| Al Jazeera, May 11, 2009 |
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The UN has described the alleged killing of hundreds of Sri Lankan civilians in the country’s offensive against the separatist Tamil Tigers as a “bloodbath”. The comments on Monday followed a weekend military attack on the last remaining stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE), in the northeast, that is said to have killed at least 378 civilians. “We have consistently warned of a bloodbath scenario, and the large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend including at least more than 100 children shows that that bloodbath has now become a reality,” Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman for Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera. The UN, like all international organisations and journalists, is banned from the war zone by the government. However, Weiss said he was confident that the report of the deaths and more than 1,000 others wounded from a doctor working at a makeshift state-hospital in the area were correct. “[Ban Ki-moon], the UN secretary-general, has consistently asked that we be allowed into the area to assess for ourselves the true condition of people there … we are relying on the only sources we have,” Weiss said. “The government doctors reporting from that zone, to the best of our knowledge, have proved consistently reliable.” LTTE accusations Thileepan Parthipan, an LTTE spokesman, blamed the government for the deaths. “In that area, there has been continuous shelling. Many Tamil civilians were killed,” he said.
“More than 3,500 people were injured. A nearby hospital received 378 dead bodies.”Some bodies are still on the streets. There were people inside bunkers which collapsed in the shelling.” Anton Stephan, a Catholic priest inside the zone, also spoke of heavy military bombardment. “They are fighting civilians. They’re using cluster bombs, cannons. They’re shooting towards people,” he said. However, the government accused the LTTE of killing civilians in order to blame the deaths on the military. Gotobaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s defence secretary, told Al Jazeera on Monday that the government is not to blame for the civilian deaths “at all”. “It is very easy to find out who is killing the civilians because there are 200,000 people who have escaped from the LTTE area to government-controlled areas and anybody can talk to these people,” he said. “The day before yesterday, a thousand people tried to cross to a government-controlled area and the LTTE fired directly at these people.” Reduced territory The government announced on Friday new borders for the region it calls a civilian safety zone in the northeast where the fighting is happening. The coastal area is now 3sq km in size. The UN called for fighting to halt and for the government to help civilians.
“The UN has repeatedly said to the government that they must not use aerial attacks and heavy ordnance in a tiny patch of land that is about the size of Central Park in New York and we have also said to the LTTE that they need to separate their forces from the civilians who are trapped in this area,” Weiss said.”There are about 50,000 to 100,000 civilians in this area and they need to let these civilians escape from this zone.” Paul Castella, the head of International Committee of the Red Cross in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera that those trapped “have very little to eat, almost no medicines and very little way to protect themselves from the sun. “In practice, at any time of the day or night, people can be hit by a shell or a stray bullet. And this is making life for the people extremely difficult.” ‘Very difficult position’ Weiss aqcknowledged that the Sri Lankan government was in “a very difficult position” regarding civilians’ safety. “They are well within their rights to be taking the Tamil Tigers head on. The Tamil Tigers have proven themselves to be a brutal and intractable foe, and they are responsible for keeping civilians inside this zone.
“But that being said, the onus is really principally on the government at this stage because they are the sovereign government of this territory. They have a higher degree of responsibility.”They are signed up to international treaties and protocols that protect civilians in precisely these circumstances and that’s why international humanitarian law and the wars law exist.” The LTTE is believed to be close to defeat in its 26-year battle for a separate homeland in the northeast of the island for the country’s minority Tamils. The group used to control a wide swath of Sri Lanka’s north, but the territory they hold has been reduced to the 3km strip of coastline following military advances this year. In recent weeks fierce fighting has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee to state-run refugee camps outside the zone, but more remain trapped by the conflict. The government has refused to continence a humanitarian ceasefire saying it would allow the LTTE to regroup. |
Posts Tagged ‘United Nations’
UN: Sri Lankan attack a ‘bloodbath’
May 11, 2009
Sri Lanka war zone closed to UN
April 28, 2009| Al Jazeera, April 28, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||
The United Nations’ humanitarian affairs chief has failed in his attempt to bring a halt to fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists in Sri Lanka. John Holmes was unable to get permission from Mahinda Rajapkase, the Sri Lankan president, to allow a UN aid mission into a pocket of rebel-held land that is surrounded by the Sri Lankan military. “We don’t have agreement on this [failure to get a UN team into the conflict zone] … I am disappointed about this,” Holmes said during his visit to the country on Monday. The United Nations estimates that up to 50,000 non-combatants are still in the conflict zone, although the government maintains that the number is less than 20,000. The Sri Lankan military said on Monday that it had ordered its troops to end the use of heavy weaponry and aerial bombardment in their fight against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers. ‘No change’ Holmes met Rohitha Bogollagama, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, before visiting camps in northern Vavuniya where more than 113,000 civilians have sought refuge in camps that are overcrowded and still without enough supplies.
