Serious World Politics - Slavery

Massacre at Camp Ashraf

2012-01-30T18:05:00.000-08:00

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:55 PM on 8th April 2011

Iraqi general claims refugees are throwing themselves under military trucks
Video shows armoured vehicles ramming into camp residents
Supports of Iranian dissident group declare a full state of alert as 325 injured

Iranian refugees have called for international help to prevent a massacre at Camp Ashraf after Iraqi forces invaded the compound and killed at least 25 people.

A full state of alert has been declared by the Iranian group after 65 Iraqi vehicles carrying soldiers entered Ashraf late yesterday, with reports that they are running down and shooting the refugees.

Videos have emerged seemingly showing Iraqi troops firing on Iranian refugees and one instance appears to show an Iraqi vehicle ramming a resident and trapping him under its wheels.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1374793/Massacre-Camp-Ashraf-Iranians-help-Iraqi-soldiers-kill-25-refugees.html

Obama backs regime change in Syria amid calls for intervention

2012-01-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

By Bill Van Auken
19 January 2012

President Obama voiced his support for regime change in Syria on Tuesday as calls for intervention in the Middle Eastern country continued to mount.

Following White House talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Obama declared the actions of the Syrian government “unacceptable” and reiterated the US demand that President Bashar al-Assad relinquish power.

“We're continuing to see unacceptable levels of violence inside that country, and so we will continue to consult very closely with Jordan to create the kind of international pressure and environment that encourages the current Syrian regime to step aside,” Obama stated.

Obama praised the Jordanian monarchy for being among the first Arab states to demand Assad’s ouster. As in the US-NATO intervention in Libya, Washington is attempting to line up various dictatorial regimes close to US imperialism to provide a cover for a Western intervention aimed at toppling the Syrian government.

Chief among these regimes is Qatar. In an interview on the CBS news program “60 Minutes” over the weekend, Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, declared his support for troops from other Arab states to be sent into Syria, ostensibly to stop the repression.

“For such a situation to stop the killing, some troops should go to stop the killing,” Sheik Hamad said in response to an interviewer’s question as to whether he was in favor of a military intervention by outside Arab states. The statement drew an angry rebuke from the Syrian regime, which categorically ruled out any agreement to allow foreign troops on Syrian soil.

Declaring itself “astonished” by the statement of the Qatari emir, Syria’s foreign ministry said that the country “rejects the statements of officials of Qatar on sending Arab troops to worsen the crisis… and pave the way for foreign intervention.”

Qatar played a key role in the US-NATO war for regime change in Libya, first serving as a leading backer of an Arab League resolution supporting foreign intervention on the pretext of setting up a “no-fly zone.” It then took the lead in training and arming the so-called rebels in Libya, while sending large numbers of Qatari troops into the country to lead forces seeking to topple Col. Muammar Gaddafi and coordinate their ground attacks with NATO’s bombing campaign.

While Qatar previously enjoyed close relations with Damascus, the oil-rich Gulf state’s monarchical regime has closely aligned its policy with that of Washington, withdrawing its ambassador last summer and becoming one of the fiercest critics of the Syrian government.

On Wednesday, Syrian state media charged the Qatari regime with seeking to reprise the role it played in the Libyan intervention by arming and funding insurgents seeking to topple the Assad government. The Tishrin newspaper charged that Qatar had played a “negative role” since “the start of the crisis,” including through “the financing of armed groups.”

Last month, the American Conservative carried an article by former CIA agent Philip Giraldi providing a detailed description of the operation that is being mounted by the US and its NATO allies to foment armed conflict inside Syria.

“Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons from the late Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenals as well as volunteers” from Libya, Giraldi wrote. “Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army, the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers.”

Turkey appears to be taking the lead in these operations, reportedly providing a base near the border for training Syrian insurgents and discussing with its NATO allies the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Syrian territory.

According to the United Nations, which has relied largely on Syrian opposition sources for its information, some 5,000 Syrians have been killed since mass demonstrations against the Assad government began some 10 months ago. The Syrian government has claimed that 2,000 members of its security forces have died in fighting with armed groups.

Increasingly, the crisis is taking on the characteristics of a sectarian civil war, pitting elements of the country’s Sunni majority population against the regime and its security forces, which are dominated by the Alawite Shia sect of Assad. In the central city of Homs, the scene of some of the bloodiest clashes, there have been reports of killings and terror used to divide neighborhoods along sectarian lines.

Within the United States, there is a steady drumbeat of discussion of a military intervention in the media and political establishment think tanks. Typical is a January 17 article published by the Atlantic entitled “It's Time to Think Seriously About Intervening in Syria.” The author, Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, makes the case for a “human rights,” “responsibility to protect” intervention, citing Libya as an example of what supposedly can be done in Syria.

Just as in Libya human rights served as a pretext for a US-NATO war aimed at seizing control of the largest oil reserves on the African continent, so too, Cook makes clear, a Syrian intervention would have its public justifications and its real geo-strategic motives.

“If there is no intervention and political will to stop Assad's crimes remains absent, the world will once again have to answer for standing on the sidelines of a mass murder,” writes Cook. “It is also hard to ignore the possibility that bringing down Assad would advance the long-standing American goal of isolating Iran. Any post-Assad government in Damascus would not likely look to Iran for support, but instead to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. That would be a net benefit for Washington and others looking to limit Iran's influence in the Arab world.”

George Friedman of the private intelligence agency Stratfor made a similar case, writing this week: “Should the al Assad regime—or the Syrian regime without al Assad—survive, Iran would therefore enjoy tremendous influence with Syria, as well as with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The current course in Iraq coupled with the survival of an Alawite regime in Syria would create an Iranian sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean. This would represent a fundamental shift in the regional balance of power and probably would redefine Iranian relations with the Arabian Peninsula. This is obviously in Iran's interest. It is not in the interests of the United States, however.”

Just as Washington is pushing for regime change in Syria as part of its wider bid to prepare for war against Iran, which it views as an impediment to establishing its hegemony over the oil-rich regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, so Russia and China, which have extensive interests in both Iran and Syria, have strongly opposed any military intervention.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow would use its veto if necessary to block any resolution in the United Nations Security Council authorizing the use of force in Syria. China has indicated support for the Russian position.

Both China and Russia abstained on the resolution authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya, which provided a legal fig leaf for the US-NATO war. In the war’s aftermath, both countries have suffered significant losses in terms of their interests in Libya, with the US and its NATO allies the principal beneficiaries.

Earlier this month, Russia dispatched an aircraft carrier-led naval battle group to the Syrian port of Tartus in what Moscow described as a gesture of “friendship” between the two countries. Russian officials have also dismissed US protests over a Russian ship’s delivery of arms to Syria, noting that Moscow’s actions—while they may have cut across unilateral US and Western European sanctions—have violated no international agreements.

Meanwhile, the Arab League is set to meet this weekend to discuss the future of its monitoring mission in Syria, whose mandate expires this week. Qatar is among those leading calls for the mission to be scrapped in order to clear the way for direct foreign intervention.

The Western-backed Free Syrian Army called for the Arab League to pull out its monitors, saying they had “failed in their mission.” The group’s leader, Col. Riyad al-Asaad, told Reuters news agency that the group was calling on the Arab League “to turn the issue over to the UN Security Council and we ask that the international community intervene because they are more capable of protecting Syrians at this stage than our Arab brothers.”

Iraq war is the real “underlying crime” in the Libby indictment

2012-01-19T10:26:00.000-08:00

By Bill Van Auken
29 October 2005

The indictment in the CIA leak investigation of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, has deepened the political crisis of the Bush administration, while further exposing the methods of criminality and conspiracy that extend from the White House on down.

Libby was charged Friday with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements, felony offenses that together are punishable by up to 30 years in prison. After being told of the charges, he resigned from the government.

Justice Department Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald made it clear that the investigation into the deliberate leaking of the identity of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame Wilson had not concluded. President Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, remains a subject of this probe, having for the moment avoided an indictment. Rove’s lawyer said prosecutors told him they had “made no decision about whether or not to bring charges.”

The exposure of the CIA agent was part of a “dirty tricks” campaign aimed at discrediting and punishing her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had publicly exposed the administration for lying to the American public about the supposed threat posed by Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” These non-existent weapons were the principal pretext given by Washington for launching an unprovoked war against Iraq in March 2003.

The CIA had sent Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from the African country to further Saddam Hussein’s alleged efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. Wilson found that the allegations were false and reported this back to Washington. Nonetheless, Bush repeated the allegation in his 2003 State of the Union address as part of a concerted effort to terrorize the American people into accepting a war.

Following the US invasion and the failure of American forces to find a shred of evidence of Iraqi WMD, Wilson began speaking to the media about his findings and the government’s lies. In July of 2003, he wrote an opinion column in the New York Times publicly exposing the administration’s deceit.

Unable to answer Wilson, the administration opted for the methods of political thuggery, exposing his wife’s CIA status to the media as a form of retaliation and floating the claim that she had organized his trip to Niger, with the implication that it was somehow tainted by nepotism.

The basis of the charges against Libby is that he lied to both FBI agents and the federal grand jury empanelled in the leak investigation about how he himself learned that Valerie Wilson was a CIA operative and what he told several reporters about her status.

The vice presidential aide claimed that he had learned about her employment at the spy agency from reporters calling him for confirmation, and that he had only told other members of the press that he had heard about the CIA status of Valerie Wilson from reporters.

The investigation, however, disclosed that Libby had first learned about Valerie Wilson’s CIA status from Cheney himself, and had subsequently discussed it with five other government officials, including CIA officers, an under-secretary of state, and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. It also established that Libby had told reporters, including Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, not that he had heard she was CIA from other journalists, but that he knew it to be true.

What the indictment against Libby makes clear is that he was merely one of the participants in a smear campaign against Wilson involving a number of officials, and which, by all indications, was directed by Cheney and the Bush White House. His lying to the grand jury was designed to protect Bush, Cheney and others involved in this conspiracy.

Much has been made, particularly by the administration’s supporters, of the fact that Libby was not charged with the so-called underlying crime, that is, violation of a 1982 federal statute that bars the deliberate exposure of covert CIA agents.

Even on this rather narrow question, the indictment and Fitzgerald’s statements explaining it make clear that prosecutors believed Libby’s lies had obscured whether or not the statute was violated, and therefore constituted just as serious a crime.

More importantly, the real “underlying crime” is not the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent. This act was carried out only to further and defend the far greater crime of dragging the American people into a war of aggression on the basis of lies.

At his press conference Friday, Fitzgerald brushed aside a question as to whether the indictment vindicated charges that the Iraq war had been launched on false premises. “This indictment is not about the war,” he said. “This indictment’s not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution...”

For the most part, the mass media has embraced this exceedingly narrow and legalistic interpretation of the crisis arising from the Libby indictment. Television commentators have focused their attention on how well the Bush administration is handling the political fallout, while speculating whether the case will ensnare others, like Rove.

What is obvious, however, is that Libby’s lies to the grand jury and the FBI were the inevitable byproduct of the far more momentous lies concocted by the Bush administration in making its case for a war against Iraq. These included the now discredited claims about WMD, the charge that some link existed between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and the baseless suggestion that Iraq had something to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The smear against the Wilsons was a continuation of a conspiracy to drag the American people into war, involving top officials within the US government—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld.

Libby, though not in the public eye, was a prominent member of this conspiracy. In 1992, in the first Bush administration, he was, together with Paul Wolfowitz, the author of a Defense Department document advocating the use of “preemptive” war against countries seeking to obtain weapons capabilities and those “aspiring to a larger regional or global role” in conflict with US domination. As a member of the Project for a New American Century, he was one of those advocating a war against Iraq long before the Bush administration seized upon the September 11 attacks as a pretext.

Within the administration, Libby played a pivotal role in organizing a parallel intelligence operation based in the Pentagon and the vice president’s office and tasked with manufacturing phony evidence that Iraq represented a military threat to the US.

The indictment against this prominent senior official is not, as Fitzgerald claimed Friday, an indication that the US is a “country that takes its law seriously.” If this were the case, the legally binding treaties that bar wars of aggression and torture would have brought Bush, Cheney and the entire administration into the defendant’s dock long ago.

Rather, it is a manifestation of a bitter conflict within the state itself. The tensions over intelligence that arose in the run-up to the war between the Pentagon and the White House, on the one hand, and the State Department and the CIA, on the other, have now given rise to recriminations over the political and military disaster that US imperialism is confronting in Iraq.

This has found expression in recent weeks in the statement of former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson—undoubtedly reflecting the views of ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell—denouncing “a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld” operating outside of normal government channels and controls. Also weighing in with open criticism in the New Yorker magazine of the administration’s decision to go to war is Brent Scowcroft, the former national security advisor and close political confidante of Bush senior.

Within this context, the indictment and the threats to prosecute other officials, including possibly Cheney himself, could be utilized as part of an effort to bring about a certain course correction and effect personnel changes in the Bush administration. The aim would be to avoid a military, diplomatic and political disaster in Iraq, and repair what many within the political and military establishment consider to be serious damage to the long-term interests of US imperialism.

There is already widespread speculation that “outsiders” may be recruited to try and rescue Bush’s second-term administration. One year after being elected for the first time with a majority vote, the administration is visibly floundering in the wake of its catastrophic response to Hurricane Katrina and the debacle of the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, and in the face of massive popular opposition to the continuing war in Iraq.

Among those mentioned as potential “new blood” are Joshua Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and former Goldman Sachs executive, as well as the current and former Republican National Committee chairmen, Ken Mehlman and Ed Gillespie.

Meanwhile, the real “underlying crime” continues in the carnage that the US invasion and occupation have produced in Iraq. This crime—which has cost the lives of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 2,000 American soldiers—cannot be punished, much less resolved, through the work of special counsels or the prosecution of one or another of the conspirators who launched a war based upon lies.

This criminal war is itself a manifestation of the profound decay of American democracy. All of the institutions of American society are implicated in this crime. This includes the Congress, which voted for the war and has refused to seriously investigate the lies used to promote it; the Democratic Party, which has covered for the crimes of the Bush administration while backing the war; the media, which regurgitated the lies about Iraqi WMD; the courts, which have upheld Bush’s abuses of power; and the corporate elite, which has engaged in war profiteering.

The response of the Democrats to the Libby indictment was both revealing and predictable. Prominent party leaders used it once again to attack Bush from the right, seizing on the leaking of the CIA agent’s identity as evidence that the administration is weak on national security.

Typical was the comment of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (Democrat, New York), who said that the indictment of Libby “raises serious national security concerns.” She added, “Taking such action for political purposes is simply reprehensible and should never be tolerated.”

The Democratic National Committee issued a statement attacking Bush for “his failure to put forth a clear plan for victory in Iraq,” and warning that the administration “is clearly bogged down in a scandal that is distracting it from attending to the nation’s business.”

The crime underlying the Libby indictment and the entire CIA leak affair is the one that was prosecuted at Nuremberg nearly 60 years ago—the plotting and waging of a war of aggression. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the top echelons of the White House and the Pentagon should be brought to justice for this fundamental war crime, as well as the multiple crimes and horrors that have flowed from it.

This will not happen either through special counsels, the courts or Congressional impeachment. It requires the emergence of a mass independent political movement of the working class, mobilized on a socialist program and directed against the American plutocracy in whose interests this war is being waged.

FEMA's 911 Concentration Camps

2012-01-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

THIS MAY BE OLD NEWS BUT NOT FOR LONG PERHAPS.
IN FACT, IT MAY BE BLATANT PROPAGANDA

What is the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Simply put, it is the "secret government". This agency has powers and authority that go well beyond any other agency in the nation. What can FEMA do? It can suspend laws. It can move entire populations. It can arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and can hold them without a trial. It can seize property, food supplies, and transportation systems. And it can even suspend the Constitution of the United States.

When the first concept had been presented, its original mission was to assure the survivability of the United States Government in the event of a nuclear attack. It's secondary function was to be a Federal coordinating body during times of domestic disasters. These disasters consisted of earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes.

The "secret" black helicopters that are reported throughout the US, mainly in the West California, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado areas are flown by FEMA personnel. It has been given the responsibility for many new national disasters such as forest fires, home heating emergencies, refugee situations, riots, and emergency planning for nuclear and toxic incidents. It works together with the Sixth Army in the West.

A series of Executive Orders (EO) was used to create FEMA. It does not matter whether an EO is Constitutional or not, it becomes a law simply by being published in the Federal Registry. These orders go around Congress.

The Cabal Capalists and the Agenda for Genocide

Contemporary Slavery

2012-01-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

Contemporary slavery violates a variety of human rights and includes the child labor, bonded labor, serfdom, servile marriage, human trafficking (particularly of women and children for the sex trade), and the exploitation of domestic and migrant labor. These practices continue relatively unnoticed by the developed world, and, in certain cases, accepted as part of society in some third world countries, making contemporary slavery difficult to abolish internationally. A general ignorance on the part of the public contributes to and enforces governmental and international inaction.

Why This Is Important

2012-01-08T15:12:00.001-08:00

Ashraf is a refugee camp located in northern Iraq, comprised of Iranian Resistance members & their families, those who have fought for freedom & democracy in Iran but have since been forced into exile. In recent years, the Iraqi military has persecuted residents of camp Ashraf, going as far as to attack their encampment & commit massacre.

You can read more on camp Ashraf yourself here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Ashraf

As soon as our troop presence in Iraq is lifted, an issue I've been advocating for vehemently for years, the sad reality is these Camp Ashraf refugees will be subject to further massacre. As such, it is our responsibility to ensure the members of this encampment are protected from further crimes against humanity by the hands of the Iraqi military. We must contact President Obama, Members of Congress & other elected representatives to ensure they are fully aware of the situation, and can subsequently proceed to take any reasonable measures necessary to secure their safety, to prevent this eminent massacre.

Below is a message from a resident of Camp Ashraf:

"The present perilous situation in the camp is as follows:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has declared all residents
of Ashraf "asylum-seekers" that merit international protection. UNHCR wants
to come to Ashraf to conduct interviews with the residents to confirm their
refugee status as required for their transfer to third countries. However,
the Iraqi government and in particular Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime
minister that is doing the bidding of the mullahs in Tehran, is blocking
this UN process while keeping Ashraf surrendered by military forces and
under a thorough inhumane siege now in its third year. The siege even
deprives residents of medical treatment and also fuel in the cold season.
The Iraqi government has set an end of 2011 deadline to close the camp. By
blocking the UNHCR work, thereby blocking departure of residents from
Ashraf, the Iraqi government is setting the stage for a great massacre at
the end of the current year of 3,400 residents that are trapped and
surrendered in Ashraf with no option to go anywhere.

Nouri al-Maliki who has already conducted two bloody attacks on Ashraf in
July 2009 and April 2011 with 47 residents killed and over one thousand
injured has been invited to the White House for December 12, 2011. This
reception by a U.S. President will buy him a legitimacy that he could then
use to carry out the end of 2011 bloodbath in Ashraf. I therefore urge you
to write to U.S. authorities on this issue, in particular ask Secretary
Clinton to bring enough pressure to bear on Maliki and the Iraqi government
to annul their ultimatum that is a flagrant breach of international law.
With the December 31 ultimatum only a few weeks away, we need pressure on
UN, EU and U.S. to act and protect 3,400 people in Ashraf by bringing blue
helmets and UN observers to Ashraf before it is too late.

The Iranian Resistance has stated that relocation inside Iraq is a plan for
annihilating Ashraf residents and therefore is out of the question.

In other developments, a U.S. Senate Arms Services Committee hearing with
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chief of Staff General Dempsey, prominent
Senators voiced their concern about Ashraf and called on the U.S. State
Department to resort to specific measures to protect and ensure safety of
Ashraf residents. You may see this clip at this link: 20111115-Senate Hearing-Ashraf

Thank you beforehand for your immediate actions in this urgent matter of
life and death.

Very Respectfully,

Akbar Azizi
Support-Ashraf Campaign Coordinator"

Please sign this petition to prevent this miscarriage of justice/massacre from occuring.

Thank you.

Update: If you can spare a few minutes, please also call, write and/or fax Secretary of State Hillary Clinton using the following contact information:

Secretary of State of the United States
Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Main Switchboard:
Phone 202-647-4000
Fax 202.647.3344

As you now know, this is a matter of life & death for the people of Camp Ashraf. Please do whatever you can to save these people from massacre. Thank you.

Photo Credit: AlborzTaha via Wikimedia Commons
Why People Are Signing

Alan Francisco
about 1 month ago

The Iraq terrorist environment needs UN intervention.

Recent Signatures

Mohammad Moghan (Berlin, Germany)
23 days ago
Umar Khan (Washington, DC)
30 days ago
marilyn miller (San Diego, CA)
about 1 month ago
Akbar Haghighi (Stockholm, Sweden)
about 1 month ago
Michael Bass (High Point, NC)
about 1 month ago

Cristi Sturgill (Mount Vernon, KY)
about 1 month ago
Rachel Francis (austin, TX)
about 1 month ago
JOHN RICHARD YOUNG (East Norriton Township / Norristown, PA)
about 1 month ago
DONNA MOCK (MEDFORD, OR)
about 1 month ago
Lidia K (Huntington Beach, CA)
about 1 month ago

and 43 more…

Akbar Azizi - Support-Ashraf Campaign Coordinator

2012-01-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Karen

Happy New Year and hope holidays have gone well for you and your family.

On Christmas day, United Nations and Iraq signed a memorandum of
understanding on Ashraf. According to this memorandum, Ashraf residents were
to move to Camp Liberty near Baghdad Airport where they would be under UN
monitoring and the UNHCR would start the refugee status determination
process for transfer of residents to third countries.

This arrangement was a great defeat for the Iranian mullahs as they would no
longer be able to carry out a massacre of their opposition by the Iraqi
government in Ashraf. The enclosed NCRI statement explains the situation. I
wanted to keep you informed on how things are unraveling.

Wishing you and your family a very good year.

Respectfully,

Akbar Azizi

Support-Ashraf Campaign Coordinator

Thank you for a Merry Christmas

2011-12-27T16:03:00.000-08:00

I am sure your holiday season would be merrier once you learn that through
your participation in the humanitarian campaign to save the lives of Ashraf
residents, in a great international effort by those who put human rights
first, the Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki finally extended his illegal
and suppressive deadline to close Ashraf and relocate its residents which
would have amounted to an attack and massacre.

In this campaign by the international community, in an eight month time
span, United Nations, dozens of Parliaments, the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, the European Union, the U.S. Congress, Amnesty International, and
human rights organizations condemned Maliki's measures and called for the
annulment of the deadline.

In an apparent retreat, Maliki accepted a six month extension of the
deadline that would give the United Nations and the UNHCR time to relocate
the 3,300 residents to third countries. Ashraf residents are to be
transferred to Camp Liberty in the meantime.

Of course, this retreat is not the end of this ordeal as the Iraqi
government has not given any guarantees that if the residents are
transferred to Camp Liberty the threats and the suppressive measures would
cease.

The minimum assurances requested by Ashraf residents are as follows:

1. Safe and secure transfer of each and every Ashraf resident, without any
exception, to Camp Liberty with their vehicles and moveable property under
international observation;

2. 24-hour monitoring by the UN and U.S. in the new location until the
transfer of the last resident to third countries;

3. Initiation of the work by the UNHCR;

4. To ensure security and tranquility, particularly for nearly 1000 Muslim
women, Iraqi forces shall be stationed outside of fenced area of the new
location;

5. Ending the siege against, and halting any persecution and harassment of,
the residents and annulment of forged warrants of arrests without any
exception; and

6. Selling of the unmovable property of the residents under UN supervision
to be reimbursed to the residents to pay for their security, logistics, and
their transfer to third countries.

I will continue to keep you abreast of developments to have your support
when conditions demand it as the Iraqi government whose acts are dictated by
Iranian regime will surely try to defeat a peaceful process. I am sure
Ashraf residents can count on your continued support in 2012 until all of
them are safe in another country.

In the end, on behalf of Ashraf residents I would like to wish you and your
loved ones a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Very Respectfully,

Akbar Azizi

Support-Ashraf Campaign Coordinator

New Bill Allows Military To Detain You Indefinitely

2011-12-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

Care2
By Sam Taxy
December 6, 2011

It’s a bad sign when George W. Bush’s defense team thinks that a military bill goes too far in violating your rights. But we’ve got just that with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act. This bill authorizes the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without giving them their Constitutional rights. Basically, if the military suspects that an American citizen has terrorist ties it can just throw them in military jail without the rights to habeas corpus, an attorney or just about anything.

Let’s say that again — this new bill, which passed the Senate with an alarming majority, allows the military to arrest American citizens on American soil and keep them without trial. It’s being called the “America the Battlefield” bill, because it treats your front yard like a battlefield — and every citizen like a potential enemy. It basically puts a giant asterisk next to the Bill of Rights saying, “unless we don’t feel like it.”

It’s no wonder that former a Bush State Department adviser said that this bill “would likely have been as strongly opposed by the Bush administration as by the Obama administration.” The same people who brought us waterboarding and the PATRIOT Act think that this is a step too far.

In fact, the only people who think that this is a good idea are the people who voted for it in Congress, which has an approval rating lower than that of BP during the oil spill or Hugo Chavez, just to name a few. Even those who trying to see the law with an optimistic light, as Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen does, can only concede that at best “the Senate avoided the worst result here.” Not exactly ringing praise.

The Obama administration has signaled that it might veto this egregious attack on Americans’ rights, but his decision is still up in the air. To let him know how important constitutional liberties are to them, thousands of people are petitioning the President to veto the bill. If he fails to veto, it will likely go to the Supreme Court.

Maybe it’s not so bad — since corporations are people, the government could just indefinitely detain Goldman Sachs.

International campaign to save Ashraf -- urgent

2011-11-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

There are only weeks remaining from the dreaded deadline of the Iraqi
government to close down Ashraf that if not stopped would surely lead to
many residents losing their lives despite the fact that they are "Protected
Persons" under the Geneva Convention and recognized as asylum-seekers by the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The United Nations Assistant Mission for
Iraq (UNAMI) and its present president Mr. Martin Kobler have a significant
role and obligation here to prevent this massacre.

In this regard, we want dignitaries or organizations in any realm to email
the letter below to Mr. Kobler calling on him and UNAMI to stop this looming
massacre by the Iraqi government at its inception.

Please support this urgent humanitarian cause by:

- signing this letter and sending it to Mr. Kobler's email address
offered below this letter

- sending this call with a short introduction of your own to all
personage that you know or can email to urging them to participate in this
urgent life-saving campaign

Please note that this is an urgent matter and we need action now.

Thank you again for supporting Ashraf.

Very Respectfully,

Akbar Azizi

Support-Ashraf Campaign Coordinator

Send the following with a short introduction of your own to the figures you
know. They need to put the text in their letterhead and email it to Mr.
Kobler and Cc me:

Urgent Call on UNAMI and the UN Secretary General Special Representative in
Iraq to reject explicitly and unequivocally the forcible displacement of
Ashraf residents and their massacre:

Since September 13th the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
has declared Ashraf residents as asylum-seekers under international
protection who should benefit from basic protection of their safety,
including the principle of non-refoulement. Yet, it is more than two months
that the Government of Iraq prevents the initiation of the UNHCR work to
establish the identity of the residents and to reaffirm their refugee status
that is a pre-requisite to their relocation to third countries.

In addition to preventing the UNHCR to start its work, the Government of
Iraq insists on the illegal deadline of Dec 31 for the closure of the Camp
and the forcible displacement of Ashraf residents to unknown locations
inside of Iraq. A major crime against humanity and massacre of residents of
Ashraf that has been planned by the Iranian regime and dictated to the
Government of Iraq is under way.

While more than one million people of Iraq, the European Parliament, the
U.S. Congress, more than 4,000 parliamentarians the world over, including
the majority members of 30 parliaments and the most prominent European,
American, Iraqi and Arab dignitaries have declared their opposition to
forcible displacement of Ashraf residents inside of Iraq and the suppressive
Dec 31 deadline.

