanded Indigenous jurisdictions would be disruptive? Would it be a problem if Indian affairs would no longer be getting a cut? They’d have to take their feet off their desks and do a day’s work. Are they afraid that it would be environmentally and economically stimulating and rewarding not just for us but for everyone else? We all need to take a unified approach, native and non-native. We are all being abused. We need to work together. But we need to be wary of those who try to shut us up in the name of unity. We need to respect our laws and adhere to the original arrangements that were made between us. Let us assert our jurisdiction. Don’t keep us mired in legalistic strategies which take up our time and money. We need to be free from the shackles of useless diversions.

Maybe what’s needed is a massive “Condolence Ceremony” in which we wipe our eyes with a soft leather so that we can see clearly and have a good look at the issues; then we need to take an eagle feather to clean out our ears so that we can hear each other; and then we need to drink a glass of water so that we can speak truthfully and as clearly as the purest water. Sometimes the solutions to difficult problems are simple. Sometimes all that’s needed is to show respect.

In the end, there’s no need to give us back the Henco Industries land. It’s ours already. It always was. All Ontario needs to do is to respect that. We need to assert the legal government-to-government relationship. We do have broad support from the public to do this. We must bring out the truth. We must stop Canada from continuing to live in sin? Grow up Canada! Colonialism is over! We’re never going back!

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
www.mohawknationnews.com

“SELF RESTRAINT” IN THE FACE OF ARMED ATTACKS ON SIX NATIONS PEOPLE.

2006-05-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

From Kahentinetha Horn:

MNN. May 27, 2006. People watching the televised attacks on our people at Six Nations are shocked to see how much self-restraint we have as a people. Don’t mistake the Indigenous self-restraint for submission to Canadian authority. It’s a lot harder to restrain oneself in the face of provocation, adversity, mistreatment, unfairness and attacks on human rights and dignity. This is what we’ve had to do throughout the confrontations that have been organized against us by the Canadian state over our reclamation of our land now known as “Kanenhstaton”, the precious land.

When we face our adversaries in just about every walk of life, it is sickening how we have to hold everything in and walk around as if we’re wearing a mask to hide our true feelings of anger and frustration. Right from the day we are born we are assaulted by the agencies of the colonial governments. Many people are trained to look at us with pity or condescension or fear. It’s as if we were some kind of reptile or untrained animal. The natural world is not respected in colonial society the way it is in ours where we learn favorable lesson from every type of creature. 25% of the species on the planet are extinct now. We had something to learn from each of them that we will never now learn.

So far we were threatened with an armed Ontario Provincial Police attack on March 22 which was aborted. Then we were physically attacked by the heavily armed OPP on April 20th. Finally their hired guns managed to organize a rabid crowd to come to the reclamation site to “kill those Indians”. They carried pepper spray, baseball bats, cherry bombs and other weapons. These are all old strategies that have become familiar to us. Where did they get the pepper spray from? The only people who normally have it are the cops.

The whole aim of these confrontations is to get us so riled up that we will do something rash. Then they can have the excuse they want to use full force against us, making it seem like thuggery is legal. This demonstration is something they want to show other Indigenous people that they’d better stay in their place, “or else”. So far, not one of our people has taken the bait. Everyone was there on their own initiative. Everyone was free to decide for themselves what to do. Everyone decided to stay and to hold our ground. In the face of the armed threat of the rioters and the police the restraint that was shown reflects the depth of the power and understanding in all of our people. No one was aggressive, no one backed down and when attacked, we defended ourselves very well.

That’s the way we are. This shocked Canadians. As one guy from Vancouver said, “I don’t know how you people can do that!” We can do it because we know who we are. We know the way of the Kaianereh’ko:wa and the natural world.

So what’s next? If Canada wants a repeat of the Mohawk Oka crisis of 1990, or the Ipperwash standoff, or Burnt Church or Gustafsen Lake, it can go ahead with its plans. Is it doing this on purpose? Or is it just bad habit? Either way, it’s time for Canada to pull up its socks, behave like an adult, stop threatening us, obey its laws, honor its promises and deal with us as equals. Canada has a choice.

In 1990 when the politicians found they could not get us to fire the first shot so the army could complete the job, they decided that it would be a good idea to bring in some snipers. They wanted to kill off a few of those they considered to be key Mohawks. They knew that this would drive us crazy and would unleash anger like they had never seen before. Of course, we’d be as helpless as fish in a rain barrel. We’d be surrounded by the army. This is what they had to do to have the excuse to do us in.

It might have worked! I don’t know why, but I was targeted. We found out about this plan and were very careful not to come out of the Treatment Center where we had been holding out for over a month. We were surrounded by at least 2000 Canadian soldiers with more weaponry than they have in Afghanistan today. Then on September 26th 1990 the army decided to back off and let the Quebec Police come in. We were told they were going to be very aggressive. You know what that means, eh? So without a moment’s notice, the 55 of us, men, women and children, walked out and ran into the woods. The soldiers and the police were so angry with us for pulling such a surprise on them, they chased us down, beat us up and even bayoneted my then 14-year old daughter in the chest.

Even though we had weapons, we had never fired a shot at them.

Recently someone was describing to us the disgusting shame and abuse that Palestinian families are put through when they try to leave their walled compounds to go to work or school or wherever. Heavily armed young Israeli soldiers routinely mistreat and insult them. All they can do is put their heads down while the other people watch. They have no choice but to show restraint.

What does this do to self-esteem? It makes a white hot anger blow in people’s hearts. We know we don’t have any choice but to show self-restraint. But that doesn’t mean we accept subjugation. The unwieldy state apparatus that Canada has set up around us has created “prisons of grass”, both real and metaphorical. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just made an announcement that he wants to build more prisons and hire more police. Is he building an “absolute” police state? If we are supposed to be living in a culture of peace, this shouldn’t be happening.

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
www.mohawknationnews.com

UN war crimes continue in Haiti.

2006-05-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

Haiti Action Committee (via Chabert):

Displaying large banners from a high rooftop within the penitentiary compound, prisoners also shouted to journalists below that U.N. forces had killed ten protestors as they opened fire earlier in the morning. Haiti Information Project (HIP) correspondents were at the scene and Director Kevin Pina videotaped the UN action. The footage clearly shows MINUSTAH soldiers shooting at the demonstrators above on a secured catwalk inside the prison. Prisoners raised the corpses of two victims they claimed were shot by UN sharpshooters. While attempting to cover the story from the street below Pina was forcefully restrained by a contingent of Jordanian soldiers who claimed that it was too "dangerous" for anyone to enter the area.

How the prisoners got out of their cells remained unclear while some in the local Haitian press were claiming that a few guards were responsible. The breakout and protest came on the heels of the arrest of well-known Lavalas activist and community organizer Rene Civil. Civil had attempted to enter Haiti from the Dominican Republic the night before and was detained by U.N. forces and then turned over to the Haitian police. Rene Civil, along with Annette Auguste and Paul Raymond, are seen as the most popular community level leaders of Aristide's Lavalas movement among Haiti's poor. Auguste was arrested by U.S. Marines in May 2004 and Raymond was arrested last year in the Dominican Republic by police and a U.S. embassy security detachment. Auguste and Raymond have been held in prolonged detention without trial amid shifting allegations and charges. Their fates remain unclear to this day.

Canadian PM: Attack on Afghans 'unfortunate'

2006-05-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says an air attack by coalition forces that killed a number of civilians in Afghanistan this week was "unfortunate."

from AngryArab:

Have no mercy: a Taliban child. "A 3-year-old Afghan boy, with burns that his uncle said had come from an American bombing, was comforted Monday in a Kandahar hospital."

Good Morning from Grand River

2006-05-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

(via Sketchythoughts)

Good Morning from Grand River

Well, by now everyone has heard how our show of good faith was met.

Yesterday morning by 6:00 a.m. the main barricade on Plank Road (Argyle Street) was removed and the road was completely open ready for use. It wasn't met with good faith however, on the part of Caledonia residents, or at least those claiming to represent Caledonia. Their human barricade refused to budge and at one point, surrounded an elderly couple who were attempting to come through. The opp stood by and watched as the angry crowd refused to let our people through and when spokesman Clyde Powless and spokeswoman Janie Jamieson tried to go up and talk to the opp to get them to help our people through the line, they were surrounded by the angry caledonia representatives and shoving and pushing began. We were told that the vehicle that our elders were in had windows smashed, however, the opp said that no damage was done to the car. It was unclear at that point as to why the caledonia citizens did not meet our efforts of good faith, but later in an interview, Ken Hewitt, representing the Caledonia Citizens Alliance stated that they were not satisfied with the fact that only one of our barricades were taken down and that they wanted all of the barricades down and they wanted the Onkwehonweh people off the land that we've re-claimed.

Obviously David Peterson and the Town of Haldimand didn't inform the caledonia residents of the nature of the negotiations and the process that was being followed. Our press release of early yesterday morning with Chief Allen McNaughton and other representatives of the Confederacy Council stated the status of the negotiations and that as agreed, the main road into Caledonia was being opened up as a show of good faith. Later on that morning there was statements made by some of those on the caledonia side of things that they wanted to march down argyle street to the site of the land reclamation. This was exactly the concern of the Onkwehonweh people in their hesitation at wanting to open up the road in the first place. The intention of our people to keep the peace and open the road was being met with anger and threats to our safety.

Needless to say, because the opp were unable to convince those representing caledonia to disassemble their human blockade and go home and allow us to proceed as planned with the peaceful negotiations, the barricades were put back up. At one point, one of the elders of our people had offered a symbolic gesture to let them know that we still are upholding the peace and that they must choose which direction they wanted to proceed, but he was met with hollering and insults from the non-native protesters. I must add as well that in speaking with the opp, they had mentioned that many many caledonia residents were deeply disappointed in the people who were instigating the people on their side, and that many believe that those present who were causing the disruption, were not residents of Caledonia and that they were outsiders who's main intent was to instigate trouble. And that they did.

They were given a time frame to dismantle their people and allow the Onkwehonweh to continue with our offering of opening the road, and when they refused to move, at the end of that time frame, the consensus of the people was to dig the road up and a backhoe was brought in to begin that process. Again, the opp asked for more time to persuade their people to go home, and the digging stopped but their people refused to move. At one point in the afternoon some of the non-native protesters began trying to come around the side of the opp and rush toward our people. The men and women stood in defense of our position and at least 30 of our people were pepper sprayed, a couple of our people were taken to the hospital, and several of the caledonia people were hurt in the scuffle.

Again, we were able to bring our people back to refrain from any further escalations of violence, however, the mood at this point was indeed tense. By evening there were anywhere from 250 to 300 caledonia citizens in their human blockade and most of the people of Six Nations had gathered in solidarity behind our barricade. The opp had called in extra support from all over the surrounding areas, and at one point the riot squad had gathered in hopes of getting the caledonia people to go home. No action was taken by the opp or riot squad, and by around 2:30 this morning, most of the residents from the caledonia blockade had retreated. as of this morning at around 7:00 am., the barricade on the plank road is still there, and the people are considering now if another show of good faith will result in the same situation or worse, or whether we should once again, attempt to remove the barricades to allow the traffic to move freely through and allow our delegates to continue with the peaceful negotiations that were scheduled to continue this week.

We need our supporters to understand that we are continuing with our peaceful position, that we are unarmed, and intend to maintain that position of Peace, on our Land, and trust in our People, in our Kaierenekowah -- the Great Law, and in our Creator and the process that was given to us to resolve this situation to the best of our ability. We appreciate all of the phone calls and e-mails, and I apologize if I am unable to respond to each of your e-mails individually, but at this moment, we are working diligently to ensure the safety of our people at the site, and will keep everyone posted and updated as quickly as possible. The solidarity of the Onkwehonweh people is the most important factor in this situation and we appreciate all of those who are standing by to support in any way that is necessary if the Crown's representatives fail to keep the negotiations proceeding toward a peaceful resolution.

Hazel

“BREAD AND CHEESE FIGHT” VICTORIA DAY AT SIX NATIONS - WHO WAS BEING SUCKER PUNCHED? ONTARIO DOES NOT WANT TO RECOGNIZE SIX NATIONS OR ANY ABORIGINAL

2006-05-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

From MohawkNationNews: May 23, 2006. At 6:00 am May 22nd, “Bread and Cheese Day”, the Six Nations people removed the barricade on Argyle Street in Caledonia as a gesture of goodwill. What ensued is being called, the “Bread and Cheese Fight”. It was the 83rd day of the reclamation of Six Nations land and the stopping of construction of a housing project of Henco Developers. Talks aimed at resolving the situation were scheduled to continue. Let’s not be fooled. What followed was part of somebody’s plan. It’s clear that professional instigators played a role in the rioting. David Peterson’s tactics created fuel for the flames.

The rioters were to arrive with about a dozen instigators and outsiders. Several savvy observers counted and this is what they saw. Our sources have consulted with genuine “Caledonians” and confirmed that the most active rioters were people they had not seen before. The rioters were supposed to find the native barricade still up. We think they are pro' instigators because we’ve seen the same kind of faces before. In particular the main rabble rouser looked like a 50 year old cop. He was surrounded by guys made to look like “skin heads” [as if skin heads are still around. As if they lived in a nice rural community like Caledonia]. A short guy with sun glasses who was punching a cop was recognized by a native viewer. She said he is the spitting image of a guy high up in the KKK. We’ve also seen the m.o. before. The police routinely function to get the “rabble” to do their dirty work.

Then they were to make a ruckus and start attacks on the Six Nations people. The uniformed OPP were to just stand there and watch, pretending to be neutral. Then it would turn into a melee. Then the crowd was supposed to turn on the cops for not letting them get at the Indians. A few cops would get hurt. Then there would be an excuse to bring in the riot police conveniently stationed nearby. Many would be arrested, native and non-native. The non-native would be released and we would never know who they were. The natives would be charged. All this we’ve witnessed before.

The planners got it wrong this time. The Six Nations did open the road. When the non-native rioters arrived, they found the street open. This threw their plans out the window. There was no obstacle to overcome. So they set up their own barricade so they could find a target. When a car carrying native people came along, they attacked it. When people from the site came to help, they attacked them. What ensued was not a confrontation between the native and non-native people. It was a planned attack on the native people. When the native people started defending themselves, the corporate media got the photos they wanted. Images that make the natives look like the aggressors are plastered all over the media today. They also have Caledonians saying things like, “Bring in the army”, “This is terrorism” and “Dissolve both sides and everybody should go home”. Even the power outage was part of the scheme to create what was to look like chaos between native and non-native. Are there any real journalists left in corporate media in Canada who will report the truth?

During the riots David Peterson, the so-called “negotiator”, arrived on the scene. The native people were polite. He went over to the non-native rioters and got pushed around. It was all a show. Then Peterson said, “The government wants the Caledonian and the Six Nations people to be in solidarity”. He said he was against all the people who used force to make everything generate into chaos. Who used force? It was clearly the non-native side. His most telling remark was, “The talks may not go on” [he hopes]. This is what the whole display was all about - to stop the talks and to distract attention from the validity of the Six Nations claim.

If you were to dig deep to find the underlying interests that are served by stopping the talks, you would hit the hard rock of corporate greed. What is happening in Six Nations right now is not just about a piece of land on the Grand River. It’s about all native rights to land and resources in Canada. It will set the tone for the treatment of Indigenous rights in every other part of the country. Big business absolutely does not want Canada to start respecting Indigenous rights. They had a real problem a few years ago when Justice Thomas Berger’s Report on the McKenzie Valley Pipeline raised public awareness of the relationship between environmental issues and Indigenous rights. The Berger Report is almost forgotten. The McKenzie Valley pipeline is on the negotiating table again. Corporate interests do not want to suffer another Berger type setback caused by a bunch of do-gooder Canadians who think they want to live in a clean and healthy world.

Affirmation of the Six Nations right to the Grand River land could mean the end of their reign of environmental destruction and dissolution of their illegal colonial system. What happened at Six Nations yesterday is a small distraction. We don’t know who Peterson’s clients are when he’s not at Six Nations. We do know that he is aware of the corporate interests served by the denial of Indigenous rights. We also know that he’s been double dealing telling Caledonians that Ontario has no intention of returning land to the Six Nations while assuring Six Nations people that Ontario would formally recognize our title.

Once we realized this, we knew that Peterson did not really want the talks to go on even though he sounds conciliatory in public, especially when he talks to the media. He put on a different face during the meetings with the Six Nations. He sat there with a surly expression the whole time. This is a man who is not happy when things do not go his way.

Said a Mohawk about what’s going on, “You can’t steal land. You can’t put it into your pocket and walk away with it. You can only illegally occupy it”.

Another commented, “They lost the argument about the land. When a baby doesn’t get its way, they start busting everything. That’s what they did yesterday. The media has not been telling the public or the people of Caledonia the truth”. There is no real difference between the people of Caledonia and the people of Six Nations. All agree they want to live peacefully. Let’s hope people don’t get distracted from this goal by outside instigators who don’t care spit about the people of Caledonia or Indigenous people. The real Caledonians and the Six Nations people do not want to hurt anybody. The Caledonians threw bricks of cheese at the Six Nations who threw it back at them. Maybe this can be reenacted every year after this.

Could the ‘Bread and Cheese Fight’ have been avoided? Not when there’s so much corporate “greed” at stake.

Canadian criminality

2006-05-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

from an email just received:

HELP SIX NATIONS. OPP CONDONE MOB RULE. “ALL HELL AND SHIT HAS BROKEN LOOSE”. YOUR HELP IS URGENTLY NEEDED RIGHT NOW!

1:00 Monday. May 22, 2006. Day 83 of the land reclamation. In a gesture of goodwill, Six nations people took down the barricade on Argyle Street in front of the Caledonia at 6:00 am this morning. Yesterday the Caledonians blocked the road for 6 buses of supporters from Toronto. They also blocked ambulances from going to the hospital. One man died alone because they did not let him family go to his bedside. A car with a reporter and some women from Six nations paper was surrounded by Caledonian men and women. They smashed the windows. The Ontario Provincial Police stood around shoulder to shoulder without moving, just watching, allowing the hooliganism to go on. “We are looking after it,” they told the Six Nations people. When Six Nations people went to help the people who were being attacked, they were surrounded by more Caledonians, who shoved and hit them and accused the Indigenous people of instigating the violence. When the woman was hit, the Six Nations men jumped in and about three or four big fights broke out. The OPP continued to allow these Caledonian hoodlums to keep up their attack..

The Six Nations have put up the barricade again.

There is a large police presence. But just standing there. They are not stopping the Caledonia people from coming in. Everytime we try to soften things up and deal with people on the expectation they will behave in a civilized way, look at what happens.

This is public misbehaviour which is a direct result of the way the issues are handled by the Canadian government and the Canadian press. They do not present the legitimate basis of the Six Nations people’s complaints. They make it look like we are the law breakers. They are wrong in letting the public no know of our legitimate claims. The blame for this lies squarely on the shoulders of the public officials in the way they are presenting this whole issuer.

EVERYBODY DO SOMETHING.

Try the Prime Minister, the police, the UN, anyone you can think of who may take responsibility for law and order in Ontario.

Oubliette.

2006-05-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

CIA officers soon learned one thing for sure—prisoners sent to Bright Light and [other CIA secret prisons] . . . were probably never going to be released. "The word is that once you get sent to Bright Light, you never come back," said the CIA's Counterterrorism Center veteran. James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

Crimes measured in death and human suffering.

