Peace and Justice Post

Six More Activists Arrested under Abusive Anti-Terrorism Law

(London) – The Ethiopian government should end its widening crackdown against opposition politicians and dissidents, Human Rights Watch said today. In the past week, three well-known critics of the government – actor Debebe Eshetu, journalist Eskinder Nega, and opposition party leader Andualem Aragie – were arrested in Addis Ababa. Three other opposition party members were also detained.

Security forces arrested Eskinder, who is well-known in Ethiopia for his critical commentary, on the afternoon of September 14, while picking up his child from school. Andualem, vice chairman of the opposition party Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) and executive committee member of Medrek, the largest opposition coalition, was arrested around the same time on his way to the UDJ offices. On September 8, the government also arrested the popular actor Eshetu for his alleged involvement in Ginbot 7, a banned opposition group.

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The countdown to September 23 has begun. On that day, if he does not renege on his September 16 speech, Mahmoud ‘Abbas will present a formal request for full UN membership for a state of Palestine. The UN Security Council, which must approve such requests, will not do so, because the United States will act upon its repeated vows to exercise its veto. And then?

The world, by all indications, will denounce the Obama administration for rank hypocrisy. How can President Barack Obama deliver speech after speech endorsing Palestinian statehood in principle and then block it in practice? Several advisers to ‘Abbas, the nominal president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), think the embarrassment to the White House will be enough to make the point. Others want him to rub Obama’s nose in it, taking a request for upgraded non-member observer status to the General Assembly. When that proposal passes overwhelmingly, they insist, the PA will have declared its independence of the United States, specifically the US monopoly on the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” The Palestinians, meanwhile, might be one big step closer to full voting UN membership, since no polity seeking statehood would have achieved this status before. And they might win access to UN bodies like the International Criminal Court, where Palestinian claims against Israel could then be pursued directly. It would be, as these advisers like to say, istihqaq Aylul, loosely translated, “the September claim of our just due.” And then?

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By Medea Benjamin, opednews.com,  Sept. 16, 2011

This article co-written by Allison McCracken, the DC Coordinator of CODEPINK.

During August recess this year, 81 members of Congress went on a junket to Israel funded by the Israel lobby group AIPAC (well, funded by the American Israel Education Fund, but they are really one and the same ) to “learn first-hand about one of our closest friends and allies.” While the representatives insist they got a balanced view, their itinerary belies that claim: 95% of their time was spent hearing the Israeli government point of view, with only one token meeting with Palestinian reps.

CODEPINK has filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee stating that these trips — and the upcoming ones scheduled for December — violate the Congressional prohibition on traveling with a lobby group. We feel these Potemkin voyages are part of AIPAC’s grand plan to control and monopolize Congress, which is not just unethical, but dangerous. Their bias reinforces a disastrous U.S. policy of unconditional support for Israel that obstructs peace and runs counter to our national interests.

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By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org, September 16, 2011

With their surprise visit to Tripoli Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron signaled that the scramble by the major powers for control of Libya’s oil wealth is in full swing.

The visit was unannounced and conducted under a massive security blanket. It included a brief visit to a Tripoli hospital and a joint press conference with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former Gaddafi justice minister who heads up the NATO-backed National Transitional Council, and Mahmoud Jibril, the US-trained economist and former Gaddafi official designated as the NTC’s “prime minister”.

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On Wednesday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state. Assuming that you only accept five of them, isn’t that enough? What exactly is the alternative, now that the heavens are closing in around us?

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, Sept. 15, 2011

What will we tell the world next week, at the UN? What could we say? Whether in the General Assembly or the Security Council, we will be exposed in all our nakedness: Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period. And it doesn’t have a single persuasive argument against the establishment and the international recognition of such a state.

So what will we say, that we’re opposed? Four prime ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu among them, have said that they’re in favor, that it must be accomplished through negotiations, so why haven’t we done it yet? Is our argument that we object to it’s being a unilateral measure? What’s more unilateral than the settlements that we insist on continuing to build? Or perhaps we will say that the route to a Palestinian state runs through Ramallah and Jerusalem, not New York, a la the U.S. secretary of state. The State of Israel itself was created, in part, in the United Nations.

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LONDON (Reuters) — A British law limiting citizens’ rights to seek the arrest of foreign politicians for alleged war crimes took effect on Thursday, removing a thorn in British-Israeli relations.

The law amends legislation which Israel had protested about, saying it exposed its high-profile officials to the threat of arrest for alleged offenses if they visited Britain.