Ashraf residents have shown all kinds of flexibility; they have agreed to
the European Parliament’s plan to be transferred to third countries, despite
their obvious right to remain in Ashraf, where they have lived for the past
25 years; they have filled individual asylum application forms. But they are
not at all prepared to be forcibly displaced inside Iraq and one should not
expect them to volunteer to be slaughtered. If they are forced to be
displaced, they will have no other option but to resist.

We vehemently call on the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI)
and United Nations Secretary General Special Representative in Iraq who on
behalf of the international community have responsibility vis-à-vis Ashraf
residents in order to prevent a massacre, to declare their explicit and
unequivocal opposition to the forcible displacement of Ashraf residents
inside Iraq and the declared deadline. Otherwise UNAMI will be an accomplice
in the crime against humanity and the bloodbath that the Government of Iraq
and the Iranian regime will initiate in Ashraf.

Your email should be sent to:

Hon. Martin Kobler

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq

UNAMI

Baghdad- Iraq

unami-information@un.org

Cc to: aziziakbar84@gmail.com

Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

2011-10-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

No one really knows how bad it is, but it’s much worse than I thought possible. Piecing together information from satellite images and eye witness accounts, Amnesty International suspects that the horrific concentration camps in North Korea are growing. Some 200,000 people live as slaves – enduring starvation, torture, and rape while performing hard labor. Many die every year, only to be replaced by fresh bodies. Of those that survive, few will ever be released. Deemed ‘prisoners’, the victims of North Korea’s political pogroms are interned for the smallest criticisms of the regime of Kim Jong-Il, and when they are carried away their extended families are rounded up as well.

This is not genocide, it’s not a war crime, it’s an unending consequence of North Korea’s authoritarian government. And it’s been getting worse for the last decade. Amnesty International’s satellite research shows these slave camp expanding, their populations swelling with ‘criminals’ as the general population starves inside its borders and refugees who are caught trying to leave North Korea are executed…or sent to these gulags. Sixty years ago the world was embroiled in a global war that saw some of the worst crimes against humanity we had ever experienced. Today, the concentration camp lives on in North Korea. Will this evil still be with us another sixty years from now? Despite all my hope about the future, a voice inside me says ‘yes’…I can’t believe this is still happening.

We are confronted with so many atrocities in global news that it’s hard to pierce our desensitized skin. I can’t describe the horrific conditions in the North Korean slave camps, but Jeong Kyoungil can. He was detained for years at Yodok, officially known as Kwan-li-so (reeducation center) Number 15. Inside its walls he fought frostbite from the bitter cold, starvation, endless work, and a continual stripping of his humanity. He describes how the death of fellow inmates was a joy – an opportunity – because burying these bodies earned an extra helping of food. To starving slaves such as Kyoungil, a few more bites of corn gruel was the difference between life and death. In the following video from Amnesty Internation, Kyoungil describes more of his time in Yodok, and the soul wrenching things he saw there.

Since the formation of these sinisterly named re-education centers in the 1950s, Amnesty International counts only a sparse 30 or so individuals who have managed to be freed and then leave North Korea to tell their tales. Among them was Kang Chol-Hwan who survived a decade in Yodok, fled to China, and eventually wrote an account of his time in the camp: Aquarium of Pyongyang. Yet those who are consigned to reeducating “Revolutionary Zones” in these camps aren’t the worst off, for there is the possibility that they will be freed after years of deadly conditions. In the camps’ “Total Control Zones” no end is in sight. Dissidents and their families who are sent to the Total Control Zones will be there for the rest of their lives. Short or long as they may be. In the long history of the North Korean gulags, Amnesty International counts only three individuals to have escaped, fled far enough, and survived long enough to tell their tales. North Korea controls the information within its borders, and they leave precious few to bare witness to the crimes that go one inside the Kwan-li-so.

While it’s hard to imagine those crimes getting worse, it’s very likely they are becoming more numerous. Amnesty International recently published satellite imagery that shows North Korea’s prison camps have expanded considerably in the last decade. Amnesty International has been working for years to highlight the growing human rights abuses in North Korea. Their latest work took satellite images of four of the six major camps associated with political prisoners. These camps, located in South Pyongan, South Hamkyung, and North Hamkyung show major expansions in facilities for both prisoners and guard personnel when compared to images from 2001. Along with these overhead photos, Amnesty International was able to talk with some prisoners, such as Jeong Kyoungil. In Yodok alone, there is thought to be roughly 50,000 victims held without legal recourse. It is very likely that most of these people will die in Yodok due to starvation. Between 1999 and 2001, it is estimated that nearly 40% of the camp population died of malnutrition. Others lost ears, toes, and limbs to frostbite. Others were raped and forced to abort children. The fate of most is simply unknown.

North Korea’s government may hide these crimes from their population, and they may deny these atrocities to the UN, yet these camps are blatantly visible from above. North Korea seems to have done little to disguise their size and growth from satellites passing overhead. You can even see some of these structures in the old photos on Google Earth and other digital globes (go to 39.674163 N, 126.851406 E). Perhaps North Korea’s cavalier attitude about these camps is due to the general lack of attention they receive in world press. Amnesty International’s recent revelation about North Korean camps has garnered some attention in the New York Times and on NPR, but little in other mainstream news outlets. I don’t know which is more shocking, the fact that these camps exist in plain site, or the fact that after they are uncovered the world seems to shrug, and the major media hardly even seems to be covering it. In 2004, Japan’s FujiTV ran a video clip that was reportedly recorded at Yodok…but it eventual passed out of public perception as its veracity was impossible to determine...

(For the rest of this article please click on the link in the title above.)

BLOOMBERG: LOOTERS WILL BE PUT IN INTERNMENT CAMPS

2011-09-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Weekly World News
Posted on Saturday, August 27th, 2011
By Frank Lake

NEW YORK – Mayor Bloomberg told New Yorkers that anyone looting during Hurricane Irene will be put in internment camps in upstate New York.

In a press conference this afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg again urged residents in evacuation areas to leave immediately. The Mayor was told that a number of residents were hesitant to leave because they were worried about looters.

Mayor Bloomberg shocked reporters when he said that the National Guard would round-up any looters and take them to internment camps in upstate New York. “We have installed a zero tolerance policy for looters. If you loot, you will be put in an internment camp for six months – at the minimum.”

Reporters questioned the constitutionality and legality of imprisoning looters, but Mayor Bloomberg said, “We have the full support of the Obama Administration. Looters will be placed in these camps and some may even be deported.”

“You are going to deport Americans?” asked John Quimby of The Daily News. “Yes, we will figure out where the looters ancestors came from and ship them off to that country. President Obama and I agreed that it’s time to clean up our cities, and our country, and Hurricane Irene will give us a good opportunity to do so.”

There have been rumors for the last two years that the U.S. Government has been building internment camps in every state.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has also signed-off on the internment camps. Governor Cuomo said he met with the National Guard to review strategy. He has deployed several units to help with the storm, and several more to round-up looters.

Mayor Bloomberg also had dire warnings for people riding elevators during the storm. “If you get into an elevator during the storm, we will get you out, but you will be sent to an internment camp.” Bloomberg said that the government can no longer tolerate citizens who do not do exactly what the government tells them to do. “New York City is no place for rebels. If you want to defy our orders, you will be sent to a camp. “

The Mayor says he will send any “defiant New Yorker” to the internment camps. “Zero tolerance,” he repeated.

The Mayor said he will be compassionate to some looters. Mild looters (products under $5) will be offered the opportunity of being sent to New Jersey instead of going to an internment camp – but the Mayor expects few people to choose that option.

In a press conference this afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg again urged residents in evacuation areas to leave immediately. The Mayor was told that a number of residents were hesitant to leave because they were worried about looters.

Mayor Bloomberg shocked reporters when he said that the National Guard would round-up any looters and take them to internment camps in upstate New York. “We have installed a zero tolerance policy for looters. If you loot, you will be put in an internment camp for six months – at the minimum.”

Reporters questioned the constitutionality and legality of imprisoning looters, but Mayor Bloomberg said, “We have the full support of the Obama Administration. Looters will be placed in these camps and some may even be deported.”

“You are going to deport Americans?” asked John Quimby of The Daily News. “Yes, we will figure out where the looters ancestors came from and ship them off to that country. President Obama and I agreed that it’s time to clean up our cities, and our country, and Hurricane Irene will give us a good opportunity to do so.”

There have been rumors for the last two years that the U.S. Government has been building internment camps in every state.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has also signed-off on the internment camps. Governor Cuomo said he met with the National Guard to review strategy. He has deployed several units to help with the storm, and several more to round-up looters.

Mayor Bloomberg also had dire warnings for people riding elevators during the storm. “If you get into an elevator during the storm, we will get you out, but you will be sent to an internment camp.” Bloomberg said that the government can no longer tolerate citizens who do not do exactly what the government tells them to do. “New York City is no place for rebels. If you want to defy our orders, you will be sent to a camp. “

The Mayor says he will send any “defiant New Yorker” to the internment camps. “Zero tolerance,” he repeated.

The Mayor said he will be compassionate to some looters. Mild looters (products under $5) will be offered the opportunity of being sent to New Jersey instead of going to an internment camp – but the Mayor expects few people to choose that option.

Left-wing activist attorney, Ron Kuby, objected to the threat of arresting and imprisoning looters. “This is America, this is not communist Russia. I believe the whole hype around the storm is an attempt by the U.S. government to practice their draconian methods for controlling the populace in case of a revolution. I will not allow ANY looter to be sent to an interment camp.”

Ron Kuby was arrested and sent to upstate New York.

What will the looters be forced to do at the internment camps? Mayor Bloomberg isn’t saying… but he had an evil grin.

Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre’s Official Opening Postponed to 2011

2011-05-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Dec 17th, in News

PRESS RELEASE

Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre’s Official Opening Postponed to 2011

Click Here to Download the PDF of the Press Release

Full text below:
Corporation Camp Spirit Lake : 242, chemin Joseph-Langlois, Trécesson (Qc) J0Y 2S0
Téléphone : (819) 727-2267 / Télécopieur : (819) 727-2269
Courriel : campspiritlake@cableamos.com Site web : www.campspiritlake.ca
Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre’s Official Opening Postponed to 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Amos, Quebec. December, 14, 2010. The official opening of the Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre, originally scheduled to open on December 10, has been postponed to early 2011.

Speaking with James Slobodian, chairperson of the Spirit Lake Corporation whose board members have been working on organizing this new museum site “This has been a huge undertaking. Eventhough we have been on target with our construction and renovation plans, due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our Boards’s control, we had to move the date of the opening.”

The Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Center will tell the story of the second largest of the 24 internment sites camps established during Canada’s First Internment Operations 1914 to 1920 and the unjust internment of Ukrainians and others at Sprit Lake near Amos, Quebec. Many families, men, women and children, were taken from Montreal and sent to Spirit Lake. Over the last five months, the solidly built church building where the museum will be established has undergone complete renovations converting the facilities into a modern interpretive museum. New flooring, walls, wiring, have been done by the dedicated construction and electrical crew and all facilities updated, including providing wheel chair accessibility.

Museologists from Quebec City have been working on the information display area in consultation with the Spirit Lake Corporation board members that are overseeing the entire 1.2 million dollars project.

The opening of the Center will now coincide with the marking of the 120 years of Ukrainians coming to Canada 1891-2011.

“I foresee, says project chairperson James Slobodian, that in the year 2011 alone, over 6,000 visitors, including tourists to Northern Quebec, will pass through this Centre. Also, children from 62 schools from the Amos and surrounding area will be taken on tours to learn more about the history of Spirit Lake internment camp. And this does not include the thousands of school children from Rouyn-Noranda, La Sarre and Northern Ontario areas just next to Quebec border. All these schools are already waiting for the Centre to open for educational tours, more than doubling the anticipated visitors annually.”

Quebec has a population of over 6 million and this Centre is creating a buzz and great excitement all over the province. We are working closely with Quebec City and Montreal. Northern Quebec, an important region in the province, is particularly aware the impact it will have drawing visitors all year and thereby, sharing the history of this area.

The Sprit Lake Internment Interpretive Center is a fitting, lasting tribute to remember the difficult road early Ukrainian immigrants and others had to painfully endure in settling their new land. Internment should not have happened and the internment story will be passed onto future generations to better understand Canadian and Quebec history. Recognizing this, the federal government finally established Canada’s First Internment Operation Restitution Fund
Press release

Corporation Camp Spirit Lake : 242, chemin Joseph-Langlois, Trécesson (Qc) J0Y 2S0
Téléphone : (819) 727-2267 / Télécopieur : (819) 727-2269
Courriel : campspiritlake@cableamos.com Site web : www.campspiritlake.ca
under the Shevchenko Foundation

Help support projects such as this. The Centre will also stimulate reflection on the contribution immigrants made over the decades that followed, despite the hardships.

The exact date of the opening will soon be announced, with various dignitaries from the federal, provincial and municipal government confirming their presence.

If descendents of families from Northern Quebec have any photos, clothing, or artifacts dating to the very early history of Ukrainians in the Amos, and Northern Quebec area or wish any further information, please contact James Slobodian, chairperson of the Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre at email campspiritlake@cableamos.com or Telephone 819-727-2267

-30-
Photo courtesy film documentary ‘Freedom Had A Price’

Internment-Resettlement (I-R) Specialist

2011-04-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

This job listing requires no further words from me. However, I shall endeavor to say them. Apparently, there are jobs involved in running internment camps. Perhaps Donald Trump is great at making "sacrifices," if they are all other people. Please vote for Barack.

Company: Department of Workforce Services

Location: Orem, UT

Date Posted: March 29, 2011

This Job REQUIRES ENLISTMENT into the Employer or Employer Reserve to serve as a Soldier. Internment-Resettlement (I-R) Specialists in the Army are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement-correctional facility or detention-internment facility. I-R Specialists provide rehabilitative, health, welfare, and security to U.S. military prisoners within a confinement or correctional facility; conduct inspections; prepare written reports; and coordinate activities of prisoners-internees and staff personnel. Some of your duties as an Internment-Resettlement Specialist may include: Assist with the supervision and management of confinement and detention operations Provide external security to confinement-corrections facilities or detention-internment facilities...

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Concentration Camps, 1933-1939

2011-04-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

Holocaust History

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Concentration Camps, 1933-1939

Arrival of political prisoners at the Oranienburg concentration camp. Oranienburg, Germany, 1933.

— DIZ Muenchen GMBH, Sueddeutscher Verlag Bilderdienst

The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. In Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime.

The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA (Sturmabteilungen; commonly known as Storm Troopers), the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons -- the elite guard of the Nazi party), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy.

German authorities established camps all over Germany on an ad hoc basis to handle the masses of people arrested as alleged subversives. The SS established larger camps in Oranienburg, north of Berlin; Esterwegen, near Hamburg; Dachau, northwest of Munich; and Lichtenburg, in Saxony. In Berlin itself, the Columbia Haus facility held prisoners under investigation by the Gestapo (the German secret state police) until 1936.

After the SS gained its independence from the SA in July 1934, in the wake of the Röhm purge, Hitler authorized the Reich SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, to centralize the administration of the concentration camps and formalize them into a system. Himmler chose SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke for this task. Eicke had been the commandant of the SS concentration camp at Dachau since June 1933. Himmler appointed him Inspector of Concentration Camps, a new section of the SS subordinate to the SS Main Office.

After December 1934, the SS became the only agency authorized to establish and manage facilities that were formally called concentration camps, though local civilian authorities continued to establish and manage forced-labor camps and detention camps throughout Germany. In 1937, only four concentration camps were left: Dachau, near Munich; Sachsenhausen near Berlin; Buchenwald near Weimar; and Lichtenburg near Merseburg in Saxony for female prisoners.

Already as commandant of Dachau in 1933, Eicke developed an organization and procedures to administer and guard a concentration camp. He issued regulations both for the duties of the perimeter guards and for treatment of the prisoners. The organization, structure, and practice developed at Dachau in 1933-1934 became the model for the Nazi concentration camp system as it expanded. Among Eicke's early trainees at Dachau was Rudolf Höss, who later commanded the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Special “political units on alert” (Politische Bereitschaften), originall guarded the SS concentration camps. They were renamed “SS Guard Units” (SS-Wachverbände) in 1935 and “SS Death's-Head Units” (SS-Totenkopfverbände) in April 1936. One SS Death's-Head Unit was assigned to each concentration camp. After 1936, the camp administration, including the commandant, was also a part of the SS Death's-Head Unit. Although all SS units wore the Death's-Head symbol (skull and crossbones) on their caps, only the SS Death's-Head Units were authorized to wear the Death's Head Symbol on their lapels. After the creation of the “SS Death's-Head Division” of the Waffen SS in 1940, whose officers had been recruited from concentration camp service, members of this division also wore the Death's-Head symbol on their lapel.

The SS Death's-Head Unit at each camp was divided into two groups. The first was the camp staff, which encompassed: 1) the commandant and his personal staff; 2) a Security Police officer and an assistant to maintain and update prisoner records; 3) the commandant of the so-called protective detention camp (Schutzhaftlagerführer) which housed the prisoners, and his staff (including the labor allocation officer, the roll call officer, and the Blockführer, who were responsible for the individual prisoner barracks); 4) an administrative staff responsible for the fiscal and supply administration of the camp; and 5) an infirmary run by an SS physician, who was assisted by one or two SS sanitation officers and/or medical orderlies. The second group constituted the guard detachment (SS-Wachbataillion), which prior to 1939 was at battalion strength.

After 1938, authority to incarcerate persons in a concentration camp formallly rested exclusively with the German Security Police (made up of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police), which held this exclusive authority de facto since 1936. The “legal” instrument of incarceration was either the “protective detention” (Schutzhaft) order (which the Gestapo could issue for persons considered a political danger after 1933) and the “preventative detention” (Vorbeugungshaft) order, which the Criminal Police could issue after December 1937 for persons considered to be habitual and professional criminals, or to be engaging in what the regime defined as “asocial” behavior. Neither order was subject to judicial review, or any review by any German agency outside of the German Security Police.

The model thus established by Eicke in the mid-1930s characterized the concentration camp system until the collapse of the Nazi regime in the spring of 1945. The daily routine at Dachau, the methods of punishment, and the duties of the SS staff and guards became the norm, with some variation, at all German concentration camps.

EXPANSION OF THE CAMP SYSTEM 1939

As Nazi Germany expanded by bloodless conquest between 1938 and 1939, the numbers of those labeled as political opponents and social deviants increased, requiring the establishment of new concentration camps. By the time the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, unleashing World War II, there were six concentration camps in the so-called Greater German Reich: Dachau (founded 1933), Sachsenhausen (1936), Buchenwald (1937), Flossenbürg in northeastern Bavaria near the 1937 Czech border (1938), Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria (1938), and Ravensbrück, the women's camp, established in Brandenburg Province, southeast of Berlin (1939), after the dissolution of Lichtenburg.

From as early as early as 1934, concentration camp commandants deployed prisoners as forced laborers for the benefit of SS construction projects, including the construction or expansion of the camps themselves. By 1938, SS leaders envisioned using the reservoirs of forced laborers incarcerated in the camps for a variety of SS-commissioned construction projects. To mobilize and finance such projects, Himmler revamped and expanded the administrative offices of the SS and created a new SS office for business operations. Both agencies were led by SS Major General Oswald Pohl, who would take over the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps in 1942.

Beginning a pattern that would become typical after the war began, economic considerations had an increasing impact on the selection of sites for concentration camps after 1937. For instance, Mauthausen and Flossenbürg were located near large stone quarries. Likewise, concentration camp authorities increasingly diverted prisoners from meaningless, backbreaking labor to more goal-oriented if still backbreaking and dangerous labor in extractive industries, such as stone quarries and coal mines, and construction labor.

After Nazi Germany unleashed World War II in September 1939, vast new territorial conquests and larger groups of potential prisoners inspired the rapid expansion of the concentration camp system to the east. The war did not change the original function of the concentration camps as detention sites for the incarceration of political enemies. The climate of national emergency that the conflict granted to the Nazi leaders, however, permitted the SS to expand the functions of the camps.

The concentration camps increasingly became sites where the SS authorities could kill targeted groups of real or perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. They also came to serve as holding centers for a rapidly expanding pool of forced laborers deployed on SS construction projects, SS-commissioned extractive industrial sites, and, by 1942, in the production of armaments, weapons, and related goods for the German war effort.

Despite the chronic need for forced labor, the SS authorities continued to deliberately undernourish and mistreat prisoners incarcerated in the concentration camps, deploying them so ruthlessly and without regard to safety at forced labor, with such rates of mortality that many prisoners believed that they were in effect being "annihilated through work."

Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

Encyclopedia Last Updated: January 6, 2011

Maker of ‘Shoah’ Stresses Its Lasting Value

2010-12-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

By LARRY ROHTER
Published: December 6, 2010
The New York Times

Even at 85, Claude Lanzmann is not one to rest on his laurels or shirk a controversy. A quarter of a century after his documentary “Shoah” transformed the way the world regarded the Holocaust, the film is about to be re-released in the United States — an event he welcomes as long overdue.

Then again, Mr. Lanzmann also argues that “Shoah” is not really a documentary, and that “Holocaust” is “a completely improper name” to describe the Nazis’ extermination of six million Jews during World War II. He complains that, in contrast to Europe, where “Shoah” has “never stopped being shown in movie theaters and on TV,” his film has “disappeared from the American scene,” elbowed aside by more palatable fare and thus allowing mistaken notions to propagate.

“This was by no means a holocaust,” he said during a recent visit to New York, noting that the literal meaning of the word refers to a burnt offering to a god. “To reach God 1.5 million Jewish children have been offered? The name is important, and one doesn’t say ‘Holocaust’ in Europe. This was a catastrophe, a disaster, and in Hebrew that is shoah.”

Mr. Lanzmann is a French Jew who joined the Resistance as a teenager and later served as an editor of Les Temps Modernes, the cultural and philosophical journal founded by Jean-Paul Sartre. Though no members of his own family perished in the Holocaust, he said, the event latched hold of him when he began to make his film in 1973.

“After I started, I could not stop,” he said, even after the withdrawal of his original backers, Israeli officials impressed by his first film, a documentary called “Israel, Why.” “I was like a blind man during the 12 years of the making of ‘Shoah,’ like a horse with blinders. I could not look right or left, only straight ahead into the black circle of the shoah.”

Clocking in at just over nine and a quarter hours, “Shoah,” which opens on Friday at the Lincoln Plaza theaters and elsewhere in the country early next year, is drawn from more than 300 hours of film. “Shoah” should not be considered a documentary, he said, because “I did not record a reality that pre-existed the film, I had to create that reality,” out of what he calls “a kind of chorus of emerging voices and faces, of so many killers, victims and bystanders.”

In addition, Mr. Lanzmann chose not to use any historical footage in his film. But whatever genre “Shoah” belongs to, it has become the benchmark for visual representations of the Holocaust.

“The words monumental and profound are overused, but in the case of this film, they are appropriate,” said Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

“For those of us who spend our time thinking about this,” she added, “there is something this film does that is utterly unique, almost as if it looks into the abyss and penetrates it, in ways that I don’t think anything else has done.”

Since “Shoah” was released in 1985, of course, numerous films fictionalizing various aspects of the Holocaust have been issued to critical and commercial success, including a pair of Academy Award winners: Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful,”of which Mr. Lanzmann is dismissive, and Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,”which he sees as pernicious in its impact and influence.

“I dislike deeply ‘Schindler’s List,’ for many reasons,” he said. The Spielberg film is “much more easy to see than ‘Shoah,’ it is very sentimental.”

“It’s false,” he added, because it offers an uplifting ending. He also questioned the value of Mr. Spielberg’s underwriting of 105,000 hours of videotaped testimonies from concentration camp survivors and others in 56 countries, asking, “Who will see this?” (The testimonials are currently not widely available to the public, but are in the process of being digitized, with index, and being made accessible as a study collection.)

Asked for comment, Marvin Levy, a spokesman for Mr. Spielberg, referred a reporter to Stephen Smith, a British scholar who is the executive director of the Shoah Foundation Institute at the University of Southern California, which Mr. Spielberg founded and supports. Mr. Smith said he regarded the two films as “complementary, rather than contradictory” or antagonistic.

“ ‘Shoah’ took me into a deep, silent and reflective space and was an important milestone in my learning,” he said. “ ‘Schindler’s List’ showed me it was possible to take the Holocaust to the general public and move it into thinking more deeply about what the Holocaust was.”

Mr. Lanzmann is similarly impatient with efforts to explain the Holocaust. “To ask why the Jews have been killed is a question that shows immediately its own obscenity,” he said. The Italian writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, he notes, wrote of the concentration camp guard who brusquely told him, “Hier ist kein warum,” or “Here there is no why.”

(To read the rest of this article, please click on the link in this blog post's title above this post.)

Israel Planning Internment Camp for 10,000 African Infiltrators

2010-11-28T15:08:00.001-08:00

Written by Arieh O’Sullivan
Published Thursday, November 25, 2010
The Media Line

Israel’s Cabinet is expected to decide to build a massive detention facility to house some of the10,000 African migrants who have flooded into the country.

The discussion is set for Sunday and the Prime Minister’s Office said the facility was part of a multi-pronged effort to end the wave of Africans -- some fleeing war, others in search of jobs --infiltrating into the country.

The session comes a week after Israel began construction of a formidable barrier along parts of the 250-kilometer-long (160-mile) border with the Egyptian Sinai and signals a firm attempt by the government to tread where no other Israeli government has done before in addressing the flood of Africans entering the country illegally.

“For the first time, we are working to formulate a comprehensive migration policy that will be anchored in Knesset legislation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

“The phenomenon of infiltrators into Israel endangers the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel and burdens its social welfare services, health system, law enforcement authorities and local councils,” Netanyahu said.

A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said the goal was to reduce the economic incentives for infiltrators to come to Israel and thus reduce the flow into the country.

But, with a short term internment followed by a chance to earn enormous wages by African standards, it isn’t clear if the goal is achievable.

Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, was one of the major proponents of preventing non-Jews from illegally entering the country in order to save Israel from what he called a “natural disaster.”

Reacting to criticism of his fear mongering policies, Yishai said last week that the reality in some parts of the country has become intolerable.

“I urge those who think I have horns to visit the poor neighborhoods of southern Tel Aviv, neighborhoods that have been swarmed by infiltrators and are collapsing, places where women, children and the elderly are afraid to go out at night … I’d like to send 30 or 40 infiltrators to their neighborhoods and here what they have to say afterwards,” he said.

“I am more sensitive and more merciful than all those who speak against me,” Yishai added. “If we don’t practice a clear, tough and decisive policy, in 20 or 30 years, the country will be overrun by infiltrators harming the demographic character of the country.”

The exact number of Africa migrants is not known. Estimates put it at about 31,000 with over half coming from Eritrea, 30% from Sudan and the remainder from across the continent.

A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said the proposed center would be “open” and will provide inmates with basic needs such as lodging, food, drink and health care.

Once a decision was reached, it was expected be operational within six months. The camp would house those who would be caught attempting to slip into the country and not for the tens of thousand already inside.

Last year, there was a sharp increase in the number of infiltrators, with further increases in recent months. In 2009, an average of approximately 300 infiltrators entered Israel per month. The monthly average for 2010 currently stands at approximately 1,200, with almost 1,300 in November so far, the prime minister’s office said.

But military commanders said they saw even larger numbers. Lt.-Col. Nir Harpaz, commander of a battalion patrolling the border, told The Media Line his soldiers on the lookout for armed terrorists were putting themselves in danger when confronting the bands of infiltrators.

“You don’t open fire at these guys. You don’t shoot them. That is forbidden. It’s true that they are violating Israel’s sovereignty and crossing over but you aren’t going to be shooting at someone who is only coming to look for a job,” Harpaz said.

“The problem is that terrorists have tried to hitch a ride on these foreigners. They come in 20- 30, two terrorists can be disguised in this group and then try to attack themselves on my soldiers,” Harpaz said. “They understand that if they are caught they will be put in a detention center where it will be crowded but after a month they will get released and then they’ll find a job. The government has to solve this.”

After a short detention, the illegal aliens, most of them fleeing forced conscription in Eritrea, or the war in Sudan, are dumped in the streets of Tel Aviv where they live in shelters or eke out a living doing menial labor. Refugees speak of harrowing journeys on their way to Israel. They pay about $2,000 to Bedouin guides to sneak them over the border.

