| Al jazeera, May 2, 2009 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
The Sri Lankan government has admitted carrying out air raids in the so-called no-fire zone in the country’s northeast, where the army is battling Tamil Tiger fighters. But Palitha Kohona, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry secretary, told Al Jazeera that the raids had been carried out weeks ago and that the military had focused only on the Tamil Tigers’ artillery guns, well away from civilians. “As long as the retaliation is proportionate, it is perfectly legitimate and what we did exactly was located these guns and retaliated against those guns,” he said. “I would challenge anybody to say that these shell holes were created once the civilians moved into the area and became occupied by civilians.” The apparent admission follows the leaking of UN satellite images showing evidence of such attacks, supporting claims by Tamil groups that aircraft had bombed the area the government designated a safe zone in February. President’s contradiction But Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president, has contradicted Kohona by categorically denying that the military had attacked civilian areas with heavy weapons.
“If you are not willing to accept the fact that we are not using heavy weapons, I really can’t help it,” he said.”We are not using heavy weapons. When we say no, it means no. If we say we are doing something, we do it. We do exactly what we say, without confusion.” The government had for weeks repeatedly denied that its armed forces were using heavy artillery or conducting air raids in the safe zone where it says the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been holding civilians as human shields. Many who have managed to get out say the fighters were indeed holding them against their will, and fired on them to prevent their escape. Tens of thousands of civilians, along with members of the LTTE, are believed to still be in the 10sq km area. On April 19, Kohona told Al Jazeera there was no government shelling in the safe zone.
“Absolutely not, because the government has issued instructions, very strict instructions, to the military not to use aerial bombing or shelling into this area.”But on Friday, confronted by the latest UN satellite imaging agency (Unosat) pictures showing craters which were formed inside the zone between February and April this year, Kohona at first challenged their authenticity before admitting targeting the Tigers’ heavy guns. He said, however, that it was before civilians flooded the area and maintained that the government adhered to international law. Detailed images Unosat says the pictures show craters which were formed inside the zone between February 15 and April 19, the day before the army breached the Tigers’ defences and civilians started to pour out. Einer Bjorge, head of the mapping unit at Unosat, told Al Jazeera the pattern of the craters would have required air power.
“The imagery is fairly clear and shows the time, so anybody can study and compare them,” he said.He said the images were also commercially available from the satellite operator. “Anyone interested in verifying the images can purchase them if they want. It is commercially available to the public,” he said. “You can’t get any more transparent than that.” Meenakshi Ganguly, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Al Jazeera that the pictures did give evidence that civilians were at risk, saying the government may have “deliberately deceived the international community when they expressed concern about the situation”. “The pictures do prove that heavy weapons were used and indeed civilian casualties did occur, as shown by UN figures of the death toll since January,” she said. “In fact, HRW once recorded the sound of shelling which was dropping near a hospital.”
Yolanda Foster, an expert on Sri Lanka with Amnesty International, said “real fear” is growing for those trapped in the no-fire zone in light of the admission by Colombo that its forces had carried out raids.”We are very concerned that this flagrant disregard for civilians living inside the ‘safe zone’ has now been admitted [by the Sri Lankan government],” she said. “The government earlier on in the year was making claims that there were not so many civilians in the safe zone as, for example, the figures that the UN and Red Cross were giving out. “It is not clear that the government can be trusted on its promises.” |
Sri Lanka admits bombing safe zone
May 2, 2009
Up to one million displaced in northwest Pakistan
May 1, 2009
GENEVA: Up to one million people are displaced in northwestern Pakistan where militants are feeding on local discontent and strife, humanitarian and local officials from Pakistan warned on Tuesday.
Officials from Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province appealed for international relief aid at an unprecedented meeting with relief agencies and donor countries in Geneva.
‘We are hearing a lot of pledges and promises made from the international community to Pakistan, and many of them are for security, for the police and the army, but the civilians are not getting what they are supposed to,’ said Sitara Ayaz, minister for social welfare and development in the province.
‘In our province we need more support and help from the international community,’ she said after the two-day meeting in Geneva.
The UN’s World Food Programme is working on an estimate of about 600,000 people for food aid in the area, spokewoman Emilia Casella told AFP.