But David Chater, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, said that the UN official had not managed to secure access to the combat zone for a small team from the world body. “Absolutely nothing has changed as a result of John Holmes’ visit, apart from another ten million dollars in humanitarian aid being pledged,” Chater reported. “[That money could provide] at least a bit of relief for those who got out of the combat zone, but no relief for those still inside.” Aid organisations, journalists and other independent observers are banned from entering the conflict zone, making independent assessment of the continuing fighting impossible. Sweden’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that he has been refused entry to Sri Lanka on a European mediating mission aimed at bringing about an immediate ceasefire between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE. Carl Bildt was due to visit the country on Wednesday with his British and French counterparts, but he told the Associated Press that Sri Lankan authorities did not give him permission to enter the country. David Miliband, the British foreign minister, and Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, will be allowed into the country, Bildt said. ‘Army halted’
The Sri Lankan government said on Monday that it would stop intensive fighting against the LTTE in an effort to ease the suffering of civilians, although the statement contradicted earlier assertions that it would continue its fight against the Tigers who had offered a ceasefire on Sunday.A statement from the president’s office said on Monday: “Combat operations have reached their conclusion.” Soldiers will “confine their attempts to rescue civilians who are held hostage and give foremost priority to saving civilians”. The military has also ordered troops not to use “heavy-calibre guns, combat aircraft or aerial weapons, which could cause civilian casualties”, the statement said. The Sri Lankan government had previously said that no heavy weapons were being used in populated areas and that the operation was merely a “rescue” exercise. But Chater said that hostilities had not necessarily ended. “The government is determined there should be no pause in the fighting … [The government] says it knows how ruthless [the Tamil Tigers] are and have no intention of negotiating with them unless they lay down their arms and surrender.” LTTE accusation A pro-Tamil Tiger website on Tuesday accused the military of continuing to pound areas of the conflict zone populated by civilian. Thileevan, an LTTE spokesman inside the conflict zone, also told Al Jazeera that the area had been shelled heavily. “We don’t know how many people were killed because we could not get out of this area. But when I went to the hospital this morning I saw hundreds of severely wounded people,” he said on Tuesday.
“We ask the international community to intervene in this problem and save our people… We [the LTTE] carry weapons to save our people and protect their rights.”A day earlier, the Tamilnet website quoted S Puleedevan, an LTTE spokesman, as saying the government’s announcement on non-use of heavy weapons was an attempt “to deceive the international community, including the people of Tamil Nadu [a Tamil-majority Indian province]”. The Sri Lankan military has denied the LTTE claims, but says it is aiming to capture more territory and that its aim is to wipe out the Tamil Tigers. Tamils in India have been pressuring the Indian government to intervene to bring about a ceasefire in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan forces are continuing with “humanitarian operations aimed at rescuing” the remaining civilians trapped in the island’s northeast, where the LTTE is defending a narrow strip of jungle, the military said on Monday. “We reduced the coastline they have to 6km from 8km last week,” Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said. “Our operations are continuing, and yesterday we managed to rescue another 3,200 civilians,” he said. About 110,000 civilians escaped from the LTTE-held combat zone last week after an ultimatum by the government for the Tamil Tigers to surrender. Sri Lanka’s government has said it is on the verge of defeating the LTTE after 37 years of conflict, and has consistently brushed off international calls for a truce. On Sunday, the government also rejected an LTTE call for a unilateral ceasefire. |
Iraq’s Shocking Human Toll: About 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans
February 2, 2009
We are now able to estimate the number of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration. Looking at the empirical evidence of Bush’s war legacy will put his claims of victory in perspective. Of course, even by his standards — “stability” — the jury is out. Most independent analysts would say it’s too soon to judge the political outcome. Nearly six years after the invasion, the country remains riven by sectarian politics and major unresolved issues, like the status of Kirkuk.