Israel has already issued instructions to its Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) to start cracking down on Israelis who hire the illegal migrants. PIBA officials have reportedly balked at carrying out the orders until a facility providing basic needs to the Africans was available.

According to the proposal, the establishment of the center will facilitate enforcement against those who employ infiltrators without work permits. Israel was also seeking ways to rid the country of the tens of thousands of illegal African workers, including talks with other countries who would agree to take them.

Yohannes Bayu, himself a recognized political refugee from Ethiopia, has set up the African Refugee Development Center to help the refugees. He urged the government to set up a proper procedure to decide who is a political refugee and who was just looking for work. He said the fence would not solve the issue.

“Even if there will be a fence out there and someone’s life is in danger outside of their borders Israel has to protect those people. Those who are asking for asylum are saying ‘save me. I am dying.’ Even if there is a wall there has to be a mechanism to let these people be saved. That is what international law says,” Bayu told The Media Line.

Attorney Anat Ben-Dor, director of the Refugee Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University, said that because of its history, Israel is obligated to extend its hand to help the refugees.

“I think Israel as a Jewish country has a heritage and maybe some sort of a duty, derived straight from Jewish values to provide sanctuary to people who flee persecution. And I would like this country to fulfill its role as a Jewish and as a democratic state and be a safe haven to people who suffer persecution,” Ben-Dor told The Media Line.

The flood of Africans began as a trickle in 2005 and were mainly refugees fleeing the war in Darfur, Sudan. The previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, agreed after years of indecision, to grant political asylum to about 500 refugees. But the government has been stingy ever since with only a few individuals being given asylum status despite over 20,000 requests.

Copyright © 2010 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Have comments? Email editor@themedialine.org

Save Ashraf Campaign Update Letter from Akbar Azizi

2010-11-18T18:38:00.000-08:00

I received this letter today from Akbar Azizi, the Save Ashraf Campaign Coordinator:

November 18, 2010
Dear Karen,

How are you Karen? Hope things going well for you and the family? I don't know if you have been following the news on Ashraf and also on Iraq and the formation of the new government here. Let me start by giving you an update.

As you probably have heard in the news there is a break in the deadlock of Iraqi politics and the new government to come is going to have a spectrum of political forces in it and there is going to be power sharing. This means that al-Maliki who is an instrument of the Iranian regime will no longer have a lot of power which is very good news for Ashraf.

However, there is going to be a period of may be a few months that conspiracies against Ashraf will escalate before the new political arrangement takes effect. To see what I mean you may take a look at recent film clips on PMOI English Website. For example: http://www.english.mojahedin.org/pagesEn/linksdetails.aspx?downloadfile=../links/other/890822_AshrafInhumanepressureonpatients.wmv*362
This clip is about a woman cancer patient in Ashraf.

The Iranian regime and its agents who are psychologically torturing Ashraf residents since February have increased their loudspeakers to 114. They are planning to increase it even more. As you know these agents were just at the entrance gate of Ashraf. Now they have set up a position in southern Ashraf with many loudspeakers thereby torturing residents who live close to southern section. They are setting up another position in the east too. They yell insults and threats against us day and night. The Iraqi forces here give them full cooperation. This is the deal between al-Maliki and the mullahs. They support Maliki for premiership and he takes measures to increase suppression and torture of Ashraf residents.

That is why I am writing to you to ask you to become active again on the issue of protection of Ashraf residents for a couple of months. I am asking you to come this last mile until political changes take effect and are solid. It is my request that you distribute the flyer below. It is a brief about the situation in Ashraf and then it asks people to write a letter; very simple and straight forward. The best place to distribute these leaflets or send it in emails is to college students or humanitarian societies. You may also add sentences to it or edit it to make it more effective.

Thank you so much for your continued support which means a great deal. Hopefully, in the near future protection of Ashraf shall be resolved and we could all rest a bit. Hope to hear from you soon on this.

Take care and God bless.

Respectfully,

Akbar Azizi

Flyer on Ashraf:

There is a fascist religious tyranny in Iran that is imposing its rule on 80 million Iranians. It has tortured and killed 120,000 Iranian dissidents during its 30 year reign. Suppression, torture, stoning to death, public hangings, rape and fear are among its tools of controlling the Iranian people and crushing their uprising.

The Iranian people have a resistance force called the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran) that is fighting for freedom and democracy in Iran. The pivotal force in NCRI is the PMOI (People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran). Members of PMOI, 3400 of them, live in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. They are the hope and an inspiration for freedom for 80 million Iranian people.

When the U.S. occupied Iraq, it signed an agreement with Ashraf residents and gave them status of "Protected Persons" according to the Fourth Geneva Convention. This obligated the U.S. to protect these Iranian dissidents.

However, the U.S. stopped protecting Ashraf residents in 2009 and handed them over to the Iraqi government that is strongly influenced by the mullahs in Iran.

The Iraqi government attacked Ashraf in July 2009 killing 11, maiming 130, injuring 500, battering 1000, and abducting 36 residents. The U.S. forces did not act to stop the assault (very much like the revelations in the Wikileaks that the Iraqi government commits crimes against humanity and U.S. turns a blind eye).

Since 2009, Iraqi government and its forces have placed a siege on Ashraf, life necessities are not allowed in except for food and some scarce fuel. No one is allowed to visit the residents; not reporters, relatives, lawyers or anyone else. Since February 2010, agents of the Iranian regime that have come to Iraq are psychologically torturing the residents with full support from the Iraqi forces. The Iraqi forces beat and harass the residents to force them to leave Iraq.

According to article 45 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the U.S. is obligated to reassume protection of Ashraf: "Protected persons may be transferred… after the Detaining Power has satisfied itself of the willingness and ability of such transferee Power to apply the present Convention… Nevertheless, if that Power fails to carry out the provisions of the present Convention in any important respect, the Power by which the protected persons were transferred shall, upon being so notified by the Protecting Power, take effective measures to correct the situation or shall request the return of the protected persons. Such request must be complied with."

Since the Iraqi government has no intention to protect 3400 residents of Ashraf, 1000 of whom are women, the U.S. is obligated by the Geneva Convention to return Ashraf residents to its own protection.

The U.S. government is refusing to reassume this protection therefore causing continued suffering of the 3400 residents in the hands of Iraqi forces.

To urge the U.S. government to reassume protection, please write to U.S. authorities that you have heard about the perilous situation in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, and you expect United States as a democratic country to live up to its international obligations.

Your action will help save Iranian dissidents from persecution and will also help the uprising in Iran to help bring about a regime change in Iran and free 80 million Iranians from tyranny.

Thank you for your time on this important humanitarian issue to save people from suffering. (For additional information on the topic you may visit PMOI Website at http://www.mojahedin.org/pagesEN/index.aspx )

November 2010

Addresses to write to:

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton

U.S. Secretary of State

plathc@state.gov

The Honorable Ambassador James Jeffrey

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq

Embassy of the United States of America

Baghdad, Iraq

Baghdadpressoffice@state.gov

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin

Commanding General

United State Forces-Iraq

USFPRESSDESK@IRAQ.CENTCOM.MIL

H. E. Ban Ki- moon

Secretary General of the United Nations

sgcentral@un.org

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

2010-11-17T17:11:00.000-08:00

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: November 13, 2010
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said.

The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.

The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.

The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were.

More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year.

In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans “to purge Germany of the Jews” and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past — whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or “explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances,” the report said.

The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing’s Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981. He died that year at age 72.

The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)

The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so “would be to the detriment of the national interest.”

Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says.

Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph’s prominence as an affirmation of “the depth of the government’s commitment to the Nazi prosecution program,” according to internal memos.
The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.

In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that “misstated the facts” in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department “knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States.”

(After the case was dismissed, radical Jewish groups urged violence against Mr. Soobzokov, and he was killed in 1985 by a bomb at his home in Paterson, N.J. )

The secrecy surrounding the Justice Department’s handling of the report could pose a political dilemma for President Obama because of his pledge to run the most transparent administration in history. Mr. Obama chose the Justice Department to coordinate the opening of government records.

Correction: November 14, 2010
An earlier version misspelled the given name of Adolf Eichmann as Adolph.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 14, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

(You may read the rest of this article by clicking on the link in this blog post's title above it.)

U.S. Says Holocaust Fund Was Defrauded

2010-11-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

By MOSI SECRET
Published: November 9, 2010
The New York Times

While fleeing the Nazis in 1941, an 11-year-old girl dodged airplane bombs as she crossed the Dnieper River in Ukraine, ultimately finding refuge in Donetsk, where she and her mother lived in hiding until the liberation of 1944.

A 13-year-old boy escaped from Kiev with his mother and younger sister, shuttling from basements to barns and sometimes the forest, where they often stayed for weeks.

These tales were among thousands of similar accounts given in the name of elderly immigrants who were seeking reparations from the German government through a fund established to provide help to survivors of Nazi persecution.

But many of the stories were works of fiction or embellishment of facts, perpetrated by a group that included six employees and custodians of the fund, which is based in New York, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Eleven other defendants were outsiders who recruited and funneled applicants to the programs.

Over 16 years, the suspects used fake identification documents, doctored government records and a knowledge of Holocaust history to defraud the fund of more than $42 million, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday by the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara.

The defendants, the indictment says, would recruit applicants — many of them from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn — through Russian-language newspapers, offering help to people applying for compensation from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. In many cases, the immigrants’ actual experiences would be manipulated or tailored to fit the requirements of the fund; once the payments were approved, the defendants would receive kickbacks from the applicants, according to the indictment.

Birth dates were changed so people would appear to have been alive during World War II; anecdotes about surviving inhumane conditions in a Nazi-occupied territory were repeated in multiple applications; photos of certain applicants were reused on dozens of unrelated applications.
The conspiracy was directed at two programs run by the claims conference.

The conference was established in 1951 to compensate Jewish victims of Nazi persecution; the German government appropriated money for the conference the following year, and has been financing it since.

One of the programs, known as the Hardship Fund, pays reparations to Jews who became refugees when they fled the Nazis; the majority of payments from the Hardship Fund went to people from the former Soviet Bloc countries who were not under direct Nazi occupation, but who fled to escape the Nazi advance, according to the indictment. The fund pays a one-time payment of approximately $3,600.

The second program, called the Article 2 Fund, compensates survivors who lived in hiding, under a false identity, in a Jewish ghetto, or who were incarcerated in a labor or a concentration camp. This program provides monthly payments of approximately $411 to survivors who make less than $16,000 per year.

“The alleged fraud is as substantial as it is galling,” Mr. Bharara said at a news conference announcing the indictment. The charges followed a yearlong investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. F.B.I. agents arrested 11 of the defendants Tuesday morning; 5 were previously charged.

The suspects are each accused of playing a role in creating, filing and processing fraudulent claims on behalf of applicants who should not have qualified for compensation. Semen Domnitser, who was the director of the Hardship and Article 2 Funds until he was fired on Feb. 3, was accused of being the leader. At the fund, his responsibilities included reviewing all applications for approval before they were sent to Germany.

The claims conference became suspicious when employees noticed two applications that came in within two weeks that had remarkably similar facts, said Gregory Schneider, the executive vice president of the organization. They began to look for patterns and, after finding other problems, alerted the F.B.I. in December 2009.

To date, investigators have found nearly 5,000 false applications from 2000 through 2009 to the Hardship Fund, resulting in a loss of about $18 million. They have found 658 fraudulent applications to the second fund, from 1993 to 2009, with losses of about $24.5 million.

Mr. Schneider said the theft amounted to less than 1 percent of the claims filed since the two programs’ inception. He said his organization had processed 630,000 applications for the two programs over the last two decades. He said he suspected that the nearly 6,000 people involved in the false claims were a mix of those who were aware they were committing fraud and those who may have been used.

When Mr. Bharara was asked whether the thousands of others involved in the fraud could be charged, he said, “the investigation remains open.”

In the example of the 11-year-old girl who crossed the Dnieper River, her application included a government document from the Soviet Union where the dates and location of her primary schooling had been changed to make it appear that she was in hiding then. The document also falsely omitted the existence of a brother and said that her mother had died, so operators of the program could not check her claims.

The man who submitted paperwork detailing his suffering as a 13-year-old used forged government documents to show he went to primary school in Kiev, when in fact he studied in Leningrad, which was never occupied.

Although the fund’s offices are in Midtown, much of the criminal activity was in Brighton Beach, known as Little Odessa because of the community’s large number of Ukrainian immigrants.

Dora Grande, who runs a business near Brighton 12th Street, created false identification documents that were submitted in many of the fraudulent applications, according to the indictment. Valentina Romashova, who lived in Brighton Beach, worked at a law firm that placed advertisements in Russian-language newspapers.

At the luxurious beachfront complex where Ms. Romashova lives, a neighbor, Victor Kason, 85, recalled his own youth during World War II. He said he was 14 when he was moved to a ghetto in Lodz, Poland. He and his parents were then moved to concentration camps; he survived, but his parents did not.

“They committed a crime,” Mr. Kason said of the defendants, adding that he did not know Ms. Romashova. “Let them pay.”

Khristina Narizhnaya contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 10, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

UN warns of refugee camp dangers to children

2010-09-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

14 September 2010
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Geneva

Camps for displaced people are among the most dangerous places for children caught up in war, a UN special investigator says.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, who has produced a report on the camps for the UN human rights council, said there was a lack of protection for children.

She said they were vulnerable to sexual violence, and to forced recruitment by armed groups.

Many thousands in Sudan, Chad and DR Congo live in such camps.

They are there because they are fleeing war, they hope they will find safety - but for children, these camps are often not safe at all, says Ms Coomaraswamy.

Continue reading the main story
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In preparing her report for the human rights council, she visited a number of camps, some of them in Sudan's Darfur region.

"The first thing one notices is that they are dangerous, in the sense that you always meet children who have been victims of sexual violence when they went to get firewood or went to the toilet etc - so they are dangerous places," she says.

"Secondly, they are places of idleness. There are situations where children are recruited into armed forces and therefore many have been recruited by one group or another."

In fact, the camps are now the biggest recruiting ground for militia groups looking for child soldiers.

A key cause for the lack of protection for children, Ms Coomaraswamy says, is that there are no uniform standards for these camps.

Some of the camps are run by the UN, some by other aid agencies, some are controlled by national governments, some have schools and some do not.

A first step towards making things safer for displaced children would be, she says, a guarantee that all children are offered at least some regular education - to keep them away from the militias, and to give them some skills, for the time when they can restart their lives again.

Roma, on Move, Test Europe’s ‘Open Borders’

2010-09-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

By SUZANNE DALEY
Published: September 16, 2010
The New York Times

BUCHAREST, Romania — This city is full of stark, Soviet-era housing blocks, and the grimmest among them — gray towers of one-room apartments with communal bathrooms and no hot water — are given over to the Roma population.

Roma like Maria Murariu, 62, who tends to her dying husband in a foul-smelling room no bigger than a jail cell. She has not found work in five years.

“There is not much for us in Romania,” she said recently, watching her husband sleep. “And now that we are in the European Union, we have the right to go to other countries. It is better there.”

Thousands of Romania’s Roma, also known as Gypsies, have come to a similar conclusion in recent years, heading for the relative wealth of Western Europe, and setting off a clash within the European Union over just how open its “open borders” are.

A summit meeting of European leaders on Thursday degenerated into open discord over how to handle the unwanted immigrants. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France vowed to keep dismantling immigrant camps and angrily rejected complaints from European Commission officials that the French authorities were illegally singling out Roma for deportation.

Migration within the 27 nations of the European Union has become a combustible issue during the economic downturn. The union’s latest expansion, which brought in the relatively poor nations of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, has renewed concern that the poor, traveling far from home in search of work, will become a burden on wealthier countries. The migration of the Roma is also raising questions about the obligations of Romania and Bulgaria to fulfill promises they made when they joined the union. Romania, for instance, mapped out a strategy for helping the Roma, but financed little of it. Mr. Sarkozy has demanded that the Romanian government do more to aid the Roma at home.

Much of Western Europe has reacted with hostility to itinerant Roma, who often have little education or practical skills. Some Roma have found marginal jobs collecting scrap iron or painting houses. But others have signed up for welfare or drifted into begging and petty thievery, living in unsightly camp sites.

In recent weeks, Mr. Sarkozy has tried to revive his support on the political right by deporting thousands of them, offering 300 euros, about $392, to those who go home voluntarily, and bulldozing their encampments.

The European Commission has threatened legal action against Paris over the deportation, calling it disgraceful and illegal.

The dispute peaked at lunch Thursday between Mr. Sarkozy and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission, the European Union’s executive body.

“There was a big argument — I could also say a scandal — between the president of the European Commission and the French president,” said the Bulgarian prime minister, Boyko Borisov, according to the Bulgarian daily Dnevnik.

Mr. Sarkozy denied a major rift, and remained unswayed. “We will continue to dismantle the illegal camps, whoever is there,” he said at a news conference. “Europe cannot close its eyes to illegal camps.”

Expulsions seem unlikely to offer a long-term solution. Many of the deported Roma are already planning their return.

Privately, some Romanian officials snicker over the French action. “They are just giving the Roma a paid vacation,” one official said.

Still, advocates for the Roma hope that the latest conflict will force the European Union to get serious about helping the Roma, who are openly reviled in most Eastern and Central European countries where they have lived in large numbers for centuries, most often under appalling conditions.

“There is nothing to focus the minds of policy makers like an army of poor people heading your way,” said Bernard Rorke, the director of Roma Initiatives for the nonprofit Open Society Foundation.

There is little reliable data on the Roma population. Originally from India, the Roma were virtual slaves until the 19th century, working for aristocrats and in monasteries.

When democracy took hold, they were freed. But they were landless, uneducated and dark-skinned, and they had few prospects.

Human rights activists say that Roma women are often sent to separate maternity wards. Their children, when they attend school, are frequently steered into classes for the mentally handicapped.

In Romania, one census counted 500,000 Roma. But some advocates say the number is closer to two million.

Those who make it out of abject poverty rarely admit their ancestry — a factor that makes it harder for Roma to combat the discrimination they face, advocates say.

In the years that Romania was negotiating to get into the European Union, it promised programs to help the Roma integrate into Romanian society.

Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels.

A version of this article appeared in print on September 17, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Camp Bucca Iraq Flag presented to Ronald Bucca Jr.

2010-09-17T14:35:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 17, 2010
By Sgt. Randall Clinton USMC
POW-MIA Recognition Day

Camp Bucca, Iraq flag presented to namesake's family

NEW YORK -- The commanding officer of Camp Bucca, Iraq, the largest internment camp in American history, presented their flag to the family of Ronald Bucca Sr. above the New York City Fire Museum, Sept. 11.

Bucca, a New York City fire marshal, was killed in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001. In 2003, the detention facility was renamed in his honor as a tribute to the only fire marshal killed in the line of duty.

Col. Dan Lund, the last commanding officer of the camp, brought the Camp Bucca flag that had flown over the base to present to the family members as a tribute to Bucca’s sacrifice and bravery. The largest internment camp in American history will become a commercial area with an Iraqi force using a small part of the original outlay.

Ronald Bucca Sr. served in Vietnam and later was an intelligence analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. He continued his Army service as a reservist once he joined the FDNY in 1986 until an injury on the job prevented him from completing the parachutist qualification needed for Army Special Forces. After the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center, Bucca was one of the fire marshals called in to investigate the attack.

“He was tracking the beginnings of al-Qaida,” said Ronald Bucca Jr.

He was then sent to work on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which combined FBI agents with local law enforcement. He was the only representative from the fire department on the task force. By 2000, with no large terrorist attacks in the area, Bucca was taken off the task force, and the fire department’s seat was removed, his son said.

A year later, Bucca along with Battalion Chief Orio Palmer had walked two thirds of the way up the tallest building in the country, farther than any other rescue team, helping as many people as possible escape the largest attack on American soil. His last radio call came from the 78th floor shortly before the building collapsed.

Bucca’s friends remembered him as a humble man, “He’d be very embarrassed about this, but humbled,” said Michael Parisi, a family friend of the Buccas. “He would always say that the real heroes are the ones in Arlington [National Cemetery].”

In the early years most of the guests knew Bucca personally. As the years wore on more fire marshals came to the event hearing only second hand accounts of his bravery. With slightly more than 100 fire marshals on the city rosters, this brings together a community of active and retired to reflect on the past.

“It’s important for us to air out our souls. We make the world aware of these things,” Parisi said.

Santandrea first heard stories about Bucca from his firefighter father. News clippings about the Bucca family including Ronald Jr., a member of the elite Army Special Forces unit like his late father, adorn the fire marshal’s office. “Anything that goes on with his son gets hung up and passed around. A bunch of [fire marshals] went to his graduation, we follow his whole story.”

Lund, a Pawtucket, R.I., native, learned of Bucca’s heroism after taking command of the camp, and then made a point of telling all newly-arriving troops about the fire marshal. ‘This is one of the most fulfilling experiences of my Marine career,” he said of presenting the flag to the Bucca family. “This brings everything back full circle.”

Report: U.S. and UN Must Protect Millions of Southern Sudanese Vulnerable to Post-Referendum Violence and Statelessness

2010-09-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Tue, 06/29/2010
Refugees International

Washington, D.C. – Nearly two million southern Sudanese living in northern Sudan are at great risk for targeted violence and statelessness in the aftermath of the planned January 2011 referendum on southern independence, Refugees International said in a report released today. Sudan: Preventing Violence and Statelessness as Referendum Approaches draws on a recent field assessment in Khartoum state and calls on the United Nations, the U.S. Government and other nations to assist in the pre-referendum voluntary return of southern Sudanese displaced in Khartoum and implement other measures to prevent violence and loss of legal rights by southerners in the north and northerners in the south.

“Southerners displaced in Khartoum expressed grave concern about their physical safety following the referendum. Many don’t trust Sudan’s security forces to protect them, and it is unlikely that UNMIS – the UN peacekeeping force – will be in a position to offer physical protection,” stated Jennifer Smith, RI advocate and report co-author. “The U.S. and other nations should provide transportation support for those displaced southern Sudanese who want to return home – not only for their safety, but to lessen the potential for north-south violence in the aftermath of the referendum.” Statements by National Congress Party officials and articles in a newspaper owned by President Omar al Bashir’s uncle questioning why southerners should stay in the north after the referendum have contributed to southerners’ fears.

Despite safety concerns, many southern Sudanese are achieving economic and educational success in Khartoum and worry about forced expulsion. “University students are afraid they will be forced to return to the south after the referendum, sacrificing the tremendous investment of time and money they have made in their education,” stated Smith.

“The critical issue is that southerners in the north and northerners in the south are key targets for post-referendum violence, yet the UN has not adequately included them in its contingency planning,” said Joel Charny, RI’s Vice President for Policy and report co-author. “With six months to go, it’s time to move beyond scenario planning and into action to prevent widespread violence. International actors need to think in concrete terms about the possible risks to vulnerable communities like these and make specific plans about how the international community – represented by UNMIS and the UN country team – will respond.”

The report noted that southerners in Khartoum uniformly expressed great concern about their legal rights following the referendum. “Citizenship issues are supposed to be addressed prior to the referendum but this has not risen to the same level of importance as oil revenue and border demarcation on the long list of priority issues,” stated Charny. “The U.S. and other governments must assist and pressure parties on both sides to reach an agreement that will prevent southerners in the north and northerners in the south from losing legal rights or becoming stateless.”

Refugees International is a Washington, DC-based organization that advocates to end refugee crises and receives no government or UN funding. To download a copy of Sudan: Preventing Violence and Statelessness as Referendum Approaches, click here.

###

For Immediate Release: June 29, 2010
Contact: Refugees International, Ann Brown
P: 202-828-0110 x214; C: 301-633-4193
ann@refugeesinternational.org

Forced Evictions Of Roma Families Continues In Romania

2010-09-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources
Early 2010

The Romanian authorities must stop the forced eviction of Roma families and immediately relocate those living for years in hazardous conditions next to waste dumps, sewage treatment plants or industrial areas on the outskirts of cities, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

"Across the country Roma families are being evicted from their homes against their will. When this happens, they don’t just lose their homes. They lose their possessions, their social contacts, their access to work and state services," said Halya Gowan, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director for Amnesty International.

"This pattern of forced evictions, without adequate consultation, adequate notice or adequate alternative housing, perpetuates racial segregation and violates Romania's international obligations."

In its briefing, Treated like waste: Roma homes destroyed, and health at risk, in Romania, Amnesty International tells the story of one particular mass eviction to highlight the terrible conditions endured by the Roma.

In 2004, more than 100 Roma, including families with young children, were forcibly evicted by municipal authorities from a building in the centre of Miercurea Ciuc – the capital city of Harghita County in central Romania.

Most were resettled by the authorities in metal cabins on the outskirts of the town, behind a sewage treatment plant. Some decided to move to a nearby waste dump, rather than live next to the sewage plant.

Erszebet, who lives next to the sewage treatment plant with her husband and nine children, told Amnesty International what life is like in a metal cabin: "It is tight, when the whole family goes to sleep we don’t fit in. We cannot take a bath; we cannot clean ourselves. It is too small. We don't want the older girls to take a bath in front of their father."

The temporary metal cabins and shacks are close to the sewage treatment plant, falling within the 300-metre protection zone established by Romanian law to separate homes from potential toxic hazards. The failure to protect the right to health is another violation of Romania's national and international obligations.

Ilana told Amnesty International: "The houses fill up with that smell. At night… the children cover their faces with the pillows. We don’t want to eat when we feel the smell… I used to have another child who died when he was four months old… I don’t want to lose the rest of my children."

"The ordeal of the Roma families has continued for six years," said Halya Gowan. "Now is the time for the local authorities to provide them with adequate housing close to services and facilities in a safe and healthy location.

"Something needs to happen now. An example must be set – forced evictions must be stopped and the right to housing must be guaranteed. And this can and should be done by the authorities of Miercurea Ciuc."

Amnesty International has called on the government of Romania to reform its housing legislation to incorporate international human rights standards with particular attention to housing.

There are almost 2.2 million Roma in Romania – making up about 10 per cent of the total population. As a result of widespread discrimination, both by public officials and society at large, 75 per cent of Roma live in poverty, as opposed to 24 per cent of Romanians and 20 per cent of ethnic Hungarians, the largest minority in Romania. The levels of physical health and living conditions of the Roma are among the worst in the country.

Although some Roma people live in permanent structures with legal tenancy, many other long-standing Romani dwellings are considered by the government as "temporary" and unofficial, and their inhabitants do not have any proof of tenancy, which increases their vulnerability to eviction.

Forced evictions violate Romania's international and regional legal standards such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights that require all people to have a minimum degree of security of tenure, guaranteeing them legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats.

Dead end for displaced refugee youth in shanty on the edge of Bogotá

2010-09-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

UNHCR - the UN Refugee Agency
By Leo Dobbs
News Stories, 30 August 2010

SOACHA, Colombia, August 30 (UNHCR) – Over the years, the suburb of Soacha has crept haphazardly and unregulated up the hills south of Bogotá as thousands of families flocked to the Colombian capital to escape violence in rural areas.

They feel relatively safe in the warren of crude brick and corrugated iron homes and shops that make Soacha's Altos de Cazuca neighbourhood seem like a giant human anthill. But for many of their children, the sprawling urban zone of more than 450,000 people, including almost 32,000 registered internally displaced people, or IDPs, is a cultural, social, educational and careers dead end.

While their parents might dream of returning to farms or villages, the young have caught the city bug. "When we speak to the families, the adults say they want to return to their home regions, but the young want to stay here or in Bogotá," said a UNHCR staffer who works in Soacha.

For various reasons, especially discrimination and stigmatization as well as poverty, the shanty town offers them little future. Indeed, the only way out for some is to join criminal or irregular armed groups that, aid workers and locals say, still hold sway over parts of Soacha – especially at night.