2006-05-10T23:31:00.000-07:00

via Chabert:

AUMOHD [The Association of University Graduates Motivated For A Haiti With Rights] witnessed that during the Boniface/Latortue government two (2) years in power, human rights violations have tremendously increased and human rights issues have become more complex. More than 2000 people have been illegally arrested, thrown in jail with no trial. More than 3000 people have suffered bullet wounds in the popular neighborhood, where most of the violence has been directed. Among the wounded, some are crippled for life, like Samedy FRANZT, Eval DUCLAIR, Brice OSNER and many more. More than 500 to one thousand dead or disappeared, Fedia RAPHAEL, Wisny JOSEPH, Henry JOASSSAINT, Evens JOSEPH a young, fresh out of the university lawyer; Berel JEAN, Lessonne DOCIUS, Annette MOLERON, a mother of eight, to name only these few AUMOHD witnessed that over half the civilian populations of popular neighborhoods were forced to leave their homes. Forced to flee MINUSTHA’s heavy artillery as well as “armed men’s” violence.

South Central Farmers

2006-05-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

Since 1992, the 14 acres of property located at 41st and Alameda Streets in Los Angeles have been used as a community garden or farm. The land has been divided into 360 plots and is believed to be one of the largest urban gardens in the country.

Amazing video via Woman of Color.

more on:

South Central Farmers

isolated and tortured, indefinitely.

2006-04-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, held without charge for more than four years, has tried to kill himself a dozen times in an attempt to escape the misery and isolation of his incarceration. On one occasion he tried to take his life during a visit by his lawyer.

Jumah al-Dossari, 33, claims he has been repeatedly beaten and suffered intense psychological abuse during his years of incarceration at the US prison camp in Cuba. He says he has watched US guards abuse the Koran, that he has been sexually humiliated and regularly kept in isolation.
His 12 attempts to take his life - either by hanging, slitting his wrists or a combination of both - account for a third of all the suicide attempts by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay reported by the US authorities. The most recent was in March.

"The enormous horrors that my eyes have seen and continue to see, renew my anxiety and pain and my very being and feelings are shaken at the mere thought or flash of them in my memory," he wrote in a 20-page account given to his lawyer. "I have written these lines from behind the walls of the dreadful detention camps. I have written about my pain and my sadness. I do not know what will happen in the future and what fate has hidden for me, when the end will come or how it will be."

(via AngryArab)

Meanwhile, Guantanamo North in Canada is up and running. One of the people indefinitely imprisoned is Mohamed Harkat:

ALGERIAN REFUGEE MOHAMED Harkat was arrested, ironically, on Human Rights Day, on December 10, 2002, in Ottawa. Harkat has been in Canada since 1995. Working as a gas attendant and pizza delivery man, he worked an average of 18 hours a day. In 1997, he was given refugee status after successfully claiming government persecution should he return to Algeria.

Also see: Campaign to stop the secret trials in Canada.
Justice for Mohamed Harkat.
A letter from prison.

Letter from Sophie Harkat:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Moe was able to have his first real call yesterday from the Kingston Immigration Holding Center...first thing he said was that he HATED it there!

He feels so isolated and lonely. He thinks everyone will forget about him since he's now there...I said that NO WAY IN HELL would his supporters ever forget him...and I would like to be right about this !! :-) So please send him a letter or just a postcard to remind him that he is not alone...and that we all continue to fight for him...please do so asap as he REALLY needs a pick me up !! It will be a few days before I am able to visit him and the new rules are VERY complicated...making it much harder on the families.

So here it is...Don't let me down....I've been saying we have the best supporters in the world !! :-)

MOHAMED HARKAT
Kingston Immigration Holding Centre
c/o CSC RHQ Ontario Region
440 King Street West
PO Box 1174> Kingston, ON
K7L 4Y8

I know we will be able to send personal items at another delivery addr. Once I know more about what he can have...I will let you know. Thanks for your continued support. Have a nice weekend

Take care

Sophie

Settler Community

2006-04-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Caledonia, Ont. — An angry mob infuriated by a native protest at their doorstep rushed a police line surrounding the standoff Monday night, screaming insults and demanding the protesters leave.

A line of about 100 police officers struggled to keep the mob of about 500 residents at bay as several cars and more aboriginal protesters could be seen rushing to the other side of a police barrier that kept the two sides about 200 metres apart.
Furious residents waved Canadian flags as they chanted “Let us through!” and urged police to “Open the road” leading to a disputed tract of land featuring a new housing development.

“Go Home!” one man yelled from the residents' side.

“We are home!” a woman yelled back from the natives' side, also numbering roughly 500.
(via Sketchythoughts)

Canadian Pride.

In 1867, Canada accepted a problem from its colonial rulers - created by their dedication to the principle of racial debasement of visible minorities - and nurtured it with the utmost devotion for well over a century. Without cause, it unreasonably treated its indigenous peoples with contempt and subjected them to the depths of dehumanizing racial persecution. During this period, Canada practised a form of apartheid that would have made the former rulers of South Africa green with envy. It, by law and policy, denied its First Nations people citizenship and the right to vote; tried to brainwash them into believing that they were descended from inferior civilizations and that they were, in fact, an inferior people; it denied them education and adequate medical services; barred them from many public and private establishments; to speed up the demolition of their languages and cultures, created residential schools; barred them from performing traditional dances, etc.

“Are these settlers civilian or military, these farmers who, in South Africa, at ‘this very moment, win battles?’ In vain will we find a distinction... Of those who have been through this rude school, some turn away immediately, but in others there results a special being who is no longer military, nor civilian, but what has become, to put it simply, the Settler.”
Lt-col. Hubert Lyautey, on white settlers in Africa.

More Six Nations updates.

2006-04-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

For more updates, visit:

Simon Raven Wiki's blog.

and here:

Six Nations Solidarity (via Sketchy Thoughts)

Update

2006-04-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

I fucked up. The source at the airport told me it ended up being 'airport rumors'. It was not a military plane that landed today. Instead, it was an RCMP plane, and he saw 8 rcmp armored vehicles at the airport--though I couldn't see them tonight when I went.

What I did see at the protest late this night was typical Canadiana: fifty young white supremacists protesting the protestors. Proudly waving a big Canadian flag, hooting and hollering, blocking the road, squeeling their tires.

What were some yelling? "Nuke the Indians".

The drunken group surrounded an Ontario Provincial Police car. Was there an injunction filed to end their blockade? Did the police pepper spray them or beat them down, or drag them away?

The cops let them protest the protest.

Canadian military may be arriving at Hamilton Airport at 9:30am.

2006-04-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

According to someone I spoke with at the Hamilton Airport, located near the Six Nations blockade, preparations are presently underway for the arrival of the Canadian military at the airport in just a few hours. Hours earlier, the morning of April 20th, Ontario Provincial Police attacked protesters reclaiming land lost to them in decades of swindles and lies. Sketchy Thoughts has more on the attack by police here.

According to a provincial police spokesperson, the police invasion was the result of the growing threat of violence at the site. This is a complete fabrication. I was there the day before the invasion, and there was not a hint of any threat, at least on the side of the protestors.

The OPP had earlier "signalled that they had learned a lesson from the disastrous 1995 attack on protesters occupying Ipperwash Provincial Park. A marksman killed protester Dudley George 11 years ago, prompting accusations of police and government racism and an inquiry that is still under way." (more on Dudley George's murder here)

Background:

"On April 6th the Canadian government said that the Six Nations dispute is not about land rights. "This is not a lands-claim matter," said Deirdre McCracken, a spokesperson for Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice. She also said that the blockade "has nothing to do with the federal government."

But according to a statement released on March 20th by the women of Rotinoshon'non:we (meaning Iroquois or Haudenosaunee, depending on the language being spoken), the blockade has quite a lot to do with land, and with the Canadian government.

The statement outlines how "General Haldimand confirmed that Britain would affirm the right of the Six Nations to a tract of land six miles deep on either side of the Grand River running from its mouth to its source." The piece of land immediately under dispute is only a small part of the much larger "Haldimand Tract."

This piece of history is not being debated. A plaque erected in Cayuga, Ontario by the Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board says much the same thing. The sign also notes that the land was awarded in 1784 in recognition of the Six Nations' help to the British Crown during the American Revolution. What the plaque says next is where the stories diverge. "In later years, large areas of this tract... were sold to white settlers."

According to the women of the Rotinoshon'non:we, however, "None of this land [the Haldimand tract] was ever legally surrendered." The women's statement carries a great deal of weight, given that, "Women are the 'Title Holders' of the land of Rotinoshon’non:we as recalled by Wampum 44 of the Kaianereh'ko:wa."

Though many people came today, there were few people on the canadian side of the barricades but gawkers this past night. The OPP has cordoned off a couple of roads off the highway (presumably also police staging areas), but the highway to Caledonia is still open. You can show your support by going there as a witness tomorrow or whenever you can, or please write or call immediately:

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, pm@pm.gc.ca

OPP Brian Haggith 905-772-3322

OPP Indian Advisor Jim Potts 613-795-3907

RCMP London 519-640-7267, 519-756-7050

Brantford-Hamilton 905-572-2401

OPP Caledonia 905-765-2339

C. P. Wright 289-260-9345

Michaelle Jean, Governor General
Phone: (613) 993-8200
Toll Free: 1-800-465-6890
Fax: (613) 998-1664
Email: info@gg.ca

Michael Bryant,
Ontario Attorney General
Phone: (416) 326-2220 or (416) 326-2210
Toll Free: 1-800-518-7901
Fax: (416) 326-4007Email:

Ontario Provincial Police Attack Six Nations Reclamation

2006-04-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

(Please see Sketchy Thoughts for more updates and excellent analysis)

Early this morning the Ontario Provincial Police attacked the reposession at Douglas Creek, just outside of Caledonia in Ontario. The site had been occupied by members of the Mohawk Nation and their supporters for fifty one days.

Below is a lengthy report by Kahentinetha Horn who was there when the police attacked. One hopes readers will understand if it is at times slightly disjointed – it was clearly written as events unfolded.

What must be put front and center, and repeated, is that the initial police attack was repelled. Nine people were arrested and unknown numbers brutalized, but as of 8:30 am all police had been driven off as hundred of people from Six Nations reservation moved onto the site.

This may be a victory, but the day is still young. People who can are strongly urged to get themselves to the reclamation/occupation site (see Mapquest here for directions).

If you cannot get there, consider what action you ca take where you are. Pickets, demos, whatever. Or else you can always phone/fax/email the criminals responsible for this:

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, pm@pm.gc.ca
OPP Brian Haggith 905-772-3322
OPP Indian Advisor Jim Potts 613-795-3907
RCMP London 519-640-7267, 519-756-7050
Brantford-Hamilton 905-572-2401
OPP Caledonia 905-765-2339
C. P. Wright 289-260-9345

Michaelle Jean, Governor General
Phone: (613) 993-8200
Toll Free: 1-800-465-6890
Fax: (613) 998-1664
Email: info@gg.ca

Michael Bryant, Ontario Attorney General
Phone: (416) 326-2220 or (416) 326-2210
Toll Free: 1-800-518-7901
Fax: (416) 326-4007
Email:

What follows is the report by Kahentinetha Horn (please forward far and wide):

ALERT! ALERT! OPP INVADES SIX NATIONS - AIDED BY INDIAN TRAITORS - GO AND WITNESS
Thursday, April 20th 2006

WATCH FOR FURTHER UPDATES

4:20 am the OPP attacked to arrest them. Hauled first 9 off. Some protesters took the Caledonia bridge. Reserve people arrived and repelled the cops. At least 150 heavily armed cops. Vans, trucks, paddy wagons, ambulances (for the cops). They repelled them. The cops came back. They were repelled again. Now at 9:00 am the people have taken the land in question back.

How to get there: From Niagara Falls and Toronto, take Highway 6 straight south from Hamilton to Caledonia.

From buffalo take Highway 3 west to Highway 6 and north on Highway 6 to Caledonia.

From Windsor take Highway 3 East to Highway 6 and go north. These are backways and cops are not likely to be looking at it too much

8:30 am OPP DISRUPTS PEACE IN QUIET CALEDONIA
The OPP has created an ongoing battle. They sit in their cars, give out false news reports, and wait for reinforcements to come in to squash the Six Nations people but they can't. Everyone is reporting to everyone.

All police have been chased off the perimeter of Douglas Estates for now. Cop were sneaking behind the unfinished houses. One woman went over. A women cop told her she was under arrest. "What do you mean I'm under arrest. You're violating the laws, both ours and international law". Other cops came out and wrestled her down on the ground. She fought all of them. They kneed her to handcuff her. She started booting the cops. Then other Indians arrived on the scene and chased the cops off. As they were leaving they shot her son in back with tasers. The big woman cop was carrying a big gun, something like an Ouzi. "It was a big one". Those cops were fully packed, she said. They failed to arrest her because she resisted. There are 9 arrested. They're supposed to only keep them for 2 hours. 'We haven't seen them back yet". The People are shutting Caledonia down. "We are not armed. We got our land back. Were in! We're at the fire!"

At the 6th Line where the Douglas Estates comes out on the road at the entrance, out to Highway 6 that goes onto the rez. The bypass that goes around Caledonia. At the 6th line overpass, the people there had been blocking that road, they were attacked by the cops, paddy wagons were there. They fought back. It was a brawl. People started coming from the rez and supported them. Immediately there were hydro poles around which they threw on the road and set on fire. They are cutting off Highway 6 the main supply line that goes goes to Nanticoke Hydro Electric plant down on Lake Erie. It is the main transport truck road to Hamilton. This is being blocked.

Some protesters are still holding Caledonia Bridge, the main artery of the city. It's total confusion.

If you have satellite TV, look for Hamilton CH which has a live feed. They have helicopters filming everything.

8:00 am
It is an ongoing situation. 9 people arrested.

There is fighting going on at the No. 6 Line Bridge. It is blocked off. The traditional Longhouse people put a fire there and the OPP pepper sprayed them. But the people started fighting back. The people have moved onto the main bridge in Caledonia. The people moved the police off the land and are going back to the main door and are still there holding on. The cops are still on the road shutting down the bypass. The OPP were chased off by the people and told to get out. OPP got off the land and are in their cars watching and waiting for "orders".

Get the news on the radio stations, newspapers, television.

7:05 am. Two snipers were chased off by the people. They have 50 cops trapped in, who can't get out. A media black out could work against them. More cops are going to come in. Indians don't have weapons but they do have tons of cameras.

In Ipperwash there was a media blackout. The only way the information got out was because some of the people told what they saw. That's why we need people in there. The police showed in that public inquiry there was a deliberate attempt to stop the press from finding out. There were attacks upon people with cameras, those who tried to get the story out. What the police learned is how to do this the right way next time. This is it. They learned all the weaknesses We learned the invaders are psychologically twisted people who pretend to be supporting the law. These are megalomaniacs who think they can say what the law is because they have access to guns. This time they will do it "right". The CTV have made two major movies showing what happens when these twisted personalities are allowed free reign on Indians. We get killed.

There are back room deals in police headquarters to hide the information and protect the police officers that give orders. In the case of Ipperwash, three OPP police officers died suddenly just before they were going to give evidence at the enquiry. What a strange coincidence. It is unfortunate that the poor jerks that are just "following orders" do not realize that they are putting their lives on the line. They are not at risk from Indians, so why all these coincidences?

The Six Nations people have been burning tobacco during this entire occupation for their protection. This is the only weapon that we have. We know the truth is on our side. We are calling upon the natural forces to give us wisdom and guidance through this whole siege. There are repercussions to those involved when you go against people who are innocent and justified in what they are doing. The megalomaniacs who do these kinds of things are only looking out for themselves. They are a danger to all of society. We Indigenous people are within our rights. We want Canada to obey their own laws, and to respect international norms. We want an open and fair hearing. If the colonizers think they own our land, they need to prove it. With this attack they have trashed any pretension to right and decency, democracy and the rule of law. Canada is beginning to slide quickly down the slippery slope of despotism. How can Canada decolonize. The test lies in how they feel toward people who challenge their assumptions. Are they going to use batons, guns and pepper spray? Or are they going to get out their documents and take a serious look at the evidence.

The answer is obvious. Just look at what is happening today. This is a colonial government's hard core. Canada does not believe in reasoned researched and documented solutions. We are seeing how colonial government is going to deal with any kind of questioning of their "might makes right" authority. These are the signs of how a tyrannical government is going to suppress the people from expressing legitimate dissent against a takeover by the powerful elitist interests that are involved. It appears that individual rights are being eliminated systematically all over Turtle Island. This destruction of dissent at Six Nations is done under the cover of media darkness. This is the way it will be done in the future against all people across Turtle Island. This is an experiment in police state tactics against unarmed people who are exercising our rights.

These are the lessons they learned at Gustafsen Lake in 1995 where 77,000 rounds of ammunition were shot at the Indians. In Saskatoon, where Six Indian boys were found frozen to death outside the city put there by police officers. In Winnipeg where J.J. Harper was murdered by the Winnipeg police. At Ipperwash where Dudley George was murdered in cold blood by the OPP. There are over 500 Indigenous women who have "disappeared" and the police have done nothing about it. In the 1960's there was a complaint made in British Columbia because men were looking for Indian children to have sex with them in the streets. The police did nothing about it. Child prostitution is an on-going problem in Vancouver. We don't want the blood lust of Canada's police force to be whetted by spilling the blood of Indians. This vampire regime is moving in on Indians like sharks who smell blood in the water.

We don't want the

6:45 am
Go to Six nations. Take part in the Canadian "democratic" process. Get pepper sprayed. Get beat up. Get arrested. Get killed. No one will know what is going on. Seriously, the media black out is giving the lawless their power. They can do anything they want and who knows where it will stop. Take photos and tell your friends. We don't want another Chile. The state has been involved in murders before like Anna May Aquash. These attackers find a place where they can live out their bizarre fantasies and manias. These people have a twisted view of society and a gun is put in their hands. No psychological testing is done on these guys in police, armies, and bureaucracies. The only test for surviving is a willingness to "follow orders", not the law. These people have no concept of what the law or true democratic rule is.

6:20 AM
Cops all over the place. People are there. More people coming. Pepper sprayed. So far they let everybody go. Some might have been seized. Don't know. Canada using Gestapo tactics instead of making things right. Canada following big brother george bush mentality - invasion, containment, imprisonment and torture of Indigenous people and their families. Next Canada will start hunting down those who continue to protect and try to maintain the sov and jurisdiction of our people. lets not be surprised if Canada puts a deck of 52 for its most wanted Indigenous people and their friends and allies. Free land is our land that is free of Indians.

At 5:55 am this morning, Thursday, April 20th, over 150 heavily armed Ontario Provincial Police with Native mercenaries as body shields, invaded Six Nations land. Some carrying M-16's, in riot gear. 6th line is still open. The Rotinoshon'no are not fighting because they are unarmed. Tear gas has been thrown at them. Some were pepper sprayed. The traitors are the same kind of people who stabbed Crazy Horse, Geronimo, and those who fought for our sovereignty and our lives.

One bridge to the property has been closed.

Witnesses required. This will not be on the national news. Go there and see what is going on. This is a scary precedent. Take pictures. Make reports. Let the world know. report. REPORT. REPORT. Help the people so no one gets hurt. we never wanted violence. Canada has opened to the door to covert state violence on a scale that is unprecedented in Canada. This si the end of any pretense of negotiation with Indigenous people. they're just going to take the land. Canada came in with armaments, guns, paddy wagons (we don’t know what's in there).

Don't let Canada become another Chile. Tell the world. The Rotino'shon:we are on our own land.

MNN Mohawk Nation News
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

Urgent call-out in support of Mohawk sovereignty.

2006-03-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

(via Sketchy Thoughts):

I am forwarding the below call to support the Mohawk Nation. The authors ask that people forward it by email or post it to their websites.

URGENT CALL TO ACTION TO PREVENT MILITARY AND POLICE INCURSION ON MOHAWK TERRITORIES

March 2006

The Coalition in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty - Native Caucus is asking that you take some time to phone, email or fax the authorities below to register your objection to a potential incursion onto Mohawk Territories this spring and at any other time.

This request comes as a result of warnings by community leaders in Akwesasne, Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Tyendinega who are preparing for a joint Canadian Forces/RCMP raid on April 1, the latest in a series of actions designed to destroy the Mohawk tobacco trade.