We have a better grasp of the human costs of the war. For example, the United Nations estimates that there are about 4.5 million displaced Iraqis — more than half of them refugees — or about one in every six citizens. Only 5 percent have chosen to return to their homes over the past year, a period of reduced violence from the high levels of 2005-07. The availability of healthcare, clean water, functioning schools, jobs and so forth remains elusive. According to Unicef, many provinces report that less than 40 percent of households have access to clean water. More than 40 percent of children in Basra, and more than 70 percent in Baghdad, cannot attend school.
The mortality caused by the war is also high. Several household surveys were conducted between 2004 and 2007. While there are differences among them, the range suggests a congruence of estimates. But none have been conducted for eighteen months, and the two most reliable surveys were completed in mid-2006. The higher of those found 650,000 “excess deaths” (mortality attributable to war); the other yielded 400,000. The war remained ferocious for twelve to fifteen months after those surveys were finished and then began to subside. Iraq Body Count, a London NGO that uses English-language press reports from Iraq to count civilian deaths, provides a means to update the 2006 estimates. While it is known to be an undercount, because press reports are incomplete and Baghdad-centric, IBC nonetheless provides useful trends, which are striking. Its estimates are nearing 100,000, more than double its June 2006 figure of 45,000. (It does not count nonviolent excess deaths — from health emergencies, for example — or insurgent deaths.) If this is an acceptable marker, a plausible estimate of total deaths can be calculated by doubling the totals of the 2006 household surveys, which used a much more reliable and sophisticated method for estimates that draws on long experience in epidemiology. So we have, at present, between 800,000 and 1.3 million “excess deaths” as we approach the six-year anniversary of this war.
This gruesome figure makes sense when reading of claims by Iraqi officials that there are 1-2 million war widows and 5 million orphans. This constitutes direct empirical evidence of total excess mortality and indirect, though confirming, evidence of the displaced and the bereaved and of general insecurity. The overall figures are stunning: 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows, 5 million orphans, about 1 million dead — in one way or another, affecting nearly one in two Iraqis.
By any sensible measure, it would be difficult to describe this as a victory of any kind. It speaks volumes about the repair work we must do for Iraqis, and it should caution us against the savage wars we are prone to. Now that Bush is gone, perhaps the United States can honestly face the damage we have wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it.
John Tirman is Executive Director of MIT’s Center for International Studies.
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
January 14, 2009By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN | Counterpunch, January 13, 2009
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one; to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the 
international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
As was documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents, it was the United States in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority and Israel which were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas preempted the putsch. That, too, is no longer debatable or no longer a controversial claim.
The issue is can it rule in Gaza if Israel maintains a blockade and prevents economic activity among the Palestinians. The blockade, incidentally, was implemented before Hamas came to power. The blockade doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas. The blockade came to—there were Americans who were sent over, in particular James Wolfensohn, to try to break the blockade after Israel redeployed its troops in Gaza.
The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict, both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.
Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.
We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
Well, the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade. Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza as a destruction of a civilization. This was during the ceasefire period.
What does the record show? The record shows for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question. Are all 164 nations of the United Nations the rejectionists? And are the only people in favor of peace the United States, Israel, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Australia? Who are the rejectionists? Who’s opposing a peace?