Local officials put the figure at closer to one million, with about 80 per cent of them housed with friends or relatives, sometimes five or six families to a home.
‘It is a serious humanitarian situation of major magnitude,’ warned Dennis McNamara, an adviser at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which organised the meeting.
‘The registered UN figure for displaced civilians is over half a million. The NWFP relief commissioner says if we get registration completed it may be closer to a million in total.’
‘It is a certainly a major displacement, one of the world’s biggest if these figures are right,’ added McNamara, a former senior UN refugee official.
A provincial minister said in Pakistan on Tuesday that around 30,000 people in the northwest have been displaced since the weekend by a military offensive to flush out Taliban militants.
Participants at the Geneva meeting said impoverished civilians were paying the price for the unrest and the humanitarian strife, and were easily wooed by militants such as the Taliban.
‘They can easily be recruited, because they are bitter and they have suffered,’ said one of the participants from North West Frontier Province.
Sri Lanka forces bombed civilian safe haven: UN images
May 1, 2009REPUBLICA, May 1, 2009
KATHMANDU, May 1: Sri Lankan forces have bombed a safe haven for civilians while fighting against the Tamil Tigers, The Times reported Friday.
The London-based newspaper said that confidential UN satellite images leaked on Thursday appear to show that the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed a safe haven for up to 150,000 civilians.
The images contained in an internal UN report may constitute the strongest evidence yet of violations of international humanitarian law or war crimes, according to human rights activists. The report by Unosat, dated April 26, provides detailed images of the tiny strip of beach and coconut grove — now covering only 3.8sq miles (10sq km) — where the army has pinned down the Tigers along with thousands of civilians.
The Sri Lanka government declared the area a safe haven or “no-fire zone” on February 12, urging civilians to seek shelter there, and has repeatedly denied using heavy artillery or aerial bombs to attack it.
The Unosat report, based on images between February 5 and April 19, appears to back up the persistent verbal testimony to the contrary from doctors, aid workers and civilians fleeing the area. “Within the northern and southern sections of the civilian safe zone, there are new indications of building destruction and damages resulting from shelling and possible airstrikes,” the report said.
Francesco Pisano, manager of the Unosat program, told The Times that the report was compiled to assist UN agencies and aid organizations in Sri Lanka and was placed accidentally on one of their websites. He said that his analysts had concluded that some of the damage in the images could have been caused only by aerial bombing. “This kind of accuracy you acquire only with air power,” he said. “The craters beyond a certain size also make our analysts almost certain that these were air-dropped bombs.”
He declined to say which side was responsible. The army says that it destroyed the last of the Tigers’ small air wing when it shot down two of its planes over Colombo in February. Human rights activists said that the images required detailed analysis and further inquiries but could provide the hardest evidence yet that the army had shelled and bombed civilians.
“This is incontrovertible evidence that the Government has been lying for months,” Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, said. A Sri Lankan military spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The images emerged as Sri Lanka rejected appeals for a ceasefire from David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister. “We have at no time gone for a ceasefire. We will not do so now,” President Rajapaksa said. “I don’t need lectures from Western representatives.”
Amnesty International: Iran: end repression of independent trade unions
May 1, 2009AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Public Statement
AI Index: MDE 13/040/2009
30 April 2009
Iran: end repression of independent trade unions
Marking International Workers’ Day on May Day 2009, Amnesty International calls on the Iranian authorities to end the repression of trade unionists by immediately releasing those imprisoned for their trade union work; dropping charges against others currently facing trial for similar reasons, and ending other repressive measures which marginalize trade unions and their members. The organization also warns against measures aiming at prohibiting peaceful gatherings on May Day in Tehran.
In particular, Mansour Ossanlu and Ebrahim Madadi, leading members of the Syndicate of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkat-e Vahed), who are serving five and three year prison sentences respectively, in connection with their trade union activities, should be released immediately and unconditionally. Both are prisoners of conscience, imprisoned solely for their peaceful advocacy of workers’ rights. Mansour Ossanlu, like many other prisoners in Iran, has also been denied medical care while in custody, which has threatened his health.
