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“Zamora lives, the fight continues,” is the motto brought to life by our people. There could not be a better occasion for the enactment of the Organic Law of the Federal Council of Government than the unveiling of the statue of the Peoples General Ezequiel Zamora in the El Calvario Park, Caracas downtown. We were accompanied by representatives of Community Councils from all around country and the legislative power.
With the deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of next year creeping nearer, the U.S. has to find some way to convince the Iraqi government to allow a continued military presence, which is the likely outcome despite the U.S.-Iraq status of forces agreement containing the deadline.
One means by which this will be accomplished, relabeling “combat forces” something else, perhaps remaining as “military advisers” or something to that effect, has already been discussed. Thomas E. Ricks outlines another rationale for maintaining a military occupation of Iraq in the New York Times, offering up a variation on a theme that has been familiar throughout the war that is likely to become a mainstay in the political discourse.
Most EU States Support Call for Israeli, Palestinian War Crimes Investigations; US and Canada Opposed
“The UN resolution sends a strong message that Israel and Hamas need to conduct genuine investigations into the allegations of wartime abuses and punish those responsible. Governments are refusing to exempt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from demands for justice made for other conflicts around the world.”
(New York) – Today’s United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for impartial Gaza war crimes investigations is an important step toward justice for all civilian victims of last year’s conflict, Human Rights Watch said. A majority of UN members, including most European Union (EU) states, voted for the resolution, increasing pressure on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations into the allegations of war crimes by their forces.
A November 2009 General Assembly resolution calling for credible domestic investigations by all parties to the conflict garnered support from only 5 EU member states.
“The UN resolution sends a strong message that Israel and Hamas need to conduct genuine investigations into the allegations of wartime abuses and punish those responsible,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments are refusing to exempt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from demands for justice made for other conflicts around the world.”
By a vote of 98 to 7, with 31 abstentions, the General Assembly called on Israel and Hamas to conduct thorough and impartial investigations into the serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law documented by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (the Goldstone report). Fifty-six countries did not vote. The resolution requires Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report back to the General Assembly within five months on the progress both parties have made.
The Goldstone report concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Sixteen EU members voted for the resolution, including permanent Security Council members France and the United Kingdom.
The countries voting against were Canada, Israel, Macedonia, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, and the United States.
“Washington’s objection to this resolution reveals a blatant double standard when it comes to international justice,” Crawshaw said. “Why should the victims of war crimes in Gaza not benefit from the same US demands for accountability as victims in Congo and Darfur?”
In its resolution on November 5, 2009, the General Assembly called on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations within three months. In late January 2010, Israel and Hamas delivered their reports on domestic investigations to the UN. Based on those reports, Secretary-General Ban told the General Assembly on February 4 that, because the domestic processes were ongoing, “no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned.” He repeated his call on all parties “to carry out credible domestic investigations into the conduct of the Gaza conflict.”
Human Rights Watch has strongly criticized both Israel and Hamas for failing to conduct thorough and impartial investigations into the many alleged violations by their forces during the Gaza conflict.
To date, Israel has not prosecuted any soldier or commander for unlawful killings or other serious laws-of-war violations during the Gaza conflict. Nor has it conducted credible investigations into military policies that may have contravened the laws of war or facilitated war crimes. These include the targeting of Hamas political institutions and Gaza police; the use of heavy artillery and white phosphorus munitions in populated areas; and the rules of engagement for aerial drone operators and ground forces.
Hamas has not disciplined or prosecuted anyone for ordering or carrying out thousands of deliberate or indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli population centers before, during, and after the fighting in December 2008 and January 2009. Killings and other serious abuses by Hamas security forces against suspected collaborators and political rivals in Gaza have also gone unpunished.
“The United States, Canada, and other governments that voted against the Gaza resolution missed an opportunity to help break the cycle of violence and impunity that poses a major obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Crawshaw said.
The managing editor of a leading Malaysian newspaper has received a threatenig letter from the government over an an editorial his newspaper published criticing the decision to cane three women for adultery.
The government of Malaysia has sent a threatening legal letter to The Star newspaper, after its managing editor, P Gunasegaram, spoke out against the decision to cane three women for adultery.
