Archive for August, 2004

Fighting for Justice and Democracy in Haiti   

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

by Brian Concannon Jr. and Anthony Fenton zmag.org
Fenton:Why did you feel it was necessary to form the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti [IJDH]?[1]

Concannon:The IJDH was formed in response to both the unconstitutional regime change in Haiti in February and the inadequate response, by civil society both inside and outside of Haiti. Our mission is to promote democracy and human rights in Haiti, and we have three main areas of activity: working with grassroots groups in Haiti and the solidarity community abroad,; documenting human rights abuses in Haiti and disseminating that information; and pursuing legal actions in Haitian and international courts to support the democratization of Haiti and to help victims of human rights abuses find justice.

Fenton:Are there any cases that you are actively pursuing right now?

Concannon:Yes. We have lawyers on the ground who are trying to get political prisoners out of jail; we’ve had some successes, there have been some people released out of jail; we hope that by applying pressure in the US and working within the system that we can get the justice system to recognize detainee’s rights under Haitian and International law.

So far it’s been an uphill battle, but we’re going to keep working on that. full article

Bluebeard’s CastleDisappearing the Right to Development

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

by Toni Solo counterpunch.org
An unconvincing but resonant tale, Bluebeard’s Castle: A beautiful young woman marries a strange but captivating aristocrat: Before leaving on a journey, her new husband entrusts her with a magic key to a locked room. Curiosity overcomes her. Inside, she discovers the horrifying remains of her murdered predecessors. Relocking the door, she stains the key with blood. Nothing she does can clean it. Bluebeard returns, discovers the truth from the bloodied key. He is about to cut her to pieces. Her brothers arrive at the last minute and save her.

Writing in 1971, the cultural critic Geroge Steiner used the story as a symbol for the irreparable gap between the high moral claims for Western culture and its practice of torture, pogrom and massacre. He wrote:

“We come immediately after a stage of history in which millions of men, women, and children were made to ash. Currently, in different parts of the earth, communities are again being incinerated, tortured, deported. There is hardly a methodology of abjection and of pain which is not being applied somewhere, at this moment, to individuals and groups of human beings. Asked why he was seeking to arouse the whole of Europe over the judicial torture of one man, Voltaire answered, in March 1762, “c’est que je suis homme. ” By that token, he would, today, be in constant and vain cry.” full article

Chicago on the Hudson?

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

by Dave Lindorff counterpunch.org
The way things look, August 29 could see a major triumph for the First Amendment, or a pitched battle between police and demonstrators that would be reminiscent of Chicago’s Democratic Convention police riot of 36 years ago.

Since Michael Bloomberg, the Republican mayor, has taken the anti-civil liberties position that a protest rally can’t be held on Central Park’s Great Lawn-traditional site of such major political events-thousands of those who want to gather to protest the Bush administration have concluded that this is exactly where they ought to go.

No surprise that. After all, much of the anger at Republicans and Bush is over his administration’s assault on basic civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and assembly.

The main protest organization that has been working for over a year on the anti-RNC march and demonstration, United for Peace and Justice, recognizing that Bloomberg and his police department were committed to stonewalling their permit application for the Great Lawn to the bitter end, finally agreed to the mayor’s shabby and wholly inadequate offer of a rally site along the lower portion of the West Side Highway, a multi-lane artery that runs just along the edge of the Hudson River. Clearly, while it certainly makes crowd control simple, a highway is no place for a rally, since it forces the estimated several hundred thousand to half a million anticipated demonstrators to stretch out along over a mile of hot pavement.

The alternative, which is being discussed and promoted on numerous websites and chat lines-and advocated in the mainstream newspaper New York Newsday by columnist Jimmy Breslin–is for people to just make their way spontaneously to Central Park, which after all will remain open to the public (short of instituting martial law and bringing in the National Guard, it would be almost impossible for city police to close the park, especially given the numbers of cops who will have to be sent to the West Side Highway for the official rally). full article

Open Letter by United for Peace and Justice zmag.org
United for Peace and Justice has been fighting for months to have our Constitutional rights respected. We have been in a contentious process with the Mayor and Police Department of New York City regarding the location of our march and rally against the Bush agenda on August 29th, the eve of the Republican National Convention. We are writing to update you on these negotiations and to make sure you know about a number of important developments. full article

Kerry’s big Idea? There isn’t One *Desperation Shouldn’t Blind us to the Faults of Bush’s Challenger*

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

by Simon Tisdall Common Dreams
The lack of an appreciable post-convention “bounce” in John Kerry’s poll ratings is significant. The Democratic party’s Boston shindig last month was supposed to present him as a strong, experienced replacement for President George Bush. But Boston’s main achievement may have been to highlight the limitations and flaws of Kerry’s candidacy.

The eviction of a White House incumbent is always an uphill struggle. It requires something special. Bill Clinton possessed that indefinable quality in 1992.