Our position on this issue is as follows:

In 1876 the Indian Act imposed the band council system of government on the indigenous people of Turtle Island (North America). Among other things, this law:

1) Deposed already existing leadership to establish band councils and the areas over which they had jurisdiction. The Indian Act was passed without consultation with any indigenous leader, usurped the treaty process (nation to nation agreements) and made First Nations governments null and void, despite the fact that these governments had served our ancestors for millennia before Europeans arrived on Turtle Island. This is akin to the US government passing a law that disbanded the current Canadian government, determined what type of government Canada must have and designated the limitations of its power.

2) Made First Nations Communities economically dependent on Ottawa. The federal government controls the only sources of revenue for social programs, economic development projects or job creation in FN communities. Ottawa determines through a variety of legal and financing mechanisms what band councils can and cannot do for their communities. Even the process of pursuing a land claim is legislated by Ottawa, funded (or not) by Ottawa and decided ultimately in Canadian courts. Land usage on FN territories is determined by Ottawa. There are many examples in history when the federal government leased or sold First Nations lands or resources and consequently reaped huge profits that did not accrue to the community. Clearly, the poverty that exists in First Nations communities is, and always has been, by Ottawa's design.

3) Blatantly discriminated against women by recognizing Native descent through the male line so that First Nations citizenship rights for women were recognized only through their father's lineage and husband's status, and by prohibiting them from voting or running for office in band elections. This was a complete contradiction to traditional First Nations practices, in which descent for many communities was reckoned along the female line, and where women had significant authorities in political, economic and social life. While there were many nations and many practices, it is safe to generalize and say that women held positions of leadership directly and/or appointed male leaders and held them accountable. This was completely overturned by the Indian Act.

Although women now have the right to vote and run for band office, almost a century of being excluded from political, economic and social decision-making has left First Nations women on and off reserve in very vulnerable situations. Women are among the poorest in First Nations communities. They have been targeted through various amendments to the Indian Act and thousands were stripped of their status along with their homes, benefits and any treaty rights they may have had. The hundreds of women who are missing from our communities, dead and murdered, is a direct result of a deliberate and calculated attack on the rights and authorities of First Nations women by the Canadian government.

4) Determined who could call themselves an "Indian" and live in First Nations communities. The Indian Act established an Indian registry and with subsequent amendments there has emerged a complex set of legal categories (status & non-status Indians, Treaty Indians, Bill C-31 Indians, etc.) designed to divide and disempower First Nations families and communities. Non-status Indians are those who are not recognized by Ottawa as First Nations. They cannot live in their communities, do not enjoy benefits or treaty rights and are not permitted to participate in band council elections. Again, this is akin to the US determining who could be a Canadian and who could not, as well as who could live here and vote in Canadian elections.

Initially through the use of Indian agents with sweeping powers and more recently through purse strings, Ottawa has controlled band councils, band chiefs and the Assembly of First Nations. Whether this current control is perceived of as friendly or hostile is irrelevant and sidesteps the basic assumption that First Nations people are children who cannot manage their own affairs. To recognize that some band councils, their chiefs and police are sincerely interested in serving their communities while others are corrupt may be true but fails to recognize that the band council system is itself inherently corrupt, paternalistic and racist.

The Indian Act was and is an instrument of genocide. Likewise, the system of reserves, band councils and taxes are all tools of genocide. At best, the levying of taxes by Canada or the provinces on commercial activities within and among First Nations communities is an infringement of sovereignty as well as a violation of the treaties that exist, not to mention the inherent rights of First Nations people.

This is particularly objectionable when the levying of taxes applies to transactions involving tobacco. It was First Nations people who developed, cultivated and cared for tobacco plants. Our ancestors were the first to understand and benefit from the use of tobacco in ceremony (even in times when our ceremonies were illegal). Canada now assumes it has a right to control the tobacco trade, which is consistent with its assumption that it has a right to control the lives of First Nations people. Now that tobacco is being used to generate income and sustain First Nations-owned businesses (an anti-genocidal activity), Ottawa wants to step in and crush the initiative.

We reject the portrayal of Mohawk communities as divided between the minions of organized crime and law-abiding citizens. Mainstream media and Canadian authorities would have us believe that thugs are defying legally elected First Nations governments and Canadian laws. Such an analysis does not acknowledge the impact of a band council system, imposed, funded and controlled by Ottawa. It does nothing to educate us on the long history of genocide that remains official policy in this country. It does not examine Ottawa's historic role in sabotaging activities that contribute to the economic independence of First Nations people.

On these grounds we are asking that you and your organization fax or email the officials below and voice your concerns regarding a potential violation of Mohawk sovereignty, which would follow a systemic pattern of violations over the years. Below is a sample letter that you can edit, cut and paste into your own email if you choose.

Nia:wen / meegwich / thank you for your support. For more information contact: daryljamesbucar@yahoo.ca or amadahy@rogers.com.

Scroll down for the sample letter. To voice your concerns send an email, phone or fax:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper:
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa K1A 0A2
Fax: 613-941-6900
Email: pm@pm.gc.ca

Jim Prentice,
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal
Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status Indians
Parliament Hill: House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-4275
Fax: (613) 947-9475
E-Mail: Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca

SAMPLE LETTER

To: Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and
Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status Indians

I am writing to register my concern regarding ongoing violations of Mohawk sovereignty and continued actions that threaten the health and safety of the residents of Akwesasne, Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Tyendinega.

I strongly urge you to put a stop to government-sponsored activities that portray these communities as being bastions of "organized crime" engaged in an illegal tobacco trade. Furthermore, I suggest your government cease operating under the assumption that Band Councils and the Assembly of First Nations, which are funded and controlled by the federal government, are the only legitimate representatives of First Nations communities.

Many studies, some commissioned by the federal government (such as the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People), have determined that the issues confronting First Nations communities include sub-standard health care, inadequate and sub-standard housing, inadequate employment opportunities, poverty, violence, racism, etc. These studies clearly attribute this set of deplorable conditions to the actions and inactions of consecutive Canadian governments.

Raiding Mohawk communities and seizing tobacco products does nothing to address the day-to-day issues confronting First Nations people. In fact, such activities actually contribute to worsening the oppressive conditions under which First Nations people live by depriving families of their livelihood as well as assaulting their dignity and violating their inherent rights.

Military and police incursions onto First Nations territories are not a solution to the long standing issues confronting these communities. Moreover such actions shame non-First Nations people, many of whom reject complicity in a centuries-old genocide project.

Your government has the option of creating a disaster that would rival the Oka Crisis, Gustafson Lake and the murder of Dudley George put together. Or you can decide to deal with First Nations communities in a way that is proactive, peaceful and respectful, for the first time in Canadian history. I strongly urge you opt for the latter of the two choices.

Signed,

If at first they don't succeed.

2006-03-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

"UN agency retreats on plan for Haitian police"
by Tim Pelzer

The United Nations mission in Haiti has decided to postpone a tentative agreement that would have placed the Haitian National Police under direct UN control. The move, announced on March 10, came in the wake of widespread criticism that the agreement, if implemented, would undermine Haiti’s sovereignty.

On Feb. 22, Gerard Latortue, the U.S.-installed Haitian prime minister, and Juan Gabriel Valdes, head of the UN stabilization forces in Haiti (Minustah), signed the accord in New York City. The agreement would have obligated the Haitian National Police (HNP) to consult with Minustah before undertaking police operations, and would have given the UN agency veto power over police promotions.

The new pact would have also given Minustah access to the files of any government or court official or entity relating to the HNP, including the private papers of the president, for example, as well as unrestricted access to police offices and prisons. It further stipulated that future governments would be obligated to honor the accord.

As popular pressure against the accord mounted, President Boniface Alexandre, Foreign Minister Herard Abraham and Justice Minister Henri Dorleans condemned it, claiming Latortue never informed them he was going to sign it. The Haitian News Agency reported that Alexandre asked Abraham on March 6 to write to the UN, asking that the accord’s implementation be halted until its unconstitutional provisions were removed. The UN action on March 10 was apparently a response to that request.

According to Brian Concannon Jr. of the Oregon-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, the deal, if it were to go through, would decrease the powers of President-elect Rene Preval and give the international community much more leverage over him.

“The deal was signed a week after the announcement of Preval’s victory, and five weeks before his [then] scheduled inauguration,” Concannon said. “If the agreement was appropriate to negotiate at all, it would have been appropriate to negotiate it with the president who would have to abide by it, and who also had the electoral and constitutional legitimacy to bind his country.”

“There was no reason why the deal could not have been negotiated with elected president, other than a fear that the voters’ choice would not agree to it,” he said. “The UN should be above such underhanded stunts.”

Concannon continued: “Time and again Minustah stood by while the police massacred prisoners, invaded neighborhoods and made illegal arrests, insisting that their mandate prevented them from interfering in the police force’s internal affairs.” He said the UN mission did not issue a single investigative report in almost two years of Latortue’s reign, yet now it sought extraordinary powers, including the right to read Preval’s personal diary if it touches on police matters.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have accused the HNP of carrying out widespread illegal arrests and extrajudicial killings.

In response to critics, Latortue said that when he signed the document, which he admitted is unconstitutional and “places the HNP further under the tutelage of Minustah,” he did not understand all of its provisions. He later said the UN corrected any would-be problems in the agreement, and that Haiti should “move forward.”

Minustah’s Valdes defended the accord, saying it was not intended to put Haiti under international tutelage, but merely to ensure that anything the government does is in harmony with the HNP’s development.

Anthony Fenton, a Canada-based journalist who closely follows developments in Haiti, said the proposed agreement “appears to be the first official acknowledgment that Haiti is under a foreign tutelage similar to the ‘Kosovo model.’” He noted that such ideas have been floated before, notably at a high-level meeting in January 2003 in Ottawa, Canada. “Of course, the reality is that Haiti has been under a de facto trusteeship since Feb. 29, 2004,” he said, referring to the date of Aristide’s ouster by U.S. Marines.

break.

2006-01-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

Lazylafargue is going to sleep for a few months. We're overworked, money's tight, and other things are keeping us too busy to do more than an occasional post.

But PLEASE, visit Canada Haiti Action Network for updates and ideas on how to get involved to stop the mass murder of Haitian people—made possible by Canada, the US, France, and corporations like Gildan Activewear.

Also, visit Le Colonel Chabert and Lenin's Tomb. Please read them for updates on Haiti, as well as excellent commentary, passion, humour, and a love of people.

"The war against humanity is not over there but everywhere, all the time."

2006-01-24T22:48:00.000-08:00

The connection which Lenin established—in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism—between imperialist exploitation of the dominated peoples and social-democratic ideological hegemony over the working class of the imperialist centers has already been forgotten. Social-democratic ideology (social-imperialist would be a more appropriate term) implies the existence of “socialism” at home and imperialism abroad...

...The global development of capitalism in an imperialist framework has decisive consequences for the destiny of socialism. Most important is the fact that the center of gravity of the exploitation of labor by capital (and, in the first place, by monopoly capital which dominates the system as a whole) has been displaced from the center of the system to its periphery. The mass of surplus value (in all its forms—absolute and relative, apparent and masked by price structures) extracted from labor in the periphery has been increasing steadily since the end of [the nineteenth] century. This simple fact explains why the periphery plays an increasingly active role in the global socialist revolution, by giving a new impetus to one of the possible outcomes of the uneven development of societies: the development of socialism starting from the lagging zones of capitalism...

...Social-imperialist collusion gives way to Third Worldist outbursts. For Third Worldism is a strictly European phenomenon. Its proponents seize on literary expressions, such as “the East wind will prevail over the West wind” or “the storm centers,” to illustrate the impossibility of struggle for socialism in the West, rather than grasping the fact that the necessary struggle for socialism passes, in the West, also by way of anti-imperialist struggle in Western society itself.

-from Samir Amin, Imperialism & Unequal Development (o.v. 1976).

"Let me speak for just a few minutes about the prospects of the opposition. I never said that the student opposition today is by itself a revolutionary force, nor have I ever seen in the hippies the "heir of the proletariat"! Only the national liberation fronts of the developing countries are today in a revolutionary struggle. But even they do not by themselves constitute an effective revolutionary threat to the system of advanced capitalism. All forces of opposition today are working at preparation and only at preparation--but toward necessary preparation for a possible crisis of the system. And precisely the national liberation fronts and the ghetto rebellion contribute to this crisis, not only as military but also as political and moral opponents--the living, human negation of the system. For the preparation and eventuality of such a crisis perhaps the working class, too, can be politically radicalized. But we must not conceal from ourselves that in this situation the question whether such radicalization will be to the left or the right is an open one. The acute danger of fascism or neo-fascism has not at all been overcome.

I have spoken of a possible crisis, of the eventuality of a crisis of the system. The forces that contribute to such a crisis would have to be discussed in great detail. I believe that we must see this crisis as the confluence of very disparate subjective and objective tendencies of an economic, political, and moral nature, in the East as well as the West. These forces are not yet organized on a basis of solidarity. They have no mass basis in the developed countries of advanced capitalism. Even the ghettos in the United States are in the initial stage of attempted politicization. And under these conditions it seems to me that the task of the opposition is first the liberation of consciousness outside of our own social group. For in fact the life of everyone is at stake, and today everyone is part of what Veblen called the "underlying population," namely the dominated. They must become conscious of the horrible policy of a system whose power and pressure grow with the threat of total annihilation. They must learn that the available productive forces are used for the reproduction of exploitation and oppression and that the so-called free world equips itself with military and police dictatorships in order to protect its surplus."

-from Herbert Marcuse "The problem of violence and the radical opposition" (1967) (via Afterthepurge)

Criminal overclasses.

2006-01-24T22:42:00.000-08:00

"Our Governments Are Haiti's Gangs" (from Chabert)

"Haiti: the mildest hint of criticism" (from Lenin's Tomb)

"Haiti's Bourgeoisie Calls for Blood" (from Haiti Progres):

On Monday, Jan. 16, sweatshop magnate André Apaid's pro-coup "Group of 184" organized a small demonstration of about 200 people outside the headquarters of the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) in the capital's Bourdon district. The action was also supported by the "Group of Democratic Agreement," an alliance of nine political parties taking part in Haiti's upcoming elections, now scheduled for Feb. 7.

A week earlier, Haiti's bourgeoisie had called a general strike to protest the MINUSTAH's "inaction "in the face of the crime wave gripping Haiti (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 23, No. 44, 1/11/2006). According to bourgeois leaders like Apaid and Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Réginald Boulos, Haiti's crime all emanates from the capital's giant slum of Cité Soleil, which they claim is infested with "bandits."

"It is necessary that the UN peace-keeping force of MINUSTAH take action against the bandits of Cité Soleil to free the population there, which has been taken hostage," Apaid told Radio Métropole in an interview just before his picket line. "During this gathering in front of the MINUSTAH headquarters, we will send a clear messages to the UN Secretary General and to the Brazilian government that MINUSTAH has to take up its responsibilities vis-a-vis the degradation of the security climate."

The picket, predictably, brought out a number of presidential candidates, such as Serge Gilles of the Fusion of social democrats, Paul Denis of the Organization of Struggling People (OPL), and independent candidate Charles Henri Baker, another sweatshop owner and leader of the "184." The latter read two letters addressed respectively to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and to Kofi Annan, and then gave them to MINUSTAH personnel.

"We completely support the Group of 184, which has called this picket," said Fusion's spokesman Micha Gaillard. "There must be peace in the head so that fear does not prevent us from going to vote... We agree with civil society [i.e. the bourgeoisie] which questions and wants to force Minustah to take up its responsibilities."

In his letter to Kofi Annan, André Apaid charged that Cité Soleil's "bandits" support "a presidential candidate," a veiled reference to former president René Préval, whose popularity is unrivaled by any of the other 34 candidates. This has "made impossible any true election campaigning," Apaid said.

The day before the picket, Kofi Annan issued an official statement condemning the bourgeoisie's "smear campaign" against the MINUSTAH and his special representative, Juan Gabriel Valdés. "Kofi Annan invites the provisional Haitian government to publicly condemn this smear campaign which aims to discredit the work of the UN in Haiti and which could carry serious consequences for the safety and security of Minustah personnel," the note said. "This campaign of unjustified criticism also threatens the construction of a society based on democratic values and could put in danger the holding of free and fair elections."

Also on Jan. 16, Haiti's National Popular Party (PPN) held a press conference denouncing Apaid and the bourgeoisie for overthrowing Haiti's constitutional government with the US, France and Canada and "leading the country into complete failure."

The PPN's Georges Honorat noted that the bourgeoisie accuses Cité Soleil of being the source of Haiti's rash of kidnappings. But over the holiday season, "more than a dozen kidnappings took place in [the bourgeois district of] Pétionville and not in the vicinity Cité Soleil," Honorat said.
He said that the people of Cité Soleil were not terrorists, but terrorized. The bourgeoisie had enforced their general strike (in fact, a lock-out) a week earlier by a terror campaign of "continuous shootings of automatic weapons" around the capital, thereby "forcing the population to remain in all day," Honorat said.

The PPN noted the complete disarray and confusion surrounding the upcoming elections. Honorat speculated that Washington, if unable to "select" a suitable candidate, will "proclaim Haiti a failed state thereby justifying a more total supervision and occupation."

Calling the upcoming elections a "masquerade,' the PPN warned that "there could be a repeat of November 29, 1987," when soldiers and Tonton Macoutes aborted national elections with bloody massacres. "The PPN urges those holding national identity [voting] cards to not take part in the 'selection/elections' to avoid being victims... Do not go to the slaughterhouse into which the occupiers want to lead you."

Honorat closed by saying that "the population must mobilize in a peaceful way throughout the country to demand the release of all the Lavalas political prisoners and the return of Lavalas political exiles, including President Aristide, for there to be truly democratic, free and honest elections."

Murder and Profit in Haiti: "Consultants Advisory Group™ (CAG) Spying in Haiti; Whistleblowers Detained for Reporting Human Rights Violations"

2006-01-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

Excellent sleuthing from blogger Kathryn Cramer:

I seem to have uncovered a strange little black ops organization that's spying in Haiti and elsewhere. Not long ago, they were also looking to drum up some business in the US in the Homeland Security market. I got a few tips from whistleblowers. But all of the most substantial information has come from one of their own employees who wrote me a number of long letters.

This post covers a lot of ground, ranging from a mysterious company owned by US ex-pats placing spies disguised as journalists in the audience of Haitian presidential debates, to CAG arranging for the detention of people who wrote to me to ask for information about CAG and complain about CAG's involvement in human rights violations in Haiti. So bear with me. This is my second post about CAG, and part of an ongoing series on Top Cat Marine Security.

This has to be read in its entirety.

Read here, and previously here.

Also,

The U.S. State Dept. is reaching out to independent contractors to train other private contractors who will be deployed as “civilian police” -- hired guns for so-called peacekeeping missions taking place in Haiti and other geopolitical hotspots. The senior adviser selected for the task “must oversee pre-deployment training currently being conducted” by Dyncorp International, Civilian Police International and Pacific Architects and Engineers/Homeland Security Corporation, according a recently released procurement document.
(Stephen Peacock with NarcoSphere)

and

Suicide, accident or murder? What explains the bullet that passed through the head of Brazilian General Urana Teixera da Malta Bacillar at the deluxe Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Jan. 7?
(Haiti Progres via Chabert)

and

Pretoria - The possibility that a sniper of South African origin might have been responsible for the death of General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, commanding general of the United Nations force in Haiti (Minustah), has been mentioned in security circles in this violence-torn country.
(Erika Gibson, News 24)

Urban warfare: "There is no home front. The conflict is not 'over there'."

2006-01-18T19:13:00.000-08:00

The real security challenge of the 21st century is centred on terror cells. Today’s front line stretches from the streets of Kabul, to the rail lines in Madrid, to cities across Canada.

Our adversary could be operating in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the cities of Europe, or within our own borders.