The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions. Every concession came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.
The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions.
I think it’s fairly clear what needs to happen. Number one, the United States and Israel have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law. I don’t think international law should be trivialized. I think it’s a serious issue. If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world.
Mr. Obama has to level with the American people. He has to be honest about what is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. It’s not Palestinian rejectionism. It’s the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community.
And the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies.
Norman Finkelstein is author of five books, including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Beyond Chutzpah and The Holocaust Industry, which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. This article is an edited extract of the views of Finkelstein given at DemocracyNow.org. His website is www.NormanFinkelstein.com
UN Complicity in Israel’s Massacre in Gaza
January 3, 2009A Rubber Stamp for U.S. Dictats
By OMAR BARGHOUTI | Counterpunch, Jan 2 – 4, 2009
A friend forwarded to me the most original greeting for the New Year: “I wish in 2009 a horrible year for all war criminals and their accomplices.” I could not but think of whether some UN officials can be counted among such “accomplices.”
Over the last two days, various UN officials stated that the percentage of civilians among those Palestinians killed in the current Israeli war of aggression on Gaza is about “25%” and is “likely to increase.” Assuming the best of intentions, stating such a painfully low figure reflects shabby research or scandalous incompetence. At worst, it reveals intentional deception and misinformation that can only benefit the already massive and well-oiled Israeli PR machine.
The United Nations’ complicity in Israel’s propaganda war is the latest, albeit hardly ever mentioned, dimension of the international organization’s utter failure in defending its principles, foremost among which are the prevention of war and the promotion of peace, when performing such a duty is expected to stir the wrath of the US master and the uniquely influential Israel lobby. Not only has the UN General Secretary betrayed the very Charter of the UN and all relevant international law principles by failing to even condemn Israel’s massacre of civilians and targeting of civilian institutions and residential neighborhoods; the entire UN system has so far dealt with it as a “war” between two relatively symmetric forces, where the mightier side has sufficient justification to “defend itself,” but should do so more proportionately, while the weaker side is chiefly responsible for triggering the “armed conflict.”
Now, senior UN officials, excluding the particularly courageous and principled UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, and a few others, are only focusing on “women and children” victims of the massacre, implying, even if unintentionally, that all Palestinian men in Gaza are fair game for the Israeli killing machine. The tens of Palestinian civilian policemen that were butchered in the opening hours of the massive Israeli attack by dozens of fighter jets were, thus, conveniently dismissed by such irresponsible UN figures of casualties as Hamas “fighters,” more or less, that may be targeted with impunity. This is not to mention the scores of male teachers, doctors, workers, farmers and unemployed who were killed by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing in their workplaces, public offices, homes or streets and were not accounted for as civilian victims of Israel’s belligerent murder spree.
Above everything else, this UN discourse not only reduces close to half a million Palestinian men in that wretched, tormented and occupied coastal strip to “militants,” radical “fighters,” or whatever other nouns in currency nowadays in the astoundingly, but characteristically, biased western media coverage of the Israel “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Gaza, as some international law experts have described them; it also treats them as already condemned criminals that deserve the capital punishment Israel has meted out on them. I am not an expert on the history of the UN, but I suspect this sets a new low, a precedent in dehumanizing an entire adult male population in a region of “conflict,” thereby justifying their fatal targeting or, at least, silently condoning it. But this should surprise no one as the same UN leaders have for 18 months watched in eerie silence or even indirectly justified, one way or another, Israel’s siege of Gaza which was described by Falk as a “prelude to genocide” and compared by him to Nazi crimes.
If one wants to be truly magnanimous and give those UN officials the benefit of the doubt — not something I would recommend at all, given the scale of the massacre and their verifiable complicity — one has to assume that they are quite confused as to how best to categorize the thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel’s war on Gaza, whether those injured or killed. A casual overview of Israeli army press statements and human rights organizations’ reports, however, will immediately dismiss the possibility that the UN figure of 25% was the product of clinical incompetence or technical ineptness, widely recognized trademarks of the organization.
