Peace and Justice Post

Hindustan Times, May 29, 2008

The dawn of a new republic in Nepal, ending its 239-year-old royal dynasty that had become a symbol of oppression, has been hailed by the UN, which called the event historic and urged for the speedy formation of a new government.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office in New York issued a statement early Thursday congratulating the people of the new republic of Nepal for successfully holding the first meeting of its constituent assembly Wednesday and voting overwhelmingly to turn King Gyanendra into a commoner and ask him to vacate the royal palace in 15 days.

“The people of Nepal have clearly spoken for peace and change through the April 10 assembly election,” the statement said. “The secretary-general encourages all parties to continue working in a cooperative manner and to form a new government as soon as possible.”

Ban’s special representative for Nepal Ian Martin, who attended the near-midnight proclamation of republic Wednesday, called the meet an achievement and said the UN was proud to have assisted in the election of the “most inclusive body Nepal has yet known”.

Continued . . .

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has escaped an attempted citizen’s arrest as he appeared at the Hay Festival.

By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent | The Telegraph, May 28, 2009

DRAGON NEWS AND PICTURES

George Monbiot is held off by security guards

DRAGON NEWS AND PICTURES

John Bolton argued that the Iraq war was entirely legal

DRAGON NEWS AND PICTURES

A protestor talks with police at the Hay festival

Security guards blocked the path of columnist and activist George Monbiot, who tried to make the arrest as Mr Bolton left the stage.

The former ambassador – a key advisor to President George W Bush who argued strongly in favour of invading Iraq – had been giving a talk on international relations to more than 600 people at the literary festival.

Mr Monbiot was blocked by two heavily-built security guards at the end of the one-and-a-half hour appearance, before he could serve a “charge sheet” on him.

After being released by the guards the columnist – a fierce critic of the 2003 American-led invasion – made a dash through the rain-soaked tented village in a failed attempt to catch up with Mr Bolton.

A crowd of about 20 protestors, one dressed in a latex George Bush mask, chanted “war criminal” as Mr Bolton was ushered away.

Mr Monbiot said moments later he was “disappointed” that he had been blocked from making the citizen’s arrest.

“This was a serious attempt to bring one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war to justice, for what is described under the Nuremberg Principles as an international crime,” he said.

During Mr Bolton’s talk, to a packed-out audience, Mr Monbiot had asked Mr Bolton what difference there was between him and a Nazi war criminal.

Continued . . .

Truthdig, May 28, 2008

AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Disabled Vietnam War veteran and antiwar activist Ron Kovic, subject of the film “Born on the Fourth Of July,” reaches out to touch fingers with an admirer during a massive protest against U.S. involvement in Iraq. The demonstration occurred in downtown Los Angeles in September 2005.

By Ron Kovic

As a former United States Marine Corps sergeant who was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam on Jan. 20, 1968, I am sending my complete support and admiration to all those now involved in the courageous struggle to stop military recruitment in Berkeley and across the country.

Not since the Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s has there been a cause more just than the one you are now engaged in. Who knows better the deep immorality and deception of military recruiters than those of us who, decades ago, entered those same recruiting offices with our fathers, believing in our hearts that we were being told the truth—only to discover later we had been deceived and terribly betrayed? Many of us paid for that deceit with our lives, years of suffering and bodies and minds that were never the same again. If only someone had warned us, if only someone had had the courage to speak out against the madness that we were being led into, if only someone could have protected us from the recruiters whose only wish was to make their quota, send us to boot camp and hide from us the dark secret of the nightmare which awaited us all.

Continued . . .

The Times, May 29, 2008

By Donald Macintyre in Beit Hanoun | The Independent, May 29, 2008

Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked from his car and, his head lowered, paused for a moment’s silent prayer or reflection at the alley where so many of the Athamneh family had been killed.

Then he stepped forward to the warm embrace of a tearful Saad Athamneh, 55, who lost three of his sons, all of them fathers, 18 months ago. “The siege is continuing,” he told the venerable South African in a short speech of welcome outside the family home. “The US is controlling the Middle East. The Israelis killed my children while I was praying. Please come in and see what happened.”

The Archbishop was visiting the still ravaged house in this northern Gaza town 17 months later than he had intended. He was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the Israeli shelling that killed 21 civilians – 18 of them Athamneh family members – on 8 November 2006.