UNHCR, which began working in Soacha in 2005, believes the young need help and direction. "These young people have no prospects for the future because the efforts at the local level so far have been insufficient," noted Terry Morel, UNHCR's representative in Colombia, adding: "We worked on finding solutions which allow people to construct a future,"

The refugee agency coordinates humanitarian action and supports organizations such as La Casa de los Derechos (House of Rights) and Learning Circles, which work to protect displaced families and their young by easing access to education, health care and shelter, all of which they are entitled to.

Juan, who was playing drums at a youth centre when UNHCR caught up with him, gave some insight into the hurdles that the displaced youth of Soacha face. The 17-year-old fled to Altos de Cazuca a year ago from the northern city of Cucuta after his mother got into trouble. "My mother said I had to leave, otherwise I would be killed because of what she had done," he said, without elaborating.

Juan was lucky. He made a friend on arrival in Soacha who lent him money and he found a job selling cheap jewellery. But like so many other new arrivals, he encountered hostility from the locals. "They don't welcome displaced people. When you walk along the street, they look at you in a bad way and they talk to you in a bad way. When you go and ask for a job, the first thing they ask you is if you are displaced," he explained. "The young people here don't have that many opportunities for jobs," the UNHCR staff member in Soacha confirmed.

Juan was also unable to pursue his goal of studying because, like many displaced people, he lacked money. But others have been barred from local schools on discriminatory grounds. UNHCR staff say discrimination and stigmatization of displaced people are worrying developments.

The young face other serious obstacles to their personal development and improvement. Perhaps the most insidious is the influence that irregular armed groups exert in the shanties of Soacha, so close to the centre of Bogotá.

Forced recruitment is a danger, but the offer of money is also a lure to young people with nothing else. The social policies of these groups also affect the young. "You will have threats against people who are taking drugs, who are sex workers, who maybe have HIV. They will be threatened and maybe even eliminated," Morel noted.

Such social control, including bans on certain types of music or dress and even dreadlocks, "sometimes leads to secondary displacement within Soacha," says an official of the House of Rights, which in 2008 launched a campaign with UNHCR to inform young people about what they could do if menaced by forced recruitment.

The official from the House of Rights, which promotes an institutional presence in Soacha, offers legal advice and stands up for the displaced, also said sexual and domestic violence against children, as well as parental neglect, were problems.

But while the outlook for young people in Soacha is grim, there are rays of hope. The very presence of UNHCR in an area where 500 homicides were recorded in the early 2000s is a step forward. "UNHCR went in there and we opened up a House of Rights and we support the presence of the institutions," Morel said, adding: "This is critical, because it means people don't feel abandoned."

And the young themselves are showing signs of independence and initiative. "The youth centre was created by young people," the House of Rights official revealed, while adding that some of them had taken part in workshops to study public policies and have a greater say in their future. And Juan certainly has a positive attitude. "I'm optimistic. The band is starting to plan for the future and I have a job."

By Leo Dobbs in Soacha, Colombia

Letter from Yoko Ono and Amnesty International

2010-09-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

I received this letter today from Yoko Ono, for Amnesty International.

Dear Karen,

I have a special wish – and you are part of it.

Oct. 9 is the 70th anniversary of John Lennon's birth. As always, my birthday wish for John is one of peace. For me, finding peace means protecting the human rights of courageous individuals like Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi inspires me to fight for human rights even when the odds seem insurmountable. She has endured unofficial detention for 14 of the past 20 years, yet she continues to inspire the people of Myanmar with her message of peace, love and freedom.

Amnesty International is a leader in the call for Suu Kyi's release and also for the 2,100 political prisoners detained in Myanmar today.

We won't rest until they all are free. This is what I love about Amnesty International and why I'm proud to call myself a member.

Please help my wish for peace, love and freedom come true. Join me as a member of Amnesty International today.

John shared a common purpose with Amnesty – shining a light on wrongs and campaigning to protect people's rights.

If John were alive today, I know he'd be grateful for Amnesty's work. There is no greater champion for prisoners of conscience and victims of torture, for the oppressed and dehumanized. There is no stronger force for human rights.

Through the support of people like you, Amnesty International has become a tenacious, tireless, champion for humanity. Please try to make a financial gift today and help Amnesty International "Pass the Candle" of hope to a new generation so that this bright light never fades.

I urge you to join right now.

In peace,

Yoko Ono

Florida Republican: Put immigrants in "camps"

2010-09-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

State GOP candidate wants to "ship them out to the middle of the country and put up high walls"

By Justin Elliott
Salon
Thursday, Aug 12, 2010

In an interview with Salon today, a Republican candidate for the Florida state Legislature stood by her controversial idea to arrest illegal immigrants and send them to "camps" where they can be held en masse.

"We can ship them out to the middle of the country and put up high walls and leave them there," said Marg Baker, the middle-aged real estate broker vying for the Republican nomination in the state's 48th district, north of Tampa.

Baker was filmed advocating the camps idea at a local meeting of the 9-12 Project, Glenn Beck's activist group, earlier this month (watch the clip below). She told Salon today that she was upset at the way some had misinterpreted her comments. "They're trying to think I want to erect some sort of prison camps like over in Germany" -- which she is not, Baker said.

Asked if what she had in mind was more like the Japanese internment camps of the World War II era, Baker said, "something like that. But unfortunately in the Japanese camps they detaineed American citiziens. The only ones I want to detain are the ones who are illegal."

She added, "You've gotta have places for them to eat and sleep and breathe fresh air. It can be a tent city ... You don't want to make them too comfortable or they'll want to come back."

The AP reports that other Republican candidates for the seat have rejected the idea.

Baker's website lists five "reasons" not to tolerate illegal immigrants, including "prostitution."

She stressed to Salon that she would want all illegal immigrants, not just Hispanics, put in the camps. Though she added, cryptically, "the people are walking among us, and who knows."

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott

Memorial wall honors displaced Japanese-Americans

2010-08-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

By LINDSAY COHEN

KOMO-TV STAFF
Seattle Post-Intelligencer online

Their families were torn apart during wartime -- sent to internment camps for years.

But now a legacy has come together for the families of the Japanese-American community of Western Washington to remember so many who sacrificed.

The hands-on project is taking shape in Seattle's International District.

A memorial wall is being covered in bricks. Each brick bears a name -- and every person shares a story. All are woven into the fabric of American history.

"Can you imagine ... being uprooted -- and only able to take what you can carry? I mean, not knowing what your future was going to be?" says Helen Nishimura of Bellevue.

That was the reality faced by more than a 100,000 Japanese-Americans across the country during World War II as they were moved hundreds of miles from their homes and put into internment camps.

"I was 17 years old when they interned us," says Army veteran Tosh Okamoto. "Why we were put into these camps when I was an American citizen -- just like my Caucasian buddies that I went to school with -- so that really bothered me. They were actually prisons."

For the Japanese-American community of Seattle the new memorial wall is a chance to reflect on that past and honor those who sacrificed or served.

For the Mayeda family of Seattle, it is a way to remember the legacy of their ancestors.

"My parents never talked about it that much. My dad wasn't like that," says Dan Mayeda.

"To know what they went through and then to see all these beautiful names go up -- it's a tribute," adds Kathryn Mayeda.

Every weekend for the next two weeks, veterans, internees and family members will be placing their names on the memorial wall. It will be officially dedicated on Sunday, Sept. 5.

The tribute will eventually honor 3,000 people who were interned or who served in the military -- filling the memorial wall with memories and with meaning -- one brick at a time.

Pakistan: An Urgent Call for Aid

2010-08-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

Editorial
August 17, 2010
The New York Times

The magnitude of Pakistan’s current tragedy is almost more than the mind can take in. A fifth of the country flooded by torrential monsoon rains. Fifteen million to 20 million people driven from their homes or otherwise affected. Six million in need of emergency assistance, such as food and clean water. Millions of acres of the country’s best cropland underwater. Livestock drowned. Medical clinics destroyed. Cholera threatening the survivors.

This is a disaster on many levels. It is a tragedy for millions of people. It also is a strategic threat — to the stability of Pakistan’s nuclear-armed government and to American efforts to suppress Al Qaeda and other extremists wreaking havoc on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. These groups are eager to use the crisis to sow more resentment toward Islamabad and Washington and win new adherents for their nihilistic cause.

The world, especially the United States, must not blow this one. We worry it already could be doing that.

The United Nations has called for $460 million in donations for immediate relief. So far, less than half of that has been committed. The United Nations says that the money is urgently needed to supply food, clean water, tents or shelter materials, basic household goods, emergency health care and livestock feed. More delay means even more devastation.

Washington is doing better than other donors, providing badly needed helicopters for rescue and supply missions, prefabricated bridges and more than $70 million in relief and resettlement funds. It should be rallying other countries, as well as private organizations and individuals, to do their fair share. But surely this country, as the richest donor with the greatest strategic interest in Pakistan, could do a lot more right now.

The world has been slow to grasp the enormity of this crisis, perhaps because it unfolded slowly, not in a sudden jolt like an earthquake or tsunami. Or, perhaps, the floods were overshadowed by the out-of-control fires in Russia or were neglected because many donors were already fatigued from the challenge of rebuilding Haiti.

The relatively low death toll (about 1,500), the summer vacation doldrums and negative views of Pakistan as corrupt and war-ridden also may have dampened enthusiasm for helping.

The devastation in Pakistan is likely to worsen as the monsoon rains continue. But even an end to the rains won’t end the emergency. Plans need to be made right now to ensure that next year’s crops are planted. Looming ahead is the enormous challenge of rebuilding Pakistan’s shattered bridges, roads, structures and agricultural and economic base. For now, the humanitarian needs are paramount.

In some areas, radical Islamic charities have provided shelter and hot meals well before the beleaguered authorities could bring in supplies. This is a battle for hearts and minds. It is one that Pakistan’s government, and the United States, must not lose.

A version of this editorial appeared in print on August 18, 2010, on page A22 of the New York edition..

Concerns grow over Pakistan camp conditions

2010-08-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

06-August-2010
"Plan" website

A man evacuates his children through waist-deep waters in Nowshera, Pakistan.

There are growing concerns over conditions in camps, as the arrival of thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the floods puts a strain on health and shelter facilities.

Almost half of Pakistan’s population is children and with around three million people now affected by the floods, it is estimated that 70% are women and children.

Plan is providing direct aid, food and shelter assistance to 13,000 families – some 100,000 people. Please support our vital work and donate to the Children in Crisis Fund today.

A Plan assessment team has visited one of the camps, where around 100 families are staying. The team found there were not enough toilets, a lack of appropriate shelter for women and children and health kits were urgently needed. Most people only have the clothes they are wearing and many are barefoot.

Poor facilitiesIn and around Layyah, one of the worst hit districts, a number of camps have been set up holding an estimated 100,000 people, while a further 100,000 people are believed to be scattered along the river banks with their salvaged belongings and livestock.

Shahnawaz Khan, Plan’s disaster risk reduction program coordinator in Pakistan, said: “We saw mainly women and children and it was sad to see the state of affairs they were in. There were around 55–60 people in a room that is only 16x16 feet. This room also contained whatever belongings these people could salvage after the rescue or evacuation.”

Deeply affectedShahnawaz said: ”The children we saw seemed deeply affected. They were roaming around aimlessly and were listless and sad. There is no form of activity for them and they seem to be scared of the circumstances they are in right now.

“I talked to 9-year-old Mehmood* and asked him why he looked so upset and he told me, “I just want to go home but my mother says the water has taken away everything, so I don’t know where we will go, there is water everywhere.”

Plan actionPlan will put up emergency toilets in each campsite, distribute food and provide recreational kits for children that will include play and learning materials. We are also assembling 9000 health and hygiene kits for distribution.

Plan and partners continue to make preparations in Sindh Province, where floods are expected in the next few days.

Donations to Plan’s relief work in Pakistan can be made online to Plan’s Children in Crisis Fund or by calling 13 75 26.

Find out more about Plan’s work in Pakistan.

* name changed to protect the identity of the child

Jewish Voice for Peace

2010-08-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

The letter to me below is in regards to a wonderful organization called Jewish Voice for Peace.

Dear Karen,

We are so grateful that you took the time to sign a letter on behalf of peace and justice in Israel-Palestine.

Did you know that there are other ways you can get involved and follow what Jewish Voice for Peace is doing to bring about a just peace in the Middle East?

You can join us as a friend on Facebook or follow us at Twitter. You can download JVP posters here.

You can also check out our blog Muzzlewatch on efforts to stifle debate on IsraeliPalestinian policies, or The Only Democracy?, which uses firsthand reports and news stories to document the struggle for democracy and civil rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

You can help sustain our work by becoming a monthly donor or by making a one time gift.

And of course, you can check out our website at http://www.jvp.org/ . Please contact me at stefanie@jvp.org if you are interested in starting or joining a chapter.

With hope for a just peace,

Stefanie Fox
National Organizer
Jewish Voice for Peace
phone: 206.930.5174

In Democracy's Wasteland, Israel Razes a Bedouin Village

2010-08-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

"The Negev affords me the pleasure of watching a wasteland develop into the most fruitful portion of Israel by a totally Jewish act of creation." --David Ben Gurion, Memoirs

Max Blumenthal
Journalist and author

Posted: August 12, 2010
The Huffington Post

In the middle of the night on August 10, residents of the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib sent a panicked text message to Israeli activists in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israeli police helicopters were buzzing overhead, surveying the scene ahead of what was likely to be a new round of demolitions. Three activists staying in the village had been nabbed during a night raid. Having already witnessed the razing of their homes twice in the past two weeks, the residents of Al-Arakib expected the third round of demolitions to arrive tonight, on the eve of Ramadan. During Ramadan, when the villagers fast all day, the police and Israeli Land Adminstration reasoned they would be too weakened to rebuild -- it was prime time for destruction.

I arrived in Al-Arakib at 3 AM with a handful of Jerusalem-based activists. A local couple hauled out mattresses and blankets and poured us small cups of coffee. "I've had enough of sleeping," the man grumbled as he reclined next to his wife. He seemed grateful to have company. I laid down and stared at the desert sky, listening to the man describe in a lulled tone the experience of watching his neighbors' homes crumple under the teeth of bulldozers again and again. As he trailed off, I heard a low droning sound in the distance. Were they here already? I looked around at the others. No one to register the slightest sign of concern. Finally, I slipped into a light slumber.

Two hours later I was torn from my sleep. "They're here!" someone shouted in Hebrew. I leapt from my mattress and scrambled up a dune until I reached the center of the village. A phalanx of one hundred riot cops were already there, bristling with assault weapons and centurion shields. Flanked by bulldozers, they quickly ringed the activists and journalists, who numbered about two dozen, and began forcibly pushing them away from the site of the demolitions. Their intention seemed to be to prevent any brave souls from standing between the bulldozers and the homes they sought to destroy. Dispatched by a faceless network of clerks and engineers in air-conditioned offices to do the dirty work of the state, the police performed their duty with cold efficiency.

As the bulldozers trundled around the village, tearing tarps from plywood pylons, crushing tin roofs, and dragging the shattered structures into hulking piles, the villagers watched with resignation. Seated on her bed in the naked desert, a girl wiped a few tears from her eyes, grimacing at the sight before her. On a nearby hill, a man quizzed his daughter on surahs from the Quran before sending her to collect mattresses from beneath the dusty waste of what used to be their sleeping quarters. An old woman stood impassively while a flock of birds perched on the collapsed remains of her house. Dispossession and homelessness have become nearly mundane in Al-Arakib.

The villagers remain devoted to the nomadic Bedouin tradition. (Why else would they resist with such tenacity the Israeli government's plan to resettle them in one of the Indian reservation-style "development communities" the state has created for them?) However, they have established a permanent presence in the areas around their village that pre-dates the foundation of Israel. Al-Arakib's cemetery, for example, contains the graves dating back to the end of the 19th century. Yet the Bedouins' historical claim to the Negev has not convinced the state that they deserve legal recognition. Nor have their attempts to demonstrate their loyalty by serving as front-line combat soldiers in the Israeli Army. In the eyes of the state, the Arabs of the Negev are at best quasi-human.

In 1953, the first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben Gurion (original name: David Gryn) moved to Sde Boker, a kibbutz in the Negev. A self-described messianist who rejected the existence of God while simultaneously describing the Torah as his political guidebook, Ben Gurion saw the Negev as a blank slate for realizing his revolutionary fever dreams. In his memoirs, he fantasized about evacuating Tel Aviv and settling five million Jews in small settlements throughout the Negev. Just as he disdained the cosmopolitan spirit of Tel Aviv's urbanists, Ben Gurion was disgusted by the sight of the open desert, describing it as "a criminal waste." In the place of sand dunes, he imagined a Jewish replica of Northern Europe.

"When I look out of my window and see a tree standing [in the Negev]," Ben Gurion wrote, "that tree gives me a greater sense of beauty and personal delight than all the vast forests I have seen in Switzerland or Scandinavia... Not only because I helped to grow them but because they constitute a gift of man to Nature, and a gift of the Jews to the cradle of their culture."

Influenced by the ethnocentric Ashkenazi outlook of Labor Zionism, Ben Gurion wrote with deep contempt for non-European cultures. He denigrated the Jews who had immigrated to Israel from Arab countries as "savage" and as "a primitive community" that reveres pimps and thieves. But he at least acknowledged their existence in Israeli life. In his writings about the Negev, Ben Gurion did not once mention the presence of the tens of thousands of Arab Beduoins whose villages abutted his kibbutz. To him, their culture was void; they lived in a "wasteland." They were obstacles to his utopian vision, not human beings.

Today the Israeli government remains committed to fulfilling Ben Gurion's fantasies even though the Israeli public has completely turned its back on the Negev. "It seems that the fantasies grow stronger especially when the Jews do not move to live in the desert," the Israeli blogger Eyal Niv wrote. "The more the Jews back away from the desert, the more their leaders toughen the force, frequency, and cruelty of the expulsion of its other residents."

In the areas in and around Al-Arakib, just 5 km north of the city of Beersheva, the Jewish National Fund is in the process of planting the "Ambassador Forest." The forest will cover the land inhabited for over 100 years by the residents of Al-Arakib and prevent them from ever returning. The "Blueprint Negev" plan of the Jewish National Fund, an organization that claims to be acting "on behalf of Jewish people everywhere," can only be realized through harsh military force, the razing of villages, and ultimately, ethnic cleansing. The meting out of these practices against citizens of Israel should raise serious questions about the country's claim to uphold democratic values.

After the Israeli Police completed their third demolition of Al-Arakib, the villagers collected the remains of their homes and, with the assistance of a few Jewish Israeli activists, began rebuilding again. With no recourse from the state or its courts, they have no other option but to start over from scratch. And they have nowhere else to go.

Follow Max Blumenthal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal

Brutality Behind Russian Prison Walls Exposed

2010-08-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Moscow
10 March 2008
Voice of America

Disturbing video of sadistic prison brutality has emerged in Russia. Authorities there do not dispute the images, but claim they are from the early 1990s. Russian human-rights activists say the violence occurred more recently. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky reports no dispute over a separate recording that shows a mass inmate protest against harsh prison conditions.

The video begins with barking dogs and an armored vehicle accompanying scores of riot police in flak jackets as they enter Penal Colony Number 2 near the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.

One policeman punches a prisoner in the face; others mercilessly and repeatedly beat inmates with clubs, or kick them with heavy combat boots. It is brutal, indiscriminate, and potentially lethal punishment not permitted by any Russian legislation or court.

VOA contacted Russia's Federal Department of Sentence Enforcement, whose spokesman said its director, Yuri Kalinin, does not deny the abuse, but says it occurred in the early 1990s.

Human-rights advocates say the footage is believed to be from 2006 and only recently appeared on the Internet. It was obtained and circulated by the Moscow-based Foundation for the Defense of Prisoner Rights.

A member of Russia's Public Movement For Human Rights, Evgeniy Khlov, says the beatings were taped by prison officials to intimidate new prisoners.

Khlov says the people who brought the video to public attention are brave, self-assured people. He notes that the Internet makes it possible to distribute any kind of information to any part of the globe.

The entire video, a disturbing six-minute clip misspelled as Yekaterinaburg Prison Camp, has been posted on You Tube.

Evgeniy Khlov says responsibility for the violence is difficult to determine, but that it is most likely initiated by local prison officials, not on Kremlin orders. Khlov says some Russian prison administrators, many of them former soldiers, appear to have declared war on what they consider to be criminal ideology among inmates.

The activist says administrators feel the war against criminals compels them to torture, humiliate, and belittle those prisoners who adhere to criminal traditions.

The prison video also indicates authorities harass inmates by destroying their meager possessions. Beds are indiscriminately upended, personal effects are plundered, and conveniences such as chairs are broken.

Ruslan Rusakov, a former inmate at the Yekaterinburg facility, is shown on the video claiming that prisoners are also subjected to sleep deprivation.

Rusakov says prisoners are forced to clean floors and corridors, to run back and forth through the night before being permitted to sleep just five minutes before a 6:00AM reveille. Rusakov calls it total lawlessness, adding that prisoners are not considered human.

Activist Evgeniy Khlov says his organization continues to receive hundreds of letters from prisoners and their families complaining of human-ights violations while in detention.

Meanwhile, another video has emerged from Penal Colony Number Five in Russia's Amur Region, about 5,000 kilometers east of Moscow near the Manchurian border. Prisoners there used razors to cut their wrists in a protest against harsh prison conditions.

The prosecutor's office in Amur confirmed the incident to VOA and in a letter to the Foundation for the Defense of Prisoner Rights. Russian human-rights activists say the protest took place in January 2008, the prosecutor's letter says 2007. Both agree 142 prisoners cut themselves. The prosecutor's letter says they were treated for superficial wounds.

As one videotape illustrates inhuman treatment of Russian inmates, the other shows a mass protest against harsh prison conditions. If the images of the disputed recording are indeed recent, they suggest reemergence of the Gulag, the infamous Soviet prison system, where millions of political prisoners and criminals were subjected to beatings, forced labor, and temperatures of 40-below zero in distant isolation from the rest of the world.

If the video dates from the 1990s, as authorities insist, it is a rare look at a past that Evgeniy Khlov says few Russians care to acknowledge and much of which remains hidden in police archives.

Parents mourn 2 boys killed by storm in Haiti camp

2010-08-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 28

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Distraught parents mourned the loss of two children in a camp for Haitian earthquake survivors Wednesday, a day after rains caused a wall to collapse on top of a row of tarp homes.

The family's tragedy is another reminder of the perilous conditions of an estimated 1.6 million people living under tarps and tents on dangerous ground six months after the quake devastated Port-au-Prince.

Enrique Joseph, a 30-year-old policeman, was on the job downtown Tuesday evening when his cell phone rang with the horrifying news: After losing his home in the quake, he had lost his makeshift home — and his 8-month-old son, Kesnel, and a 2-year-old nephew, Kika Leus, were under the wreckage.

He raced back to the Terrain Acra camp in the Delmas neighborhood, home to tens of thousands whose tarp homes blanket a hillside owned by one of Haiti's wealthiest families.

He was too late. The boys' lifeless bodies already were wrapped in sheets.

"If we knew the wall could fall, we would have moved," Joseph said, his eyes red with tears.

Little reconstruction has been done since the magnitude-7 quake pulverized the capital. Piles of rubble and thousands of collapsed buildings remain where they stood in January. Even transitional shelters remain a pipe dream for most.

Donors pledged $5.3 billion for two years of rebuilding at a March donors conference but less than 10 percent has been delivered. On Wednesday, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to partially fund the administration's $1.15 billion pledge to Haiti and sent it to President Barack Obama.

The threat of hurricanes lingers halfway through the summer. The USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship is anchored off Haiti's north coast this week to train its sailors and Marines in case they have to respond to storm damage.

It took no more than an isolated squall that swept over Joseph's camp to soften the ground around a 10-foot retaining wall beside a tennis court.

Suddenly it gave way, sending bricks crashing onto blue and gray tarps. The boys were crushed to death in their sleep and the tattered remnants of the shelter filled with mud and rainwater.

"The material things don't matter. I lost my papers, I lost everything. But I lost my son. That means I lost my life," Kika's 25-year-old mother, Ketlanda Leus, said, rocking back and forth and weeping beneath a neighbor's tarp.

After carrying the boys' bodies to the morgue at Haiti's badly underfunded general hospital, Joseph returned to search for a new space to build another tarp home for his five surviving family members. The policeman said he is desperate to get out.

"Anything can happen, anytime, inside these camps," he said.

Nazi death camp guard charged with death of 430,000 Jews

2010-08-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

German prosecutors say they have charged a former Nazi death camp guard with participating in the murder of 430,000 Jews and other crimes during the Third Reich.

Published: 28 Jul 2010
Telegraph.co UK

German prosecutor Christoph Goeke in Dortmund says 90-year-old Samuel Kunz was informed last week that he has been indicted on charges including participation in the murder of 430,000 Jews at the Belzec death camp, where he served as a guard from January 1942 to July 1943.

Mr Goeke said no Wednesday that Kunz is also charged with murder over "personal excesses" in which he allegedly shot a total of 10 Jews in two other incidents.

Kunz is No. 3 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted Nazis. He lives near the western city of Bonn.

Fla. Juvenile Boot Camp Death: No Charges

2010-08-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Family of 14-Year-Old Who Died Following Beating Told Guards, Nurse Will Not Face Federal Civil Rights Charges

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., April 16, 2010

(AP) Federal officials will not pursue civil rights violations or other charges against the boot camp guards implicated in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, the boy's relatives and their attorney said Friday.

Ben Crump, an attorney for the boy's parents, said they were told of the decision during a meeting with representatives of the U.S. Justice Department. Supporters gathered outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee during that meeting.

Anderson died in 2006 after being hit and kicked by seven guards as a nurse watched. A videotape of the 30-minute incident attracted national attention and led to the closure of Florida's boot camps for juvenile offenders.

A state court jury acquitted the guards and the nurse of manslaughter on Oct. 12, 2007.

Federal authorities then began investigating whether the boy's civil rights were violated.

Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, a day after he was hit and kicked by the guards. He had just been assigned to the camp after he was caught trespassing at a school, which violated his probation on another charge.

The video showed the seven men punching Anderson and using knee strikes against him. It also showed them pushing ammonia capsules into his nose and dragging his limp body around the camp's yard. The nurse did not appear to intervene in any way during the incident.

A coroner initially ruled that Anderson died because of a fatal hemorrhage related to a previously undiagnosed case of sickle cell anemia trait. Protests of that ruling inspired then-Gov. Jeb Bush to order an independent prosecutor to look into the case.

A subsequent autopsy determined that guards killed Anderson by depriving him of oxygen when they pushed the ammonia tablets into his nose and covered his mouth.

The acquittal in the state's manslaughter case came after a two-week trial in Panama City. Jurors said they agreed with the contention of the guards' attorneys that the men were employing widely-accepted boot camp tactics and that the death was caused by the sickle cell trait.

The family also filed civil lawsuits against the state and Bay County that ultimately resulted in a $7.4 million settlement.

© MMX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

August issue of www.thankyouforyourservice.us is LIVE Plus videos from Afghanistan

2010-08-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

Bob Calvert ·Host and Founder at TalkingWithHeroes.Com Talk Show and Editor of www.thankyouforyourservice.us

To: Karen Cole
Date: August 1, 2010

The August issue of http://www.thankyouforyourservice.us/ is LIVE.

Thanks to http://www.blackhawk.com and other sponsors - our next embed with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has a green light.

http://talkingwithheroes.com/index.php?cPath=120

New Video Episodes from our recent first trip to Afghanistan are on http://www.youtube.com/bobc9246

Read our CALL TO ACTION on http://www.talkingwithheroes.com/ .

WATCH these videos then please SHARE them with everybody you can

After our next embed we will go on the road, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Pittsburg, North Dakota.

September 30th - Oct 3rd I will be in Pittsburgh at the 2010 http://www.militarywriters.com Conference.

Please Help get our Troops progress and positive stories out to everybody you can!!!!

Bob Calvert

http://www.talkingwithheroes.com/

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Email: bob@talkingwithheroes.com

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http://www.newsblaze.com/

email: editor@newsblaze.com

Alert: Thousands of Police evacuating and demolishing the village of El-Araqib in the Israeli Negev

2010-08-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

July 26th, 2010

by Jesse Bacon
Add a Comment

by Yeela Raanan.