A recent article published in the Washington Post, for instance, quoted a senior Israeli military official saying: “There are many aspects to Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel.” An Israeli army spokeswoman went further stating. “Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target.” Given that, in the ghetto of Gaza, Hamas is effectively the “ruling” party — it was democratically elected, after all — and its network of social and charitable organizations are the largest provider of social services to the impoverished and besieged population, all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, public schools, hospitals, universities, law and order organs, traffic police, sewage treatment and water purification stations, ministries providing vital services to the public, mosques, public theatres and many non-governmental institutions can technically be considered “affiliated” with Hamas.
Lest the reader feels that this is an exaggeration, today, in the first hours of the first day of the new year, the Israeli air force already bombed the following “targets” in Gaza: the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice. Earlier, several mosques were pulverised to the ground. So were main buildings in the Islamic University of Gaza, which serves 20,000 students. Ambulances and private homes were not spared either.
Even B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization that often issues sanitized, “balanced” or selective reports focusing on Israel’s less criminal behaviour in the OPT, was compelled to conclude that the Israeli army was intentionally targeting “what appear to be clear civilian objects” that are not “engaged in military action against Israel,” without making the distinction between male and female civilians. A statement from the organization on December 31st said:
For example, the military bombed the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, forty-two Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth. Following the course, the police officers are assigned to various arms of the police force in Gaza responsible for maintaining public order.
Another example is yesterday’s bombing of the government offices. These offices included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing. An announcement made by the IDF Spokesperson’s Office regarding this attack stated that, ‘the attack was carried out in response to the ongoing rocket and mortar-shell fire carried out by Hamas over Israeli territory, and in the framework of IDF operations to strike at Hamas governmental infrastructure and members active in the organization.’
Just to drive the point closer to home for an average western reader who may have internalized over the years a perception of Israelis — inaccurately and quite deliberately depicted by Israeli and western propaganda as part of the “west” — as full humans and Palestinians, along with almost all global southerners, as relative humans, perhaps the following mirroring exercise is necessary.
Imagine if the Palestinian resistance, in exercising its otherwise perfectly legitimate, UN-sanctioned right to fight Israel’s occupation and apartheid, were to regard all institutions “affiliated” with the Israeli government as legitimate targets, justifying the bombing of universities, hospitals, civilian ministries, publicly-run synagogues, neighborhoods where government or army officials live or work, and other civilian “targets,” killing in 5 days only 1,600 Israelis and wounding 8,000 (four times the current toll in Gaza, given that Israel’s population is four times as large). What would the UN do? Would UN officials only count Israeli women and children victims? Would they call on both parties to “exercise restraint” or to end “the violence”? Morally, and even legally, this is not even a fair reversal of roles, for Israel, no matter what, remains the occupier and settler-colonial oppressor, while the indigenous Palestinians remain the colonized and oppressed.
The truth is the UN leadership, in the unipolar world that we are still living in and is perhaps on its way to be transformed to more multipolar space, has effectively turned into a rubber stamp bureau for US dictates. Ban Ki-Moon will go down in history as the most subservient and morally unqualified general secretary to ever lead the international organization. The only question remaining is whether one day he and his senior staff will stand trial for being accomplices in Israel’s war crimes, together with leaders of the US, the EU and many Arab regimes. In a more just world, governed by the rule of law, not the US-dominated rule of the jungle, they should.
