Peace and Justice Post

Socialist Worker, April 21, 2011,

THE SYRIAN Intifada has simmered and effervesced intermittently for decades. On March 12 of this year, the revolutionary mood prevalent in the Middle East stirred the town of Qamishli to sedition anew.

Qamishli is the largest town in the Northern Hassake province of Syria. Many non-Arab inhabitants of that region, like Sunni Kurds and native Christian Assyrians, regard it as their communities’ secret capital. The city is renowned for throwing parades around Christmas time, and celebrating Newroz, a Kurdish spring festival, every year in March.

In March 2004, during a soccer match, hooligans started raising Kurdish flags and hailing U.S. President George W. Bush–who is perceived as liberator of the Kurds in neighboring Iraq. This triggered riots that gained momentum outside the stadium and led to what became known as the Qamishli Massacre. Thirty Kurds were killed by the security services.

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Winners of Israel’s highest honour call for end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Middle East Online, April 4, 2011 Among the prominent signatories is painter and sculptor Danny Karavan

JERUSALEM – A group of 17 winners of the prestigious Israel Prize are calling for the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, according to a copy of a petition on Wednesday.

The laureates plan to sign the petition, also inked by several dozen other Israeli artists and intellectuals, on Thursday, in a symbolic ceremony in front of the building where the state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948.

Among the petition’s prominent signatories are Menachem Yaari, the former president of Israel Academy of Sciences, Shulamit Aloni, the founder of the leftist Meretz party and Danny Karavan, a painter and sculptor.

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By Mac McKinney, OpEdNews, April 23, 2011

Once you have to start mass-murdering your citizens to crush dissension, that is the beginning of the end. The emotions that led to mass protest within the body politic only become more inflamed with each death, and even if the State can drive everyone into stony silence, strong emotions remain, repressed and festering, someday to again erupt, be that in a number of days, weeks, months or years.

The Syrian government has descended into the same maelstrom of violent State repression by authoritarian regimes that we have seen engulfing Yemen, Bahrain and, of course Libya. It remains to be seen how horrific the violence will become, and whether it will force the nationwide Syrian protest movement to take up armed struggle. Right now, however, things are looking more polarized than ever, as the regional pro-democracy movement manifest in Syria locks horns with yet another Ancien Régime in the Middle East, as shown in this al Jazeera photo and the following videos:

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The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant has sharply raised concerns regarding the Japanese nuclear power policy that promoted the construction of nuclear power plants with a fundamental lack of concern for safety measures. Since the beginning of the massive development of nuclear power plants, the Japanese Communist Party has called on all successive governments to make a drastic change in the atomic energy administration and has opposed additional construction plans together with concerned citizens. The JCP’s consistent stance is crucial for Japan to take appropriate measures following the latest nuclear accident as well as to prevent future accidents at nuclear power plants.

Expose “safety myth”

The biggest issue of Japan’s nuclear power administration is that it is based on the “safety myth,” a lie that instills the belief that serious accidents emitting a vast amount of radiation are unlikely to occur. No other country in the world has clung to this myth so blindly and built so many nuclear power plants in earthquake zones.

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The protest movement in Syria delivered on a promised record turnout on Friday, with massive rallies reported in virtually every city nationwide. The regime’s security forces were also out in force, however, shooting massive numbers of demonstrators.

A very preliminary count has at least 88 protesters killed and several hundred others wounded. The toll is almost certain to rise in what has been dubbed by opposition members the “Good Friday Massacre.”

Syria’s state media was largely mum on the protests, but accused “armed groups” (the regime’s chosen term for demonstrators) of injuring firemen in an attack in Damascus. Interestingly for an “armed” group, the attackers were said to have thrown stones at the firemen. They also accused al-Jazeera of “distorting facts” in covering the protests, saying it amounted to “incitement.”

The protesters were by far the most widespread Syria has seen, and the death toll was likewise much larger than in previous days. Each Friday has seen a larger rally than the last, with a tiny demonstration along the Jordan border five weeks ago swelling to a massive rebellion calling for regime change.

Leaders of the protest movement issued a statement today demanding the abolition of the Ba’ath Party’s system of single party rule in favor of full democracy. They also demanded that political prisoners be released and the existing security state replaced.

The purpose for which Afghanistan was invaded — to secure safe passage for a gas and oil pipeline from Central Asia and lay hands on the rich mineral deposits of Afghanistan — has not been achieved so far. Yet there is growing anxiety among ordinary Americans over the extended military mission that has nearly bankrupted America. Unemployment is high, the debt is rising and American cities are crumbling while the US pours billions of dollars into a war that appears to have no end or any identifiable benchmarks by which to measure progress. US officials talk optimistically about training Afghan police and army but the targets they have set have not been met so far.