Tuesday, 5:30am

Thousands of police are in the village of el-Araqib right now – beginning a mass evacuation, demolition, and erasure of this historical Bedouin village. if you have access to the media, please send them to this village as soon as possible! the village of el-Araqib is between Rahat and Beersheva, and in a location that the Goldberg commission deemed outside of the areas allowed for the Negev Arabs… an area designated only for Jews… the JNF (Jewish National Fund) is planting a forest on this village lands – to make sure that the Bedouin cannot live on their village lands or use them for agriculture. the villagers turned to the israeli courts, as the JNF were planting this forest at the behest of the Israeli government, but against Israeli law… the people of el-Araqib won the court battle… but this morning it seems that the Government of Israel has started a war — of the Government against its own citizens. for more information:

Dr. Yeela Raanan, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV). +972 54 7487005 yallylivnat@gmail.com

Audio of Interview with Dr. Yeela Ranaan live at the scene of the demolished village.

List of concentration and internment camps

2010-08-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

For people who think otherwise: Nazis ALSO were sent to concentration camps.

Unfairly.

This is a list of Internment and Concentration camps, organized by country. In general, a camp or group of camps is assigned to the country whose government was responsible for the establishment and/or operation of the camp regardless of the camp's location, but this principle can be, or appear to be, departed from in such cases as where a country's borders or name has changed or it was occupied by a foreign power.

Certain types of camps are excluded from this list, particularly refugee camps set up to house refugees who have fled across the border from another country in fear of persecution, or have been set up by an international non-governmental organization. Prisoner-of-war camps are treated under a separate category.

Argentina

During the Dirty War which accompanied the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, there were over 100 places throughout the country that served as concentration camps in the Nazi sense, where people were interrogated, tortured, and killed, but not forced to work or concentrated for eventual release[1]. Prisoners were often forced to hand and sign over property, in acts of individual, rather than official and systematic, corruption. Small children who were taken with their relatives, and babies born to female prisoners later killed, were frequently given for adoption to politically acceptable, often military, families. This is documented by a number of cases dating since the 1990s in which adopted children have identified their real families.[2][3].

These were relatively small secret detention centres rather than actual camps. The peak years were 1976-78. Nearly 9,000 people are definitely known to have been killed: see the authoritative 1984 CONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) Report[2][3]. It states that "We have reason to believe that the true figure is much higher"; a figure of 30,000 is often quoted. This worst case total figure, although frightful, is a small fraction of the throughput of just one of the smaller Nazi camps. A list of camps, full details, and documentation are to be found in the Report.

ESMA

Australia

During World War I, 2,940 German and Austrian men were interned in ten different camps in Australia. Almost all of the men listed as being Austrians were from the Croatian coastal region of Dalmatia, then under Austrian rule. Ironically, most Dalmatians were opposed to being part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In 1915 many of the smaller camps in Australia closed, with their inmates transferred to larger camps. The largest camp was at Holsworthy in New South Wales.[4] Families of the interned men were placed in a camp near Canberra. During World War II, 4,721 Italian immigrants were interned in Australia.[5]

During World War II there was a camp at Cowra for Japanese POWs.[6]. It was the location of the mass Cowra breakout.

Austria-Hungary

During World War I, internment camps were set up, mostly for Serbs and other pro-Kingdom of Serbia supporters; the radical pan-Serbian black hand having played a role in the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand resulting in the outbreak of World War I. Citizens deemed enemies of the state were displaced from their homes and sent to camps throughout the Austria-Hungary Empire, to places such as Doboj (46,000), Arad, Győr and Neusiedl am See.

During the Nazi period, several concentration camps, for example the Mauthausen-Gusen camp, were located in Austria. These camps were overwhelmingly run by Austrian members of the NAZI party.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

During the Bosnian War, concentration camps were set up, mostly for Bosniaks (aka Bosnian Muslims) and other non-Serbs by the Serb authorities of self-proclaimed Republika Srpska as well as Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia which coordinated their war activities against Bosniaks, in the light of Karađorđevo agreement ment to redistribute Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia.

Dretelj camp

Heliodrom camp

Keraterm camp

Manjača camp

Omarska concentration camp

Trnopolje camp

Cambodia

Main articles: Khmer Rouge and The Killing Fields

Choung Ek Killing Field: The bones of young children who were killed by Khmer Rouge.The totalitarian communist Khmer Rouge regime established concentration camps. Various studies have estimated the death toll most commonly between 1.4 million and 2.2 million, with perhaps half of those deaths being due to executions, and the rest from starvation and disease.[7] This is a massive proportion of the Cambodian population, which was only 6-8 million.

Among the best-documented concentration camps were The Killing Fields and the torture camp Security Prison 21.

Canada

German Canadian internment

During the Second World War, 850 German Canadians were accused of being spies for the Nazis, as well as subversives and saboteurs. The internees were given a chance by authorities to defend themselves. According to the transcripts of the appeal tribunals, internees and state officials debated conflicting concepts of citizenship.

Many German Canadians interned in Camp Petawawa were from a nineteenth-century migration in 1876. They arrived in a small area a year after a Polish migration landed in Wilno. Their hamlet, made up of farmers primarily, was called Germanicus and is in the bush less than 10 miles from Eganville, Ontario. Their farms (homesteads originally) were expropriated by the federal government for no compensation and they were imprisoned behind barbed wire in the AOAT camp. The Foymount Air Force Base near Cormac and Eganville was built on this expropriated land. Notable was that not one of these homesteaders from 1876 or their grandchildren had ever visited Germany again after 1876, yet they were accused of being German Nazi agents.

756 German sailors, mostly captured in East Asia were sent from Indian camps to Canada in June 1941 (Camp 33).[8]

Italian Canadian Internment

Japanese internment and relocation centres

Main article: Japanese Canadian internment

During World War II, Canada interned residents of Japanese and Italian ancestry. The Canadian government also interned citizens it deemed dangerous to national security. This included both fascists (including Canadians such as Adrien Arcand who had negotiated with Hitler to obtain positions in the government of Canada once Canada was conquered), Montreal mayor Camilien Houde (for denouncing conscription) and union organizers and other people deemed to be dangerous Communists. Such internment was made legal by the Defence of Canada Regulations, Section 21 of which read:

The Minister of Justice, if satisfied that, with a view to preventing any particular person from acting in a manner prejudicial to the public safety or the safety of the State, it is necessary to do so, may, notwithstanding anything in these regulations, make an order [...] directing that he be detained by virtue of an order made under this paragraph, be deemed to be in legal custody.

Over 75% were Canadian citizens and they were vital in key areas of the economy, notable the fishery and also in logging and berry farming. Exile took two forms: relocation centres for families and relatively well-off individuals who were a low security threat, and interment camps (often called concentration camps in contemporary accounts, but controversially so) which were for single men, the less well-off, and those deemed to be a security risk. After the war, many did not return to the Coast because of bitter feelings as to their treatment, and fears of further hostility from non-Japanese citizens; of those that returned only about 25% regained confiscated property and businesses. Most remained in other parts of Canada, notably certain parts of the BC Interior and in the neighbouring province of Alberta.

Camps and relocation centres in the Kootenay region

Greenwood, Kaslo, Lemon Creek, New Denver, Rosebery, Salmo, Sandon, Slocan City, and Tashme. Some were nearly-empty ghost towns when the internment began, others, like Kaslo and Greenwood, while less populous than in their boom years, were substantial communities.[citation needed]

Camps and relocation centres elsewhere in BC

Bridge River, Minto City, McGillivray Falls, East Lillooet, Taylor Lake. Other than Taylor Lake, these were all called "Self-supporting centres", not internment camps. The first three listed were all in a mountainous area so physically isolated that fences and guards were not required as the only egress from that region was by rail or water only. McGillivray Falls and Tashme, on the Crowsnest Highway east of Hope, British Columbia, were just over the minimum 100 miles from the Coast required by the deportation order, though Tashme had direct road access over that distance, unlike McGillivray. Because of the isolation of the country immediately coast-wards from McGillivray, men from that camp were hired to work at a sawmill in what has since been named Devine, after the mill's owner, which is within the 100-mile quarantine zone. Many of those in the East Lillooet camp were hired to work in town, or on farms nearby, particularly at Fountain, while those at Minto and Minto Mine and those at Bridge River worked for the railway or the hydro company.[9][10][11][12]

Camps and relocation centres elsewhere in Canada

There were internment camps near Kananaskis, Alberta; Petawawa, Ontario; Hull, Quebec; Minto, New Brunswick; and Amherst, Nova Scotia.[citation needed]

Further information

Iwaasa, David B. "The Japanese In Southern Alberta, 1941-45." Alberta History 1976 24(3): 5-19.

Information at the University of Washington Libraries and Beyond

Japanese Canadian history.net bibliographical resources

Town of Sandon Historical Page on the Internment

Dangerous Patriots: Canada's Unknown Prisoners of War, by William Repka and Kathleen Repka, New Star Books, Vancouver, 1982 (ISBN 0-919573-06-1 or ISBN 0-919573-07-X). This book is a collection of first-hand stories from Canadian political prisoners during World War II.

Ukrainian Canadian internment

In World War I, 8,579 male "aliens of enemy nationality" were interned, including 5,954 Austro-Hungarians, most of whom were probably ethnic Ukrainians. Many of these internees were used for forced labour in internment camps. See Ukrainian Canadian internment, Castle Mountain Internment Camp, and Eaton Internment Camp.

Further Information

Internment of Ukrainians in Canada 1914-1920 at InfoUkes

Re: internment of Ukrainian Canadians by Orest Martynowych, Ukrainian Weekly

HOLOCAUST SYNDROME

2010-07-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

ALEXANDER KIMEL - HOLOCAUST UNDERSTANDING & PREVENTION
Written by Alexander Kimel - Holocaust Survivor.

Most of the Holocaust victims went to their deaths without resistance. In the midst of the winter, people disrobed peacefully and boarded the cattle cars of the death trains. Men, women and children, lined up in front of the mass graves, waiting to be shot. At the collection points, thousands of people sat in silence, waiting for the trains to take them to the gas chambers, although by the sheer weight of their numbers, they could easily overwhelm the Germans.

Lack of resistance on the part of the Jews can be attributed to many factors: terror, isolation, collective responsibility, lack of leadership; but the most important factor, is the psychological factor of cooperation of the victims with their oppressors. It can be explained by the "Holocaust Syndrome," closely resembling the "Stockholm Syndrome."

In Stockholm, during a bank robbery, a young woman was taken hostage by a gunman and held under the gunpoint for several days. The gunman threatened to kill her, but the police rescued her; the gunman was captured and sentenced to a long prison term. To the surprise of everybody, the young woman fell in love with the gunman and married him while he was in prison. The unexplained psychological phenomenon is called the Stockholm Syndrome. People in life threatening situations, isolated and terrorized, develop a defense mechanism based on the identification, submission and cooperation with their tormentors.

Patty Hearst, kidnapped by terrorist, isolated and terrorized, identified with her captors, and adapted their revolutionary slogans and their revolutionary violence. This is a good example of the Stockholm Syndrome.

The Holocaust Syndrome, explains the total resignation of individuals subjected to hunger, terror and isolation. Hunger and terror destroys the fabric of the human personality like a pressure cooker disintegrates the organic cohesiveness of the food. The victims lose the ability of rational thinking, and are molded into a amorphous mass, easily guided into the gas chambers.

A healthy, young individual cannot perceive his own destruction, his own death. In a few moments he sun will stop shining, darkness will prevail; no plants, any animal life, everything will die. The victim knows that this not true, doesn't believe in his own death and fully cooperate with his executioners. The fear of death overrides rational thinking, makes the victims believe in the most obvious lies, and in a paradoxical way, their full cooperation with their executioners, makes their killing easier.

In one of the films about the Holocaust, a witness describes how naked people standing in line to be shot, voluntarily took up positions at the end of the ditch, and jumped into the trenches to be shot, without a sign of resistance or protest. A five-year old daughter urged her to run away "Mommy lets run. Why are people standing and waiting? "Where shall we run" answered the mother. It looks like that five year old child, not be affected by the syndrome, had more common sense than her adult mother.

Another example of the syndrome: In the town of Rohatyn, a teenage boy on its way to the gas chambers of Belzec, had to choke to death two old ladies, who would not allow him to jump the train. Stripped naked, cramped in cattle cars, on the way to the gas chambers, they were afraid that the Germans will kill them after discovering that boy is missing.

In the film Shoah, a witness describes how to last moment the victims facing gassing, in the process of disrobing before entering the gas chambers, didn't believe in their forthcoming destruction, could not believe that in 30 minutes they will turn into ashes. Only the Holocaust Syndrome can adequately explains their behavior.

It was impossible to save people. One day, in 1943 when I was already in Crematorium 5, a train arrived from Bialystok. A prisoner from the "special detail" saw a woman in the "undressing room" who was the wife of a friend of his. He came right out and told her: " You are going to be exterminated. In three hours you will be ashes. The woman believed him because she knew him. She run all over and warned the other women. "We are going to get killed. We are going to be gassed." Mothers carrying their chidden on their shoulders didn't want to hear that. They decided that the woman was crazy. They chased her away. So she went to the men. To no avail. Not that they didn't believe her: they'd hears rumors in the Bialystok Ghetto, or in Grodno, and elsewhere. But who wanted to hear that! When she saw that no one would listen, she scratched her whole face. Out of despair. In shock. And she started to scream.

So what happened? Everyone was gassed. The woman was held back. We had to line up in front of the ovens. First, they tortured her horribly because she wouldn't betray him. In the end she pointed to him. He was taken out of the line and thrown alive into the oven. We were told: " Whoever tells anything will end like that."

The Holocaust Syndrome is seen in the behavior of inmates of concentration camps who lived in a state of total automation, having their instinct of self-preservation muted by the obedience to the oppressors. In the concentration camps, the SS men amused themselves snatching off prisoner's caps and throwing them toward the barbed wire fence, into the zone where the prisoners were shot without warning. The victim ordered to pick up the cap, usually obeyed automatically, and was killed on the spot.

Kapos in Auschwitz, would hand a prisoner a rope and order him to hang himself. The writer Rusinek, in his book "Listy spod Morwy', describes the case a block leader one night ordering a poor unfortunate "to hang at midnight". When the time arrived, the victim, who slept next to his tyrant, got up and went slowly on tiptoe, so as not to waken his persecutor, and hanged himself.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), a known Jewish philosopher, observed human behavior that became so common during the Holocaust: "...being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favors, they are consequently, for the most part very prone to credulity. The human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery. ....in adversity the know not where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passer-by. No plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption.

Holocaust Syndrome was only a temporary aberration of human behavior and the awakening from the stupor, was experienced as euphoria. In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Jewish fighters experience such euphoria when seeing the scared Germans fleeing.

Holocaust Syndrome explains the behavior of a victims exposed to a constant, prolonged danger over which they have no control, no recourse, use the denial mechanism to cope with life threatening situations. The Germans were fully aware of this phenomena, and deliberately starved, terrorized and dehumanized the victims, to make the killing easier. The Holocaust Syndrome explains also how one man, Hitler, with the help of the SS, his private army, could kill millions of people.

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Concentration camps hold a million people?

2010-07-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Maybe there are too many people in Korea.

Try Planned Parenthood.

Nearly 40 'detention' centers reported in North Korea
Posted: September 27, 2007

© 2010 WorldNetDaily.com

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il

More than 1 million North Koreans are locked up in concentration camps in conditions reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's death camps, with guards reportedly stomping on the necks of babies born to prisoners and "scientists" performing gruesome experiments on living victims, a Christian ministry is reporting.

The report comes from the Netherlands-based Open Doors International, which has been monitoring persecuted Christians since the 1950s.

Officials there told BosNewsLife, a Hungarian service that focuses on news of persecuted religious believers, North Korea has built eight punishment camps for political prisoners and another 30 camps for other offenders subjected to forced labor.

In an earlier WND report, a rare escapee from North Korea said dictator Kim Jong-il and his late father, Kim Il Sung, are portrayed throughout the country as gods.

(Story continues below)

The new report from Open Doors, launched in 1955 by Dutch missionary Brother Andrew, author of "God's Smuggler," cited "Brother Simon," who is the ministry's North Korea director. He was not identified further because of security concerns.

"It's possible that the number of prisoners are well over 1 million," he said. "The camps are complete villages."

Over the years, accurate reports of persecution of Christians and others in North Korea have been difficult to obtain, simply because so few people survive to tell any stories. Numerous reports previously have estimated the number of Christians in concentration camps for no more than believing in Jesus Christ has ranged well into the tens of thousands.

Now the report by BosNewsLife Senior Correspondent Eric Leijenaar provides the higher estimates from Open Doors. "Brother Simon" declined to say how Open Doors conducted its investigation, citing concerns about the safety of those involved in the work.

"Many lives could be lost," he said.

There had been earlier reports from defectors about the largest detention center, Camp 22, a site in the mountain town of Haengyong, where survivors have told stories of thousands of deaths each year and guards stomping on the necks of babies born to prisoners.

Witnesses also have been quoted in the British media about their experiences "watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed." They die in agony while "scientists" take notes, the defectors have reported, according to the BosNewsLife report.

There also are stories, the report said, of experiments on living victims and sudden death.

The Observer newspaper has reported on testimony from Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned for seven years, survived and escaped.

"An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners," she reported. "One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead."

Political opponents and critics of the government are among the victims, but many of them also are believed to be Christians, based on the communist society's philosophy of "total devotion" to the governmental leader.

"Brother Simon, who has contacts with tens of thousands of Christians in North Korea through several networks, is convinced that despite the apparent dangers, at least 200,000 North Koreans are Christians 'although that number may be even as high as half a million.' One in four Christians in North Korea are believed to be in camps 'where people usually do not survive,' he said," according to the news report.

Brother Simon added that in North Korea, is it "strictly forbidden" to be a Christian. Anyone who has a Bible, he said, "could be sentenced to a punishment camp along with his whole family."

Refugees who flee North Korea and then are returned by authorities, often from China, face years in jail. But if "authorities find out the refugee has contact with a Christian he or she may face torture and even execution," Brother Simon said.

Open Doors, which provides aid to refugees, too, said there also is a very aggressive effort to prevent people from escaping.

"It's very difficult to cross the river near the border. At the North Korean site [authorities built] dangerous pits with bamboo arrows," he said. "There are also high fences with barbed wire, while China has placed cameras and even promised rewards for those reporting refugees to authorities."

"If there was one moment when North Korea needs prayer, it's now," he said.

Open Doors said it is running a three-year, round-the-clock prayer action for North Korea. It began Jan. 1, 2005, and about 3,000 Christians in the Netherlands and Belgium are participating.

Mr. Kim sings "Brightly beams, Our Father's mercy."

Mr. Kim, who recorded himself singing a traditional Christian hymn for Voice of the Martyrs, said Kim Jong-il's eccentricities go far beyond his apparent hatred of Christians. He has expensive tastes, and his unusual activities have become international legend.

Reuters reported, "No one enjoys luxury goods more than paramount leader Kim Jong-il, who boasts the country's finest wine cellar with space for 10,000 bottles. … His annual purchases of Hennessy cognac reportedly total to $700,000, while the average North Korean earns the rough estimate equivalent of $900 per year."

The North Korean government has announced Kim Jong-il was born on "the sacred mountain of our nation" and is characterized by "impatience and extemporaneous behavior."

He is reported to be a movie fanatic and once ordered North Korean agents to abduct South Korean movie director Shin Sang Ok and his former wife, actress Che Eun Hiu. He kept them for eight years, making propaganda films, until they escaped during an international conference.

Another source described him this way: "Kim Jong-il is often said to be stark raving bonkers, but this is a misconception. He is eccentric, certainly, and his government is extremely secretive and brutal to dissidents, but experts say Kim is bright, clear-headed, politically astute and as sane as any leader with unchecked power. He drives trendy Mazdas and prefers Hennessey cognac."

Reports say at one point he rounded up 80 high-ranking officials, including several relatives and his brother-in-law, and had them "purged."

Mr. Kim said that while growing up, he had no real knowledge of religion and had not even heard about Christianity. He had seen filmed representations of Christmas parties but had no idea they were related to Jesus.

"We were taught that religion is the opium of the people and that pastors were spies of South Korea, trying to bring imperialism to North Korea. I was taught that religion was bad and school text books reinforced this idea, explaining that people from other countries built the hospitals, schools and did all kinds of good deeds for North Korea in order to spy.

"Because of this, children are brainwashed and taught that Christianity is bad. North Koreans have hatred for Americans because that is what they are taught through their entire education. I was educated like this, too," he said.

As WND has reported, not all Christians are so fortunate.

Son Jong Hoon and his brother, Son Jong Nam, who has been condemned to execution in North Korea for being a Christian (Voice of the Martyrs photo)

An international campaign was launched by the Voice of the Martyrs to generate worldwide pressure on North Korean officials who ordered a man executed for being a Christian.

Son Jong Hoon told a recent news conference in Washington, D.C., his life's goal now is to save his brother, Son Jong Nam, a former North Korean Army officer turned underground evangelist.

"I pray to God for my brother's safety," he said, describing the horrors of the basement jail cell where Son Jong Nam has been held, beaten and tortured since his most recent arrest.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom repeatedly has recommended that the U.S. Department of State list North Korea as among its "countries of particular concern" for its "egregious and systematic human rights violations" including policies that disallow any Christian faith.

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Previous stories:

North Korean dictator a god?

'Free my brother,' ex-North Korean pleads

Vision inspires missionary to return to North Korea

Missionary says Christian church meets '3 or 4' at a time

From torturing to tears: A warden repents

Teen's testimony of faith unstopped by death

The Unconquered Seminoles

2010-07-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

by Dru J. Murray

The Seminoles. A fierce, proud tribe of Florida, let neither three wars with the United States Army or the harsh Everglade swamps defeat them.

The term "Seminole" is a derivative of "cimarron" which means "wild men" in Spanish. The original Seminoles were given this name because they were Indians who had escaped from slavery in the British-controlled northern colonies. When they came to Florida, they were not called Seminoles as they were actually Creeks, Indians of Muskogee derivation. The Muskogean tribes comprised the Mississipian culture which were temple-mound builders. Among the Muskogean tribes were the Creeks, Hitichis and Yamasees of Georgia, the Apalachees of Florida, the Alabamas and Mobiles of Alabama, and the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Houmas of Mississippi.

The Origins of the Seminoles

The original Seminoles came to Florida because it was controlled by the Spanish, who had no interest in returning slaves to the British. They were mostly Lower Creeks who spoke the Mikasuki language, but other Indians, including Yuchis, Yamasees and Choctaws who had confronted Ponce de Leon and DeSoto, also joined the tribe in their trek to northern Florida from Georgia during the early 1700s.

By this time, many of the tribes in Florida, including the Tequestas, Calusas, Apalachees, Timucans and others, had been decimated by the Spanish presence, either in battles or by diseases such as smallpox. Out of an estimated 100,000 native Americans that occupied Florida during the 1500s, less than 50 survived.

In 1767, Upper Creeks from Alabama, who spoke the Muskogee language, settled in the Tampa area. Shortly after this, in 1771, the first recorded usage of the name "Seminole" to denote an actual tribe was recorded. In 1778, the Seminoles were joined by more Lower Creeks and a few Apalachees.

The Five Civilized Tribes

Together with the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Cherokees, the Seminoles were called "The Five Civilized Tribes." The name was coined because these tribes in particular adopted many ways of the white civilization. They lived in cabins or houses, wore clothes similar to the white man and often became Christians.

Indian Facts

The Seminoles occupied the Southeastern United States for 12,000 years. They were finally granted U.S. citizenship in 1934.

Photo courtesy of Florida Historical Society

The Seminoles enjoyed songs, dancing and ball games. This picture was sketched by HW Merrill in 1838

Another habit many of the other tribes acquired from the whites was that of slavery. Though some of the tribes actually owned African slaves, the Seminoles never did. Indeed, many black Africans escaping from slavery in the Carolinas and Georgia came to Florida and built settlements near the Seminoles. They formed a union with the Seminoles based upon both their mutual fear of slavery. This union was a strong one which surpassed attempts by the U.S. to break them apart. Intermarriages and friendships were common. In fact, they were so closely allied that the blacks became known as the Black Seminoles.

Originally, the Seminoles were hunters who used muskets to hunt deer, turkey and other game and who fished. They gathered fruits, nuts and berries. Later, however, they settled down and became excellent farmers. They grew corn, sugarcane, guava and bananas. They also were successful in raising stock, including horses and cattle.

The Seminole Wars

The prosperity of the Seminoles disturbed former slaveholders in the U.S. In 1812, Seminoles learned that a group of Georgians who called themselves "Patriots" were plotting to attack Seminole settlements. The Seminoles got the jump on these potential invaders by attacking them on their plantations. This action infuriated the government and as a result, American troops led by Andrew Jackson crossed into Florida and destroyed towns in northern Alachua County.

Photo courtesy of Florida Historical Society

Billy Bowlegs with other Seminole Chiefs, sketched in1852.

In 1816, American forces commanded by General Edmund Gaines attacked Fort Negro, an old British enclave on the Apalachicola River now occupied by mostly Black Seminoles. Led by Commander Garcia, the Seminoles refused to surrender. However, a cannonball fired by a U.S. ship landed right in the middle of the fort's munitions storage, causing a devastating explosion. Of the 337 men, women and children in the fort, only 31 survived. They were dragged back into the horrors of slavery.

Trouble erupted again in 1817 when Americans crossed the Florida border to arrest a Seminole chief. That led to the First Seminole War which began a year later when Andrew Jackson crossed the border with troops. Jackson and his men ruthlessly burned Seminole villages and captured the Spanish towns of St. Marks and Pensacola.

Unfortunately for the Seminoles, Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1819. This gave Americans wanting to settle the lush state an opportunity. Though they got the Seminoles to agree to move onto a reservation in the state's center, their greed was insatiable. The settlers wanted more.

On May 28, 1830, the settlers got the backing they wanted from the U.S. government. The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress at President Andrew Jackson's urging. The Indian Removal Act gave the government the authority to remove all the Five Civilized Tribes east of the Mississippi to the Indian Territory in Arkansas and Oklahoma. While the bill specified that the consent of the Indians had to be obtained and compensation dispersed to the tribes, the reality of the situation was that those who did not go peacefully were forced to go anyway.

The Choctaws left for Indian Territory in 1831, the Creeks in 1835 and the Chickasaws in 1837. Some were deported in manacles. The Cherokees forestalled removal by using their legal knowledge to sue the government. They argued their case well. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall agreed with the Cherokees' viewpoint. Jackson defiantly stated, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." So, the Cherokees too were forced off their land and onto the "Trail of Tears," a horrendous march to the Indian Territory. The "Trail of Tears" claimed thousands of lives including one-fourth of the Cherokee Tribe due to hunger, cold, disease and sorrow.

Photo courtesy of the Seminole Tribe of Florida

Famous Seminole leader Osceola

Only one group of Indians -- the Seminoles -- successfully resisted removal and they did so fiercely. Their resistance to removal brought about the Second Seminole War. It began on December 28, 1835, when a column of 108 soldiers led by Major Dade was massacred by Seminole warriors at the Dade Battle in Sumpter County. Just four days later, on December 31, the famous Seminole leader Osceola (pronounced as Asi-Yaholo) with only 250 warriors attacked a column of 750 men under General Duncan Clinch in the Battle of Withlacoochee in Citrus County. He soundly defeated the soldiers. Osceola promised to fight the white invaders "till the last drop of Seminole blood has moistened the dust of my hunting ground."

Frustrated by Osceola's continuing successes, General Jesup resorted to deception, luring Osceola and fellow Seminoles into a trap under the guise of a meeting on peace. Osceola was captured and imprisoned, where he contracted a fatal illness and died. However, 19 of his fellow prisoners, including a daring leader named Wild Cat and John Horse, a Black Seminole, escaped. These two rode many miles together in a friendship that lasted a lifetime. After their escape, Wild Cat and John Horse made their way to friends who helped them by giving them supplies.