Amnesty International is also urging the authorities to review urgently the cases of five leaders of the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company (HTSCC) Trade Union, with a view to overturning their convictions and sentences. In April 2009, the five were sentenced to between four to six months’ imprisonment for “propaganda against the system” in connection with interviews they gave on May Day 2008 to foreign journalists about working conditions at the plant, with an additional six to eight months’ imprisonment suspended for five years. They are, however, not currently detained, pending appeals against their convictions and sentences.
Amnesty International also urges the Iranian authorities to allow peaceful gatherings by workers on May Day. Alireza Saghafy, a member of the Centre for Workers’ Rights in Iran, was detained for five hours on 28 April 2009, during which he was reportedly told to try to prevent a May Day rally planned for Tehran. The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is guaranteed under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a State Party.
In previous years, peaceful May Day celebrations have been broken up by the authorities and those who attended have faced prison terms and flogging. On 18 February 2009, Sussan Razani and Shiva Kheirabadi were flogged in Sanandaj Central Prison, north-west Iran, after being convicted of participating in a rally in Sanandaj on May Day 2008. On February 2008, at least three workers were flogged. They were among 11 people convicted of participating in a similar gathering on May Day 2007.
Fifty people in Saqez who attended a May Day gathering in 2004 were arrested. Most were released later the same day, but seven spent 12 days in detention before being released on bail. Two were acquitted, but the other five were sentenced to between two and five years’ imprisonment, although these convictions were later overturned. Mahmoud Salehi, one of the seven, was retried and convicted again, and spent one year in prison between April 2007 and April 2008. At his trial, the prosecutor reportedly cited his trade union activities as evidence against him, and referred to a meeting he had held with officials from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in April 2004, shortly before the May Day demonstrations.
In line with Article 21 of the ICCRP which guarantees the right to freedom of association, including the right to form and join trade unions,the Iranian authorities should also review and amend legislation and practices which ban independent trade unionsand which allow the exclusion of candidates for election to workers’ bodies on discriminatory selection criteria.
Background
Independent trade unions are banned in Iran. Under Iranian labour legislation, workers are allowed to form Islamic Labour Councils (ILCs) in companies with more than 50 workers. They are not, however, permitted to set up any other labour organization. The ILCs’ remit does not include defending the terms and conditions of their members. Those standing for leadership positions in the ILCs must first be vetted and approved, and may be disqualified, by an official selection body under discriminatory selection criteria known as gozinesh.
Public Document
For more information please call Amnesty International’s press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 or email: press@amnesty.org
International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK www.amnesty.org
New UN Report Shows the US Combo of Torture and Impunity Thrives in Iraqi Prisons
May 1, 2009Part of the deadly serious problem with the Obama administration’s position on (not) holding accountable CIA torturers, their lawyers and the Bush administration officials who authorized and ordered all of these crimes is this: It sends a message to other governments that if Washington does it, we can too. Especially governments completely created by the US government.
No governments on the planet are more controlled by the US right now than the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A new UN human rights report examining Iraq shows that torture of prisoners by Iraqi authorities is widespread and accountability is nonexistent. “The lack of accountability of the perpetrators of such human rights abuses reinforces the culture of impunity,” the UN bluntly states. The 30-page report by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, which examined conditions in Iraq from July to December 2008, was just released Wednesday.
At times, the report reads as though it could have been written about the US torture program at Guantanamo and other US-run prisons and the total lack of accountability. In Iraq, the UN cites “the use of torture as an interrogation method” and “prolonged periods of detention without charge or access to legal counsel and the use of torture or physical abuse against detainees to extract confessions.”
UN investigators said it was of “particular concern” that a senior Iraqi police official complained that the Iraqi government’s pending ratification of the Convention against Torture would “not be helpful,” stating, “How are we going to get confessions? We have to force the criminals to confess and how are we going to do that now?” It sounds like that Iraqi police official has been listening to Dick Cheney.
The UN says “there are no documented cases to this day where an official of the Minister of Defence has been held accountable for human rights abuses.” That is exactly the situation within the US Department of Defense (and Justice and CIA and White House for that matter). “This laxity in the prosecution is contrary to the international obligations undertaken by Iraq and to the provisions of the Convention against Torture.”