There is no home front. The conflict is not ‘over there’. Our approach to Canada’s security and defence must reflect this reality. Merely modernizing Canada’s armed forces on old models will not suffice. We are now in the process of conducting a comprehensive international policy review for the first time in a decade. This review will help us clearly define our interests and articulate our values in the area of foreign and defence policy, aid and trade.
-Prime Minister Paul Martin, addressing troops at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, 2003.

Over the course of the past year and a half, my government issued our country’s first National Security Policy, launched the Canada Corps with its work in Ukraine, led the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, commanded the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and the multinational force in Haiti

The image that captures today’s operational environment for the Canadian Forces is a “three-block-war.” Increasingly, there is overlap in the tasks our personnel are asked to carry out at any one time. Our military could be engaged in combat against well-armed militia in one city block, stabilization operations in the next block, and humanitarian relief and reconstruction two blocks over. Transition from one type of task to the other can happen in the blink of an eye. This ability of the Canadian Forces to wage three-block wars has been amply demonstrated in diverse theatres from Bosnia to Afghanistan. The Government’s reinvestments in the Canadian Forces will ensure that they continue to enjoy a well-earned reputation for versatility in these complex environments
-"Canada's International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Influence in the World. Overview", 2005.

It has already been mentioned here that Canadian air force personnel were training with the Israeli Air Force in Cold Lake during 'Operation Maple Flag':

While Major-General Walter Natyncyzk - who just returned from a year with American troops in Iraq - has been tapped to carry out reforms in the Canadian forces modeled after the United States Northern Command, with the regional army, navy and air force units answering to one Canada Command.

The crux behind the reforms is the capacity to face asymmetrical challenges - what the army calls the ability to wage "three-block war" in an urban setting. "Three-block war" is terminology lifted straight from the US Marine Corps' bloody invasion of Fallujah in April 2004. Air power is the backbone of this type of warfare, and no nation on earth uses airpower to enforce occupation more effectively than Israel.
-Jon Elmer, "Good Night Battle of Britain, Good Morning Gaza", 2005.

And here that Canadian ground forces are planning for simulated urban combat in Winnipeg this coming April in 'Exercise Charging Bison':

MORE than 500 army troops, backed by helicopters, armoured vehicles and artillery, will turn downtown Winnipeg into an armed camp as part of a military exercise to train soldiers for the modern battlefield.

Exercise Charging Bison will unfold for seven days and nights beginning April 30 next year in what is believed to be the largest urban warfare training exercise of its kind ever held in Canada.

There won't be live ammunition, but there will be laser weapons and a variety of blanks and 'simunition' -- or simulated munitions -- that make noise and smoke or discharge harmless projectiles.

The drill is designed to simulate the kind of complex conditions soldiers would encounter in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where conventional warfare is conducted simultaneously with humanitarian relief operations and nation-building, said Col. Kelly Woiden, commander of 38 Brigade.

Urban battlefields are sometimes known as "three-block wars" because troops could help people on one block, fight insurgents on another, and guard convoys on another, Woiden explained.

"We're going to create a realistic environment of the situation that individual soldiers can face today," he said. "You could be doing humanitarian relief one moment and then fighting a war the next. It is the most complicated terrain for a soldier."
-Winnipeg Free Press, "Army to Occupy Downtown: Spring exercise to turn city into 'battleground'"

These dry-runs are a rehearsal for future missions of 'humanitarian' relief, modelled on such humanitarian military missions as the occupation of Falluja or Gaza. Right now, in Haiti, where Canada has helped engineer a coup and bloody occupation, the government speaks of a mission " to meet the immediate needs of the people of Haiti, including ensuring that humanitarian assistance gets to those most in need; basic health and education needs are met; public order is restored; and human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected." These dry-runs may also be well suited for the occupation and pacification of a Canadian city should the need arise. After all, there is no 'home front' or 'over there'.

Anyone leaving “their house takes their life into their own hands.”

2006-01-18T14:43:00.000-08:00

from WSWS (via Lenin's Tomb):

The UN occupation troops have locked down Port-au-Prince, establishing checkpoints at the major intersections as armored personnel carriers patrol the streets. Cité Soleil, an impoverished shantytown of 500,000 that largely supports Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party, has been made into a virtual prison according to Jean-Joseph Joel, the secretary-general of the local Lavalas branch.

Heeding the demands of Haiti’s business leaders and the coup government, Valdes suggested that another UN military raid on the neighborhood could be imminent. Many Cité Soleil residents fear a repeat of the massacre on July 6, 2005 that killed 50 people. The massacre resulted from a UN military operation to assassinate Emmanuel “Dread” Wilme, a popular community leader labeled as a “bandit” by UN forces (a monument has since been erected in Wilme’s honor by Cité Soleil residents).

Demonstrations erupted in Cité Soleil on Thursday, January 12 against the UN occupation and its collusion with the coup government that has jailed political opponents. One person was confirmed killed and 17 were injured in clashes with UN troops as of Wednesday last week. One of the wounded was a 12-year-old girl. “Every day, we are counting dead bodies,” said Joel.
A 30-year-old woman named Edline Pierre-Louis, who lost her unborn baby when she was shot by UN troops on July 6, protested the UN’s denial of the massacre. “The blue helmets [UN troops] are lying,” she told the Haitian Information Project. “They killed so many people, and I praise God that I am alive to call them liars.”

As witnessed by independent Canadian reporters Leslie Bagg and Aaron Lakoff, “multiple killings of civilians have been committed by UN forces.” In Cité Soleil they interviewed a resident named Dieunord Edme, who spoke of his wife, Annette Moleron, being shot and killed by UN troops on January 7 in an incident that also claimed the lives of four other women in a marketplace. The reporters witnessed a bloated corpse by a roadside that residents couldn’t retrieve because the UN military in Haiti (MINUSTAH) would fire on anyone that approached it. The reporters claim the corpse was left out in order to intimidate the neighborhood.

On Monday, January 9, Reginald Boulos, the president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Andy Apaid, the Haitian-American who owns Haiti’s oldest and largest sweatshop empire—both members of the Canadian and US-backed Group 184—called for a “strike” allegedly to protest the wave of kidnappings. Group 184, which played a prominent role in destabilizing Aristide’s government, has been funded by the International Republican Institute, a constituent part of the National Endowment for Democracy, the US agency established to carry out political operations formerly orchestrated by the CIA.

The New York Times reported, “The Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry called a strike to pressure UN peacekeepers to move against gangs—allegedly loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—who have carried out many of the kidnappings.” The “gangs” are the code word for Haiti’s poor, who largely support Aristide, and would most likely vote for René Préval, who served as Haiti’s president from 1996 to 2001. It is apparent that most of Port-au-Prince regarded the strike, in the words of one angry street vendor who closed his stall due to lack of business, as “a rich persons’ strike.”

Announcements aired over Radio Metropole threatened that anyone leaving “their house takes their life into their own hands.”

Lenin summarizes the enormous, and genocidal, condescenscion of the corporate media:

...we are told that "The world is at a loss to know what to do about Haiti. Everything from aid to foreign invasion has been tried. The result is anarchy." As if the requirement for aid was not created by colonialism and client-state imperialism, a process stretching right up until 1994. As if the 'aid' was benign. As if the foreign invasion were not part of the problem. As if these dirty brown people were simply beyond help, congenitally predisposed to violence and - who knows - probably rape and drugs and all sorts of evil things. This is frightening. To be amazed at how brutal the present is (as in "in this day and age") is a sure sign of naivete. And yet, I can't help feeling that the most weathered cynic would wilt and fume at such a performance.

Election Politics: foreign affairs.

2006-01-15T11:46:00.000-08:00

Haiti is Canada’s Iraq by Andrew MacLeod

Federal Election 2006

Foreign Policy Questions:

Why won’t our leaders talk about what we’re doing there?

Last Tuesday, Liberal prime minister Paul Martin made his pre-election stop in Victoria, meeting with supporters at a rally at the Hotel Grand Pacific. There, in what must have felt like a strange replay of countless such events across the country as we head towards the January 23 election, Martin delivered a short speech with a few feel-good messages and several attacks on conservative leader Stephen Harper. Harper, he says, would integrate our country even more deeply with the United States—something many Canadians don’t want to see happen.

And yet, one particular aspect of Canada’s foreign affairs points to exactly that sort of integration with the States. Our recent dubious record in Haiti, and our role in Afghanistan, was something Martin didn’t mention, and there was no opportunity for reporters to ask about.

In fact, there has been little mention of Haiti in the entire tightly managed campaign so far, even though Mark Bourque, a retired Canadian RCMP officer, died there in recent weeks, shot in the streets of Port au Prince. Not even the suicide this weekend of Urano Texeira da Matta Bacellar, the Brazilian leader of the UN forces in Haiti, caused a blip in Canadian political circles. Nor has the steady criticism from peace activists who question Canada’s involvement in either country.

A call to the Liberal party’s press office in Ottawa confirms the party is trying to keep Haiti out of the election. “It’s not a political thing,” says Kristen Connolly, who describes herself as the “press office answering-the-phone lady.” Questions should be directed to the foreign affairs department, she says. “It’s government comment as opposed to politics.”

That seems odd to a number of observers, including Victoria’s outgoing MP David Anderson, a one-time foreign-service officer. “No foreign affairs issues have come up in the campaign, which I find very surprising,” he says. “I find it very strange.”

The election should include a close analysis of Canada’s foreign policy, Anderson says, and yet, the closest we’ve come during this campaign is politicians talking about increasing the size of the armed forces. How, Anderson asks, can we talk about that without saying what we’d be increasing the forces for?

Right now, he says, it looks like that would be for deployments like those in Afghanistan and Haiti. “It’s an interesting election debate gap, but that goes back to my original point, that there’s hardly been an election.”

Or, as Susan Clarke from the Victoria Peace Coalition says, “The country is never really held to account on foreign policy during elections.”

It shouldn’t be this way, she adds. “We never got a chance to say anything about Haiti. It was all done behind our backs.”

And yet, the question remains for many Canadians: Just what is Canada doing in Haiti, and why is it a problem?

Over the past several months, Clarke and the coalition have been trying to raise awareness of the issue. They’ve brought a couple of speakers to Victoria, including the journalist Kevin Pina, who is from Oakland, California, but has lived for several years in Haiti, is married to a Haitian and has a child there.

There are multiple reasons, he says, why Canadians should be concerned about what’s happening in Haiti. For starters, it’s largely thanks to us and our efforts to unseat Jean Bertrand Aristide’s democratically elected government that the country is currently so unstable. Through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), we funded non-governmental organizations in Haiti that helped build opposition to Aristide. Then, during the so-called rebellion in 2004, Canadian armed forces were there to take the airport. Our forces held the country, along with soldiers from France and the United States, until United Nations troops could land. Since then we have contributed RCMP expertise to train Haitian police officers, and we are putting $25 million into a much-delayed election that many observers say is a sham. In 2000, when Aristide was elected, there were 12,000 polling places, Pina says. The plan for this election was to have somewhere between 600 and 800 places to vote. “That might ensure the photo ops they want of long lines at the polls, but it won’t guarantee participation.”

Pina is currently working on a documentary about the situation in Haiti: a work that includes scenes of UN troops raiding homes in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood, and gory shots of war dead. “A lot of what I’m showing is not being shown in the press,” he says. “I have been in the unenviable position of being the one reporting the side of the story nobody else will touch . . . I like documentary filmmaking for that reason, because the images at the end of the day don’t lie.”

Asked what Canadians need to know about Haiti, Pina says, “That your government is investing millions of dollars in an unelected, undemocratic regime.” Also, he says, on this one Canada is in “lock step” with the United States. And, oh yes, the decision to unseat Aristide, known as the Ottawa initiative, was made in Canada.

All of that makes it something that should be an election issue, argues the peace coalition’s Clarke. “I don’t know when is a better time to hold our country accountable for its foreign policy than during an election,” she says. “The Canadian people should have everything to say about foreign policy, just like the Americans want to have everything to say about their foreign policy. That’s a huge part of your persona as a nation.” M

Mixed Opposition

Whether or not Haitians get to participate in a free election anytime soon in their own country, the election that’s currently happening here could determine whether there’ll be a shift in our involvement there. So what do representatives of Canada’s various political parties think, and why aren’t they giving the Liberals a rougher ride on their Haiti record?

“We are very concerned obviously with developments in Haiti,” says Stockwell Day, the conservative’s foreign affairs critic, in a voice message. He’s also the MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla and once upon a time lived in Victoria and attended UVic (though it’s not clear from his website whether he actually graduated). He’s concerned, but he’s actually calling for more involvement, not less.

“We feel Canada should have more of a presence there, especially on the security side,” Day says. “Over the last several years we have been underfunding our military and we do not have the capability to provide the types of level of security that’s needed in a situation like Haiti right now because we’re also committed in other places.”

As for the NDP, last spring the party’s foreign affairs critic, Alexa McDonough, called on the government to do more to stop the flow of arms into the country and to address the basic needs of health care, education, jobs and infrastructure there.

Then there’s the Green Party, which called this past weekend for a formal review of Canada’s involvement in Haiti. This follows on the party’s October stance, which called on Canada to seek a delay in the elections until all political prisoners are freed and “intimidation of Lavalas Party supporters by the Haitian National Police is stopped.”

“It’s pretty outrageous that we’re involved,” says Ariel Lade, the Green candidate in Victoria and a member of the Victoria Peace Coalition. “These elections are going to be a sham unless Aristide and the Lavalas party are allowed to fully participate and not be harassed by the police that the RCMP are training.”

Election politics (minus ideology).

2006-01-15T09:24:00.001-08:00

Courtesy of Victor Serge at And your little dog too:

"Outside the limit of our sight, feeding off us, perched on top of us, from birth to death, are our owners! Our owners! They have us. They control us! They are our masters! Wake up! They're all about you! All around you!"
"They Live!" (1988)

The birth of the father.

2006-01-14T23:38:00.001-08:00

It is The Ladies' Paradise, as Zola rechristened the more prosaic Bon Marché: a concentrate of the metropolis, just as the metropolis is a concentrate of the world. In the new space invented by it - the shop-window, where inside and outside are no longer differentiated - the commodities of the bourgeois century finally appear in their full glory...

...What a delightful paradox: a bourgeois institution, which perverts bourgeois morality, impelling a Professor from the University of Lyon to demand 'police measures, to prevent minors under eighteen, of either sex, from entering' - and even 'a gendarme close to every sales counter.' The inventors of consumer society were too clever, and ended going too far. This overkill of consumers must be remedied, by situating them - like Faust in the witches' kitchen - at the right distance from the magic mirror of the commodity. Not too far, so that distance cools their minds and may induce them to pass on without buying; but not too close either, so as to avoid scandals.
Franco Moretti, Modern Epic (via Chabert)

This poisoned gift of bourgeois culture had, within it, its own remedy:

Aristide Boucicaut, father of the Bon Marché.

...bourgeois culture in France was divided within itself, not so much between upper and lower bourgeoisie or the forces of progress and stagnation as between two sets of values and attitudes, one that drove it to create what the other was bound to regret. If it was a culture that gave way to rationalized structures like the department store, it was also a culture that remained impregnated with strong relationships between family and business and one that believed in individual achievement. If it was a culture that carried within it a materialistic streak leading inexorably to a cult of consumption, it was also a culture whose sense of distinctions, self-restraints, and standards saw in much of this reason for fear and for horror.

The department store brought out bourgeois schizophrenia....

...The significance of the Bon Marché and its history lay in its ability to resove this dilemma by redifining traditions to fit new social contexts, thereby reconciling the divergent strains within bourgeois culture. Internally, a new idea of the firm integrated family values with bureacratic realities. White-collar workers wree fitted into bureacratic work slots in ways that retained their loyalty to the firm and its goals and assured their identity with middle-class values. Managers were formed who did not contradict the family origins of entrepreneurial firms. A sense of an internal House community was associated with the workings of a dynamic and rationalized system. All this was accomplished through innovative uses of paternalistic traditions, uses that eased owners, and later managers, into new business roles that they would now have to occupy. The method was systematic but almost elegant in its simplicity. Household relationships were redesigned to build an organizational work force of managers and clerks. The new relationships in turn provided the basis for the reorientation of the family firm. One followed from another just as tradition became imbedded in change. Externally, the projection of an image where the old and the new were inextricably intertwined—again based largely on imaginative uses of Bon Marché paternalism—revealed that one set of values need not disappear with the triumph of the other.
Michael Miller, The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920.

Class War in Haiti

2006-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

Haiti's Deadly Class Divide:
Class war takes on a new meaning in Cite Soley

by Leslie Bagg and Aaron Lakoff

Port-au-Prince, January 10/06 - Driving into Cite Soley on January 8th, the day Haitians were supposed to go to the polls in a presidential election, there is no mistaking the fact that we are entering an occupied zone. The streets are almost deserted, the atmosphere tense, and UN armored personnel carriers patrol the streets.

Cite Soley, one of Port-au-Prince's poorest neighborhoods, is home to around 500,000 people living in abject poverty. According to Jean-Joseph Joel, the Secretary General of the local branch of Fanmi Lavalas, the area's residents are virtual prisoners, and their movements restricted by armed police at checkpoints. Vilified as bandits or chimeres by the elite-run press, he says they face persecution if they do manage to escape the neighborhood. There is no work and signs of malnutrition are obvious in the children.

Since the February 2004 coup d'etat that ousted democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Cite Soley has been one of the battlefields where a war against Haiti's poor majority is being waged. Muliple killings of civilians have been committed by UN forces carrying out the will of the country's elite and of the international community. Dieunord Edme, a Cite Soley resident, shows us the place in the market where his wife, Annette Moleron, was gunned down by MINUSTAH (Mission Nations Unies Stabilization en Haiti) soldiers on January 7th during an operation that claimed the lives of four women in a marketplace. He shows us bullet holes in the metal roof over the market's stalls.

Victims of the deadly July 6th 2005 UN massacre, an event documented by the Haiti Information Project, which the UN denies ever happened, show us their scars. One woman lifts her shirt to show us where the MINUSTAH bullet entered her then pregnant belly, ! and the mark of the cesarean section performed to remove the baby that was killed. As we drive out of the neighborhood we pass a horribly bloated corpse by the side of the road. A MINUSTAH tank is parked nearby, keeping watch. Local residents say the man, who worked as a porter, was killed five days previously but every time someone went to try to remove the body, MINUSTAH started firing. It is apparent that they want to keep his body as a warning to others.

This ugly violence that has swept Cite Soley in the last week, and for many months prior, does not come out of thin air. Someone above the UN is calling the shots, and they wield lethal power. Reginald Boulos, the president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and sweatshop magnate Andy Apaid – both members of the Canadian and US-backed Group 184 – called for a one-day general business strike Monday. The stated goal of this strike was to put pressure on MINUSTAH to clamp down harder on crime! and kidnappings. As an announcement heard on Radio Metropole stated in a threatening tone, “Don't leave your houses. Let the police and the military do their work. Anyone who leaves their house takes their life into their own hands.”

However, more than anything, this strike has served to highlight the extreme class divide in Haiti, one that before the elections is becoming increasingly more deadly. Indeed, many of the more upscale businesses in the country did observe the strike. Driving through Port-au-Prince, we observed that the doors of major businesses such as Texaco, Shell, Scotia Bank, and upscale grocery stores remained shut. However, for the majority of Haiti's population who slave away to bring home a per-capita income of $200 per year, the day continued as if normal. Workers who toil in the informal economy – street vendors, runners, tap-tap (taxi) operators – lined the streets, unable to skip a day's work just because! the island's wealthiest said so.