A force of 1,050 led by General Zachary Taylor pursued the escaped prisoners until they were met by hundreds of Seminoles lying in wait at Lake Okeechobee (a Seminole word which means "plenty big water") in the state's center. The withering fire delivered by the Seminoles under the leadership of Sam Jones, Alligator and Wildcat (Coachoochee) at the Battle of Okeechobee ended in resounding defeat on Christmas Day 1838, for the U.S. forces: 28 U.S. dead and 112 wounded. Only 10 Seminoles died in the battle.

Florida Historical Museum

Doctor Tiger, circa 1890

The Battle of Loxahatchee, waged in Palm Beach County in January of 1838, resulted in the defeat and surrender of a large group of Indians. The Second Seminole War, which dragged on until 1842, cost the United States the lives of 1,500 men and over $20 million. Most of the Seminole Nation, including some 500 Black Seminoles, were relocated to the Indian Territory.

Around 500 Seminoles remained in Florida, managing to hide in the Everglades, moving ever southward into areas where white men dared not venture. Though leaders such as Wild Cat, John Horse and others met with President Polk for peace talks in the nation's capital, the Seminoles' resistance did not fade.

War broke out again in 1855 when a military survey party was attacked by Chief Billy Bowlegs in Collier County. The Third Seminole War lasted until 1858. The few remaining Seminoles who lived in the Everglades traded skins and hides at trading posts and raised cattle.

Further Troubles

Life for those relocated to the Indian Territory was harsh. The land allotted to the Seminoles was dominated by the Creek Nation, whose members resented the Seminoles' previous abandonment. Unbelievably, the pursuit of Indian land by whites did not stop with the establishment of Indian Territory. In 1887, the Dawes General Allotment Act was passed by Congress. This act sought to divide tribal lands by decreeing that individual Indians would each own 160 acres. Any land left unclaimed could then be bought by whites.

The Dawes Act confused those who were used to tribal ownership and left the Indians prey to greedy whites waiting to snatch their land. At first the Five Civilized Tribes were spared having to abide by the Dawes Act, but by 1905, they too were allotted their lands under its rules.

Florida Historical Museum

1837 lithograph of a Seminole village

The Black Seminoles were upset in 1849, when the U.S. attorney general decided that Black Seminoles were still slaves. The final straw came when whites demanded that the Black Seminoles, who were living in separate towns, surrender their guns. Under the leadership of Wild Cat and John Horse, they left the U.S. for Mexico in 1850. The Mexican government provided the Seminoles with a home in exchange for protection of the border from marauders. After the Civil War, many of these Seminoles moved to Texas and again found work protecting the border. However, prejudice encountered in the formerly confederate state along with broken promises about the ownership of land eventually drove a band of them return to Mexico in 1914. Sadly, the Black Seminoles never owned land anywhere after they left Florida.

Ironically, Indians, who had inhabited the great continent long before the white man came, became citizens of the United States via the Snyder Act during World War I. In 1934, the Wheeler-Howard Act, or Indian Reorganization Act, made life better for the Indians. It allowed Indians to compose tribal constitutions, elect tribal councils, and create tribal institutions. It also extended financial credit to the tribes, stipulated needed improvements in educational and medical facilities, restored religious freedom and encouraged the revival of Indian culture.

"All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in next spring Great Spirit come. He bring back all game of every kind. The game be thick everywhere. All dead Indians come back and live again. Thay all be strong just like young men, be young again. Old blind Indian see again and get young and have fine time...."

- Wovoka, the Paiute Messiah

Modern Organization and Future

To combat a House resolution that would terminate assistance to Indian tribes, Seminole tribe members worked to officially organize the tribe with a constitution and charter. On August 21, 1957, a majority of the tribe voted in favor of the creation of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Some of the tribe, those speaking the Mikosuki language, split off to form the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida.

Today, the Seminole Tribe is engaged in creating economic opportunity for its members, preserving its proud heritage and culture and working to preserve its homeland, the Everglades of Florida. The Seminoles' indomitable spirit, that of the unconquered, will carry them far.

WCU hosts photo exhibit focusing on Trail of Tears

2010-07-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2010

Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Center will display a photography exhibit focusing on the Trail of Tears in the museum’s Gallery C through Sept. 30.

Including 50 contemporary photographs by David G. Fitzgerald, the collection shows important sites along the 1,200-mile Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the route of the forced removal of the Cherokee people from their homelands in 1838.

Complimenting the images is text by scholar Duane King and a reproduction of the 1838 protest roll that contained 15,562 Cherokee names.

Fitzgerald, a native of Oklahoma, traveled to each of the nine states along the trail to photograph the historic sites. King has authored more than 60 publications on Native American topics and is the founding editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies.

The Trail of Tears photography exhibit is a traveling exhibit on loan from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee.

The Mountain Heritage Center, open to the public free of charge, is located on the ground floor of WCU’s H.F. Robinson Administration Building. The museum is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday year-round; from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday year-round; and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June through October.

For more information about the museum’s programs and special events, call 828-227-7129 or visit www.wcu.edu/mhc.

Maintained by the Office of Public Relations

Haiti Relief Aid Comes with Sovereignty Setback Attached

2010-07-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

Amy Lieberman

21 Jul 2010

World Politics Review

Though foreign aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti is reaching the government at a sluggish rate, waves of assistance to international aid organizations working there continue to flow. The Haitian government has received just $90 million of the $5.3 billion promised by the March U.N. donor conference for the first 18 months post-earthquake, according to Alice Blanchet, special adviser to Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

By contrast, Doctors Without Borders has received donations of $112 million following the quake, while the Red Cross has brought in $468 million. Oxfam International, which is providing aid to 440,000 people, or 20 percent of the earthquake-affected population, is working with a post-earthquake budget of $90 million.

With the Haitian government a regular on Transparency International's list of "Most Corrupt" countries, the aid organizations are deemed best-equipped to handle money and enable recovery. But a continued reliance on them could place Haiti on an unsustainable path -- one that circumvents the broken national government and excludes the Haitian people from rebuilding their own country.

The Jan. 12 earthquake leveled 60 percent of Haitian government infrastructure and killed 20 percent of its top civil servants. But instead of jumpstarting an influx of direct aid to a Haitian government desperate to rebuild, the destruction resulted in humanitarian aid organizations receiving an upsurge in funding from across the world.

According to Julie Schindal, a media officer for Oxfam International in Haiti, donations jumped in the aftermath of the earthquake. But Schindal says that even before Jan. 12, "the Haitian government still did not provide a lot of very basic services, and international aid as a result has long bypassed the government's capacity."

Melinda Miles, founder of the Haitian-based humanitarian non-governmental group Konpay, agreed that the government has not adequately provided for Haitian earthquake survivors. Yet Miles, who has lived in Haiti for 15 years, said the government has taken ownership over some aspects of the response effort, citing its National Action Plan for Reconstruction and Development. The plan, widely criticized as vague, has been for the most part ignored, but Miles insists that there are risks involved with discounting the Haitians' own vision for development.

"There are more NGOs than ever before with even more budgets, and international aid organizations creating their own reconstruction plans," she said. "They don't have native staff. Some don't have a long history of working in Haiti. And they aren't following the plans created by the Haitian government."

She added that the situation threatens to undermine already weak coordination at the civil society and government levels.

The recently established Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), chaired by U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Bellerive, has been flagged as the best option for coordinating civil society efforts, while also ensuring government accountability. The IHRC will approve individual aid projects in Haiti and will also track foreign commitments. But the commission has materialized slowly. It approved its first two government-led reconstruction projects in June, but still lacks a permanent executive leadership.

A June report on Haiti by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations highlighted the IHRC's potential in a country where reconstruction has largely stalled, due in part to a lack of visible government leadership. The findings could result in the diversion of the U.S. government's pending contribution of $2 billion -- slated for imminent approval and allocation over the next two years -- away from the Haitian government "that is way beyond capacity," a committee official said in a phone interview.

"We need to figure out who is best in place to handle this money, and be less concerned about if it is the government or not who can get this work done," the official continued. "The problem is that there is a lot of corruption and accountability that has yet to be resolved. We want to empower the government and also spend the money in an effective way, but the Haitian government has been very weak traditionally and we are seeing that manifested today."

In a New York Times op-ed that appeared on the six-month anniversary of the earthquake, Clinton and Bellerive wrote that the Haitian government has "done everything it's been asked to do by international donors to inspire confidence, maintain transparency and ensure that not one single cent is lost to corruption."

Blanchet, Bellerive's special adviser, further noted that the Haitian government is not directly handling reconstruction aid: The World Bank is overseeing the government-bound Haiti Reconstruction Fund, and is jointly monitoring the money with the Inter-American Development Bank and the U.N. Development Group.

Still, the unprecedented amount of funding from individuals and foundations has been an "exceptional factor" in the Haiti emergency relief process, says Stephanie Bunker, a communications officer of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian and Affairs (OCHA).

Private individuals and organizations committed 37 percent of OCHA's Haitian emergency flash appeal of $1.5 billion. To date, $907 million has been received and allocated to U.N. agencies working directly with the Haitian government as well as with large-scale international aid organizations. That funding, separate from the money countries have otherwise pledged through the U.N., gives donors the freedom to earmark different projects they want their money to go toward -- a secure choice in their eyes, but one that could deprive the Haitian government of autonomy in making those choices.

Meanwhile, as international aid organizations continue to establish their presence and prominence in Haiti, there is a risk that Haitians will become increasingly dependent on their humanitarian services, micro-financing and cash-for-work programs as alternatives to the lack of basic resources and permanent jobs available.

Just six months after the quake that killed 230,000 and injured more than 300,000 people, Haitians need all the help they can get, regardless of where it comes from. But as currently constituted, foreign assistance could come with a sovereignty setback attached, marking a steep -- if perhaps unavoidable -- price for placing Haiti on a stable reconstruction path.

Amy Lieberman is a freelance journalist based in New York City. Her reporting on sustainable development and human rights has appeared in IRIN, Women's eNews, Policy Innovations and Devex.com, among other publications.

Photo: A Haitian earthquake survivor leaves a local Red Cross distribution site (U.S. Navy photo by Joshua Lee Kelsey).

ISAF Outreach Program Lends Helping Hand to Afghan Refugee Camp

2010-07-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

International Security Assistance Force HQ Public Affairs

Story by Senior Airman Tania Reid

07.17.2010 KABUL, Afghanistan - A group of service members from the International Security Assistance Force Volunteer Community Relations Program here donated more than 300 bags of food, clothes, toys and other supplies Thursday to a local Afghan Refugee Camp during a Humanitarian Aid mission.

The team of volunteers, led by U.S. Air Force Chaplain (Maj.) Michael Goecker, ISAF chaplain, collected hundreds of supplies donated by ISAF members and U.S. volunteers to give to local Afghan orphanages, camps and families in an effort to help with their state of living and support the ISAF Counterinsurgency plan.

“We receive the donations from private organizations that send baby clothes, toys, medical and school supplies for the families here in Afghanistan,” said Goecker. “Once we have them (the supplies) they are sorted into groups for the families then transported to the designated areas.”

The charity distribution is then coordinated with the locals and volunteers (civilian and military) then loaded on to the trucks. They distribute all the shoes, clothes, blankets and notebooks they receive to the Afghans to improve their quality of life.

The chaplain visited the site for the first time since he has arrived in Kabul, reinstating the COIN strategy in his efforts by connecting with the hearts and minds of the Afghan community.

“There’s supposed to be more than 87 families at the camp,” said Goecker. “Many of them came from out of Kandahar amidst all the violence to find refuge here.”

According to U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Brad Barkhauer, ISAF chaplain assistant, the VCR members intend to give the Afghans a better alternative.

“By being here it shows that we are an alternative to all the violence and corruption they face in their society,” he said. “We give whatever we can to make their lives better and will continue to do so.”

The families at the camps live in very substandard conditions and anything they can help to improve their living conditions is always welcomed, said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Kalamajka, HQ ISAF Socio-Economic Team officer in charge.

“The look of gratitude on the families faces that we donated to are enough to let us know we’re making a difference,” said Goecker. “We’ll continue to connect with the local community and help them.”

The group plans to continue to distribute the supplies to the members every two weeks and has coordinated with SOZO International to know where the camps are located. For more information about donating to the program visit the website www.shoesforafghankids.org .

Pentagon sends Guantanamo prisoners to Algeria, Cape Verde

2010-07-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

(AFP) – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday announced it had transferred two prisoners from its "war on terror" detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Algeria and Cape Verde.

Following the transfer, the prison now holds 178 detainees, the Department of Defense said in a statement.

Former inmate Abdul Aziz Naji was repatriated to his native Algeria, while ex-detainee Abd-al-Nisr Mohammed Khantumani "was resettled in Cape Verde," the Pentagon said.

It is the first time the Pentagon announces it had sent a former Guantanamo detainee to Cape Verde, an archipelago of islands in the central Atlantic off the coast of east Africa.

US officials coordinated with Algerian and Cape Verde officials "to ensure the transfers took place under appropriate security measures," it said.

President Barack Obama had promised to close the prison within a year of taking office but missed the self-imposed deadline in January, with officials acknowledging that the task was more difficult than expected.

The camp was set up at a US navy base on the southeastern tip of Cuba to hold terror suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

After a "comprehensive review" of their cases, the two men were "were approved for transfer by unanimous consent among all the agencies involved in the task force," the Pentagon said.

Washington "is grateful" to Algeria and Cape Verde "for their willingness to support US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," it said.

Since 2002 "more than 600 detainees have departed Guantanamo Bay for other destinations" around the world, it said.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Congressman Seeks Inquiry on FEMA Trailers

2010-07-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

NOTE: From Blogmaster - FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and they have put together some shelters for storm victims, as they should (or so) but apparently not in a very "together" way, such as serious health hazards being involved with such "trailors" usage. Would you like to live in the trailors below if you had to be evacuated during a hurricane?

I think not.

By IAN URBINA

Published: July 1, 2010
The New York Times

A Mississippi congressman asked the Justice Department on Thursday to investigate the use of potentially contaminated FEMA trailers to house cleanup workers involved with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The request, by Representative Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, followed an article about the trailers Thursday in The New York Times.

In his letter, Mr. Thompson, a Democrat who was one of the most vocal opponents of the public sale of the trailers, also demanded that the General Services Administration and FEMA provide documents by July 15 indicating how each agency has enforced the legally binding requirements on the buyers of the trailers.

More than 100,000 of the trailers were publicly auctioned this year by the federal government on the condition that they not be used for long-term housing and with the requirement that placards be posted warning of the trailers’ potential hazards from high levels of formaldehyde, a carcinogen. Buyers were required to sign a legally binding waiver agreeing to these terms.

Before the auction, Congressional opponents of the sale said there would be no way to enforce these rules. New evidence emerged this week indicating the validity of those concerns.

In a separate letter, Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, asked the G.S.A. for documentation relating to the trailers’ sale and oversight of their use.

Laura J. Gerdes, a spokeswoman with the Louisiana attorney general's office, said there office has opened an investigation into the matter as well.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 2, 2010, on page A18

Mexican Concentration Camps

2010-07-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

Run on Bob's Page May 2006 and sadly all too still timely:

How will the American government deport 4 million illegal immigrants?

While the U.S. Senate and Congress reach a compromise on the immigration legislation before them, neither has talked about how to deport 4 million people in accordance with the proposed new law. Camps used to detain and deport people are a real possibility. American history has seen a couple of examples of what may be in store for Latinos and others who fit the illegal immigrant profile.

Back then it seemed exaggerated to consider these kinds of concentration camps used on Japanese-Americans during WWII. A possibility that it could be used today against the poorest workers in this country is becoming a reality. We must recall that those Japanese people who were taken and locked up were legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, and many were even American citizens. Military soldiers surrounded neighborhoods and did a house-to-house search to take them all away. Their homes and property were sold for very cheap or taken and given away for nothing.

We can’t let ourselves be duped, fooled or socad into the trap that this issue is about citizens and non-citizens, legal or illegal immigrants, when in fact the issue is about workers and their struggle to merely survive. This was very much the case during the Great Depression.

In 1930, the U.S. Census counted 1.42 million people of Mexican ancestry, with 805,535 of them being U.S. born, up from 700,541 in 1920. During the Depression, as many as 400,000 Mexican immigrants were rounded up and sent back to Mexico. Many, despite being American citizens, were still taken away (NPR: A Tale of Deportation in the 1930s, Mae Ngai, Professor of Immigration History).

As I wrote in my article, Liberty and Justice for Some:

In 1935 600,000 “Mexicans” were deported while scholars estimated that 60 percent of them were actually U.S. citizens, according to Joe Rodriguez of The Mercury News. It is no wonder that stories about U.S. citizens being picked up and deported are beginning to surface.

[The late] Edward Cortez, [then] Mayor of Pomona, was arrested and detained in 2004 by Federal Immigration Agents. He was out for a morning jog near his home and was caught in the early morning sweep. This shows the realization that anybody who fits a certain racial profile is not safe from arrest or detention. A double standard of proof of identity for the new slaves has become the norm for many Mexicans, Salvadorians, and other Latin Americans. They must carry passports, birth certificates, green cards and a variety of documents to have handy if they are stopped by the legally appointed over seers of apartheid justice, la migra, Federal Immigration Agents.

Speaking recently at a United Nations sponsored event in Mexico City, Lauro Lopez Sanchez, an assistant secretary of the Interior Ministry, said 850,000 Mexicans were deported from the United States in 2005. (www.0101aztlan.net

April Bulletin, “New Deportation Numbers”)

Are we prepared to witness this kind of treatment all over again? It will be on a scale never before imagined by any of us. On April 6, 2005, in the New York Times article, “Senate Republicans Strike Immigration Deal,” the rules for the mass deportations are defined: “Those who have lived here for two to five years, said to number about three million, would have to leave the country…The remaining one million or so, those who have lived in the country less than two years, would be required to leave.”

These oppressive laws being passed are usually useful to divide the working class into a variety of factions. But for the moment it has accomplished something that none of us have dreamed of: unity. I have always heard that Latinos were too diverse and could never be united. A huge stereotype as it turns out. And now we are on the threshold of calling out to all workers for a general strike on May 1, 2006. It will send the message to the government that we will not tolerate unjust laws and we will not allow ourselves to be locked up as a result. We must keep up the pressure as the people of France have.

Recently in France, millions have gone to the streets to protest as a single united group. The oppressive law that incited them was originally pointed at those less than 26 years of age. Later, all ages joined them, unions joined them, and workers at every job joined them in national strikes.

For people in America – workers, professionals, students, especially those young ones in high schools and middle schools, those of us with a sense of compassion for others who suffer injustice – this is our moment. If you choose not to stand side by side to defend them, then be prepared for the day when they come for you and your family.

While there may be various consequences to such a protest, it is up to each person to decide whether or not it is worth it. Because it is the right thing to do, to defend our rights, our freedoms and democracy, I believe it is. What would Gandhi say? Martin Luther King Jr.? Cesar Chavez? Jesus? The Dali Lama? Muhammad? And all the other great humanitarians throughout history?

Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now, spoke to Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at MIT, about this issue and said, “some of the largest protests in the history of this country are taking place, with upwards of a million people protesting in the streets of Los Angeles, tens of thousands in Atlanta and Arizona, the biggest protest perhaps in the history of Chicago. What about this? The walkout of 40,000 high school students?

Chomsky responded with the following:

Well, these protests did have an effect. The bill that went through the Senate Judiciary Committee, to some extent, reflected them. Power centers cannot ignore public protests and, even worse from their point of view, continuing organization. You know, a demonstration now and then, okay, you can live with it. If it continues and becomes real grassroots organization, developing a functioning political system, in which people actually participate in forming and shaping policy and electing their own candidates, if it gets to that stage, they’re in trouble. And we’re far from that.

Chomsky goes on to talk about the great successes of the recent grass roots movements in Bolivia and Venezuela. He points out that these are the, “real democracy. You want to talk about democracy promotion, we need it here, and we can learn lessons from them.” So that is what we are doing: taking steps towards changing a system that can better serve the masses of people and create new governance.

Join us. Be a part of creating a people’s democracy; part of a movement that parallels the Black Civil Rights struggle. Be a piece of living history that will echo for generations to follow. Be a part of history that will give us all a sense of dignity because we stood up and fought for workers who make this country as powerful as it is today. Without them, without us, without our blood, sweat and tears, this country is weak, vulnerable and would crumble.

Stay out of work on May 1, 2006. Say no to concentration camps and illegal deportations.

-Robert Bracamontes

Well, you don't need to "stay out of work today," but do please stay out of concentration camps. Don't vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the son of a Nazi who interred thousands of people, or Sarah Palin, who is a double speaking Republican puppet - funny. Vote your conscience first.

Turkey's cycle of violence returns

2010-06-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

Turkey's long dormant insurgency by Kurdish separatists has reignited with a spate of attacks.

By Iason Athanasiadis — Special to GlobalPost

Published: June 22, 2010 16:48 ET in Europe

ISTANBUL, Turkey — A long and brutal fight between Turkey and Kurdish separatist fighters has erupted in a spate of violence that has claimed the lives of 15 Kurdish soldiers within the last five days.

And many observers here fear that the renewed killing has derailed an effort toward reconciliation and a democratic opening for Kurdish leadership.

The conflict, which has unfolded through a bloody quarter century and claimed the lives of 40,000 soldiers, guerrillas and civilians, had become relatively dormant in recent years. As part of Turkish efforts to enter the European Union, the government lifted its ban on the Kurdish language being spoken or sung in public settings and inaugurated a Kurdish-language TV station.

But in the last week, the fighting has suddenly and dramatically erupted in a new cycle of violence. A minivan bombing that killed three soldiers and two others on Tuesday in Istanbul was the first fatal attack in the city since 2008 and it raises the specter that the conflict could return to the cities.

Turkish newspapers and television have run saturation coverage of the grieving families of those killed in recent days.

Responding to public outrage, the Turkish government launched a campaign against PKK rebels based out of northern Iraq on Monday.

The largest loss of life occurred at a border unit assaulted by around 250 Kurdish guerrillas infiltrating from mountain bases inside Iraq. Nine soldiers, some of them inexperienced teenagers doing their national service, were killed in the nighttime attack. A land mine and a separate assault in another eastern province killed three more soldiers.

“The government promised a lot for its democratic opening and did nothing,” said Shamil Altan, a political activist for the BDP. “Nobody talked with us or with the Kurds.”

The governing AK party’s outreach has flagged after a vigorous media reaction last October to a video that showed deserting PKK fighters from Iraq being greeted as heroes in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Although the AK party has made enormous headway in attracting support among Kurdish voters, the outreach had come under mounting criticism by the opposition MHP party and increasingly morphed into political risk for a government headed into elections later this year.

“For months now they are promising and doing nothing,” Altan said. “On the contrary, they started attacking our BDP cadres and thousands of people in military operations.”

The idea was to offer more civil rights to Turkey’s estimated 14 million Kurds and a greater sense of entitlement in a country where they have been discriminated against for decades. When the PKK was founded in the late 1970s, it intended to create a socialist state across Kurdish-settled territories in present-day Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

“Remember the prime minister said ‘one minute’ [to the Israeli president for killing Palestinians],” said Emine Ayna, a deputy of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). “We have been saying ‘one minute’ to the prime minister for the killing of Kurdish people with Israeli guns and bombs for a long time.”

Erdogan turned to more confrontational rhetoric Sunday at a ceremony for the dead soldiers, promising that the PKK will “melt in their own darkness, dry up in their own swamps, drown in their own blood.”

Hundreds of commandos, infantry and mechanized divisions are being deployed on the Turkish-Iraqi border after an emergency national security meeting Monday that Erdogan attended.

“The Turkish nation knows very well on whose behalf the terrorist organization works as a subcontractor,” he said in a veiled reference to Israel.

He was joining a slew of politicians and military personnel who have publicly speculated that the Israeli intelligence service Mossad has sponsored PKK attacks on the Turkish military as a way of upping the ante since the Gaza flotilla incident.

(To read the rest of this article, click on the link in the title above this post.)

Halliburton Confirms Concentration Camps Already Constructed

2010-06-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

Please click on the link in the title of this article, and then you will see the pictures.

On February 17, 2006, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to the country’s security, not just by the enemy, but also by what he called “news informers” who needed to be combated in “a contest of wills.”

In 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his desire to see camps for U.S. citizens deemed to be “enemy combatants.”

SEE: U.S. Concentration Camps Anthony J. Hilder article on Russia TV Program

STATE STILL HOLDS Liberty For Life FOUNDER'S CHILDREN & HOME HOSTAGE

VISIT CopperCards

THE SOLUTION

A Defense Department document, entitled the “Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support,” has set out a military strategy against terrorism that envisions an “active, layered defense” both inside and outside U.S. territory. In the document, the Pentagon pledges to “transform U.S. military forces to execute homeland defense missions in the . . . U.S. homeland.” The strategy calls for increased military reconnaissance and surveillance.

The Washington Post reported on February 15, 2006 that the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) central repository holds the names of 325,000 terrorist suspects, a fourfold increase since fall of 2003. A Pentagon official said the Counterintelligence Field Activity’s TALON program has amassed files on antiwar protesters.

Shortly after Bush orchestrated 9/11, he issued "Military Order Number One", which empowered him to detain any noncitizen as an international terrorist or enemy combatant. Today that order extends to U.S. citizens as well.

Halliburton subsidiary "KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs". See Source Document on Halliburton Site or page 1, & 5 below

HOUSTON, Texas – Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) announced that income from continuing operations for the full year of 2005 was $2.4 billion. Consolidated revenue in the fourth quarter of 2005 was $5.8 billion. Consolidated operating income was $779 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. This increase was largely attributable to higher activity in the Energy Services Group (ESG), partially offset by lower revenue in KBR primarily on government services projects in the Middle East. Annual operating income more than tripled to $2.7 billion in 2005.

Why exactly are prisons being built for "the rapid development of new programs". Halliburton's company site confirms that the government is engaged in a massive construction and preparation exercise to build concentration camps and prisoner processing facilities in the United States. This is particularity astonishing and disturbing considering that the U.S. already incarcerates more orders of magnitude more people than any other nation, about on-par with U.S.S.R. at the height of Stalin's era.

The contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build immigrant detention facilities is part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.” In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed similar emergency detention powers as part of a super-secret program of planning for what was euphemistically called “Continuity of Government” (COG). These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any “national security emergency,” which they vaguely defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988.

Over 800 concentration camps are reported throughout the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive U.S. Prisoners who disagree with the government. The concentration camps are all staffed and manned by full-time guards, however, they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) when Martial Law is implemented in the United States (at the stroke of a Presidential pen and the Attorney General's signature on a warrant).

The camps have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities, many have airports. Like Auschwitz, some of the camps have airtight buildings and furnaces. The majority of the camps can each house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive "mental health" facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.

Following the Halliburton subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown and Root) announcement on Jan. 24 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps, two weeks later, on Feb. 6, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the Fiscal Year 2007 federal budget would allocate over $400 million to add 6,700 additional detention beds (an increase of 32 percent over 2006. What is interesting in the Homeland Security plan is that each concrete prison bed costs $60,000 per bed! Observing these concentration camps and general jail and prison facilities throughout the U.S., the Homeland Security plan is clearly buffered to build significantly more than 6,700 additional beds.

This is for real!

Wake Up America!

Maps Indicating Locations of Concentration Camps Throughout U.S. Click on maps for list of locations and videos.

See Army Regulation 210–35 Civilian Inmate Labor Program: Confirming the government and the Army's plans for U.S. based Concentration Camps:

"Oh, ALL OF US in the CIA know ALL ABOUT the concentration camps in America and their purpose! We ALL KNOW that their purpose is to TERMINATE 'RESISTERS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER' UNDER MARTIAL LAW!" - Michael Maholy, 20 years Naval Intelligence/CIA under BUSH SR)

Former Inspector for Joint Chiefs of Staff explains how U.S. Citizens will be rounded up and sent to death camps. The plans and camps mirror Hitler's SS plans and implementations, correlating with the strong ties between the Bush's and Hitler.

Military Commissions Act

The enactment of concentration camps in the U.S. and the ability of the President to throw whoever he wants in the camps without question. This act is one of the most extraordinarily outrageous attempts to pass unconstitutional law and is the greatest assault on the U.S. Constitution imaginable. All involved in the commission of this unlawful act have committed high treason against the U.S.A. and should immediately be prosecuted.