Even as American officials optimistically talk about starting troop withdrawal from Afghanistan according to schedule in July, news about their atrocities continue to send shock waves globally. Recent reports and photos of torture and mutilation of Afghan civilians make Abu Ghraib look like a mild affair. These crimes are compounded by denials that the Americans have done or are capable of doing anything wrong since these are contrary to American “standards and values.” Their victims know better.

This past winter, American troops murdered even more Afghan civilians than in previous years. And true to form, they routinely claim the attacks were aimed at militants and that no civilians were killed . . .

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by Alex Kane, uruknet.info, April 23, 2011

Source: Mondoweiss ,

It was a shocking event in a twenty-two day assault filled with them:  the Israeli military shelled a United Nations compound in Gaza City January 15, where humanitarian aid like fuel and water pumping stations were stationed as well as hundreds of Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment.  John Ging, the Gaza Director of Operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) described the scene on Democracy Now! This morning, there were three rounds of white phosphorus which landed in our compound in Gaza. That set ablaze the main warehouse and the big workshop we have there for vehicles. At the time, there were 700, also, people displaced from the fighting. There were full fuel tankers there. The Israeli army have been given all the coordinates of all our facilities, including this one. They also knew that there were fuel tankers laden with fuel in the compound, and they would have known that there were hundreds of people who had taken refuge. Continues

 TwoCircles.Net,  April 22, 2011

Sanjiv Bhatt’s affidavit: main points

I am filing this affidavit to bring on record certain aspects concerning the enquiry/investigation being conducted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by this Hon’ble Court.

I am a Post-Graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. After completing my post-graduation, I joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1988 and was allotted to the Gujarat cadre.

I was posted as the Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence, State Intelligence Bureau, Gandhinagar, from December 1999 to September 2002. This was the post I was occupying at the time when the 2002 Gujarat Riots took place.

I respectfully state that owing to the post I was occupying in the State Intelligence Bureau, I came across huge amounts of intelligence and information pertaining to the events that had transpired prior to, as well as during the Gujarat Riots of 2002.

“Many serious incidents of communal violence, including the carnage at Gulberg Society, could have been easily prevented by firm and determined action on part of the Police.” [TCN Photo]On Narendra Modi:

The information and documentary evidence, which I have already shared with the SIT, can throw light on the real nature of events that led to the incident of burning of the S-6 Coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on 27th February 2002 and the larger conspiracy and official orchestration behind the subsequent Gujarat Riots of 2002.

On being summoned by SIT for the first time in November 2009, I had provided the SIT with certain relevant information and documents, including original floppy discs containing the entire cell phone/cell-site records of Godhra Town for 26th and 27th February 2002; as well as the original print-outs of very important call records of certain high-ranking functionaries of the State for 27th and 28th February 2002.

I was present at the meeting called by the Chief Minister on the late night on 27.2.2002 and was personally aware about the instructions given thereat and the events that transpired thereafter. I had also provided the SIT with verifiable details regarding the on-going cover up operation; including the contemporaneous efforts made by high official of the State administration to undermine the proceedings of Writ Petition (Civil) No. 221 of 2002., which was pending before this Hon’ble Court in 2002.

Upon my request, the SIT provided me with a relevant portion of the transcript of my testimony, pertaining to the instructions given by the Chief Minister, at the conclusion of meeting helf on 27-02-200, where it was tried to impress upon him that the decision to bring the dead bodies to Ahmedabad and the BJP announcement of the supporting the VHP Bandh Call would definitely lead to outbreak of communal violence in Ahmedabad and across the state; and the Gujarat police did not have the manpower resources to deal with such a situation. The relevant portion of the transcript of my testimony, as recorded and provided to me by SIT, read as follow.

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AP – In this photo released by Inter Services Public Relations, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff …

ISLAMABAD – U.S. drones fired a volley of missiles into a militant-held Pakistani region close to the Afghan border on Friday, killing 25 people, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The strike came a day after Pakistan’s army chief denounced such attacks, and could further sour deteriorating relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Ten missiles hit a house in Spinwam village in North Waziristan, a region home to Taliban militants targeting American and NATO troops just across the border in Afghanistan, as well as international al-Qaida terrorists, three intelligence officials said.

Three children and two women were believed to be among the dead, they said. There was no way to immediately independently confirm that.

America has been regularly firing missiles into the border region for 2 1/2 years now, but does not formally acknowledge the CIA-run program. U.S. officials rarely comment on specific strikes but have said in general terms that they accurately hit militants.

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By Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, Thursday, April 21, 2011

Eranga Jayawardena/ AP – Sri Lankans walk past a billboard on President Mahinda Rajapaksa and a campaign slogans for people to join the protest against the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s expert panel proposals on the country’s civil war, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, April 21, 2011.