Our experience in Cite Soley today showed us the other side of this business strike, and what the MINUSTAH clamp down looked like to Port-au-Prince's poor. Jean-Joseph Joel gives us his analysis of the situation. Because of its large population and tendency to vote unanimously, Cite Soley has the power to sway an election. Joel explains that MINUSTAH is under intense pressure from the business elite to make it possible for their presidential favourite, Charles Henri Baker, to have a winning chance in the elections. At the moment, the only candidate able to walk down the streets of Cite Soley is Rene Preval, the candidate supported by the mass base of Lavalas. Preval's posters are the only ones to be seen anywhere in Cite Soley – territory where the elite dare not
tread.

For General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, the Brazilian head of the United Nations military mission in Haiti, the pressure may have been too much! . He was found dead in his hotel room on January 7th. He apparently committed suicide after a tense meeting with Reginald Boulos. Joel says that Cite Soley residents are nervous, as the subject of that conversation was pressure on MINUSTAH to crack down harder on Cite Soley before the elections. The fact that Bacellar was replaced by Gen. Eduardo Aldunate Herman, a Chilean Pinochet-era figure and alleged human rights abuser, does nothing to help Cite Soley residents rest easier.

Jean-Joseph Joel's hope is that the international community will change its position on Haiti and side with the majority of Haitians rather than supporting the elite and the UN mission here. However, it doesn't look like change is in the air. Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a man many Haitians know by name, has recently announced that Canadian forces will remain in Haiti, despite escalating calls for their removal.

Sources told us that two mor! e people were killed in the marketplace by MINUSTAH forces shortly after we left it on Monday. Residents speculated
that these killings were retributions for talking to the media, as we had been out for the whole morning conducting interviews with locals. The people of Cite Soley risked their lives so their story could reach the public in countries like Canada and the US, whose governments continue to support MINUSTAH's actions. It remains to be seen what effect their sacrifice will have.

[Leslie Bagg and Aaron Lakoff are two independent journalists and activists from Montreal. They will be in Haiti for the month of January, filing reports focused on the role of Canada in the country. They can be reached at montrealtohaiti@resist.ca]

See also Class War: The extermination of Lavalas. (via Chabert)

This is only a recommendation.

2006-01-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 11 - Residents of the city's most devastated neighborhoods responded with anger Wednesday after the city's rebuilding commission unveiled its most contentious proposal: giving neighborhoods in low-lying parts of the city from four months to a year to prove they should not be bulldozed.

The plan was presented at a standing-room-only meeting punctuated by catcalls and angry outbursts that often interrupted members of the panel. "Over my dead body" was uttered more than once.

"I'm going to suit up like I'm going to Iraq and fight this," said Harvey Bender, a laid-off city worker, who shouted out his comments before an audience at the Sheraton Hotel that numbered in the hundreds and spilled into the aisles and hallways.

Mr. Bender owns a home in New Orleans East, a predominantly black middle-class neighborhood of 90,000 residents largely destroyed by the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina. Parts of the neighborhood might not survive, according to the plan, if they do not attract enough returning residents.

Speaker after speaker, black and white, prosperous and poor, dismissed a plan that Mayor C. Ray Nagin described as "controversial." But Mr. Nagin gave them hope as he walked a middle line that neither endorsed the plan nor opposed it.

"This is only a recommendation," Mr. Nagin said in remarks that preceded the formal presentation of the rebuilding plan. "We as a community will have the ultimate say in how we move forward."

The Graft.

2006-01-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

...every thesis is (bands erect) a prosthesis; what affords reading affords reading by citations (necessarily truncated clippings, repetitions, suctions, sections, suspensions, selections, stitchings, scarrings, grafts, pastiches, organs without their own proper body covered with cuts, traversed by lice). Thus does a text become infatuated. With another. This does not happen without profit or loss for the organism that undergoes grafting after having been solicited, collared.
Jacques Derrida, Glas.

[Matisse] later recalled that the Villa Brooks garden "was immense, with meadows as far as the eye can see. I worked in a part which was planted with very large trees, whose foliage spread very high. The ground was covered with acanthus. I had never seen acanthus. I knew acanthus only from the drawings of Corinthian capitals I had made at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. I found the acanthus magnificent, much more interesting, green, than those at school!"

These recollections evoke the 'Acanthus, Moroccan Landscape' (Les Acanthes, paysage marocain) canvas, one of Matisse's greatest landscapes. The classical associations of the acanthus are consistent with French thinking about North Africa as part of the former Carthaginian and Roman empires, still evidenced by the extensive ruins at Volubilis in Morocco, Tipasa in Algeria, and El Djem in Tunisia. (Colonial rhetoricians like Louis Bertrand were happy that France had reclaimed from the Arabs these territories of the original ‘Latin’ people).
Roger Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism and French North Africa, 1880-1930.

l’Afrique nous offre, avec la joie de son ciel, dont nous sommes avides, l’activité réglée qui nous convient: nous n’y perdons point notre sens inné de la mesure, pour sombrer dans les aventures de toutes les mégalomanies. Ensuite, nous y restons en contact avec les traditions de culture qui ont formé notre race. Héritiers d’Athènes, d’Alexandrie et de Rome, nous sommes chez nous à Carthage, où les courans de civilisation partis de ces trois villes sont venus se confondre.
Louis Bertrand, “Nietzsche et la Méditerranée."

Murder and profit in Haiti.

2006-01-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

Jean Saint-Vil, activist for Canada Haiti Action Network, has drawn together a fascinating chronology.

It situates the replacement of MINUSTAH General Heleno (who had publicly protested against the blind violence carried out by UN forces) with General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, the recent appointment of Chilean war criminal General Eduardo Aldunate Herman after the mysterious death of General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, and the deaths of other MINUSTAH forces, incluing Canadian Mark Bourque, in the context of increasing pressure by elites in Haiti and abroad to engage in intensified massacres of Haitians. The following is from Jean Saint-Vil:

"Je suis capable d’utiliser la force, je suis préparé pour ça, mais face à la situation du pays et surtout de ce que j’imagine être les intentions de l’ONU, je me refuse à utiliser la force de façon incontrôlée et contre des innocents".
(I am capable of using force, I am trained for this however, in view of the current situationin this contry and of what I imagine to be the intentions of the United Nations, I refuse to use uncontrolled force against innocents)
"Tant que je serai au commandement, cela n’arrivera pas. Il n’y aura pas de violence aveugle"
(As long as I will be at the command, this will not occur. There will be no blind violence)
General Heleno, March 3, 2005
http://www.haitiechange.org/minustha.htm

IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING HELENO'S MARCH 3, 2005 COMPLAINTS:

January 2005: Publication of Miami School of Law Report (by Tom Griffin) in which the link between Labanyè and Apaid are exposed in detail.

(January-March 2005): Tom Griffin makes several presentations in North America about the findings of his human rights reports

ONE MONTH AFTER HELENO'S COMPLAINTS:
April 1: Thomas Robinson (Labanyè), Apaid's gang handy man is killed

April 9: Former Haitian soldier Jean Rene Anthony (Grenn Sonnen) is killed

April 10: Ravix Remissainthe, former killed Haitian soldier used to overthrow Aristide and who declared that the interim government and the bourgeoisie had used him and betrayed him and his comrades

April 14: Filipino member of MINUSTAH, Sergeant Batomalaque is shot dead. One day after the Security Council mission arrived in the country .
June 3, 2005, Once again, General Augusto Heleno, the Brazilian Force Commander of the U.N. Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), complained publicly that the repressive actions he is being pressured to direct in Haiti are criminal in nature; he didn’t want to have to answer war crime charges at the International Criminal Court, he added. (Agence Haitienne de Presse 6/4/05 )

June 2005 Heleno asks his superiors in Brazil that he be replaced.

Before dawn 6 July 2005, more than 300 heavily-armed United Nations peacekeeping troops in Haiti carried out a major military operation in Cité Soleil, a densely populated residential neighborhood – one of the poorest comunities in Port-au-Prince and a stronghold of support for Lavalas and ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Eyewitnesses claimed there was not a firefight, but rather a slaughter. The operation was primarily conducted by U.N. forces, assisted by Haitian National Police.
Though the raid received little attention in the world press, local residents say the attack might have been the deadliest carried out by U.N. troops in Haiti between 2004 and 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_July_6_United_Nations_assault_on_Cit%C3%A9_Soleil%2C_Haiti

September 1, 2005, Lieutenant-General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira is replaced by General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar.

December 9, 2005: Canadian member of RCMP force sent to Haiti, Mark Bourque is killed in Cité Soleil

December 25: Jordanian Soldier is killed by Sniper shot in Cité Soleil

December 29 : AHP reports that foreign sources in Haiti indicate the prime suspects in the recent killing of MINUSTAH personnel to Labanyè's gang (which was identified by the Miami School of Law, Human rights Reports as being linked and protected by Haiti's Sweatshop magnate Andre Apaid)...

....29 décembre 2005(AHP)- Des partisans d'un ancien chef de gang, Thomas Robenson dit Labanyè assassiné l'année dernière, seraient derrière les attaques meurtrières perpétrées contre des soldats de la MINUSTAH, a indiqué jeudi à l'AHP des sources étrangères à Port-au-prince."Les dernières attaques contre les casques bleus auraient pour objectif de porter la MINUSTAH à lancer une attaque musclée contre le bidonville de Cité Soleil considéré comme le quartier de tous les risques".

January 5, in the midst of widespread rumours that Haiti's right wing elite will get its wish granted for a massive attack on Cité Soleil, a reliable source informs me that Cité Soleil have been declared off limits to journalists - something will come down this week-end.

January 5:"we are waiting for him to give clear instructions to the troops under his command to cleanse Cite Soleil of the criminals, like they did in Bel-Air....Today, Valdes has two choices in front of him. He can choose to be held responsible for the failure of the elections that he was sent here to ensure the good working of, or he can choose to be responsible for the success of his mission here just because he will be able today and tomorrow, who knows, to make the courageous, the intelligent, and necessary decision to put an end to this climate of insecurity in the metropolitan area...
You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. We think that Minustah' s generals need to make plans to limit collateral damage. But we in the private sector are ready to create a social assistance fund to help all those who would be innocent victims of a necessary and courageous action that should be carried out in Cite Soleil" Reginald Boulos, interview with Radio Métropole, January 5, 2006

January 6 U.N. Security Council meets to discuss Haiti....

January 7 Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar is found dead at Hotel Montana.
(According to several press reports, this death comes in the heal of a heated debate with Mr. Valdes, the Civilian head of the MINUSTAH, the night before).

January 7 Chilian General Eduardo Aldunate Herman replaces Urano (temporarily) - Herman is currently accused in Chile of having participated in mass murders during the overthrow of President Salvador Allende, in 1973-74
See also various virulent verbal attacks of Réginald Boulos and Andre Apaid against the U.N. ..some of them made a few hours before the apparent "suicide" of Urano Teixeira Bacellar...
What's next...?
Some day the truth will come out...and there will be criminal charges laid !

"le Canada n'a jamais été un pays colonisateur" -Pierre Pettigrew.

2006-01-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

Impending slaughter in Haiti.

Readying the Cataclysm.

MINUSTAH, Gildan Activewear, the group of 184 and other crime lords.

2006-01-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

Chabert has an excellent post on Emanuel 'Dread' Wilmé, the Lavalas supporter in Cité Soleil who, along with dozens of bystanders, including children, was gunned down by MINUSTAH (UN) forces. In the words of Marguerite Laurent:

Like all the others falling in Cite Soleil, Bel Air and throughout Haiti, like Charlemagne Peralte, Marie-Jeanne, Claire Heureuse, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s true freedom fighters shall be remembered and sung about long after this latest Coup D’etat’s killers have passed into history. (via)

But there are other interests at work in Cité Soleil. Thomas Robenson 'Labanyè', whose death this past year was celebrated by Cite Soleil residents, ran the death squads in Cité Soleil and was allied with the police and the Group of 184. Labanyè is dead, but the well-funded, well-armed allies of Labanyè live on. Of course, in the corporate media, the battles between people struggling against the occupation of their country, and their murder at the hands of death squads, is presented as gang warfare:

This racialized, overdetermined media image of the black gang itself, rather than any actually existing black people, stands as sentry and border alongside police forces.

But the story is not as simple as the corporate media would present. Labanyè was allied with, and funded by, Andrè Apaid, the sweatshop owner and long-time subcontractor for Gildan Activewear, who is one of the leaders of the group of 184:

By the end of 2002, it was clear that, despite the efforts of the U.S. and the opposition, they remained a small electoral force in the politics of Haiti. Most of their leaders had been marginalized within Haiti by the positions they were taking politically. In addition, their association with some of the worst elements of the former coup regime, who were now demanding the return of the army, further diminished their standing in the eyes of the Haitian people.

The IRI [International Republican Institute], realizing that their former strategy was not working decided to create a new opposition. They arranged a secret meeting, which became public in the Haitian press, in the Dominican Republic with assembly industry owner Andy Apaid, other business leaders, student activists, the Democratic Convergence, and other elements of the former regime, including those who were calling for the return of the army. Andy Apaid is a millionaire Lebanese American businessman in Haiti who bitterly opposed Aristide in his desire to increase the minimum wage and who was involved in a fraud on the Haitian telephone company through the “grey market” in international telephone transmission. He was ultimately fined 2,000,000 gourdes for the fraud.

So Apaid, who vied to be president, who is spokesperson for the group of elite Haitians and Duvalierists working with, and installed into power by, the US-funded coup is a patron in his own right:

"Numerous witnesses stated the Boston gang leader, Thomas Robinson, alias “Labanyè,” receives financial, firearms, and political support from wealthy businessman and politico, Andy Apaid and businessman Reginald Boulos. Cité Soleil witnesses and police officers reported that Apaid’s support of Labanyè keeps the police from arresting him.

Apaid, the leader of the Group of 184, a business-backed organization established to oppose President Aristide, told investigators that he has directed the Haitian Police not to arrest Labanyè but to “work with him.”

It turns out that Labanyè's allies may have been responsible for the killing of MINUSTAH soldiers in order to cancel the elections:

“Des partisans d'un ancien chef de gang, Thomas Robenson dit Labanyè assassiné l'année dernière, seraient derrière les attaques meurtrières perpétrées contre des soldats de la MINUSTAH, a indiqué jeudi à l'AHP des sources étrangères à Port-au-prince.
Labanyè qui a contrôlé deux des 34 quartiers de Cité Soleil, était le rival d'un autre chef de bande, Dread Wilmé, réputé proche de lavalas, tué, lui-même, en juillet dernier, lors d'une opération de la MINUSTAH qui aurait également coûté la vie à plusieurs autres habitants.

Les dernières attaques contre les casques bleus auraient pour objectif de porter la MINUSTAH à lancer une attaque musclée contre le bidonville de Cité Soleil considéré comme le quartier de tous les risques.”

and

"De nombreux observateurs ont fait savoir ces derniers jours que si des bandits issus de quartiers populaires sont impliqués dans ces actes de violence, il y a sans doute des mains politiques très habiles qui les alimentent pour tenter de persuader que les élections ne sont pas possibles maintenant en Haïti.

C'est dans ce même contexte que des partisans d'un ancien chef de gang anti-Ariside, (feu Robenson Thomas) dit labanyè, ont été accusés d'implication dans les attaques contre des casques bleus pour cherrcher à provoquer une intervention de la MINUSTAH dans le bidonville de Cite Soleil.

Le premier tour des présidentielles et législatives fixé par arrêté présidentiel au 8 janvier 2006, a été reporté sine die par le regime interimaire après 4 précédent reports."

and

"Labanyè qui a contrôlé deux des 34 quartiers de Cité Soleil, était le rival d'un autre chef de bande, Dread Wilmé, réputé proche de lavalas, tué, lui-même, en juillet dernier, lors d'une opération de la MINUSTAH qui aurait également coûté la vie à plusieurs autres habitants.

Les dernières attaques contre les casques bleus auraient pour objectif de porter la MINUSTAH à lancer une attaque musclée contre le bidonville de Cité Soleil considéré comme le quartier de tous les risques.

Un policier canadien et un soldat jordanien ont été tués dans cette région au cours de ces deux dernières semaines."

So the US funds and trains paramilitaries in Dominican Republic, works with the sweatshop owners to bring greater instability back to Haiti, then pro-occupation death squads kill some of the foreign occupation forces, including Canadian Mark Bourque?

Let's be clear. The present evidence, according to Agence Haïtienne de Presse, is that the killing of Mark Bourque (along with countless and in the Canadian press unnamed Haitians--please see here for more on the these murders) was done at the hands of a death squad funded by a sweatshop owner who was the spokesperson for the group that Canadian soldiers put in power illegally, who subcontracts for a Canadian corporation, and in whose interests Canada has been acting.

Chickens coming home to roost indeed:

"As of March 2nd, 2004 Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) states, “some Canadian companies are looking to shift garment production to Haiti.” DFAIT provides research and Haitian contacts through a variety of sub-agencies to Canadian companies that want to exploit low Haitian wages.

Montreal based Gildan Activewear is already subcontracting work to Haitian owned sweatshops, and they have opened a new factory in Port au Prince which employs 400 to 500 people. Gildan, one of the largest T shirt makers in the world, claimed recently to CBC radio to pay its workers a premium on the minimum Haitian wage. However unionized workers at Gildan’s Montreal factory earn more than 10 times the Haitian wage, and unorganized Haitian workers employed by Gildan recently told the CBC that their wages are not enough to live on. With recent increases in the cost of fuel in Haiti – the IMF demanded it be deregulated and the price has soared – Haitian workers have once again been demanding their minimum wage of 36 Gourdes per day be increased to keep up with inflation.

But what’s bad for Haitian workers - low wages and appalling conditions - are good business for the T shirt trade. At the time of writing, a blank Gildan T sells on Ebay for about $1.25. It’s a volume business, our appetite for T shirts. Gildan’s sales have nearly doubled, from $344 million in 1999 to $630 million in 2003. In the same period Gildan stock soared on the Toronto Stock Exchange from $5 to $44 per share. According to UNITE, Gildan has received over $3 million dollars of federal subsidies while it contemplated moving production offshore.

In 2002 Gildan donated $2000.00 to Paul Martin, campaigning then for the leadership of the Federal Liberal Party.

In February 2003, Gildan won an award for “social responsibility” given by the Association of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, (CME) and the government’s Canadian International Development Agency, (CIDA) which subsidizes Canadian companies to invest overseas. CIDA has been heavily criticized for lending to Liberal Party allies to subsidize projects of dubious social development value."

Elections or no, everything has gone according to plan for the real crime lords:

"Following the landslide victory of Aristide and his Famni Lavalas party in the 2000 elections, Canada (along with the U.S. and the E.U. at the behest of France) declared the elections flawed on the basis of a technicality and cut off $500 millions dollars in aid to the government while redirecting funding to anti-Aristide NGOs.

At the same time, gangs of former soldiers and death squad members (who were found to be financed and organized by the CIA during the 1991-1994 military regime) were launching frequent attacks and even coup attempts from their base in the Dominican Republic.

Then, in January 2003, Canada hosted the "Ottawa Initiative", a gathering of all the "major players" in Haiti, which did not include representatives from the democratically elected government, and reached a consensus that "Aristide must go".

As political tensions between the foreign-funded opposition and Lavalas supporters flared in early 2004, former police chief Guy Philippe led an invasion by the paramilitary forces (likely armed by the US) from the Dominican Republic, misleadingly called a "rebellion" or even a "popular uprising" in the Canadian media. The paramilitaries quickly overran key cities and surrounded Port-au-Prince before the Marines and JTF2 completed the coup d'état/kidnapping."

and

"On July 14th, “North America’s largest t-shirt maker” Gildan Activewear announced that they will be closing their El Progresso assembly plant in Honduras, when the lease expires on September 30th. 1800 workers will be laid off, in addition to the approximately 100 workers who were fired for attempting to unionize in 2002-03 (1). Several organizations are shocked by Gildan’s decision to shutdown and relocate - like a “godsend” - to Haiti and Nicaragua, especially since reports are about to be released by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) that detail the findings of their extensive audits into factory conditions, wage and worker- related issues.