In yet another astonishingly treasonous act the U.S. administration has eliminated yet another key check to control out of control government, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.

The Posse Comitatus Act which abolished the use of the U.S. military against our own citizens since 1878 has also been wiped out. This act which protected citizens through WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Great Depression is considered by the current administration as unnecessary and a hindrance to the government's ability to prosecute inside the U.S. This is particularly chilling read more at this link: Military vs. Citizens

See March 24, 1997, letter from Congressman Bill Hefner confirming the U.S. Concentration Camps:

“Enclosed is the information you requested pertaining to the Army’s policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor program and civilian prison camps on Army installations. This information has not yet been published (it is currently at the printers), however, it has been funded, staffed, and does reflect current Army policy. I home you find this information useful."

Who's A Terrorist? carefully consider what officials are defining as a terrorist in the U.S.: for example "defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN"

Military Attack On Internet

Concentration Camp Rail Car:

FEMA ordered 107,200 'AutoMax' prison cars from Gunderson Steel modified from original FEMA design to carry automobiles. They apparently wanted people to become accustomed to seeing these railcars so they would just think they were hauling autos.

Temporary Prison Construction Modules:

The Homeland Security $400 million allocation is more than a four-fold increase over the FY 2006 budget, which provided $90 million for the same purpose. Both the contract and the budget allocation are in partial fulfillment of an ambitious 10-year Homeland Security strategic plan, code-named ENDGAME, authorized in 2003. According to a 49-page Homeland Security document on the plan, ENDGAME expands "a mission first articulated in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798." Its goal is the capability to "remove all removable aliens," including "illegal economic migrants, aliens who have committed criminal acts, asylum-seekers (required to be retained by law) or potential terrorists." The government's definition of an enemy combatant covers almost any individual who promotes the rudimentary rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Readiness Exercise 1984 - Rex 84

Rex 84 is a United States federal government program to test their ability to detain large numbers of American citizens. Exercises similar to Rex 84 happen periodically. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the "ADEX" list.

Texas Congressman Henry Gonzales revealed many years ago plans of Rex 84 which former colonel Ollie North helped design. The late Representative Jack Brooks also of Texas brought this concentration camp and internment program as well as the Continuity of Government Program to light during the Iran Contra hearing. The chairman refused to let North even talk about them in open hearings under “National Security.” Mr. Gonzales stated these camps and plans were for the detention of AMERICANS, especially those who refused to surrender their weapons.

The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan), indicates that FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies conducted a civil readiness exercise during April 5-13, 1984. It was conducted in coordination and simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night Train 84, a worldwide military command post exercise (including Continental U.S. Forces or CONUS) based on multi-emergency scenarios operating both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84 Bravo, FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans Administration through a gaming exercise to test military assistance in ;civil defense'.

Red/Blue - many camps like the Nazi extermination camps have Red/Blue lines:

Red List - People on the Red List will be immediately exterminated, these are enemies of the New World Order who are in leadership or public positions. Mirroring the strategy employed in Nazi Germany, two weeks before instituting Martial Law, these people will be dragged from their homes in the middle of the night and flown to FIMA camps to be exterminated.

Blue List - Also enemies of the NWO but not necessarily leaders. These people will be rounded up after the imposition of martial law and will be "re-programmed" in the concentration camps where they will also be used for slave labor. Most will not survive.

Yellow List - these are people who are ignorant and do not care about the NWO who are likely to do whatever they are ordered to do.

Former inspector for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense. Mr. Sea elaborates on the 'RED and BLUE Lists' and what they mean:

The RED List is for pick-up and execution before unobtrusive preparations for martial law are initiated. The BLUE List is also for execution, but later, within 6 weeks of martial law declaration. When you get picked up on a RED pick-up, they'll take you from your home at night, probably around 4 am and put you in a black van, then drive you to a helicopter waiting to fly you to an intermediate point. There, you'll be loaded onto a big 64-passenger CH-47 Chinook helicopter and fly you to one of 38 cities where you'll board a 747, 737, or 727. You may be taken straight to a red camp and executed. At some point, martial law will be declared. Martial law is when the writ of Habeas Corpus to have a trial by jury is suspended. Instead, of going to the judge, you go straight to jail. At this point, the BLUE listed people will be picked up. At that time, the country will be regionalized into ten regions, which are already designated by FEMA.

The black choppers have state-of-the-art radio (RF) frequency wideband jammers, and can jam cell phones and CBs while they're executing black operations missions. This means that your cell phone could be jammed just before and/or during any action against you. In June of 1996, an FBI agent got hold of the Region Three BLUE List (from a CIA agent), and found his own name on it, and those of several others he knew in Virginia. The Regional BLUE List stated that the names on the BLUE List would be picked up 'within six weeks of the actual martial law declaration.' It will work if the 300,000 Soviet troops which are ALREADY HERE can get the guns.

The ones doing all of this are operating out of the highest places in the Federal Government. They're cooperating with spirit guides and mediums and using astrology and numerology. The spirit guides are telling them what to do, and the entire thing is being orchestrated at the highest spiritual levels. Every base has been covered. They've thought of everything. They often do things on the 13th of the month. Mr. Clinton does a lot of things on the 13th. On September 13, 1993, the Satanic Oslo Israel-PLO 'peace' accord was signed. Amos 3:7 says that God doesn't do anything without first revealing His secrets to His servants the prophets. God is giving His people warnings. If we'll listen to God, He is warning us of the times that are coming.

We need to prepare. There will be an interim of probably just days from the time they launch the RED List, to the declaration of martial law, when they'll start coming after those on the BLUE List. It's the same blueprint being used because it's the same spirit leading the Fourth Reich as led the Third Reich. In Germany, they used trains, here it will be helicopters and 747s. They are now in the process of villainizing Christians, Patriots, Constitutionalists, and outspoken talk-show hosts, HERE IN AMERIKKKA!

Who will be doing the actual picking up? Foreign UN cops, probably Muslims or communists. Over 30 foreign military bases under the United Nations flag are already set up in the USA . These bases are already manned with over ONE MILLION troops from Russia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Great Britain, Nicaragua, and Asian countries. They will have no qualms about firing on U.S. citizens. There are Russian tanks, military trucks and chemical warfare vehicles outside Gulfport, Mississippi. Hello? That was hit by Katrina in 2005. Anyone see heavy military equipment and foreign troops near San Francisco?

The Illuminati plan way ahead! There's not going to be some future event when the invading troops are going to show up. They're already here. When martial law is implemented, these foreign U.N. troops will be policing our country, carrying out the plans of the New World Order. God is warning His people. There isn't much time before these events begin to take place. God's people need to prepare themselves in every way possible. It's not a time for fear. It's a time for prayer, preparation and sharing our faith with a lost world.

a Apparently all nature contingencies are being

taken care of. Photographers snapped pictures

of an estimated half a million plastic coffins:

These plans are similar in many ways to Hitler and Stalin's plans who all have generally the same financial backers, the owners of our Federal Reserve Bank, or the occult practicing 'New World Order'.

Clearly Presidential Executive Orders primarily from FDR and Bush Jr., which are blatantly treasonous in form, have been laying the groundwork for this Fascist Socialist takeover: Executive Order Treason

Many Traditional Concentration Camp Facilities Clearly Intend To Operate In Similar Fissions To WWII Camps:

See Also:

•International Monetary Fund & Nazi's

•Congressman McFadden

•Fed Bank Evil Root?

•Fed Instability

•Bank for International Settlement

•Security Exchange Act

•Socialist Fascism

•US World Dominance Plan

•How FDR Made the Depression Worse

•Franklin D Roseveldt

•Prison Population

•U.S. Concentration Camps

•Reason U.S. Is Prison Capital

Liberty For Life

C

C-Live, Love Oppose Evil. Novus Ordo Seclorum.

© 2010 Liberty For Life Association, All rights reserved - Reproduction with Permission - Terms Or Use - SUPPORT LFL

North Korea's Labor Camps Examined

2010-06-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

National Public Radio
June 10 2009

Two U.S. journalists were sentenced this week to 12 years hard labor. Chuck Downs, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, discusses North Korea's labor camp and prison system. In 2003, his group published The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps.

Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

The fate of two American journalists imprisoned by North Korea remains unclear.

On Monday, Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor prison for so-called hostile acts. Today, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the goal is to reunite the women with their families, but he avoided specifics so as not to, in his words, complicate any of the efforts that are going on.

Mr. IAN KELLY: (Spokesman, U.S. Department of State): We are exploring a number of different avenues to try…

Unidentified Man: And, and can you assure us and the families and…

Mr. KELLY: I can assure you that we are very focused on this.

Unidentified Man: …this is - it's being worked?

Mr. KELLY: It is being worked.

BLOCK: The threat of hard labor in a North Korean prison is chilling. Information about those camps has emerged from survivors who have fled to South Korea. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea has collected the former prisoners' testimonies.

And the committee's executive director Chuck Downs joins us in the studios. Thanks for coming in.

Mr. CHUCK DOWNS (Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea): Thank you, Melissa. Good to be here.

BLOCK: Tell us, based on what you know about this case of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, where they might be likely to be sent.

Mr. DOWNS: Well, the North Korean regime views their situation very cynically and sees them as bargaining chips at - which at some point, they will turn over. I'm not sure what their plan is. But in the past, they have tried to get everything they can out of the release of hostages from the outside.

So, I think that the families can get some reassurance from the likelihood that they will not be treated as severely as the stories that can be told about life in the gulag for North Koreans themselves.

BLOCK: Let's talk now about the conditions that North Koreans endure in the prison system there. There are how many political prisoners or prisoners in North Korea, would you say?

Mr. DOWNS: There are at least 250,000, and I am afraid that that number is built up from evidence that we have confidence in, which means that probably, there are many more that we don't realize.

The North Koreans engage in deception, not just internationally, but internally. And so, these prison camps sometimes have the markings of military barracks, guard units. From the outside, you wouldn't know that it was a slave labor camp, a prison camp, or a political prison re-education center. Only when you're inside do you really know what you're up against.

BLOCK: And who would be sent to the camps where the harshest conditions exist?

Mr. DOWNS: It's unbelievable and it's very hard for Americans to imagine. And before I go any further, I'd like to say to the families of the journalists that nothing I am about to say is meant to increase pressure on them or increase pressure on the U.S. government to try to negotiate quickly to solve this. I think that we have to assume everything that can be done is being done. And…

BLOCK: And that these conditions wouldn't apply to them.

Mr. DOWNS: And these conditions would not apply to them. But if you're an average North Korean and you happen to be drinking one night and you start to whistle a South Korean song, you can find yourself assigned to one of these prison camps for nine years or more.

If you're found to have Bibles, if you're found to have things written in English, if you're found to have any criticism or anything that can be represented as criticism, you can be completely innocent of any crime or any action and still end up in a prison camp, if you are a average North Korean citizen.

BLOCK: Describe the conditions in these camps. And I know any word you choose, it pales in comparison to the reality of what goes on there.

Mr. DOWNS: The only comparison that comes to Americans' mind is a comparison to the Holocaust and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The difference, of course, was that in the concentration camps, the objective was to actually annihilate people. In the prison camps in North Korea, the objective is to work people to death. These are slave labor camps.

BLOCK: Do you have any sense of the mortality rate of those who go into North Korean camps who never come out?

Mr. DOWNS: The committee has concluded that there are at least 400,000 people who have died while in these camps, and it could be much more than that. But even 400,000 people in a population of 20 million is a significant number of people to be sending to their deaths, sometimes for doing nothing more than whistling a South Korean tune.

BLOCK: Chuck Downs is executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

Thank you for coming in.

Mr. DOWNS: Thank you very much.

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Thai soldiers advance on 'red shirt' protesters' encampment in Bangkok

2010-05-21T12:32:00.001-07:00

By Andrew Higgins
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

BANGKOK -- After weeks of escalating confrontation, soldiers backed by armored vehicles deployed in force early Wednesday in the center of the Thai capital, moving toward the fortified encampment of anti-government protesters entrenched behind bamboo barricades in this modern Asian metropolis.

The operation, which also included armed police, appeared to mark the start of an attempt by Thai authorities to dislodge "red shirt" protesters from an upscale shopping and diplomatic district and end an increasingly volatile standoff in the heart of Bangkok.

But a government spokesman suggested that the military was not making a final push to evict the demonstrators. Panitan Wattanayagorn said that the operation's goal was to tighten the security cordon and that it would take the rest of the day.

Troops armed with American M16 rifles skirmished with militant elements of what began more than two months ago as a peaceful protest movement. Clouds of tear gas and smoke from burning tires drifted over a garbage-strewn boulevard leading to the heart of the red shirts' zone. Gunfire crackled and helicopters clattered overhead.

Troops broke through a barricade in the south of the territory occupied by the protesters but by mid-morning had not pushed into the core of the zone. Protest leaders called on their followers to stay put. At a stage decked with a banner reading "Not Terrorists," protesters sang a Thai folk song called "No Problem."

An estimated 3,000 people, including women and some children, remained inside the protesters' encampment, and a full-scale operation to force them out would carry grave risks for America's closest ally in Southeast Asia. Heavy casualties would likely only stoke political passions further and could escalate Thailand's worst crisis in decades.

Initial casualties appeared to have been modest, with news agencies reporting at least eight people injured.

The stakes are also high for Washington, which risks severe embarrassment if the military push produces major bloodshed. The United States has long-standing and intimate relations with Thailand's armed forces. The two countries hold regular joint exercises, the most recent of which, a naval exercise off the Thai coast, began late last week -- just as the Thai authorities declared parts of Bangkok a "live firing zone."

Approaching red shirt territory, soldiers beefed up their presence on a street where a billboard advertising BMW cars declared, "Joy is here, there and everywhere." Soldiers also took positions outside the U.S. Embassy, on the edge of protester territory, and moved on foot along an elevated rail line over the center of the camp.

Red shirts first moved into the capital nine weeks ago to press demands that new elections be held to replace a government they denounce as undemocratic. Since then they have steadily expanded territory under their control, paralyzing the center of a capital city of more than 9 million people. As troops moved in last week to choke off supplies to the protest area, militant elements took up arms and fought running battles with the Thai military in which at least 39 people have been killed.

Kobsak Sabhavasau, a senior aide to Thailand's Oxford-educated prime minister, said on Thai television that the government was still open to negotiations, but only if the protesters withdraw first. "I believe it is not too late," he said. His remark suggested that the government still wanted to avoid an all-out offensive and was ratcheting up pressure the protesters in the hope that the protesters might finally pull back.

Washington, in public comments, had tried to remain aloof from what it termed a domestic political crisis. But behind the scenes, U.S. diplomats in Bangkok worked to find a peaceful settlement. They held informal talks with both government officials and red shirt representatives, diplomats familiar with the discussions said. It was not clear whether the United States was informed beforehand of the Thai military's advance Wednesday.

Nate Thayer contributed to this report.

Statistics on Genocide (that I wish didn't exist)

2010-05-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

Change.org
By Michelle
October 04, 2008
Topics: Genocide

Over 1,000,000.

6,000,000 and 5,000,000.

1,700,000.

200,000.

800,000.

Numbers, on paper, are abstractions.

But when talking about genocide, numbers are a bit more foreboding.

Over 1,000,000 Armenians.

6,000,000 Jews and 5,000,000 Roma and other "undesirables" in the Holocaust.

1,700,000 Cambodians.

200,000 Muslim Bosnians.

800,000 Rwandans.

When talking about genocide, numbers are death tolls.

Not only are numbers death tolls, but each figure represents thousands upon thousands of individual lives lost at the hands others.

1.5 Million

As many as 1.5 million Christian Armenians, out of a pre-WWI population of 1.8 million, were killed by the Ottoman Empire in present-day Turkey between 1915 and 1918.

11 Million

Nearly 6 million Jews and 5 million "undesirables" were killed between 1933 and 1945 in Nazi Germany, in pursuit of Hilter's "Final Solution." Before the Nazis seized power in 1933, Europe's Jewish population was about 9.5 million, representing 60% of the world's total Jewish population. In 1950, Europe's Jewish population was only 3.5 million.

1.7 Million

During the Cambodian genocide between 1975 and 1979, approximately 1.7 million-21% of the country's total population-lost their lives at the hands of Pol Pot's extremist Khmer Rouge government.

200,000 and 8,000

Bosnian Serb forces systematically murdered an estimated 200,000 Bosnian Muslims in pursuit of a "Greater Serbia" during civil war between 1992 and 1995. In one particularly shocking incident, over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were rounded-up killed execution-style by the Serbian army in Srebrenica in July 1995.

800,000

Beginning in April 1994, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and politically-moderate Hutus were killed, largely by machetes-in a matter of a mere 100 days. Though the numbers will forever remain disputed-as is the case with all genocides-many estimates indicate as much as three-quarters of the Tutsi population in Rwanda was eliminated.

The figures are indeed stark and alarming-all the more so if one reads into them, beyond their surface representation of death tolls. Each number represents the life of one taken by another. Each number represents years of persecution, the total loss of personal security, followed by death in an abhorrently violent fashion. Each number represents community members turning against one another, witnesses to the most extreme of human behavior, families torn apart, entire populations nearly extinct, and entire nations nearly destroyed.

Lastly, the most disappointing figures:

3 Million

The Genocide Convention took effect in 1951, after the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust resulted in a consensus that genocide is a crime of concern to the entire international community. Since then, the world watched as nearly 3 million civilians were slaughtered in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.

And the world is still watching:

300,000

At least 300,000 people in Darfur have been killed so far by the Sudanese government and its proxy janjaweed militias, and another 2.5 million have been displaced. (Interestingly, the government in Khartoum claims that only 10,000 have died.)

And the numbers are growing...

Michelle has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.

Torture in North Korea: Concentration Camps in the Spotlight

2010-04-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

By Karin Badt
Professor of theater and cinema in France
Posted: April 21, 2010

The inmate is forced to kneel in a 3 foot square box, motionless for months, until he or she dies. This is a description of the "punishment cell", the final stage of incarceration for North Koreans who are considered dangerous for the regime.

It is estimated that 23,000 North Koreans are at this moment locked up in about 20 concentration camps scattered about the country, perhaps since the 1950s, when the elder Kim (Kim Il Sung) was in power.

At the recent Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece, more than four documentaries focused on the horrors of North Korea.

An eye-opening introduction to the horrors is N.C. Heikin's Kimjongilia, or the The Flower of Kim Jong Il.

The film intersperses state propaganda celebrating the regime -- pretty women in uniforms crooning songs in the fields while picking brightly colored fruit -- with testimonies from six defectors who managed to escape. Ticker-tape facts help the novice get the picture quite clearly. By law, if someone does something wrong (i.e. even drop a photo of the dictator on the ground by mistake) he or she becomes a class enemy, and with no trial goes to a concentration camp. The family is punished for three generations, so children, parents, grandparents are all carted off as well. Suicide is not a way out, as that too is a crime, punishable for three generations.

We hear harrowing stories: a child born in the camps witnesses countless executions before he manages to escape in his teens, another tells of making paper flowers l8 hours a day. Even freedom is not a pleasant story. A singer escapes to China, where she is kidnapped and sold to the sex trade for six years -- something that evidently is quite frequent.

Director N C Heikin, a New Yorker expatriate in Paris, told me that she felt compelled to make this film -- singular in its political nature for her, as she is normally a screenwriter for French television -- because of her own Jewish family background in the Holocaust. At a human rights conference in Japan, she had been shocked to learn that concentration camps, on such a large scale, still exist today -- and that few are aware of their existence. Going on to read survivor Chol Hwan's memoir, The Aquariums of Pyongyang , she then worked three years to make Kimjongilia.

The film has that fresh horror-struck tone. Indeed the power of the film lies in its naive approach. Heikin, formerly a dancer, intersperses talking heads with modern dance movements, the grace of floating white veils creating a metaphoric lament.

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An even harder look into the concentration camps is Yodok Stories, by the celebrated Polish director Andrzej Fidyk, famed for his earlier film on North Korea (Parade ).

The film is based on a singular premise. Fidyk thought to himself: how can one best express the torture that goes on in these camps, given that no one is allowed in to film or photograph them?

Fidyk's brilliant idea: since the best product of North Korea is spectacle (Kim Jong Il uses acrobatic, spellbinding stadium performances to celebrate his divine stature with 20,000 actors and millions of flowers), then why not find one of the theater directors responsible for these national parades and have him dramatize torture instead?

The result is Yodok Stories: we watch as theater director Jung Sung San -- now in Seoul -- stages rehearsals of torture with fellow defectors as his actors, dancers and singers.

It is a bit odd to see a musical version of "put that stick between your legs until the flesh rots off" or uniformed girls being whipped by dancing guards -- but the result is pellucid. We hear the testimony of a defector who escaped from the Yodok camp (the only concentration camp one can escape from) and then we see the torture reproduced with precise dance movements.

We also sense the relief of the former inmates as they "creatively" reproduce their torture -- which turns them from victims to agents.

The most compelling scene: one of the actors in the musical is a former prison guard. All the actors break for dinner and boisterously drink and recount stories. The guard grins and demonstrates how he beat prisoners to death -- whack, whack -- and how he watched two guard dogs rip the throat out of a child. His fellow dinner-mates, all former beaten prisoners, chuckle and tease him.

Eventually this guard also got punished: for his father's suicide. Punished to three generations. The guard defected.

For such traumatic experiences, the defectors seemed relatively recovered, I noted to the director, calling him in his hometown Warsaw.

"You just saw the strongest," the director told me pointblank. "The elite who had the strength, ingenuity and stamina to make it. For every one of them, there are thousands crushed."

Or is the whole country crushed? Fidyk's earlier Parade (1988) -- a film that made him famous in Europe -- gives an even more ominous picture. Filmed by Fidyk directly in North Korea, Parade only shows what the director was allowed to film, obeying to a letter the dictatorial guidelines. We have sentimental beloved shots of the Great Leader, Kim Jong Il, close-ups of biographies entitled The Great Leader, choral recitals of children chanting paeans to The Great Leader, pretty school-teachers prattling about The Great Leader.

The result is so extreme it almost seems a Chaplin parody of dictatorship. We hear of Kim Sung Jong's great hagiographic exploits : how he once sat on a rock in childhood (here we see the rocks, as if enshrined by the sun) when it came to him to get rid of Japanese colonial rule. Cut to an incongruous shot of a dead, stuffed lion, a gift to The Great Leader, with its paws outstretched uselessly in a museum room. The camera dwells on the immobile paws.

The British announcer in the film never betrays a sense of sarcasm, but what else can the audience think, after seeing the umpteenth shot of crowds waving paper pink flowers and chanting like religious acolytes when a Kim rises to the stage? The country -- which we guess is starving -- seems at least to have an abundance of flowers to throw at the dictator's feet, if not to eat.

Form becomes content: the camera seems unable to leave the crisp golf course-like lawns of the government compound or the homogenized faces of the children -- recreating a sense of enclosure. The human beings -- guards to guides -- speak like robots. The country seems like one big mausoleum.

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Note that not all documentaries on North Korea depict the country as as a cheerless monolith of brainwashed puppets: Director Solrun Hoaas, in her wonderful Pyongyang Diaries, introduces the same oppressive Juche system, but also takes every opportunity to joke with and debate with the locals. A guide explains to her how George Bush uses propaganda, and she spars back and says, "But didn't you guys just use propaganda with that picture of me with the diplomats??" She films children smiling sheepishly at the camera -- like children everywhere -- until a policeman tells her to stop filming, and she continues anyway. At another moment, she taps a pretty guide on the shoulder: "Do you have a boyfriend?" The girl blushes and says, "Oh no!"

A most charming moment happens when rowing in a canoe, her guide confides to her about his newlywed, grinning with shy delight about how lucky he is to have her. We even find out -- in this rare documentary -- about the shamanism culture in Korea, and how it was re-incorporated by Kim Sung II.

The North Koreans may have concentration camps, dictatorship and oppression, but clearly they are not soul-less.

But clearly their situation has to change. Colonized for 35 years by the Japanese, decimated by the Korean War, ruled by two dictators for the last 60 years, the country seems, to say the least, stuck.

But what can be done?

I turned to Fidyk for an answer. The Polish director had spent decades obsessed with the plight of North Korea, informed in part by his own personal experience with oppression in his own country.

"What can be done about North Korea?" he said shortly. "Nothing."

He continued: "South Korea has no investment in a unified Korea. Who wants 20,000,000 impoverished, starving, uneducated masses entering their country? If it was bad when East Germany joined with West Germany, this would be a hundred times worse. And no, it is no solution when Kim Jong Il dies. It'll be the same. His son is just as bad. You know he was just arrested in Japan; he had tried to go see Disney World on a fake passport."

Nevertheless, Fidyk's own documentary ends with a hopeful idea: thousands of brochures about the upcoming musical about Yodok Stories -- including information about the concentration camps -- are rocket-shot into North Korea, over the demilitarized zone. A flourish of white papers fly up in the sky, rising over the trees.

A Hague prosecutor I know came up with a similar solution : Drop l,000,000 transistor radios, he offered, scratching his head.

Raise your voice against the torture of Ashraf residents‏!

2010-04-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

April 8, 2010
Letter to RWI from Akbar Azizi
Supprt Ashraf Campaign Coordinator

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG IN ORDER TO SIGN THE PRO-ASHRAF PETITION, to help the residents of Ashraf against the harassment forces of the Iranian goverment.

Dear supporters of Ashraf,

It is now two months that Ashraf residents are subjected to psychological torture by Iranian regime agents at the entrance gate to Ashraf. These agents that are in the guise of relatives of residents have been briefed in Iran by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry (MOIS) and they are receiving full cooperation from Iraqi forces that have blockaded Ashraf for 14 months now. Their aims are:

1. Impose pressure on residents in the form of psychological torture

2. Instigate a reaction by the residents so that the Iraqi army finds a pretext again to attack Ashraf.

3. Keep Ashraf busy and divert its attention from the uprising in Iran that is aimed at toppling the dictatorship of the mullahs.

To carry out this psychological torture, the Iraqi army has given them very powerful loudspeakers. Using these loudspeakers, they broadcast insults and threats into Ashraf which is a psychological torture. Please see the clip below to see what I am saying before you continue with the letter (for some unknown reason, Blogger has deleted this entire blog recently):

http://shahriarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/simultaneous-with-dispatch-of.html

You can imagine how difficult it is to tolerate this torture. Just imagine some people have come outside your house and using loudspeakers threaten and insult you day and night and the police, instead of arresting them is giving them protection and does what it can to help them! Then you can see how we in Ashraf feel. This psychological torture has been going on since February 8, which means two months. Our hospital is situated just a hundred meters from these loudspeakers and you can imagine the pressure on the patients.

Now we have a UN monitoring team here in Ashraf to protect the residents from these violations of their human rights and to prevent further attacks on Ashraf. We also have the U.S. forces that disarmed the Iranian opposition here and have a compact with them to protect them according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

As you can see neither organ is doing what it should; and the mullahs, not in their homeland but in a neighboring country, are torturing their opposition with full cooperation from the Iraqi prime ministership!

It is my request that you raise your voice against this injustice and write letters to the United Nations, the U.S. government, Amnesty International, other human rights organizations or politicians you know and protest what is happening here in Ashraf and urge them to take appropriate action.

The United Nations and the U.S. government should face this question as to why they are not doing anything to stop this blatant human rights violation of 3,400 people. If you have friends that can be asked to send similar letters please do ask them to do so as the more public opinion we have on this the quicker a result we may expect.

Thank you for your support of human rights and God bless you all.

Respectfully,

Akbar Azizi

Support Ashraf Campaign Coordinator

_____________________________

STATEMENT REGARDING ASHRAF:

What follows is a statement released by NCRI regarding this issue for further insight into the situation in Ashraf:

Since February 8, 2010 a number of MOIS agents were dispatched to Iraq and with the help of the Committee tasked to suppress Ashraf in the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office were stationed at the entrance of Ashraf. Their goal is to psychologically torture and intimidate the residents and to create further chaos. From time to time, they are replaced with new agents. Using high powered sound systems round the clock, they chant insults and slogans such as "Death to Monafeqin (derogatory term used by mullahs against PMOI)" and "Long live the Islamic Republic". They threaten the camp residents with execution, massacre and burning.