Iraq hasn’t even ratified the convention, but the US has-so what does that say about US conduct?
Some of the worst abuses in Iraqi prisons are said to take place in the northern autonomous Kurdish region, which has long been an area of major US influence (going back to the Saddam era). Among the findings of the UN:
claims of beatings during interrogation, torture by electric shocks, forced confessions, secret detention facilities, and a lack of medical attention. Abuse is often committed by masked men or while detainees are blindfolded. In general, detainees fear the interrogators and investigative personnel more than prison guards.
As of December 2008, there were 41,271 people being held in prisons throughout Iraq, 15,058 of them in the custody of the US-controlled “Multi-National Forces.” The UN found that “many” of the prisoners “have been deprived of their liberty for months or even years in overcrowded cells” and expressed concerns “about violations of the minimum rules of due process as many did not have access to defence counsel, or were not formally charged with a crime or appeared before a judge.”
While the report primarily focused on Iraqi run prisons, it notes that in US-run prisons “detainees have remained in custody for prolonged periods without judicial review of their cases.” And remember, the US is in the process of turning over more prisoners to Iraqi custody.
It is well known that after Bush launched the so-called “War on Terror,” the US torture system was exported from Guantanamo to Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently the disdain for accountability and international law was as well when the US was setting up the new Iraqi government. Wasn’t Saddams torture and disdain for international law one of the justifications for the invasion (after the WMD myth was exposed)? This UN report should serve as a sobering reminder of why it is so important to hold those who created, ordered, justified and implemented the US torture program responsible for their crimes. Sadly, the US at present has zero credibility in confronting these crimes by the Iraqi authorities.
For more information, see: http://uniraq.org/
Britain pulls out of shattered Iraq
May 1, 2009
PEACE campaigners have demanded an immediate full inquiry into the war against Iraq as Britain ended its military operations in the war-torn country.
A ceremony was held in Basra to mark the official end of the six-year British military presence in Iraq. British combat operations ended as 20th Armoured Brigade took part in a flag-lowering ceremony with a US brigade.
In London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed that a new chapter in relations between the two countries had begun.
After talks in Downing Street with Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki, Mr Brown said: “Today, we are taking steps to strengthen and deepen our relationship and to make it a long-term partnership of equals.
“Iraq is a success story. We owe much of that to the efforts of British troops. Our mission has not always been an easy one – many have said that we would fail. Britain can be proud of our legacy that we leave there.”
However, the Stop the War Coalition pointed out that the British occupation of southern Iraq had ended in “unmitigated disaster.”
A spokesman said: “The British soldiers will leave Basra in a much worse condition than they found it, its population depleted and demoralised, its infrastructure devastated.
“The failure to develop any kind of civil society or even to train up Iraqi forces is underlined by the fact the British are handing over to the US, not to Iraqis.”
He added: “Every death of a British serviceman or woman in this war has been a tragedy, made more acute by the pointlessness of the operation.
“But as the occupation finally comes to a close, it would be appropriate for the politicians who dragged Britain into war also to pay respect to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed by the US, Britain and their other allies. This withdrawal is most of all a response to domestic public opinion.
“The Stop the War Coalition will be intensifying its campaign to bring the troops out of Afghanistan, an occupation which is fast becoming another British foreign policy disaster.”
CND chairwoman Kate Hudson added: “The illegality of the war on Iraq and the crimes committed there cannot be swept under the carpet. Six years does not erase the guilt of those responsible for breaking international law and bringing about the deaths of countless thousands of innocent civilians and 179 British troops.
“This will be a running sore not only in British politics but in international relations until the truth comes out and those guilty are put on trial in an international tribunal.
“We demand the immediate start of a comprehensive, open and credible inquiry into all factors leading up to and during the invasion and occupation of a country that posed no threat to the UK and which, even now, is years from recovering from the damage that our country’s actions inflicted.”
Kashmir shuts in poll protest, troops patrol
April 30, 2009
SRINAGAR (Reuters) – Government forces locked down Kashmir’s main city on Wednesday to thwart planned protests against India’s general election, renewing tensions in the disputed region after a short period of relative calm.