The WRC’s Scott Nova said “the evidence is overwhelming” regarding “serious violations”, part of a broader “systematic problem” in the realm of women’s and workers rights. Nova described how Gildan even conducted their own internal investigation concerning the violation of women’s rights reaching the “exact same” conclusion as the WRC. The WRC’s case, similar to the forthcoming FLA report, is “cut and dried”. Being an unaccountable corporation has its advantages, however, as Gildan has consistently denied any wrongdoing and appear to be operating with ‘corporate impunity’.

Although Gildan spokesperson Stephane Lemay has attempted to preemptively discredit the WRC audit, pointing out that Gildan refused the WRC access to the El Progresso plant, Nova counters that physical access to the plant “was not important” anyway, given that they conducted extensive interviews with “just under one hundred” expelled workers, as well as with Honduras government officials, off premises. In other words, the WRC didn’t need access to the plant to prove that Gildan was committing these crimes. The allegations that 1. Gildan illegally fired substantial numbers of workers for exercising their right to organize over a period of roughly two years, which “succeeded in preventing workers from forming a union” and 2. That Gildan violated Honduran law requiring workers to be paid for overtime, yielded conclusions that determined “substantial workers rights violations.”

According to Nova, there is “no debate over the facts”, and very similar conclusions were reached by the FLA, who, should Gildan refuse to honor the findings of their report or refuse to reverse the decision to cut and run from the El Progresso plant, will likely revoke Gildan’s membership. Lemay has stated that Gildan will adhere to the “corrective actions” recommended by the FLA, whom they are “bound contractually” to. The Maquila Solidarity Network’s Bob Jeffcot, and the WRC’s Nova, think it will be hard to enforce these corrective actions if Gildan cut and runs from its El Progresso plant. Says Jeffcot, “to close it down now is incredibly suspicious”, especially in light of the fact that approximately 100 workers are owed back pay “who deserve something irrespective of the decision to move.”

It is doubtful that Gildan will care whether or not they remain members of the FLA; they probably only joined to appease some shareholders, notably the Quebec Solidarity Fund. One week after Gildan joined the FLA, the Solidarity Fund announced that they will be pulling out their 11.1% share of Gildan, based on their own findings concerning the “cut and dried” facts of workers and women’s rights violations at El Progresso. (2) No longer having to concern themselves with ‘ethical considerations’ Gildan is proceeding into Haiti and the Dominican Republic (whose textile sector employs thousands of Haitian refugees, see below), where conduct is neither seriously monitored nor enforced, especially now that the legitimately elected government is gone.

Haitian labor unions have reported (3) that the 70 gourde minimum wage (paltry, but fought for and attained by the Lavalas government in 2003) is being rolled back (to its pre-2003 36 gourde level) now that a puppet/military regime is in place and are looking the other way while sweatshop owners exploit workers and expand operations in this more “favorable” environment. People like Andy Apaid, who is one of Gildan’s “local” subcontractors (4), according to former workers, never honored the minimum wage and would fire workers who dissented. In addition, feudal lords like Apaid would force workers to attend anti-Aristide “opposition” rallies under threat of termination or reprimand."

See also Lenin's post, Populism and Haiti.

The viciousness of irony.

2006-01-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

From Chabert:

"As Haiti, governed by the hugely popular democratic Lavalas parliament and President Aristide, celebratrated the bicentenary of its independence as a nation in January 2004, an independence won by the revolt led by the Jacobins Toussaint L'Ouverture and Léger Félicité Sonthonax, the US, France and Canada's terrorist paramilitary gathered in the Dominican Republic preparing yet another invasion to re-enslave the Haitians.

The Corporate Media again pronounced Haiti an incurable "basket case.""

Haitian Independence. January 1st, 1804

2006-01-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

"where conventional warfare is conducted simultaneously with humanitarian relief"

2005-12-30T03:51:00.000-08:00

"WINNIPEG—Parts of downtown Winnipeg will look like an armed camp as part of a military operation this spring meant to train soldiers for the modern battlefield.

Exercise Charging Bison will begin April 30 and will continue seven days and nights, involving more than 500 army troops, backed by helicopters, armoured vehicles and artillery.

It is believed to be the largest urban warfare training exercise of its kind ever held in Canada.

Col. Kelly Woiden, commander of 38 Brigade, said the drill is designed to simulate the kind of complex conditions soldiers would encounter in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where conventional warfare is conducted simultaneously with humanitarian relief operations and nation-building.

"This is different than traditional training when the infantry were facing open ground in front of them, with soldiers in a different uniform," Woiden said. "This is much more complex because we don't know who the enemy is or where the threats are."

A base camp will be set up on the western edge of the city, but most of the exercises will take place downtown."

from Canadian Press.

Ordered violation.

2005-12-29T18:13:00.000-08:00

There is much eulogizing in Canada of Mark Bourque, the retired RCMP cop killed near the 'no-go zone' of Cite Soleil, Porte-au-Prince.

(no-go zone... How many times does that term come up in the media as shorthand for areas under the full force of colonial repression?)

from the Canadian Press service:

"Mark Bourque, who spent most of his career in the RCMP fighting organized crime, was remembered Wednesday as a spiritual man who gave up his retirement to help bring order to Haiti."

What sort of order did this spiritual man help to bring? Elections? What sort of order is 'brought' to Haiti--while the media construct the familar racist fable of how a people black and poor must be criminal, and thus Haiti must face the full force of order--a pre-packaged narrative like that presented about New Orleans...

UN forces continue to en gage in massacres of poor Haitians. Canadian RCMP officers are there to train and work hand-in-hand with the HNP police forces -- read death squads, who have picked up where the anti-Lavalas paramilitaries left off after the coup. And the principal targets for maximum violence are poor women. Some Haitian women have told their stories to San Franciso Bay View journalist Lyn Duff.

Maria:

"My name is Maria, and I’m a survivor of rape from the neighborhood of Martissant in Port-au-Prince. Right now I’m working with other women who have been victimized during this period of insecurity that began with the departure of President Aristide in 2004.

The situation the past year has been extraordinary. The repression against women has been taken to a new level, one that we did not experience in the last coup of 1991-1994. Twelve years ago, when the former military was in power, rape was used to terrorize. But today, today it is a whole different story. Today it is more horrible than anyone could have imagined...

...The goal of the rapist is not to take sex. The goal of the rapist is political. He wants to kill the memory of a different Haiti – he wants to kill the part of us that holds on to the demand that we had a few years ago for dignity.

The rapist does this by being invisible. He attacks at night or during the day – you don’t know when to expect him. He wears a mask and carries a gun. Even if you recognize his voice or if he is a police officer and does not bother to cover his face, you know that the person who is raping you is the very person who is charged with protecting you. So you know that you have nowhere to complain.

The goal of the rapist is to take over your mind so that you begin to believe his lie: That it is your fault you are being violated. The lie is that you are repressed because of who you are and if you would stop being a person from the popular zones, a person who has no money and no dignity, then you would not be violated. But you cannot change who you are.

It’s the fact that you are alive and breathe air that offends him. Eventually, you are so worn down by this war in your head that you begin to believe the lie and you hate yourself for being from the popular zones. You stop being able to remember who your enemy is. And that is when the rapist wins.

This war is between two ideas. One idea is that every one has dignity and is a child of God – that every person is somebody and has worth and deserves respect. The other is that the Haitian people cannot think for themselves, they should be controlled and repressed because the people from the popular zones are those who voted for Aristide and he is responsible for the small problems of the wealthy.

This is very important for us to share with foreigners because they need to know the situation of the women from the popular zones. And when a woman tells her story and hears that the foreigner is on her side, she remembers that being violated is not her fault."

Marjory:

“They violated me. [When it was happening] I closed my eyes and waited for them to finish... One of the men told me to open my eyes and look at him while he [raped me]. I didn’t want to look at him. They hit me when I cried.”

Marjory is part of a growing number of girls and young women who human rights investigators say have been victims of mass rape committed by members of the disbanded military and their compatriots who patrol the countryside and Haiti’s cities, hunting down supporters of Haiti’s fledgling pro-democracy movement.

Marjory says she was targeted because her father’s trade union organized against a wealthy businessman and because her parents are members of Lavalas, the political party led by Jean Bertrand Aristide. Other victims say they were targeted because they or their family members belong to other pro-democracy political organizations or because they work with peasant unions or local women’s groups.

“Rape is becoming a common tool of oppression,” explains attorney Mario Joseph whose organization Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) has investigated hundreds of human rights cases in the past year. Joseph, who assisted in the prosecution of the human rights crimes committed during the last coup says that it is discouraging to see the number of convicted human rights violators who are now walking free and serving in the new American-installed interim government.

“Women and young girls are raped because their father or another relative is a member of Lavalas or is targeted [by the political opposition]. They are raped as a form of punishment. The victims do not feel they can go to the police for help with their problems because in many areas the people who victimized them are the ones running the show; they are the ones patrolling the streets as if they are police, committing crimes with impunity under the eyes of the UN. And even in Port-au-Prince, the former military has been hired into the national police force.”

According to Charles Leon, chief of the Haitian National Police, 500 former members of the Haitian Army have been integrated into the police force, with plans for an additional 500-1000 former soldiers to be hired within the next year. Haiti’s army was disbanded in 1994 by then President Jean Bertrand Aristide after soldiers committed numerous human rights violations, including mass rapes, during the 1991-94 coup.

United Nations soldiers have also been accused of participating in sexual attacks."

What sort of order has been created to rescue Haiti from its so-called 'failed-state status', a status that justifies 'humanitarian intervention'?

A colonial state of prison camps, torture, rape, murder, and the limitless potential for profit for the wealthy of Haiti, Canada, France and the US.

Rape orchestrated by the forces of order is not peculiar to Haiti. It happened in New Orleans too. The rape of black women, poor women, did happen, is happening. It was not a fantasy, But the media's story was. The fantasy was in who did the raping. It was not a media-ready-made-fantasy-black-criminal-underclass-mass bent on lust, "that cannot think for themselves, they should be controlled and repressed"... rather, it was the forces of order sent to contain and control.

The enclosures.

2005-12-26T03:59:00.000-08:00

Slavery is being practiced by the system under the color of law.... Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today; it's the same thing, but with a new name. They're making millions and millions of dollars enslaving blacks, poor whites, and others--people who don't even know they're being railroaded.

-Political Prisoner Ruchell Magee (via Chabert).

It's strange that Foucault, who wrote about an incarceral modernity, about the institutions of criminality, madness, sickness, never wrote about slavery. Did he think that race-based labor institutions were just a footnote to the other systems, or was race too controversial for him? Was he afraid to challenge the liberal narrative of slavery, and in Foucauldian fashion, demonstrate how the system today is more repressive? I don't know. It seems impossible to imagine worse than slavery, but for so many people, what the hell is the difference? Perhaps in the end the institution of slavery challenges the periodization of Foucault's classical and modern ages, that there is a longue duree of racialized exploitation after all, lying at the origins and nadir of the capitalist system.

Perhaps the supposedly special case of slavery reveals the problem of emphasis in Foucault's epistemic breaks: the modes of exploitation shift suddenly, as does the logic of production and its ideological field, but the ever-hurrying pace of capitalist exploitation remains.

Convergence.

2005-12-25T11:47:00.000-08:00

""We cannot abandon Haiti again" wrote former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Barbara McDougall in a December 15th Globe & Mail article. However, far from abandonment, Canadian policy towards Haiti speaks of betrayal.

McDougall is with the Haiti International Assessment Committee established by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a Washington-based organization that is deeply implicated in the Haitian crisis.

In February 2001, as many as 5 days before Jean-Bertrand Aristide took the presidential oath in Haiti, the Washington Post revealed that IRI's "Convergence Democratique" is lobbying for a CIA-backed coup against the elected president .

« Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from IRI...it also includes former backers of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers who overthrew Aristide in 1991 ...The most determined of these men...express their desire to see the U.S. military intervene once again.... to get rid of Aristide and rebuild the disbanded Haitian army... the CIA should train and equip Haitian officers exiled in the neighboring Dominican Republic so they could stage a comeback themselves» (Washington Post, February 2, 2001).""

"On Feb. 8, 2001, the federally funded International Republican Institute's (IRI) senior program officer for Haiti, Stanley Lucas, appeared on the Haitian station Radio Tropicale to suggest three strategies for vanquishing Haiti's president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. First, Lucas proposed forcing Aristide to accept early elections and be voted out; second, he could be charged with corruption and arrested; and finally, Lucas raised dealing with Aristide the way the Congolese people had dealt with President Laurent Kabila the month before. "You did see what happened to Kabila?" Lucas asked his audience."

The coming genocide.

2005-12-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

Afterthepurge's Pigdog has an excellent summary of the WTO's meeting in Hong Kong, "WTO kills farmers":

"The farmers say opening their domestic rice market to foreign competition under a WTO treaty would bankrupt them.

The final key agreements of this WTO meeting includes:

All forms of agricultural export subsidies to be eliminated by 2013 - achieved in parallel and progressive manner. A substantial part to be realized by the end of the first half of the implementation period.
All forms of export subsidies for cotton to be eliminated by developed countries by 2006.
Developed countries will give duty and quota free market access for cotton exports by developing countries once the policy is implemented.
The 32 least developed countries will enjoy duty and quota free access for their products in 97% of all product categories, excluding rice and textiles, which the USA and Japan are protective about.
For service industry, countries will adhere to the Doha Ministerial Declaration and continue to aid the developing countries, as stated in the Modalities for the Special Treatment for Least-Developed Country Members in 2003."

also see Lenin's Tomb: "Anti-capitalism hits Hong Kong: Kong Yee Sai Mau!"

What do peasant farmers have to fear from WTO initiatives concerning agriculture?

Samir Amin has an answer:
"Modernization has always combined constructive dimensions, namely the accumulation of capital and increasing productivity, with destructive aspects—reducing labor to the state of a commodity sold on the market, often destroying the natural ecological basis needed for the reproduction of life and production, and polarizing the distribution of wealth on a global level. Modernization has always simultaneously integrated some, as expanding markets created employment, and excludedothers, who were not integrated in the new labor force after having lost their positions in the previous systems. In its ascending phase, capitalist global expansion integrated many along with its excluding processes. But now, in the third world peasant societies, it is excluding massive numbers of people while including relatively few.

The question raised here is precisely whether this trend will continue to operate with respect to the three billion human beings still producing and living in peasant societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Indeed, what would happen if agriculture and food production were treated as any other form of production submitted to the rules of competition in an open and deregulated market, as decided in principle at the November 2001 WTO meeting in Doha. Would such principles foster the acceleration of production?

One can imagine that the food brought to market by today’s three billion peasants, after they ensure their own subsistences, would instead be produced by twenty million new modern farmers. The conditions for the success of such an alternative would include: (1) the transfer of important pieces of good land to the new capitalist farmers (and these lands would have to be taken out of the hands of present peasant populations); (2) capital (to buy supplies and equipment); and (3) access to the consumer markets. Such farmers would indeed compete successfully with the billions of present peasants. But what would happen to those billions of people?

Under the circumstances, agreeing to the general principle of competition for agricultural products and foodstuffs, as imposed by WTO, means accepting the elimination of billions of noncompetitive producers within the short historic time of a few decades. What will become of these billions of humans beings, the majority of whom are already poor among the poor, who feed themselves with great difficulty. In fifty years’ time, industrial development, even in the fanciful hypothesis of a continued growth rate of 7 percent annually, could not absorb even one-third of this reserve."

Three billion people stripped of their means of producing, of feeding themselves, of sustaining their lives.

Three billion people.

Election preparations:

2005-12-20T05:02:00.000-08:00

From CBC’s "The Current", Broadcast August 6, 2004 (via The Dominion):

"Michel Vastel: Denis Paradis was Secretary of State for Latin America [Africa, and La Francophonie] at the time and had been in Haiti in the year 2000. And he was shocked by the state of the people over there, and he decided, he almost made it a personal goal about the problem of Haiti. Denis Paradis wanted to have a brainstorming session with the players in Haiti: France, La Francophonie, the European Union, the [U.S.] Secretary of State sent two what they call “high ranking officials”.

And, for Latin America there was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for El Salvador, and the idea was to just search for new ideas. So the meeting took place at the Meech Lake resort - you know the place - the last week of January 2003. It lasted three days over an extended weekend. Once again, all information that I’m giving you is coming from Paradis and from the French government. There was a consensus that ‘Aristide should go.’ But, how do you do that? This is the French government…who suggested there should be a “trusteeship” like there was in Kosovo. That was not an intervention, they said, that was their responsibility – all these countries – to protect. When the story was published, the government of Haiti, Aristide actually, used it to say, ‘you see, these colonialists, once again they want to intervene, and then Haiti kept on protesting because they were not invited. You know, that was a meeting on Haiti, most everybody was there but not Haiti. The contribution of Canada to this, if I may say, was that it broadened the interest of the world over Haiti.

Harewood: That was Quebec journalist Michel Vastel who writes for Le Soleil and L’Actualite. To talk about what role exactly Canada has played in Haiti, I’m now joined by Jean Saint-Vil. He’s a Haitian community activist based in Ottawa. Good morning.

Jean Saint-Vil: Good morning, sir.

Harewood: What do you think about Michel Vastel’s account?

Saint-Vil: I think it’s one hundred per cent accurate, but for Canadian taxpayers it’s actually outrageous.

Harewood: Why is it outrageous?

Saint-Vil: Because it means that our government was meeting with the US, France, to overthrow a democratically elected government under the guise of some moral responsibility to choose for the people of Haiti when they should change regimes.

Harewood: Denis Paradis in his defense, might suggest that he was looking out for the interests of the Haitian people.

Saint-Vil: Yes, and I would ask Denis Paradis would he like, for example, the government of South Africa to decide when Canadians should change Prime Ministers? As you know there’s a lot of corruption that has been seen in the current Canadian government. Is that a reason to have a foreign government to decide for us that the current Liberal government should go?"

La Revue Gauche has more on Canadian colonialism here.

Election roundup coverage in Canada and Haiti.

2005-12-20T04:37:00.000-08:00

Yves Engler on his arrest and sentencing for shouting out "Martin lies, Haitians die" at an Election press conference in Montreal:

"I spent over four days in jail before being able to defend myself. I have been charged with breaking my conditions (“keep the peace”) from the first incident, disturbing the peace and using fake documents (it seems this relates to a press pass in my possession). In addition I have been forbidden from coming within 500 metres of any Member of Parliament or member of the Quebec National Assembly or of the Governor General until my process is complete (it could take years). Plus, I cannot write, call or email them.

While these conditions will be challenged in the legal system, I have thought long and hard for the past ten days about how to respond. The best I can come up with is this:

Mr. Prime Minister, I am honoured to live in a country where the legal system frees me after spending four days behind bars for embarrassing an important person. The real outrage is the fact that Canada has not demanded the release of seventy year old folksinger/activist, So Anne, who I met in a Port au Prince jail a year ago and still has not been charged. Or Catholic Priest Gerard Jean-Juste, who Amnesty international has called a “prisoner of conscience”. Or the constitutional Prime Minister and Interior Minister as well as hundreds of lesser known Haitians detained for their political convictions."

In Haiti, the roundups before the show election are in full swing:

"Just a couple of days earlier, I had been to see Jean Juste, who is recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and who has been in prison for four months since his latest arrest on bogus charges by the defacto Haitian government. This is the second time Father Jean Juste has been wrongfully imprisoned by the Latortue regime. "It seems that it's a matter of they don't want to release me in time for the elections," Jean Juste stated. "They are afraid I may run, afraid I may cause trouble, I may try to bring them to court for what they have done to me."

On the same visit to the jail, I also spoke with Jacques Matelier, a Lavalas deputy who is being held in the same prison as Jean Juste. "I have been here for 17 months," Matelier told me, "just because I was on the Council of Departmental Delegates in the South … they have nothing to accuse me with; their hands are empty. They just want to keep me in prison because I am a Lavalasien."