The mission intended to visit a month later but were refused Israeli entry visas, and it is only now they have been able to enter through Egypt and the southern Rafah crossing.

Continued . . .

John Nichols | The Nation, May 28, 2008

The Bush administration employed propaganda techniques, political spin and deception to promote and then justify a war with Iraq that was unwise and unnecessary.

And a “too-deferential” national press corps allowed the president and his aides to get away with it.

Who makes this devastating, if not entirely new, charge?

The man responsible for spinning the story of the Bush presidency, former White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

In a memoir that will be published Monday, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, the veteran campaign and White House aide to George W. Bush portrays his former boss and those around him as permanent campaigners who frequently sacrificed the good of the country to achieve dubious political and policy goals.

McClellan is sharply critical of the Bush White House’s handling of definitional domestic policy challenges, particularly Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

But nowhere is the former press aide so devastating in his critique of his former boss as on the issue of how the United States was steered into the quagmire that is Iraq.

Bush, he writes, is guilty of a “failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and (of) rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”

Continued . . .

Amnesty International, 27 May 2008

Amnesty International today challenged world leaders to apologize for six decades of human rights failure and re-commit themselves to deliver concrete improvements.

“The human rights flashpoints in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Iraq and Myanmar demand immediate action,” said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, launching AI Report 2008: State of the World’s Human Rights.

“Injustice, inequality and impunity are the hallmarks of our world today. Governments must act now to close the yawning gap between promise and performance.”

Amnesty International’s Report 2008, shows that sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations, people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries.

Continued . . .

· Money given over 15 years to Israeli leader, court told

• Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
• The Guardian, Wednesday May 28 2008

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert visiting an Israeli navy base in Haifa, Israel. Photograph: Moshe Milner/Getty images

A US businessman at the centre of a high-profile corruption investigation told an Israeli court yesterday he gave thousands of dollars to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, in envelopes stuffed with cash, some of which he claims was spent on expensive hotels, holidays and cigars.

Morris Talansky, a long-time supporter and friend of Olmert, said he gave at least $150,000 (£75,000) over 15 years, including the years when Olmert was a government minister and mayor of Jerusalem. There are no records of how the money was spent and Talansky admitted he was “disturbed” when Olmert specifically asked for cash rather than cheques.

Talansky’s testimony yesterday at the Jerusalem district court comes as a major embarrassment to Olmert in this the fifth, and most serious, corruption investigation brought against him. But Talansky said he received no personal gain from the money he gave Olmert – who has denied any suggestions of corruption, adding he would resign if charges were brought against him.

Israeli prosecutors are investigating whether Olmert broke campaign finance laws in the years before he became prime minister in 2006. But yesterday’s court appearance was not part of a trial. Talansky, 75, who is also a rabbi and a long-time fundraiser, lives in Long Island, New York, and the Israeli authorities wanted to take his testimony before he leaves for the US in case he did not return to Israel.

Continued . . .

AFP, May 27, 2008

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank risk being displaced as the Israeli authorities threaten to tear down their homes and in some cases entire communities, a UN agency said on Wednesday.

“To date, more than 3,000 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank have pending demolition orders, which can be immediately executed without prior warning,” the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.

“At least 10 small communities throughout the West Bank are at risk of being almost entirely displaced due to the large number of pending demolitions orders,” OCHA said.

Most of the orders were issued because there were no construction permits, which Israeli authorities only seldom grant to Palestinians.

The buildings are located in so-called Area C, which makes up more than 60 percent of the West Bank and which is under full Israeli control.

In the first quarter of 2008, Israeli authorities demolished 124 structures as compared with 107 for the whole of 2007, leading to the displacement of 435 Palestinians, 135 of them children, OCHA said.

“Children are frequently disproportionately affected by the demolition of their homes and the subsequent displacement of their families,” the study said.

Over 94 percent of applications for building permits in Area C submitted by Palestinians between January 2000 and September 2007 were denied, according to official data.

During this period 5,000 demolition orders were issued, and over 1,600 Palestinian buildings were actually demolished.

“The denial of permits for Palestinians on such a large scale raises the fear that there is a specific policy by the authorities to encourage a ‘silent transfer’ of the Palestinian population from Area C,” the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a recent report.

In the 2000 to 2007 period, 2,900 demolition orders were issued against Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but just seven percent were implemented, according to Peace Now.

Some 283,000 settlers live in Area C, which is also home to 70,000 of the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.