Omar Barghouti is a founding member of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign www.BDSmovement.net
The United Nations’ Darkest Day
November 30, 2008
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This Saturday, 29th November, is the sixty-first anniversary of the darkest day in the history of the then still youthful United Nations. The Organisation then member states carelessly breached the provisions of the Charter by voting in favour of a partition of Palestine without any attempt at asking the population what it wished to have as a future, after the British Empire wished to give up its mandate due to a general desire on the part of the government headed by Clement Atlee to decolonise, cut expenses and end the terrorism of the Zionist gangs, Irgun Zwai Leumi, the Strern Gang and Haganah. The British Empire had been bled dry by the cost incurred for the supply of very expensive arms from the USA manufacturers before their country finally joined in the Second World War half-way through. Also the cost in British lives and injuries at the hands of the terrorists was a strong argument in favour of leaving what had become a hell-hole not only for the indigenous people but also for the British before, during and after the War, as a result of the attrocities committed by these de facto allies of the Nazis. |
For those who do not understand the extent of the injustice of the Proposition for which the United Nations then voted, the Zionist occupied land in Palestine was approximately 7% and that occupied by indigenous Palestinians some 93%, whereas, apart from the proposal to make Jerusalem and its immediate neighbourhood into an international area, the land was attributed almost equally between the indigenous people and the incoming Zionists, with the latter being given areas largely occupied by the former, especially in the centre and in the south, including the Naqab (or in Hebrew Negev) giving access to the Gulf of Aqaba.
We should all condemn this terrible breach of justice, as well as of their Charter, by the United Nations and work towards the establishment in all of Palestine of a single democratic state, where all those driven out by force in 1947-1948 (and their descendants) can, as the United Nations did later resolve, return and recover their homes and lands, and where full citizenship rights do not depend on one’s belonging to any specific religious group.
© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com
Israel punishes Gaza with UN food aid ban
November 15, 2008
CRUEL: A UN aid agency said on Tuesday that it will have to halt food aid distribution to 750,000 Gazans by Friday if Israel keeps the territory sealed.
ISRAEL barred UN humanitarian aid shipments from entering the Gaza Strip on Thursday, in its latest act of collective punishment for Hamas rocket attacks.
Israel had planned to let in 30 trucks of food aid to replenish empty warehouses. It had also agreed to let in fuel to power Gaza’s only electrical plant, which was facing shutdown and a power blackout.
But Israeli army officials closed all border crossings into the besieged Palestinian territory after militants had fired five rockets and two mortars into southern Israel.
John Ging, who heads Gaza operations for the United Nations relief and works agency said that, without the shipments, the UN will be forced to suspend food aid to 750,000 impoverished Gazans from Saturday.
A UN flour warehouse in Gaza, that was full early last week, stood empty, while another warehouse held just a few crates of luncheon meat.
“We’ve been working here from hand to mouth for quite a long time, so these interruptions on the crossing points affect us immediately,” Mr Ging said.
“International law requires that civilian populations have access to the goods and services that they need to survive.”
Electrical plant officials said that they expected to run out of fuel yesterday evening, causing widespread blackouts throughout the territory of 1.4 million people.
Israeli jet fighters flew at supersonic speed low over Gaza on Thursday, setting off sonic booms – a well-practised form of harassment against the population.
Israel also continued to block diplomats and journalists from entering the territory, including a group of some 20 European officials. The Israeli military said that crossings were closed to all but humanitarian operations.
Israel agreed to allow some shipments into Gaza in June, following an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire by Palestine’s elected-Hamas government.
The agreement will expire in December, although both sides claim that they want it to continue.
The truce began eroding last week when Israeli forces invaded Gaza to try to destroy a smuggling tunnel. Eleven Palestinians have been killed in more than a week of fighting, with more than 130 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza at Israel.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said: “The rockets are a natural response to Israel’s aggression.”
Haiti: In Solidarity with its Five Freedoms
October 5, 2008Today the acid test for all democrats in North and South America is the issue of the military occupation of Haiti, the economic pillage and denial of elementary political and human rights of the Haitian people.
In 2004 a US-led invasion force overthrew the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide and subsequently promoted and organized an occupation army. This colonial military force has repeatedly violently repressed popular demonstrations, violently raided the neighborhoods of the poor and killed, wounded and arrested Haitians who were affirming their rights of self-determination and an end to foreign occupation.