The following day, I visited popular Haitian folk singer and grandmother Annette "So An" Auguste, in the Petionville women's prison. So An has been imprisoned without charges since May 2004, when US marines used grenades to bust into her house, while she and five children were sleeping. So An appears to have been arrested merely because she is an outspoken critic who is extremely popular in Lavalas-supporting neighborhoods.

A few months ago, there were only 45 women in the Petionville prison; today there are about 200óor seven women to each tiny jail cell. Many of these women are from Bel Air. Guerline, an organizer with a Bel Air community organization that fights for women's rights, Famn Vayan Bele, told me that many Bel Air women have been locked up in Petionville after the police came searching for their male partners in their homes. When the police failed to find the men, they took the women instead. "It's another form of kidnapping," Guerline remarked about the imprisoned Bel Air women's hostage-like situation. The police have also hauled many young men from the neighborhood off to prison."

"Decolonisation: plan B..."

2005-12-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

...began Thursday, the 8th of December, when Aimé Césaire, the unions and the majority of Antillais wonderfully voted no to the visit of [French Interior Minister] Sarkozy to Martinique. It's another victory for indigenous people, not of these or those indigenous people, but all indigenous people, whether they live in a metropolitan colonial state or in an 'overseas territory', whether they are colonized or ex-colonized, Black, Arab, Indian, White, etc...

"Good night Battle of Britain, good morning Gaza"

2005-12-16T23:04:00.000-08:00

Maple Flag, the Israeli Air Force, and "the new type of battle we are being asked to fight"

Out of two hundred warplanes that took part in Exercise Maple Flag 2005 in Cold Lake, Alberta in May, only ten were Israeli F-16s. It would be easy to miss their significance. Yet, when Canadian forces extended an invitation to the Israeli Air Force for the first time in thirty-eight meetings of the Maple Flag war games, it signalled, according to military planners, a marked shift in Canadian military and political policy in the twenty-first century: good night Battle of Britain, good morning Gaza.

Exercise Maple Flag is the code name for one of the world’s largest air force exercises, with over 5,000 crewmen from eleven countries conducting active training operations and testing new weapons at Alberta's Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. Formerly know as the Primrose Lake Evaluation Range, the sprawling 11,630 square kilometre base is a symbol of Cold War preparedness, a state-of-the-art facility rapidly constructed between 1952 and 1954.

The range is a source of pride for the Canadian Forces and Department of National Defence (DND). In a glowing history posted on the DND website, the Airfield Engineers called the base "by far the biggest undertaking" of Canada in the Cold War, not least because it required "a 42-mile, sand and clay access road [be] constructed through dense bush and muskeg."

The dense forest and running streams tamed by this feat of engineering were the prodigious trapping, hunting and fishing lands of the Dene Suline, now known under the federal government's band council system as the Cold Lake First Nations. In 1952, the Dene were cut off from their traditional lands and the population ultimately expelled. The nearby Canoe Lake Cree Nation faired little better, losing seventy-five percent of their homelands to the weapons range.

Some fifty years after the land grab, the Canadian government settled claim with the Cold Lake First Nations, paying out a total of $2500 to each band member and $7000 to each elder, with an additional twenty million dollars put in a development trust fund. That settlement amounts to about nine dollars per acre (roughly $22 a hectare), and not more than $150 per person for each year of their displacement. Such is the stage for Exercise Maple Flag, a six-week set of war games designed to provide training in the context of hyper-realistic simulations of aerial combat operations abroad.
-by John Elmer.

Public-Private Partnerships.

2005-12-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

From the report “Canada in Haiti: Considering the 3-D Approach”

"This report is one of the outcomes of a conference in which academics from Canada, the United States and Haiti, officials from the Canadian Departments of Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and representatives from civil society in Canada came together to examine Canada’s past and current engagements in Haiti."

Concluding Remarks:

"Long-term engagement is necessary. Most participants agreed that the international community needs to commit itself to a long-term engagement in Haiti. One participant even went so far as to call for the establishment of a 10- to 15-year protectorate. Although this was by no means a unanimous point of view, all acknowledged that there can be no quick fixes. Most agreed that the fleeting engagements of the 1990s that saw the UN gradually remove itself from Haiti with each successive mission was a counter-productive strategy that should not be repeated."

Who would police this long-term protectorate?

"U.S. Arranges 'Pre-Deployment' Training for Haiti-Bound Private Police" (i.e. Mercenaries)

"The U.S. State Dept. is reaching out to independent contractors to train other private contractors who will be deployed as “civilian police” -- hired guns for so-called peacekeeping missions taking place in Haiti and other geopolitical hotspots. The senior adviser selected for the task “must oversee pre-deployment training currently being conducted” by Dyncorp International, Civilian Police International and Pacific Architects and Engineers/Homeland Security Corporation, according a recently released procurement document.
The three companies currently work under the supervision of State’s Office of Civilian Police and Rule of Law (CIVPOL office) and the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). The INL CIVPOL contractors already have a presence in several “post-conflict locations throughout the world,” according to the document. However, Haiti appears to be a priority, evidenced by a prominently displayed notice on the PAE/HSC website currently announcing that the company is “soliciting applications specific to CIVPOL Officers fluent in French interested in a UN deployment to Haiti.”"

The murder of Dudley George.

2005-12-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

Dudley George was fatally wounded by a police sniper on September 6, 1995 when the Ontario Provincial Police attacked a small group of unarmed protestors occupying Ipperwash Provincial Park.

After a decade, a public inquiry is reluctantly underway.

This is what the judge in the trial of the OPP officer said about the charge that the First Nations had opened fire: "I find that Dudley George did not have any firearms on his person when he was shot.... [T]he story of the rifle and muzzle flash was concocted ex post facto in an ill-fated attempt to disguise the fact that an unarmed man had been shot." So it was determined in a court that the First Nations people were not armed.
We were also told at the time of the shooting that there was no burial ground, and then subsequently found out that the province itself, here at Queen's Park, had evidence of a burial ground. The third thing we were told by the Premier was that it was left entirely to the OPP. This is why we need a public inquiry -- to determine whether or not that was the case.

What were then the directives of Premier Mike Harris and Minister of Natural Resources Chris Hodgson?

[Ontario Attorney General Chris] Harnick's silence was shattered Monday when he told the inquiry he heard Harris say, "I want the f**king Indians out of the park" during a Sept. 6 meeting on the crisis attended by two Ontario Provincial Police officers. Hours later, police marched on the park and, in the ensuing melee, aboriginal protester Dudley George was killed by a police sniper.

Dr. Elaine Meller Todres at the Ipperwash Inquiry Nov. 30th, 2005:
A: And they wanted it done with. They wanted to move on. They had a legislative agenda and they wanted this dealt with as quickly as possible and they didn't want to be -- they didn't want it to linger, if I can put it that way.
Q: All right. Can you describe any words or phrases that would have taken you to this understanding?
A: Well, there were -- there were – I did get the sense that they wanted things done. I mean, I recall -- the first thing that I recall is that the Minister of -- of Natural Resources was extremely agitated and very concerned. And in a moment of apparent exasperation, uttered a phrase that I would prefer not to repeat.
Q: I'm going to ask you to repeat it.
A: He said, in my recollection, "Get the [expletive deleted] Indians out of my Park." That is the phrase that I recall.
Q: He didn't say, "expletive deleted"?
A: No, he didn't. You're asking me to say that word.
Q: I am asking you.
A: He said, "Get the fucking Indians out of my Park"

Studies in a Canadian Colonialism:
“The colonial world is a world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police stations. In the colonies it is the policeman and the soldier who are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression.”
-Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, quoted in "Police Murders & Inquiries"

Silly teenager...driver's licences are for students

2005-12-16T11:58:00.000-08:00

The Ontario government is proposing new legislation which would ban highschool dropouts from being able to get a driver's licence.

"The law also provides for fines of up to $1,000 for students who are regularly absent from school and would fine parents the same amount, up from $200 under current legislation. Employers who have students working during school hours could also be fined $1,000."

Education Minister Gerard Kennedy notes:
"This by itself can't make the difference," Kennedy said of the driver's licence restrictions, which will apply with some exceptions for "family situations."

"We're saying to people that you shouldn't be going into a job, no matter how attractive it looks, that doesn't have a learning component, if you're 16 or 17," he added. "You're short-changing yourself. The success of this will really much more depend on the (educational) program that we're putting forward," he said. "What we're doing, mainly, is opening up better choices for students."

I think that "choice" is a very pertinent word in this instance. The word choice implies that people are able to freely choose to attend school or not attend school. But is this always the case? As Kennedy notes, "family situations" can often get in the way for many students. But, what counts as a "family situation?" For instance, it seems obvious that the Liberal government does not include having to work to support your family or yourself, as a "family situation" since you "shouldn't be getting a job, no matter how attractive it looks." However, this elides the fact that there are certain students who are more likely to be absent than others, such as poorer students, rural students, etc. Students, in other words, who are already disadvantaged. What the proposed legislation assumes is that students are freely choosing to work instead of go to school, which may not often be the case. Furthermore, fining students and their families up to $1000 dollars for missing school seems to completely miss the point. Attending school is not always a choice for some students, and this legislation does absolutely nothing to address underlying issues such as poverty and discrimination. In fact, it seems to do the exact opposite. Instead of creating more "choices" for students, it seems to be decreasing the already limited choices certain students have.

As the following highschool student notes:

Molle Dorst, a 17-year-old Grade 12 student at Seed Alternative School, said the legislation won't encourage students to stay in school."By not letting a student get their licence, it is saying, `If you drop out, we're going to cut your choices you have in life,'" she said."There's lots of experiences they can have based on their life experience, which are just as valid as having a university education."

Islamic Fundamentals.

2005-12-15T15:22:00.000-08:00

DECEMBER 3, 2005 -- The following open letter has been written by the secret trial detainees held in Toronto, and is being sent to Arab media outlets around the world in the hope that it will add to the millions of voices calling for the release of Toronto's Jim Loney and other Christian Peacemaker Team members currently held in Iraq:

To the people holding James Loney and the other Christian Peacemaker Team Members in Iraq,

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious and Merciful,

Our names are Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub and Hassan Almrei, and we have been detained without charge for between four and five and a half years. Some of us have spent as many as four years in solitary confinement as well. We are being held captive under security certificates because the government of Canada alleges we are linked to terrorist organizations and that we pose a threat to the national security of Canada. Allah is witness to our innocence of these allegations.

We are suffering a great injustice here in Canada because the government stereotypes Muslims and because of our strong faith and daily attendance to mosque. We have been suffering innocently.

Many Canadians have heard of our injustice and have been supporting us in our fight for freedom by contacting politicians, by holding demonstrations in front of the jail, by writing letters to authorities and spreading the word all over Canada by way of media.

James Loney of the Christian Peacemaker Teams is one of thousands of people who have been fighting to right this wrong. He is a person who has organized and motivated people to participate in this struggle for what is right. We have recently seen a photo of him in the newspaper and it has saddened our hearts to learn that he is being held captive in Iraq.

This is the same James Loney who has travelled to Iraq on more than one occasion to help the people of Iraq. This is the same James Loney who has reached out to the families of the Abu Ghraib prisoners. This is the James Loney who was against the U.S. invasion and is against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

It pains our heart to know that a person of this calibre is being held captive. We care about his freedom more than we do our own.

If you love Allah, if you have goodness in your heart, please deal with this matter as righteous Muslims and not let these kind, caring, compassionate and innocent people suffer. Prophet Mohammad, Peace be upon Him, said, "If you do not thank the people, you do not thank Allah." The Prophet, Peace be Upon Him, also said, "If someone did a favour to you, try to return his favour."

We hope and pray to see these captives freed as much as we hope and pray for our own freedom here in Canada, a freedom for which James Loney has worked so hard.

*******For further information: Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, (416) 651-5800, tasc(at)web.ca

The Secret Trial 5:

Adil Charkaoui, held since May, 2003.

Mohamed Harkat, held since December, 2002.

Hassan Almrei, in solitary confinement since October, 2001.

Mahmoud Jaballah, held since August 2001.

Mohammad Mahjoub, held since June 2000.

Speciesism

2005-12-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

Chabert points to the shameless opening address by Director General Pascal Lamy at the latest WTO meeting:

"You are the heirs of almost 60 years of tradition in trade negotiations, of a remarkable set of rules and decisions, and an impressive body of legal interpretations. You have also inherited a well-oiled machine that oversees and ensures the implementation of a balanced system of rights and obligations. You have every reason to be proud of the past achievements of your collective enterprise. So much for the past.

The current state of affairs is somewhat more heterogeneous. On the one hand, the day-to-day and dispute settlement activities are doing relatively well. Although the number of disputes has risen considerably, most of the decisions are respected and implemented, without recourse to retaliation — which speaks for the credibility of the dispute settlement mechanism. Only a handful of the more than 300 disputes submitted to the WTO since its creation in 1995 have not yet been resolved.

The negotiations part of your activities, on the other hand, could certainly be improved. There is also a lot of room for improvement in public acceptance of the WTO, as there is in its marketing activities. The WTO — the crowds in and certainly outside this building will remind you with sound and sometimes fury — is not the most popular international organization around, to say the least.

Even if it is famous throughout the world, the WTO is a very small business: its budget for 2006 is only 140 million US dollars — five times less than the budget of another international organization — FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, for example (US$700 million), and almost ten times less than the budget of a famous NGO! I will certainly have to use your magic to see if we can get a more powerful engine for the WTO car, which is getting bigger and bigger, and now includes two newcomers, Saudi Arabia and Tonga.

As for the future of the WTO, it started in Doha in 2001 and it is up to you to decide, in this assembly, how you wish to fashion the years to come. If the WTO is to maintain and increase its current activities, then you must take a further step and commit yourselves to a new investment in the improvement of its rules, through the success of the current negotiations.

How do you decide on this collective investment? The WTO decision-making process, as you all know is, let us say, difficult. The difficulty stems from the fact that all stakeholders — all of you — have decided that you have exactly the same right, no matter how big or small, no matter how powerful or weak, no matter how rich or poor you are: you all have the right to speak, the right to agree, the right to disagree. In sum, in spite of all criticism, the WTO decision-making process is democratic. If it were different, taking decisions on the negotiations would probably be easier. But it would not be as legitimate. Reaching agreement in the WTO is difficult because it is done bottom-up — and it is good this is so. It takes more time, it is more burdensome and cumbersome, but I am convinced it remains the best way to take decisions that impact directly the lives of billions of people.

In short, you should indeed be proud of this healthy and democratic common institution. But like any stakeholder, you should also look beyond your immediate needs, you should think prospectively, you should care about the future.

Let me tell you a little secret I learnt since I took office as Director-General: there is an apocryphal and funny Secretariat guide to the language of trade negotiators in the old GATT. This guide tells you that, in those years, when negotiators said “Mr Chairman, we seek a balanced agreement”, what they really meant was “this agreement had better contain everything we demand”; when the negotiators said “we have demonstrated flexibility”, they really meant “we have successfully concealed our intransigence”; and when the negotiators announced “we are prepared to make our contribution to an ambitious outcome”, they really meant “we will only support agreements where others make all the concessions — and we make none”! This attitude, as we all know, is part of our past.

This is the past because today, what we really need are negotiators that are bold, open-minded and prepared to take some risks, as successful stakeholders. Ministers often face the difficult task of explaining to national constituencies that they have gained something in negotiations, even if the negotiating process is not over. The many people who benefit from open trade are usually politically silent, whereas those fewer who are affected by it can be politically very loud. We all understand the need of each and every delegation to take home some gain from trade negotiations.

The reality is that the true magic of these negotiations is to achieve results where all participants are winners, all will be able to declare victory. But for that, some risks must be taken. A popular Chinese proverb says “If you don't go into the cave of the tiger, how will you get its cub?” — in other words: nothing ventured, nothing gained."
-Pascal Lamy

Lamy speaks to the WTO stakeholders about policies. But people aren't mentioned, except for outbursts of fury, or as tigers or cubs to be hunted. These aren't people he talks about. They aren't even sub-human. The language used is as if people at the receiving end of these policies were a different biological entity. It's as if Wells' Martians were speaking of the invasion of Earth: "that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."

But this talk of stakeholders seemed familiar. Where had I heard this before?

Oh yes, in almost every communique from the university administration:

"Queen’s [administration] has established a working group to review key higher education issues and begin the process of preparing the university’s formal submission to Ontario’s Rae panel on Postsecondary Review......As the process moves forward, the working group will be talking to other key stakeholders on campus and in the broader community."
-The Queen’s Committee on the Rae Review on [privatizing] Higher Education [further]

Elites used to use terms like 'citizen', or 'the public', as a fantasmal referrent that was said to have been consulted on the way to the exploitation of people. Now, such a a pretense at a universality (within a state) is dropped. It is only the mighty stakeholders, the overseers, that matter.

On Wikipedia 'stakeholder' is defined as:

"originally a person who holds money or other property while its owner is being determined......In the last decades of the 20th century, the word "stakeholder" has evolved to mean a person or organisation that has a legitimate interest in a project or entity."

This legitimate vocal participant in bureacratic memos and communiques, the stakeholder, is the new bureaucratic overman, it is the new public, the new citizen, the new species.

Turning a blind eye to Canadian war crimes in Haiti.

2005-12-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

Canada's unflinching complicity (via CHAN)

Canada is complicit in each and every one of these acts of violence. The Haitian National Police are currently being trained by a 1600-member UN Civil Police Force, which has largely been under Canadian command since last summer. The UN Mission in Haiti, as well as the Canadian government, have thus far failed to acknowledge the well-documented killings and detentions of human rights activists, journalists, grassroots activists, and ordinary Haitians which have been carried out by the HNP.

In a report issued by the Miami-based Centre for the Study of Human Rights last January, members of the UN Civil Police Operations, as well as UN peacekeepers stated that their mission consisted of offering "back up" to HNP raids within poor neighbourhoods. A commander of the Civil Police from Quebec City was interviewed and stated that all he had done in Haiti was to "engage in daily guerrilla warfare." The Brazilian head of the UN forces was quoted in a Reuters article in November as stating "we are under extreme pressure from the international community to use violence." He cited France, the United States, and Canada among the countries pressing for the use of force.

Haitian government officials are currently on the payroll of the Canadian government as well. Philippe Vixamar, a minister within the Justice Department, has stated publicly that he was assigned to his position by the Canadian International Development Agency, and is currently on the CIDA payroll. CIDA is also employing Fernand Yvon, a senior advisor to President Gerard Latortue. Vixamar also denied that there were any political prisoners in Haiti in early November. Paul Martin, on a state visit to Haiti several days later, would make the same claim. In reality, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission has estimated that there are over 700 political prisoners throughout Haiti, including former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and other ex-cabinet ministers within Aristide's government.

Haitian coup: Made in Canada?

However, in noting the Canadian role in legitimizing the current government, one cannot leave out the role Canadian politicians have played in de-legitimizing the government of Aristide in the lead-up to last year's coup.

In January of 2003, according to an article which appeared in L'Actualite magazine in March of the same year, Canadian MP Denis Paradis hosted a "high-level roundtable meeting on Haiti," at the Meech Lake Resort. The round-table's invitees included Canadian officials, high-level US officials, diplomats with the Organization of American States (OAS), and officials from throughout Latin America. No Haitian representatives were present.

L'Actualite reporter Michel Vastel noted that Paradis had told him the themes of the meeting would include Aristide's possible removal, the possibility of placing Haiti under international "trusteeship," and the potential return of the Haitian military, which was disbanded in 1995 by Aristide as a result of its history of human rights abuses and corruption. This revelation raises troubling questions of the role of Canadian officials in the planning of the coup of Aristide.