Under the old law, private individuals could start criminal prosecutions, including for international war crimes, by applying to a magistrate for an arrest warrant.

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What plans are underway to deal with the aftermath of this year’s flood?

Baseer Naveed with Stewart Sloan

Ongoing flooding due to monsoon rains has inundated the entirety of the Sindh province causing billions of Rupees in damage and the loss of crops alone is estimated to be Rs. 5.6 billion. The people in many areas, particularly those of Khaipur district in the northern part of the province, Sanghar, Tharparker, Umerkot and Mipur Khas districts in the central part and the entire Badin district and its surrounding areas in the south have been badly affected. The floods have also been felt in and around Karachi, the capital of the province. Those most affected are members of the farming community and many families have had to leave their homes and farms with as much as they can carry. Having lost their crops they have only their livestock left and the cows and bullocks are being dragged along after them. It is estimated that five million people are displaced and a further two million are directly affected, over four million acres of land are flooded and unusable.

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NDTV Correspondent, Updated: September 15, 2011

Ahmedabad:  Suspended police officer Sanjiv Bhatt criticised Narendra Modi for misinterpreting the Supreme Court verdict and has written an open letter to the Gujarat Chief Minister. The Supreme Court had, on Monday, ruled that it will no longer monitor the case against him for the communal riots at Gulbarga Society – one of the epicentres of the riots that ravaged Gujarat in 2002, killing 1200 people, most of them Muslims.

Here is the text of the letter:

Dear Shri Modi,

I am glad you chose to write an open letter to the ‘Six crore Gujaratis’. This has not only afforded me a window to your mind but has also given me an opportunity to write to you through the same medium.

My dear brother, it seems you have completely misconstrued the judgement and order passed by the Honourable Supreme Court of India in Criminal Appeal No. 1765 of 2011 arising out of S.L.P. (CRL.) No. 1088 of 2008 viz. Jakia Nasim Ahesan & Anr. Versus State of Gujarat & Ors. It is very likely that your chosen advisors have once again misled you and have in turn, made you mislead the ‘Six crore Gujaratis’ who look up to you as their elected leader.

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—————————————-

Sanjeev  Bhatt

 by Badri Raina, Sept. 15, 2011

 feckless  citizen  that I am,

However well-meaning,

Your  Promethean  metal

Fires my  feebleness  to a blaze;

You are to  our home-grown tyrants

As  Bhagat Singh was to the Angrez.

Like  the  Amazon, Setalvad,

On the worst of day

You  teach  the lesson that

The  poet of old taught—

When  the sensible-terrified

Slink from your side,

Then  ‘ekla chalo re.’

As to success, success is not

Merely the end of things;

Success is in the soul that

Man, woman, or child brings

To  what is with mortal dangers fraught.

 May I salute you, officer Bhatt,

For

The success you already have

Is not  for a season or two;

It is a flavour that generations

Will savour,

A rod of steel that the fallen

Spine will  raise, giving to cruelty

And cunning their  due.

By K.Gajendra Singh

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Need of an independent International Commission for 9/11

Richard Clarke says that there must have been a conspiracy within the CIA regarding 11/9 and that though he does not believe that it was intended to make 11/9 happen, it actually allowed 11/9 to happen.( Clarke was counter-terrorism Chief with Bill Clinton and George Bush).

“It is not unthinkable for former US President George W. Bush to lie about who was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks on the American soil. — for some Americans, the deaths of nearly 3,000 people were not the scariest thing about 9/11. It was realizing who carried out the attack: yes, the American Government,” Mahathir Mohamad, former Malaysian Prime minister.

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by Felicity Arbuthnot, Dissident Voice,  September 15th, 2011

Since 1990 upper estimates are of three million Iraqi deaths between sanctions, bombings and invasion, under four US Administrations. One thousand 9/11s.

— Malcom Lagauche, ”The Mother of all Battles: The Endless US-Iraq War“

I once worked for a man whose inconsistencies and delusions stretched the mind to a realm beyond confusion. Having laid down specific edicts as to aims and how they should be achieved, the following day he would yell at staff for following them – and deny all knowledge of his instructions.

One day an exasperated colleague hung a placard on the wall above his desk before he arrived. It read: “You are never alone with schizophrenia.”

Combing through Tony Blair’s statements over the years, this week of the tenth anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers, I had a feeling of deja vu.

The former Prime Minister is, however, totally consistent in one thing — his inconsistency.

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