If Kerry lacks Bubba’s bounce, it may simply be because he is not, well, very bouncy. full article

Silencing the Voice of the People
Counterpunch.org
Dissent disrupts democracies, yet without it there is no democratic discourse. That point struck home as I watched the Democratic National Convention unfold and realized that the voices of the delegates, the representatives of the common people, had been muffled by the preordained celebrants of the Kerry command. With rare exception, notably Jimmy Carter and Rev. Sharpton, no voice spoke against the appointed incumbent; no voice raised the rabble about the lies that led to slaughter; no voice questioned the silencing of the people behind the curtain of the Patriot Act; no voice damned the administration that dared to impose on Americans the impious “pre-emptive strike” policy that destroys the very concept of Democracy; no voice asked why America does nothing to respond to the silent genocide taking place in our name in Rafah and the refugee camps crammed together in Gaza; no voice lamented the incarceration of the Palestinians by the illegal wall made of hatred and racism erected by the notorious terrorist, Ariel Sharon; no voice blasted the erasure of western law by the acceptance of extra-judicial executions; no voices, not a sound. Why? full article

Diplomacy sidelined as US targets Iran

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

by Simon TisdallGuardian UK
The US charge sheet against Iran is lengthening almost by the day, presaging destabilising confrontations this autumn and maybe a pre-election October surprise.

The Bush administration is piling on the pressure over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme. It maintains Tehran’s decision to resume building uranium centrifuges wrecked a long-running EU-led dialogue and is proof of bad faith.

…Israel, Washington’s ally, has also been stoking the fire. It is suggested there that if the west fails to act against Iran in timely fashion, Israel could strike pre-emptively as it did against Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1981, although whether it has the capability to launch effective strikes is uncertain. full article

Strength and Weakness of the Bolivarian Revolution

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

by Omar Gomez Africa Speaks
The revolution that we are experiencing in Venezuela differs in an absolute manner from the processes that have developed in other countries. In Nicaragua, for instance, the Sandinista Forces, when coming to power, could not count on the enormous resources of an industry like PDVSA, that were able to finance the development of social welfare and which had the potential to constitute a weapon against North American interventionism. In Chile, Salvador Allende could not count on loyal Armed Forces that would allow him to counter the coup d’état. In Cuba, Fidel Castro had to battle against more than 40 years of economic blockade and attempts of invasion, what resulted in the revolution not having been able to advance at the pace and capacity it could have, if given a chance. There are innumberable examples that show the differences and advantages of the Revolution in Venezuela with regard to other revolutionary processes.

To be in the possession of one of the world’s most important oil industries, to have the Armed Forces at one’s side and, above all, to have the most widespread and categorical backing of the people, like has been proven by all polls concerning the upcoming referendum, all this indicates that our Revolution has an important solidity. But still, the Revolution has a limping leg. full article

CIA executives gathered in Santiago de Chile revealed in contingency plot to overthrow Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez Frias

Tuesday, August 10th, 2004

VHeadline
Venezuela state-owned news agency VENPRES is quoting an El Mundo de Madrid (Spain) report that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is set to put a contingency plan in motion in the (likely) event that President Hugo Chavez Frias wins next weekend’s Recall Referendum.

The Madrid newspaper says that the White House strategy is to avoid a regional expansion of the President Hugo Chavez Frias ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ which is seen by Washington D.C. as a direct step into the kind of socialism espoused by many European nations and envisaged in the United States if John Kerry wrests control of the White House from the Bush 2 administration this coming fall.

El Mundo says the CIA plan appears to concede a Chavez Frias victory next weekend “for good or bad” and that Langley spooks are already working on a strategy to “neutralize” Chavez Frias by fair means or foul.
(more…)

Kerry: Still Would Have Approved Force for Iraq

Monday, August 9th, 2004

AP
GRAND CANYON, Ariz. (Reuters) – Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

Taking up a challenge from President Bush, whom he will face in the Nov. 2 election, the Massachusetts senator said: “I’ll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively.” full article

Well now that’s a relief.

Obama holds ‘slaveholder’s’ view, Keyes says

Monday, August 9th, 2004

Chicago Sun Times
Republican Alan Keyes ripped into Democratic rival Barack Obama’s views on abortion Monday, calling them “the slaveholder’s position,” as the U.S. Senate race roared back to life in Illinois.

Up at dawn for a whirlwind round of broadcast interviews, the conservative former diplomat started his first full day of campaigning as the GOP candidate by saying Obama, a state senator from Chicago, had violated the principle that all men are created equal by voting against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion.

Keyes said legalizing abortion deprives the unborn of their equal rights.

“I would still be picking cotton if the country’s moral principles had not been shaped by the Declaration of Independence,” Keyes said. He said Obama “has broken and rejected those principles– he has taken the slaveholder’s position.”

The remarks underscore the uniqueness of this Senate race in which both candidates, one an outspoken conservative and the other a favorite of party liberals, are black. full article

Let the games begin.

Friends in the White House Come to Coal’s Aid

Monday, August 9th, 2004

New York Times
WASHINGTON – In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.

Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official – Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease. full article