Since the United States bears major responsibility for the invasion, occupation and subsequent pillage and privatization of essential public services, we have a special responsibility to speak out clearly and forcefully to the United Nations (UN) in support of Haiti’s Five Freedoms:
1. The UN must end its military presence of Haiti through its occupation army (MINUSTAH), action contrary to the very founding principles of the organization. Haiti must recover the right of self-determination and the freedom to govern itself.
2. The Haitian people demand the end of the pillage of its national treasury by official and private banks extracting payments of $1 million USD a week for illegitimate debts contracted by past corrupt dictatorial regimes. Haitians demand freedom from illegitimate elite debts in order to finance basic life-sustaining programs for the 80% of the population living in extreme poverty.
3. Every country, which has suffered massive natural disasters, as the hurricanes that recently devastated Haiti, is entitled to large-scale, long-term humanitarian aid with no strings attached. Haitians demand the immediate fulfilling of aid pledged and its allocation according to needs without MINUSTAH manipulation to perpetuate its occupation.
4. The collapse of the free market model today highlights the disastrous consequences of the IMF-World Bank policies of privatization of public services in Haiti, where ‘private health and education’ effectively excludes the vast majority of Haitians. Haitians must regain the right to re-nationalize public services and all other strategic economic sectors necessary for their well-being.
5. Free elections means the return of deposed, exiled and persecuted political leaders and the end of foreign military occupation and repression of anti-colonial movements. Elections with occupation guns pointed at the heads of the electors and candidates have no legitimacy. We, the American people in North, South and Central America, have a responsibility to demand the end of MINUSTAH and the return national sovereignty to the Haitian people. No government no matter what its political claims and rhetoric can justify its democratic credentials when it acts as a colonial gendarme.
James Petras latest book , Zionism,Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power – Clarity Press :Atlanta Ga.
Kashmiri leader seeks special UN meet on Kashmir
October 4, 2008Geelani seeks special UN meet on Kashmir
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Srinagar, Oct 3: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani has sought a special United Nations session to discuss the present situation in Kashmir.
Applauding the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) for supporting the Kashmir cause, the veteran pro-freedom leader asked the body to do more by writing to the United Nation’s secretary general for convening a session on Kashmir.
“We welcome OIC statements which openly express support for the struggle of the people of Kashmir. But people of Jammu and Kashmir want more from the OIC. And time has come when it should do something concrete,” Geelani said in a statement. He said the OIC should write to the UN secretary general Bon Ki Moon and ask him to convene a special session on Kashmir.
The present condition in Kashmir, Geelani said, has necessitated the need for such a session. “Unarmed protesters are being crushed by the Indian troops and the paramilitary forces in Kashmir and they (troops) have crossed all limits and civilized norms,” Geelani alleged.
Strongly opposing handing over of land of joinery mill Pampore to paramilitary forces, Geelani said ‘such moves give credence to our doubts that the Government of India was turning Kashmir into a big garrison.’
Asking people to make Lal Chowk march successful, Geelani said on October 6 people should move towards Lal Chowk without any fear. He asked people to carry black flags with them.
Peace and Justice Post 
War in Gaza: Israel accused of shelling house full of children
January 9, 2009(Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
Just hours after calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the UN cited witnesses of the alleged attack in the house in Zeitun, an eastern Gaza city neighbourhood.
The UN said that “according to several testimonies, on January 4, Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians into a single-residence house in Zeitun (half of whom were children) warning them to stay indoors. 24 hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30”.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described it as “one of the gravest incidents since the beginning of operations” by Israeli forces in Gaza on December 27. An Israeli military spokesman said the allegation was being investigated, as were other claims that civilians were fired upon and that troops failed to help wounded civilians.
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In New York overnight, the 15-member UN Security Council voted for an immediate and durable ceasefire between Hamas militants and Israeli forces in Gaza. The ceasefire resolution, drafted by Britain, was adopted 14-0 by the 15-member council after the US, Israel’s main ally, abstained from voting.
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Tags:house attacked in Zeitun, Israel, Israeli troops, killed people, OCHA, UN Security Council resolution, United Nations
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