In addition, CIDA funding to Haiti during the period from 2000-2004 -- like that of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) -- was funnelled solely to "grassroots" NGO's and business organizations who were aligned with the opposition Democratic Convergence party. The Democratic Convergence never managed to gain more than eight per cent voter support in Haitian elections. Supported by neo-Duvalierist ex-military members as well as members of the Haitian business elite, it was the Democratic Convergence which first claimed that the May 2000 parliamentary elections in Haiti were fraudulent, contrary to the conclusions reached by election observers from CARICOM and the Organization of American States. Only eight out of 7000 total positions decided in this election were contested. Yet the Canadian media, as well as Canadian officials, parroted the accusations of fraudulence made by the Democratic Convergence even after Aristide ordered the eight government officials to resign.

The Canadian Corporate/State Nexus In Haiti by Anthony Fenton

http://canadahaitiaction.ca/

New Orleans: Kick 'em When They're Down

2005-12-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

By Jordan Barab, Reprinted From Confined Space
It never ceases to amaze me how, whenever a crisis hits, Republicans instinctively go after the very workers that society depends on to pull them out: public employees. It happened after 9/11 and now it's happening again in New Orleans.
Gulf Coast Watch blog reports that SEIU Local 21 led a successful charge against Louisiana Senate Bill 5which would have
allowed parishes and municipalities to slash wages for teachers, water and sanitation workers, social workers, and other public employees for up to six months AFTER a declared state of emergency was terminatedRepublican Senator Tom Schelder withdrew the bill after the legislature was hit by flood of emails and phone calls by a very nice coalition that came together to oppose the bill:
Opposition to this bill was supported by the Black Chamber of Commerce, the Northern and Central Louisiana Interfaith Network, and members of newly formed NOAH (New Opportunities for Action and Hope), founded by community and labor organizations in Louisiana in order to ensure that as LA rebuilds
via labor blog

Union Busting NYU style

2005-12-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

In 2000 there was a landmark ruling at the National Labour Relations Board, which granted the right to graduate students to form unions at private universities. In 2004 the NLRB reversed its ruling, now making it illegal to form unions at private universities, stating that:

"Graduate-student assistants, including those at Brown, are primarily students and have a primarily educational, not economic, relationship with their university," the majority wrote. They further found that since the money received by teaching assistants is the same as that received by students on fellowships, it is not "consideration for work" but financial aid.

Because of this ruling, in 2005 when it came time for NYU students to negotiate a new contract, the administration refused to recognize their union, GSOC. This is why graduate students at NYU have been on strike since November 9th.

"The strike is the culmination of tensions that began this summer when NYU announced it would no longer recognize the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, the local affiliate of the United Auto Workers that represents NYU graduate assistants."

Around November 28th, NYU President John Sexton sent out a letter to all striking teaching assistants threatening them with financial repurcussions and blacklisting, should they not return to work by December 5th, which was then extended to December 7th.

Gordon Lafer notes that the threatening sanctions and scare tactics against the teaching assistants and faculty at the university have not been seen since the McCarthy era:

"According to Sexton, teachers who continue striking will be banned from teaching in the spring and will be denied their full salary for that term. Such punitive threats are patently illegal under federal law; while it is permissible to dock the pay of people while they are on strike, it is illegal to ban them from future work as punishment for past strikes.

Sexton further demanded that anyone who takes a teaching job in the spring pledge - as a condition of employment - not to participate in job actions. This type of "yellow dog" contract has been illegal since 1932, when it was banned in legislation authored by New York's own Fiorello LaGuardia, when he was a member of Congress.

Finally, Sexton suggests that those who participate in strike actions but, God forbid, graduate before they can be punished, may have negative assessments attached to their university record when they apply for jobs at other schools. This type of blacklisting has not been seen since the dark days of McCarthyism."

If you believe that graduate students should have the right to form unions, and they possess a dual role in the university as both students and workers, please send a letter to NYU President John Sexton (john.sexton@nyu.edu) or sign the online petition, which now has over 6000 signatures on it:
http://new.petitiononline.com/tosexton/petition.html

To keep up to date on the strike:

http://www.2110uaw.org/

Remembrance.

2005-12-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

"Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer...

...The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

-from Harold Pinter's Nobel acceptance speech.
video of the speech here.

Monument.

2005-12-08T00:10:00.000-08:00

UN troops continue to murder Haitians

2005-12-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

Urgent Action Alert: The Haiti Action Committee has received eyewitness reports over the past four days from Cite Soleil that UN troops have launched a new round of attacks on the residents there, killing at least three civilians and gravely wounding others. According to the preliminary reports:

On Wednesday, November 23rd, UN troops killed one man who was a maker of kitchen utensils when they fired into his shop near his home; 5 reported wounded.

Over the weekend, UN troops\x98led by Jordanian soldiers\x98killed two more Cite Soleil residents, husband and wife, and wounded 8 people. More people could have been killed and wounded\x98further investigation is required.

Residents in Cite Soleil are once again trapped and under siege. This could be a massacre that is in the making as we send out this alert. Unfortunately, the UN troops have already demonstrated on July 6th, 2005, and again on other occasions that they will shoot and kill men, women and children in their homes, in their beds, and as they go about their daily chores. Now is the time to act -- to let them know the world is watching and demands an end to the killings!

Contact the following officials and demand that they intervene to stop the siege on the residents of Cite Soleil:

* Craig G. Mokhiber

Deputy Director, NY Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Ph: 917-367-5208 mokhiber@un.org

* Juan Gabriel Valdes

Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Haiti

Phone: 011-509-244-9650 or 9660 Fax 011-509 244 3512

* Thierry Fagart

Human Rights Chief, UN Mission in Haiti

Ph: 011-509-510-3183 or 3185 - ext. 6360 fagart@un.org

* US Embassy in Haiti Telephones: 011-509-223-4711...222-0200 or 0354...Fax: 011-509-223-1641 or 9038 Email to Dana Banks, Human Rights Officer: BanksD@state.gov

OVER THE WEEKEND OR AT NIGHT -- Call 011-509-222-0200 and press "0" for emergency.

***Be sure to contact your local media, and ask that they cover these atrocities.

Please check www.haitiaction.net for updates on what is happening

(via Le Colonel Chabert)

The free press and imperialism.

2005-12-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

"U.S. Army officers have been secretly paying Iraqi journalists to produce upbeat newspaper, radio and television reports about American military operations and the conduct of the war in Iraq."

"The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption. It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society." Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations"

The banal but horrifying truth, that this imperialist adventure would engage in deceit and lies, that it would seek to pacify an occupied country through the media (as useful an unconventional weapon as white phosphorus) of course must be framed in the ‘free’ press as some sort of contradiction: the press in Iraq is being ‘perverted’ by the military. Cue outrage.

Of course, there is every reason to be outraged by this, to be angered by this vicous bamboozle, to print it on pages, on screens, to talk about of how fucking despicable our institutions of occupation are. But what does this narrative about these press articles, this story about a story, tell us as consumers of the ‘free’ press, consumers safely inside the borderlands of empire? That we are outiside of the information being shaped by imperialist interest? What agendas are met by reporting this as some sort of perversion, of pretending this present order is just a momentary corruption of a just system as it overextends itself?

“Freedom of the press” is another of the principal slogans of “pure democracy”. And here, too, the workers know — and Socialists everywhere have explained millions of times —that this freedom is a deception because the best printing presses and the biggest stocks of paper are appropriated by the capitalists, and while capitalist rule over the press remains—a rule that is manifested throughout the whole world all the more strikingly, sharply and cynically—the more democracy and the republican system are developed, as in America for example. The first thing to do to win really equality and genuine democracy for the working people, for the workers and peasants, is to deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers, buying publishing houses and bribing newspapers. And to do that the capitalists and exploiters have to be overthrown and their resistance oppressed. The capitalists have always use the term “freedom” to mean freedom for the rich to get richer and for the workers to starve to death. And capitalist usage, freedom of the press means freedom of the rich to bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public opinion. In this respect, too, the defenders of “pure democracy” prove to be defenders of an utterly foul and venal system that gives the rich control over the mass media. They prove to be deceivers of the people, who, with the aid of plausible, fine-sounding, but thoroughly false phrases, divert them from the concrete historical task of liberating the press from capitalist enslavement."

Meanwhile:

Canadian journalists 'train' Haitians in the midst of massacres they don't report.

Fifteen years after the Oka Crisis, Canadian colonialism continues in Kanesetake.

Defenders of a free press and war criminals:

Making money off of the misery of others truly is the American way...

2005-11-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

Via Straight Up:

November 27, 2005

GET OUT OF ABU GHRAIB FREE

Just in time for Christmas, there's a new board game coming out, "Battle to Baghdad: The Fight For Freedom." It's the brainchild of a 33-year-old construction contractor from Oregon, The Telegraph reports. The game's creator "opposes the US presence in Iraq," according to the London daily, but he's been criticized "for capitalising on war." His response: "As an American, I was raised to believe that we should have ideas and try to make money out of them. That's the American way." Spoken like a true blue red-white-and-green patriot.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Blame it on black gangs... revisited

2005-11-26T18:06:00.000-08:00

Le Colonel Chabert writes about the media manufacture of "black gangs" and how it shortcircuits any critique of imperialism in Haiti:

Even for the latest explosion of violence in Kosovo, accomplishing the ethnic cleansing of the remaining dregs of non Albanian inhabitants, for which the western media wished to apologize gently, an account of the adversaries was required, identification of their motives and affiliations, a narrative, if mendacious and tendentious, recap of the history and events leading to this crisis....

But for Haiti, of course, it would be impossible without flagrant and easily debunkable lies to tell the story without revealing the monstrous criminality of the US, France, Canada and its puppet dictatorship(s). But racism solves this problem; by the evocation of its whole elaborate framework, its myths, it literary clichés, and faux social science, the glaring lack of explanation, of indeed actual reporting in the traditional genre, is entirely concealed. A hot, banana-growing place inhabited by black people left to their own devices (having violently, arrogantly thrown off their custodians and tutors before they could be taught to control and govern themselves like Christians) is simply like this, poor, dirty, precarious, menaced by violent 'gangs' with no particular motive for their violence other than the unfettered expression of their nature - for this is what 'young black men' do when they don't make the NBA. This is how they behave on the shitpile their delusional Kings leave after embezzling all the money to dress up in feathers and dine with real royalty.

Lenin's Tomb notes the same logic at work in New Orleans:

Now, who would have believed that desperate residents of New Orleans were busily shooting at those who were trying to help them - unless their faces were black? As it happens, violent crime fell during the post-Katrina catastrophe. And that's quite predictable: it is what you would expect. In 2001, not including the mass murder on 9/11, New York's murder rate was the lowest since Kennedy was killed. In fact, just about every kind of crime was down (except for the crimes to self-respect inflicted by the retailers of kitsch and tat). I'm not saying all of it was down to post-9/11 solidarity, but one thing that does stand out is that the disaster did not result in Hobbesian war of all against all, or in the city being "raped". Yet, the stories that enabled the government to block aid from getting into the city, and prevent people from getting out as they prepared for their "little Somalia" were somehow widely enough believed that there was not mass protest about what was being done. I was widely remarked at the time that New Orleans seemed to have joined the Third World. Well, then, think of Haiti

Afterthepurge's very own Dr. Snake Roberts tackles the image of black gangs and rap music in Toronto and Paris:

Rap music does not “cause” violence, any more than it “causes” misogyny, and this scapegoating of rap music results in little being done to change the violence many women, white and black, face in their day to day lives. What does this focus in the media on “stranger violence”, specifically, the threat of a black man with a gun, hide?

Half of Canadian women (51%) have been victims of at least one act of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16.

Women are much more likely to be victimized by someone they know than by a stranger.

It's not an accident that these images of a violent, anonymous black underclass of people continue to be the favorite of ruling elites hiding the traces of their crimes from their citizens. This trope was produced in the age of imperialism, which it helps maintain. Anne McClintock notes, "the fetish image of the crowd as degenerate was a measure of very real ruling-class anxieties about popular resistance, as well as a crucial element in legitimizing the policing of militant working class communities." But does any other simultaneously racialized, classist and gendered image serve so well as border-guard from the critical curiosity of a state's citizenry? This racialized, overdetermined media image of the black gang itself, rather than any actually existing black people, stands as sentry and border alongside police forces.

Moral panic(s) and rap music

2005-11-26T18:04:00.000-08:00

What's with the panic about rap music in Toronto and Paris?

In Toronto: Gun crime biggest fear

Poll: 87% say city is more violent compared to five years ago

Nicholas Kohler, National Post
Tuesday, October 25, 2005

TORONTO - Toronto residents are feeling "under siege" by gangs that draw their income from drug sales and their inspiration from urban rap music, says an Ipsos-Reid poll released yesterday.

Canadian MP calls for 50 Cent ban, Thursday, 24 November, 2005

Junior foreign minister Dan McTeague has called on officials to stop the performer (5o cent) from entering the country.

"This is not a question of censorship," he said. "This is a question of trying to protect impressionable young men."

Meanwhile, in France:

Rappers face rap for riots
23/11/2005 23:14 - (SA)

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1839472,00.html

Paris - Seven French rap outfits could face legal action after a complaint lodged by about 200 parliamentarians on Wednesday, accusing them of helping to provoke the country's recent riots through their lyrics.

"Sexism, racism and anti-Semitism are no more acceptable in lyrics than in written or spoken words," said the deputy behind the initiative, Francois Grosdidier of the ruling centre-right UMP.

"This is one of the factors that led to the violence in the suburbs," he said, arguing that rap music "conditions" listeners into a violent frame of mind that could spur them on to action.

In a petition co-signed by 152 deputies and 49 senators, the deputy drew the attention of justice minister Pascal Clement to seven rap singers and bands whom he accused of inciting racism and hatred.

Stop giving hip hop a bad rap

Nov. 24, 2005. 07:39 AM

As Ben Rayner states:

“It seems rather self-evident, but gun violence was thriving in Toronto long before Get Rich or Die Tryin' opened in theatres and 50 Cent threatened to visit.

This is the way crusades like the one launched this week by Liberal MP Dan McTeague to prevent the platinum-plated gangsta rapper from entering Canada next month usually work, though. They don't bother putting in the time to seek out real-world solutions to the complex social and fiscal predicaments that lead to gun violence; they settle for Band-Aid grandstanding that gives the impression of "doing something" for communities largely thrust into these situations by generations of government neglect in the first place, and that wins headlines for a junior foreign minister with an eye on re-election.”

Not all violence is created equal…

Half of Canadian women (51%) have been victims of at least one act of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16.
Of all victims of crimes against the person in 2000, females made up the vast majority of victims of sexual assaults (86%), criminal harassment (78%) and kidnapping/hostage-taking or abduction (67%).
Of all female victims of violent crimes in 2000, 47% were victims of common assault, 9% of sexual assault, 9% of assault with a weapon causing bodily arm, 7% of robbery and 6% of criminal harassment.
Women are much more likely to be victimized by someone they know than by a stranger. In 2000, 77% of all female victims were victimized by someone they know (37% by a close friend or an acquaintance, 29% by a current or past partner, 11% by other family members - including parents) while 19% were victimized by a stranger. (link)

Intimate Femicide: An Analysis Of Men Who Kill Their Partners

By: Gregory P. Kerry M.A., Correctional Service of Canada & Carleton University

While there is a vast body of knowledge on violence against women, intimate femicide, the most severe form of violence, has received little attention. This is alarming since statistics show that when a woman is killed, the perpetrator is often a man who has been intimately involved with her (Campbell, l992; Crawford & Gartner, l992; Stout, l99l; Statistics Canada, l99l; l989; U.S. Department of Justice, l992).

To better understand intimate femicides, a binary model is proposed. Within this model, intimate femicide is understood as having two different origins: one involves the murder of an oppressed woman who attempted to emancipate herself and the other is an actual or attempted murder/suicide in which a socially inept and dependent man kills his liberated and independent partner. This model thus divides intimate murders into those who attempted or committed suicide immediately after killing their partner and those who did not.

Fighting Femicide

DENVER - Nearly 400 women have been murdered, and seventy more have disappeared, in a Mexican city that lies only miles from the

U.S.

border. In October 2003, the Bullhorn traveled to Ciudad Juarez to report on the femicides ravaging

Mexico

’s fourth-largest city ['Crosses of Despair,' October 16, 2003]. At the time, the motives behind the killings were a mystery, and Mexican authorities had not arrested any promising culprits.

More info:

http://slingshot.tao.ca/displaybi.php?0079002

http://www.socialism.com/fsarticles/vol26no2/radicalwomen.html

cross-posted at afterthepurge

Imperialism in Haiti: it's a gang problem

2005-11-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

Hollywood Freedom:
“in most of the conventional media, Haiti is viewed through a sociological prism in which the country’s problems are boiled down to a neat cycle of poverty, gang violence, crime and more poverty. Through this prism, the undeniably political murders of Lavalas supporters and other poor Haitians are recast easily by slick public information officers for the HNP, the international cabal, and the UN into legitimate responses to a growing “crime/gang problem.”
This hoax allows the US, French, and Canadian footprints to fade from the canvas, and the UN troops seem less like occupiers and more like, well, peacekeepers. How can the situation in Haiti, in which the US, France and Canada spent millions of dollars to destabilize Aristide’s government and where the UN has marshaled as many as 300-400 troops at a time to commit deadly raids, be characterized simply as a police action to counter “criminal elements” in poor neighborhoods? The answer is that it can’t, because this scenario is a propaganda fabrication.”
From “Haiti, Imperialism, and the Treachery of Liberals” by Shirley Pate http://www.haitiprogres.com/2005/sm051019/eng10-19.html

Previously seen on sanitized UN War Crimes:
“In the early morning hours of July 6, more than 350 UN troops stormed the seaside shanty town of Cite Soleil in a military operation with the stated purpose of halting violence in Haiti. The successful goal of the mission was to assassinate a 31 year-old man and his lieutenants that Haiti’s right wing media and reactionary business community had labeled bandits and armed supporters of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
According to residents, Emmanuel “Dread” Wilmer and four others were felled in a hail of gunfire that came from all directions including a circling helicopter. According to the Associated Press, a military spokesman for the UN peacekeeping [sic] mission in Haiti, Colonel Eloufi Boulbars stated, “Armed bandits who had tried to resist were either killed or wounded.”
On July 6 in Cite Soleil, a weeping Fredi Romelus, recounted how UN troops lobbed a red smoke grenade into his house and then opened fire killing his wife and two children. “They surrounded our house this morning and I ran thinking my wife and the children were behind me. They couldn’t get out and the blan [UN] fired into the house.”
http://www.world-crisis.com/news/1152_0_1_0_C/
(warning: graphic pictures)

If you missed the first airing, there will be repeats playing continuously:
“17 November - In the slum of Cité Soleil, UN troops regained control of a neighborhood Thursday after a night of clashes with armed gang members who authorities say are supporters of Aristide. "Both sides exchanged thousands of bullets," said Lt. Col. Andre Novaes, the UN commanding officer in the zone. "We fought from sunset till dawn."”
http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/fea_news_index.html

The original gangsters: Paul Martin, Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush.

For more information:
http://www.outofhaiti.ca/
http://canadahaitiaction.ca/

cross-posted at afterthepurge

The face behind the mask

2005-11-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

-In suport of freedom and democracy everywhere (via)

-Illustration from a 2004 Guantanamo tribunal (via)

Guantanamo is just one of an unknown number of torture camps run by the US:
"The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism..."
"...Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.
While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites."
-Washington Post, November 2, 2005.

The phantasm of legal exception behind 'a mass of incomprehensible data':
"...these gruesome crimes took place in a phantom world, which, however, has materialized, as it were, into a world which is complete with all sensual data of reality but lacks that structure of consequence and responsibility without which reality remains for us a mass of incomprehensible data. The result is that a place has been established where men can be tortured and slaughtered, and yet neither the tormentors nor the tormented, and least of all the outsider, can be aware that what is happening is anything more than a cruel game or an absurd dream."
-Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

cross-posted at afterthepurge

howdy.

2005-11-23T16:49:00.000-08:00