In an editorial titled “Persuasion, not compulsion”, Gunasegaram questioned whether the sentence imposed on the women was approriate to their offence, and expressed concern about the situation in Malaysia if the interpretation of shariah law in the country approaches the situation in other nations.
We don’t want public flogging, we don’t want arms chopped off, we don’t want people to be stoned to death, and we don’t want people to be burned at the stake.
By Mel Frykberg, Inter Press Service
IDNA, Occupied West Bank, Feb 27, 2010 (IPS) – Israel’s illegal occupation and continued expropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank has left 2.5 million Palestinians living there with effectively less than 40 percent of the territory.
Muhammad Al Bedan, 55, a vegetable farmer with 14 children, struggles to support his family on just over 600 US dollars a month.
“We can only afford to eat chicken twice a month and red meat is out of the question. I can’t afford to buy my children new clothing. They rely on hand-me-downs. Three of my children have had to leave school without completing their education so that they can help to support the family,” Al Bedan told IPS.
By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org, Feb 26, 2010
Amid growing fears in Washington that European powers may withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, just as the US escalates the war there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a speech blasting Europe for insufficient militarization and warning of a deepening crisis in the NATO alliance.
Gates gave the speech February 23 at Washington’s National Defense University, a training center for mid-level and senior US officers. His audience was a forum on the reworking of the “strategic concept”—essentially the mission statement—of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Middle East Online, First Published 2010-02-26
Alleged Australian passport Photo released by Dubai police
Ex-Mossad agent: Israel uses ‘false flag’ in most operations to avoid suspicion in Arab states.
SYDNEY – Israel’s Mossad has regularly faked Australian passports for its spies, an ex-agent said on Thursday, as anger grew over the use of foreign travel documents for an alleged assassination.
Former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky told ABC public radio that the spy agency had used Australian passports for previous operations before last month’s assassination of a top Hamas commander in Dubai that has been blamed on Israel.
Charlotte Dennett and Vincent Bugliosi Want Bush in the Dock
By Russell Mokhiber, Counterpunch.org, Feb 25, 2010
In 2008, Charlotte Dennett ran for Attorney General in Vermont.
Dennett’s key campaign pledge – if elected, she would appoint Vincent Bugliosi as a special prosecutor to seek a murder indictment against George W. Bush for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Bugliosi was the author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (Perseus Books, 2008)
He also had an enviable track record as an assistant district attorney in Los Angeles – 105 out of 106 successful felony jury convictions and 21 murder convictions without a loss.
Bugliosi is best known for his 1974 classic Helter Skelter – which documents his successful prosecution of Charles Manson and several other members of the Manson family for the 1969 murders of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and six others.
Manson was not present at the murder scene.
When Dennett announced her candidacy for Attorney General of Vermont in September 2008, Bugliosi was at her side.
Now, Dennett has written a book – The People v. Bush: One Lawyer’s Campaign to Bring the President to Justice and the National Grassroots Movement She Encounters Along the Way (Chelsea Green, 2010).
The attempt to drive Islamists and young Asian activists out of the political mainstream is a dangerous folly
Seumas Milne, The Guardian/UK, Feb 25, 2010
If young British Muslims had any doubts that they are singled out for special treatment in the land of their birth, the punishments being meted out to those who took part in last year’s London demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza will have dispelled them. The protests near the Israeli embassy at the height of the onslaught were angry: bottles and stones were thrown, a Starbucks was trashed and the police employed unusually violent tactics, even by the standards of other recent confrontations, such as the G20 protests.
Peace and Justice Post 
The Indefatigable Cindy Sheehan
March 1, 2010By Missy Beattie, Counterpunch, Feb. 26 – 28, 2010
A little more than a year after her son Casey was murdered in Iraq by the US Military Industrial Complex, Cindy Sheehan took a stand in Crawford to challenge the cowering George Bush who hid behind security at his ranch. The Peace Mom sat in a ditch under the searing Texas sun and asked the question heard round the world, “For what noble cause?” I remember this well. My nephew Chase was also murdered by war that same weekend.
George Bush never answered Sheehan. If he’d had the balls, he’d have faced Sheehan and said, “For power, empower, Empire.”
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Tags:Cindy Sheehan, Iraq, Missy Beattie, Obama, peace actvists, war in Iraq
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