Troops patrolled deserted streets and erected barricades in Srinagar, cutting off residential areas after separatists called a two-day strike from Wednesday. Shops and businesses also remained closed. Voting is scheduled on Thursday.
“New Delhi is frustrated by our resistance movement, and not allowing us to carry out peaceful protests against the polls is a shameful act,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the separatists alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference.
The boycott call, which came suddenly after two rounds of voting in rest of India, is seen as a bid by the separatists to deny New Delhi any credit for holding an election in Kashmir.
Analysts say the rebels also want to avoid a repeat of a successful local election last year when Kashmiris voted in large numbers, though many saw it as a vote for better governance rather than acceptance of Indian rule.
Hurriyat’s decision came after United Jihad Council (UJC), a Pakistan-based amalgam of 13-militant groups fighting Indian troops in Kashmir, asked it to support their boycott call.
India’s general election began this month, but voting in the Kashmir valley has been split into three phases starting from April 30. The staggered voting is to allow thousands of security forces to move around the troubled region.
Most of the senior separatist leaders including Farooq, hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik were placed under house arrest, police said.
The Muslim-majority region last year witnessed some of the biggest pro-independence protests since a separatist revolt against Indian rule erupted 20 years ago. But those protests tapered off and a state election was held peacefully in December.
Aside from Congress, other parties contesting the polls include the main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the regional National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party.
More than 47,000 people have been killed in the region since discontent against New Delhi’s rule turned into a full-blown rebellion in 1989. Separatists put the toll at 100,000.
George Galloway tours U.S. for Palestine
April 30, 2009By Aaron Moore and Jacqueline Moore | Socialist Worker, April 28, 2009
GARDEN GROVE, Calif.–“With controversy comes interest, and with interest comes more support.” These are words that British MP George Galloway must be intimately familiar with. His support of the Palestinian cause is not the only brush with controversy that Galloway was referring to at an Al Awda event drawing some 1,000 people on April 7.
Galloway is well-known as an unflinching supporter of social justice causes that are often considered to be politically unpalatable to his colleagues. He has also challenged the government’s policies on Iraq, arguing that “Iraq is not separate from the question of Palestine,” and has written a biographical portrait of Fidel Castro.
What you can do
For more information on Viva Palestina and to read about the tour, visit their Web site.
Banned from scheduled speaking events in Canada due to “national security concerns,” this was Galloway’s last speaking appearance on his latest tour of North America. After an introduction by Al Awda co-founder Zahi Damuni, Galloway started his lecture with a description of how he became active in the Palestinian cause in the 1970s, and the events that took place along the route of his Viva Palestina project.
The Viva Palestina project succeeded in bringing over £1 million in aid to Gaza in February, after making stops throughout Europe and Africa. One theme of his talk was that common citizens are generally in support of the Palestinian cause once they hear the truth about the illegal Israeli occupation. He explained how he became involved in the issue after listening to a Palestinian activist.
Galloway noted the turning tide of public opinion toward a desire to end the occupation and reach peace. “There’s a new atmosphere in the U.S. over Palestine,” he said. “The phenomenal response to this tour demonstrates that.”
He argued that activists shouldn’t settle for a two-state peace solution, but should instead demand a one-state solution where people of all ethnicities and religions can dwell together in peace with equal rights for all.
He argued that Israel has “spent its entire bank of public support” during its recent 22-day assault and ongoing siege on Gaza. Galloway condemned Israel for “[taking] the precautions of locking all the doors,” giving the population of Gaza nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from the violence of the assault.
Galloway emphasized the gravity of the current situation in Gaza under the siege, and condemned the lack of media attention it has been getting: “At least when they were being bombed, they were in the news. Now they suffer in silence.” He also condemned the lack of support from surrounding Arab nations, specifically Egypt, stating, “This is an Arab siege, unless Egypt is no longer a country.”
He went on to announce plans to launch Viva Palestina USA, a convoy modeled after Europe’s to cross the Egyptian border into Gaza with aid from Americans. He said it would be co-led by Vietnam veteran and long-time peace activist Ron Kovic, who was also present at the event. The convoy would leave on July 4, as a symbolic gesture to acknowledge that Gaza’s right to self-determination is as significant as America’s
Peace and Justice Post 