On Monday, March 29, the mullahs’ regime brought 15 new agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), under the guise of relatives of Camp Ashraf residents, to step up its suppressive plots against the residents. The agents were first debriefed in the MOIS headquarters in each of their provinces.

On March 30-31, the MOIS agents outside Ashraf chanted: “Your lives have come to an end. This is the end of Ashraf. This is the end of your lives. Prisoners of Ashraf, Your time is up, Ashraf’s time is up. Guns and bullets, like machineguns, hit the heads of Ashraf residents. Ashraf is finished. The day of your destruction has begun. We have come here now to destroy your dwelling.”

From Wednesday night until 4 am on Thursday, the agents used high-powered loudspeakers to chant slogans and abuse into Ashraf. They are disrupting the residents’ peace in large sections of Ashraf and have created many problems for those resting in Ashraf’s hospital which is adjacent to the camp’s entrance. This is while yesterday several patients underwent surgery and are in critical condition.

The dispatching of more agents comes as the religious fascism ruling Iran is intensifying its attempts to neutralise the results of the Iraqi elections following its crushing defeat. Nouri al-Maliki is trying in vain through such appalling lip service to the mullahs to hold on to the post of Prime Minister. The Committee run by al-Maliki has ordered Iraqi forces in Ashraf to provide utmost assistance to the agents and provide them with all necessities in their temporary residence at the entrance of Ashraf. He has threatened that anyone who disobeys this order will face punishment.

The new disgraceful efforts by the mullahs’ regime takes place while the families who in recent years had travelled to Iraq independently and not as a part of MOIS organized tours and met with their relatives in Camp Ashraf have been arrested, imprisoned and tortured upon their return to Iran. Some of the detained families have been tried in the regime’s kangaroo courts and been sentence to long prison term or execution on the bogus charge of ‘Mohareb’, or enemy of God.

Unlike the years 2003-2008, since early 2009, when the security of Ashraf residents was handed over to the Iraqi forces, residents’ relatives have been prevented from entering the camp. Also a few who had managed to reach Ashraf from Iran or elsewhere with much hardship were turned back by the Iraqi forces.

The Iranian Resistance brings to the attention of the United Nations Secretary General, UN Security Council, UNAMI, Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the joint plot of the mullahs’ regime and the Iraqi government against the residents of Ashraf which violates their basic human rights. It also calls on them to urgently intervene to end the psychological torture of the residents.

The Civil War Concentration Camps

2010-03-19T22:58:00.001-07:00

By Mark Weber
Institute for Historical Review

No aspect of the American Civil War left behind a greater legacy of bitterness and acrimony than the treatment of prisoners of war. "Andersonville" still conjures up images of horror unmatched in American History. And although Northern partisans still invoke the infamous Southern camp to defame the Confederacy, the Union had its share of equally horrific camps. Prison camps on both sides produced scenes of wretched, disease-ridden and emaciated prisoners as repulsive as any to come out of the Second World War.

Partisans in both the North and the South produced wildly exaggerated novels, reminiscences of prisoners, journalistic accounts and even official government reports which charged the enemy with wanton criminal policies of murderous intent. It took several decades for Revisionist historians to separate fact from propagandistic fancy and deliberate distortion from misunderstanding. Even today the bitter legacy of hate lingers on in widespread but often grossly distorted accounts from this tragic chapter of American history.

Neither side deliberately set out to maltreat prisoners. Arrangements were made hurriedly to deal with unexpected masses of men. As neither side expected the war to last long, these measures were only makeshifts undertaken with minimum expenditure. Management was bad on both sides, but worse in the South owing to poorer, more decentralized organization and more meager resources. Thus, prisoners held by the Union were somewhat better off.

In the first phase of the war, 1861-1862, the relatively small numbers of prisoners taken by both sides were well treated. Both sides agreed to a prisoner exchange arrangement which operated during the latter half of 1862. Under the cartel, captives remaining after the exchanges were paroled. But the agreement broke down, in part because of Northern refusal to recognize the Confederate authorities as anything other than "rebels," and in part over the Negro question.

''In a war of this kind, words are things. If we must address Davis as president of the Confederacy, we cannot exchange and the prisoners should not wish it," declared the influential Harper's Weekly.

Following the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year's Day, 1863, the North began enlisting former slaves into the Federal army. Confederate President Jefferson Davis declared that "all Negro slaves captured in arms" and their White officers should be delivered over to the South to be dealt with according to law. That could mean rigorous prosecution under strict laws relating to Negro insurrections.

Still, special exchanges on a reduced scale continued, but from 1863 onwards, both sides were holding large numbers of prisoners.

On 17 April 1864, General Grant ordered that no more Confederate prisoners were to be paroled or exchanged until there were released a sufficient number of Union officers and men to equal the parolees at Vicksburg and Port Hudson and unless the Confederate authorities would agree to make no distinction whatsoever between White and Negro prisoners.

On 10 August, the Confederate government offered to exchange officer for officer and man for man, accompanying the proposal with a statement on conditions at Andersonville. This offer induced General Grant to reveal his real reason for refusing any further exchanges. "Every man we hold, when released on parole or otherwise," Grant reported to Washington, "becomes an active soldier against us at once either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel prisoners North would insure Sherman's defeat and would compromise our safety here." (Rhodes, pp499-500)

In October, Lee proposed to Grant another man-to-man exchange of prisoners. Grant asked whether Lee would turn over Negro troops "the same as White soldiers?" When Lee declared that "Negroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange," the negotiations completely broke down.

After the cessation of prisoner exchanges under the cartel, the camps of the South became crowded and the growing poverty of the Confederacy resulted in excessive suffering in the Southern stockades. Reports about these conditions in the Northern press created the belief that the ill treatment was part of a deliberate policy. The inevitable war hatred made such a belief readily credible.

After the war, Confederate partisans laid responsibility for camp conditions (on both sides) at the feet of the Federal authorities. They pointed to the Northern cancellation of the parole and exchange cartel which put a heavy and unexpected strain on the Southern prisoner program. They also condemned the North for its deliberate cut in rations for Confederate prisoners as a reaction to reports of bad conditions in the Southern camps.

The best known of all the Civil War camps today is Andersonville. Officially designated Camp Sumter, the prison stockade was located in south-central Georgia, about 20 miles from Plains. More than 45 000 Union soldiers were confined there between February 1864, when the first prisoners arrived, and April 1865, when it was captured. Of these, 12 912 died, about 28 percent of the total, and were buried on the camp grounds, now a National Cemetery. (Baker, p10)

Andersonville was a prison for enlisted soldiers. After the first few months, officers were confined at Macon. The camp was originally designed to hold 10 000 men, but by late June that number had jumped to 26 000. By August the 26 1/2 acre camp was holding over 32 000 soldiers. Overcrowding continued to remain a serious problem. Guards kept watch from sentry boxes and shot any prisoner who crossed a wooden railing called the "deadline." A strip of ground between the "deadline" and the palisades was called the "deadrun."

The Confederates lacked necessary tools for adequate housing. Some of the early prisoners were able to construct a few rude huts of scrap wood. Many more sought shelter in dilapidated tents. Others dug holes in the ground for protection, but hundreds had no shelter of any kind against the pouring rain, southern heat and winter cold.

No clothing was provided, and many prisoners who were transferred to Andersonville from other camps were dressed only in rags. Even decent clothing deteriorated quickly, and some prisoners had virtually nothing to wear.

The prisoners received the same daily ration as the guards: one and one-fourth pound of corn meal and either one pound of beef or one-third pound of bacon. The meager diet was only occasionally supplemented with beans, rice, peas or molasses. Northern soldiers were unused to this ration. But Southern troopers had fought long and hard on the usual fare of "hog and hominy."

A stream flowed through the treeless stockade, dividing it roughly in half. It quickly became polluted with waste, creating a horrible stench over the whole camp.

Almost 30 percent of the prisoners confined to Andersonville during the camp's 13 month existence died there. Most succumbed to dysentery, gangrene, diarrhea and scurvy. The Confederates lacked adequate facilities, personnel and medical supplies to arrest the diseases. An average of more than 900 prisoners died each month. The poorly-equipped and -staffed camp hospital was woefully inadequate to deal with the wretched conditions. Confederate surgeon Joseph Jones called Andersonville "a giant mass of human misery."

Thieves and murderers among the prisoners stole food and clothing from their comrades. The most notorious were part of a large, organized group called the "Andersonville Raiders" which held sway within the stockade for nearly four months. Robberies and murders were daily occurrences until six of the ringleaders were caught and hanged. Other members of the Raiders were forced to run a gauntlet of club-wielding prisoners.

The camp guard force consisted of four regiments of the Georgia militia, generally made up of undisciplined older men and untrained young men. Efforts by the camp commander to replace them with more seasoned soldiers remained futile since every able-bodied man was needed to meet Gen. Sherman's troops advancing toward Atlanta.

Prisoners on both sides were held in some 150 prison camps. And while Andersonville is the best remembered, several others equalled or even surpassed the Georgia camp in squalor and deadliness.

Some 12,000 Union soldiers were confined at Richmond in several centers, the worst of which was Belle Isle, a lowlying island on the James River. Less than half of the 6,000 prisoners could seek shelter in tents; most slept on the ground without clothing or blankets. Many had no pants, shirts or shoes, and went without fuel or soap. At least ten men died a day in vermin-ridden conditions of inexpressible filthiness. The entire surface of the island compound became saturated with putrid waste matter. Hospitals for the prisoners in Richmond quickly became overcrowded and many died on Belle Isle without ever having seen a doctor.

Rations were meager indeed. Christmas Day, 1863, saw the prisoners without rations of any kind. The daily ration of a pound of bread and a half-pound of beef was steadily reduced. Bread gave way to cornbread of unsifted meal. One small sweet potato replaced the meat. For the last two weeks of captivity the entire daily ration consisted of three-fourths of a pound of cornbread.

The Confederate diet was hardly better. A Confederate official declared that the prisoners in Richmond were given the same rations as the Southern troops and that if the food was inadequate, it was due to the destructive warfare being waged by the North. Confederate soldiers in Richmond went without meat by January 1864. Severe shortages in the Southern capital brought astronomical food prices and bread riots.

The camps at Salisbury, North Carolina, and elsewhere reproduced the worst features of Andersonville on a smaller scale. A lack of water at Salisbury brought conditions of filth and unbearable stench. The daily ration there for both prisoner and guard was soup and twenty ounces of bread without meat or sorghum. Many internees lacked clothing or shelter and "muggers" among the prisoners robbed their comrades. The disease rate soared. From October 1864 to February 1865, 3,479 prisoners died out of the 10,321 confined there, or over one third of the total. (Hesseltine,1964, p170)

(To read the rest of this article, please click on the link in the title above this posting.)

FEMA sells off Hurricane Katrina trailers tainted with formaldehyde

2010-03-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Washington Post

In a giant auction, the federal government has agreed to sell for pennies on the dollar most of the 120,000 formaldehyde-tainted trailers it bought nearly five years ago for Hurricane Katrina victims. But the sale of the units, perhaps the most visible symbol of the government's bungled response to the hurricane, has triggered a new round of charges that it is endangering future buyers for years to come.

Consumer advocates and environmentalists are outraged that the government resold products it deemed unsafe to live in, saying warning stickers attached to the units will not keep people from misusing them.

Besides formaldehyde, units may be plagued by mold, mildew and propane gas leaks, FEMA acknowledged.

"Proceed with caution, extreme caution, if you are tempted to respond to what appears to be an attractive offer for a travel trailer or manufactured home," Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel wrote in a consumer alert. He and others cautioned that the FEMA units could be resold many times, including over the Internet, and that unscrupulous sellers could remove warning labels or withhold information about the dangers.

Earlier this year, for example, local building inspectors in Missouri discovered damaged FEMA units sold as scrap in earlier auctions in a Fenton, Mo., mobile home park, billed as housing even though their paperwork specified they were not to be occupied.

"What if Toyota ordered a recall, then simply put a sticker on its vehicles saying they were unfit to drive before reselling them?" said Becky Gillette, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club in Mississippi, which helped uncover the formaldehyde problem. "There's a double standard for the government."

The sale of the units will be completed by April 3, pending an antitrust review by the Justice Department, which has rarely reversed government auctions. In the meantime, the sale also has drawn criticism from some lawmakers upset about the loss of taxpayer dollars and industry groups that say the fire sale is hurting their business.

FEMA officials defended the sale, noting that Congress has complained that the government has spent $220 million over three years to store vacant units. Wholesale buyers from the auction must sign contracts attesting that trailers will not be used, sold or advertised as housing, they said, and that trailers will carry a sticker saying, "Not to be used for housing."

Officials said that although formaldehyde could still be present in some units, they would be safe for occasional recreational use rather than round-the-clock living. They also say that, because most units are in such poor condition, people will not choose to live in them.

"I'm certainly hopeful we're approaching the end of the story for the Katrina units, which we have been maintaining in the hundreds and thousands of units, at the expense of taxpayers," said FEMA Associate Deputy Administrator David Garratt. "I'm hopeful we can reduce the inventory of units which we can no longer use, and actively maintain the units we can use in actual disasters."

But Marty Horine, a retired teacher from Clinton, Mo., cannot relate to FEMA's decision to resell flawed units. In summer 2007, days before congressional hearings publicized the formaldehyde problems, Horine paid about $6,000 for a 32-foot Gulfstream Cavalier FEMA trailer for her son to live in. Now she doesn't want him in it, but she worries that selling it "would be nothing but being mean to the next person."

(To read the rest of this article, please click on the link in the title above this posting.)

February 8 Vinalon Complex re-opens

2010-03-08T14:50:00.000-08:00

North Korean Economy Watch
March 7th, 2010

This weekend Kim Jong Il attended a mass rally in Hamhung to celebrate the re-opening of the 2.8 Vinalon Complex. This is the first mass rally (of which I am aware) that he has attended outside of Pyongyang.

According to Yonhap:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il attended a massive rally celebrating the reopening of a long-suspended factory, state media reported Saturday, a rare move that appears aimed at appeasing public sentiment worsened after the regime’s currency reform.

North Korea often organizes such pro-government rallies, forcing citizens to turn out to mark major state events including the country’s launch of a long-range rocket and recent nuclear test. But Kim has rarely attended such rallies, limiting his appearances only to military parades or ceremonies to welcome key foreign guests.

Leader Kim and top aides attended the 100,000-strong rally held in Hamhung to celebrate the reopening of the February 8 Vinalon Complex in the northeastern city, Pyongyang’s Korean Central TV Broadcasting Station and other state media reported.

The move appears aimed at showing North Koreans that their leader is focusing on the economy as public sentiment has deteriorated in the wake of the government’s currency redenomination. The currency reform reportedly disrupted the already troubled economy, prompting senior officials to apologize and Kim to sack those in charge.

Kim’s attendance in the rally also reflects his strong interest in the vinalon factory that resumed operation last month after shutting down 16 years earlier. Vinalon, an artificial textile similar to nylon, was invented in North Korea and is used in many of the country’s textiles.

According to state media, Kim visited the factory twice last month, and sent a thank-you letter to officials and workers involved in the reconstruction. The totalitarian regime also decorated about 2,400 people for their contribution to the factory’s reopening.

Mr. Kim stood on a balcony on the Hamhung Grand Theater and faced North East towards the monument in the plaza square:

Josh found a Youtube video of the rally here. Apologies to readers in China.

The Febuary 8 Vinalon Complex is located here. It has been featured quite frequently in DPRK media recently. Mr. Kim just participated in an inspection tour of the facility on February 15th: Youtube video here.

Here is the Wikipedia blurb on Vinalon:

Vinalon is a synthetic fibre, produced from polyvinyl alcohol using anthracite and limestone as raw materials. Vinalon was first developed by the Korean scientist Ri Sung Gi at the Takatsuki chemical research institute in 1939. The fibre was largely ignored until Ri defected to North Korea in 1950. Trial production began in 1954 and in 1961 the massive February 8 Vinalon Complex was built in Hamhung.[citation needed] Its success and widespread usage in North Korea is often pointed to in propaganda as an example of the success of the juche philosophy. Hamhung remains a major production centre for vinalon; in 1998, a vinalon factory opened up in South Pyongan. Vinalon, also known as Juche fibre, has become the national fibre of North Korea and is used for the majority of textiles, outstripping fibre such as cotton or Nylon, which are only produced in small amounts in North Korea. Other than clothing, Vinalon is also used for canvas shoes, ropes and quilt wadding. Vinalon is resistant to heat and chemicals but has numerous disadvantages: it is stiff, uncomfortable, shiny, prone to shrinking and difficult to dye.

NTI has much more substantive break down of vinalon and February 8 Complex—and maybe points to why this factory is getting so much attention. Read the NTI summary here.

The DPRK also produces vinalon at the Sunchon Vinalon Complex–also known as the April 25 Vinalon Complex. It is located here. More about it here.

Food Riot Reported Near Camp 12, North Korea

2010-03-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

ONE FREE KOREA
Posted by Joshua Stanton
March 6, 2010

North Koreans, it seems, didn’t really feel much like celebrating on February 16th:

One person was killed by armed guards on Feb. 16 when a group of people attempted to rob a food train at Komusan Railway Station in Puryong-gun, North Hamgyong Province, defector group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said. The attack came on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday after a disastrous currency reform sent food prices skyrocketing. The train was loaded with rice imported from China, the group said. Workers, outraged over the death, attacked armed guards with ploughs and police and military were called in.

“North Koreans are angry that guards shot a worker dead for a few kilograms of rice but protesters are unlikely to get off lightly because the incident happened on Kim’s birthday,” the group said. [Chosun Ilbo]

The North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS) reported that a North Korean was shot dead in a fight after he, along with several other hungry residents, attempted to loot food items by jumping on a train in North Hamgyeong Province. The train shipping imported foods from China was passing through the region. The province shares a border with the northeastern part of China.

“A man, who was identified only as Jung, died during a physical fight with security forces,” the report said. [Korea Times]

Are North Koreans really resisting their government more, or does the proliferation of cell phones mean that we’re just more likely to hear about it when they do? My guess is that it’s a bit of both, since resistance against this regime certainly isn’t an entirely new development.

In any event, I was interested in knowing where this riot had occurred to put it into the context of the the region, prior reports of disturbances, and the size of the population there. Komusan turns out to be a small, isolated town along the railroad line from Hoeryong on the Chinese border down to the large North Korean city of Chongjin, the city described in Barbara Demick’s recent book. It also turns out to be just 7.5 miles as the crow flies from the village of Chongo-ri, which has given its name to the infamous prison camp I located just east of there, with much help from David Hawk and Chuck Downs, and some key tips from Curtis and my wife.

This area has long been a hotbed of discontent. It’s geographically isolated, so disturbances would be easy to contain. That may be why various Korean regimes have long sent malcontents to this part of the country. But today, this area has become strategically significant. The main supply routes from China to North Korea run through Sinuiju in the West and Hoeryong in the East. This railroad line is the eastern route from China that supplies the provinces of North and South Hamgyeong and Kangwon.

It runs south to Chongjin, then southwest along the coast to Hamhung, Hungnam, and Wonsan. North Korea’s interior is mountainous. It has a few roads and rail lines, but most appear to be poorly maintained. If disturbances interfere with this rail line, the next best ways to supply the east coast would be by ship, using those cities’ dilapidated ports, or by bringing the supplies through Sinuiju in the west through Pyongyang, then to Wonsan and up the coast again.

The History of North Korea’s Political Prison Camps

2010-03-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

ONE FREE KOREA
Posted by Joshua Stanton
February 24, 2010

Open News has an interesting history of the camps that, among other interesting educated guesses, suggests that 50% of the largest camps’ (kwan-li-so) population is composed of people who are merely family members of those accused of disloyalty to the state:

The North Korean regime, as it consolidated its power, killed religious leaders, the pro-Japanese, and landowners, while imprisoning their family members in the so called “forced labor camps.” In 1947, there were 17 of these forced labor camps. Between 1953 and 1956, Kim Il-Sung got rid of those who were against his regime, and there was a large-scale regulation and supervision of party members, and other civilians regarding their ideology. North Korea created a controlled district in order to isolate those who were brought in through regulation and supervision, this district contained several prison camps later on.

Between 1960s and 1970s, the North Korean regime consolidated the succession and dictatorship of Kim Jong-Il, and reinforced control and isolation over those against the regime. This process resulted in an expansion of prison camps.

The North Korean government also imprisoned family members of those who went to South Korea during the war. This happened during the education project for party members and categorization project of all citizens. The government also searched for Gapsan line, returned Korean-Japanese, Kim Dong-Gyu, who were decided to be a threat to the North Korean regime. #13 Jongsung Kwan-li-so had 5,000 prisoners in 1962, but in 1975, it held 20,000. For effective management, it was then divided into #12 Changpyung Kwan-li-so and #13 Jongsung Kwan-li-so. [Open News]

The camps are an essential part of the regime’s control over its subjects. In the past, the unspoken horror of being sent to a camp suppressed unhappy thoughts. Now that the regime is more-or-less openly hated, the horror of being sent to the camps mostly keeps that seething hatred in a passive state. Fear of the camps also has profound foreign policy implications for the United States, no matter how much the State Department may pretend otherwise.

It is that fear that guarantees that North Koreans posted overseas will continue to obediently smuggle drugs, sell banned weapons, procure luxury goods, embezzle international development aid, defraud foreign insurers, violate U.N. resolutions, and launder the proceeds as ordered. It assures Kim Jong Il that North Korean scientists, technicians, and soldiers will never be forthcoming with American or U.N. inspectors or monitors who try to verify any disarmament agreement. It will continue to frustrate any attempt to distribute international food aid fairly.

New readers can see satellite imagery of the camps, in addition to a great deal of information culled from scholarly studies, at this page.

Uighurs' gambit

2010-03-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Washington Post

THEY HAD HOPED for a new homeland far from the island fortress that is the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, where they could find fellowship with other Uighurs. Yet five Chinese Muslims wrongly detained for the past eight years now find freedom more elusive than ever.

It is a sad, but understandable consequence of a gambit gone bad.

The five were among 17 Uighurs who had been cleared for release by the Bush and Obama administrations but could not be returned to their native China for fear of mistreatment. In 2008, a D.C. federal judge, frustrated with the inability to find them suitable third countries and the prospect of indefinite detention, ordered the men released into the United States. The D.C. federal appeals court later overturned that ruling and the detainees appealed to the Supreme Court.

Twelve detainees then were offered and accepted refuge in Bermuda, Palau and Switzerland. Five others rejected offers from two countries, including Palau, but turned them down in large part because neither country was home to an established Uighur community.

The Supreme Court on Monday rightly dismissed the case of those five after learning of these refusals. Though it is natural that the Uighurs would want to live among those who speak their language and share cultural touchstones, the detainees had undercut their legal and moral argument that they were continuing to be held against their will.

The Obama administration, which has done an admirable job of trying to relocate the Uighurs, should go back to the countries that opened their doors to these detainees to determine whether the offers still stand. Lawyers for the men should urge their clients to reconsider. And Congress should rethink its wrongheaded determination that no detainees be allowed on U.S. soil. The Uighurs are not ultimately at fault in this sad situation, and it is the height of hypocrisy to ask of allies what Congress is unwilling to do.

Exclusive: Situation in Camp Ashraf Worsens

2010-03-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

February 25, 2010
By Shahriar Kia
Family Security Matters

In a recent report, I informed FSM readers about the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) agents who have been dispatched to Camp Ashraf in Iraq to implement pressure and psychological warfare against Ashraf residents. Their “dog and pony show” continues every day in front of the main gate.

They continue to barrage the residents with a stream of invective while chanting “Hail to Khamenei” and “Hail to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” using six powerful loudspeakers provided by the Iraqi forces who, ironically, are responsible for Ashraf’s protection.

In addition to these disturbing developments, it’s been learned that so-called "families" of Ashraf residents have confessed that they are working for Iranian MOIS.

On February 20th, all such "families" were transferred to the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad to be briefed and entertained by a very brutal MOIS agent called "Haji Ali," who traveled there from Tehran. The “families” returned to Ashraf a day later. They were paid by the embassy for the all days that they spent at Ashraf’s entrance gate, chanting against the residents. Two members of the terrorist Quds force by the names of Foad and Alireza Nobakht, under cover of Iranian diplomats working in Iranian embassy, traveled with the "families" as they returned to Ashraf.

Haji Ali does not personally leave the Iranian Embassy compound, but he is conducting and controlling the conspiracy against Ashraf through a bogus institute in Iraq called "Press Developments,” or in Farsi, "Toseaeyeh Matbooat," under the control of an Iraqi agent by the name of Adnan Seraj, who is pictured above.

According to the information that Iranian Resistance has received from inside Iran, Prime Minister Maliki is involved personally in this ploy against Ashraf to solicit support for his re-election.

Here is a statement by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) about the grave situation at Camp Ashraf:

"Pressure and torture mounts on detained relatives of Ashraf residents. The clerical regime has intensified pressures on a number of political prisoners arrested for either having family contacts with or visiting the residents of Ashraf City.

"According to reports on political prisoner Majid Rezai, 50, there are no information about his whereabouts since he was arrested on December 31, 2009. Mr. Rezai was detained on charges of the presence of his child and brother in Ashraf and sent to Ward 209 of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. He is a former political prisoner of the 1980s, who suffers from a variety of illnesses after going through 10 years of imprisonment.

"On Wednesday, February 10, two members of the Nabavi family, Ms. Mehri Nabavi and Mr. Zia Nabavi, were also arrested after a raid by clerical regime’s intelligence agents on their residences in the cities of Qom and Semnan, respectively. Seven other members of the Nabavi family were arrested prior to that and are being held at Evin, Gohardasht and Semnan prisons.

"In addition to the above cases, dozens of other political prisoners are being held in the mullahs’ prisons and torture chambers simply for having family contacts with the residents of Ashraf in Iraq or for having visited the residents. Most are now in solitary confinement, placed under duress and physical or psychological torture, and suffer from a variety of illnesses. They have also been placed under severe torture and pressure to appear in the mullahs’ show trials.

"Misses Massoumi and Zahra Jabbari protested against the cruel torture carried out against them during a show trial on Sunday, January 31. Ms. Jabbari, who has been arrested for the presence of her sister and brother in Ashraf, showed her fingers to the regime’s prosecutor, Moghiseyi, to prove that her nails had been pulled out. But, the prosecutor brazenly claimed, “You have pulled your nails yourself and now want to blame it on the expert (interrogator).”

"The Iranian Resistance calls on the United Nations Secretary General, Security Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights, working group on arbitrary detention and Special Rapporteur on torture, as well as other international human rights organizations, to condemn arbitrary arrests in Iran and enact urgent measures to secure the release of the detainees who have been placed under inhumane circumstances.

"Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, February 23, 2010"

I will continue to keep FSM readers updated on this dirty conspiracy against Ashraf residents.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Shahriar Kia is a member of the PMOI in Ashraf.

Real-Time Cyberstalking

2010-02-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

Where have you seen the erosion of civil rights that "We the People" experience happen before? OUR WEBSITE IS UNDER ATTACK. I cannot get past page 1 at Wrongful Death of Larry Neal.com - http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/ - My 86-year-old mother and I find it difficult to keep replacing PCs and having technicians wipe them clean after cyberattacks. Evil people in high positions have the wealth to continuously pay for illegal cyberstalking, maybe with your tax money. The federal government has a division to track cybercrimes. I asked for federal help long ago. I completed a long online application for assistance with my Net Freedom. My elderly mother and I do not know where to turn when followed, accosted, phonetapped, censored, and terrorized online and in person except to the authorities. But now I know more about the situation.

The U.S.A. historically goes to the aid of oppressed people. Where do families in America have to turn when oppressed? To whom do we appeal for help when our disabled loved ones are secretly arrested and exterminated, like Larry Neal? Who can we turn to regarding H.R.645, the FEMA camp plan? Who will tell our leaders that we need improvements on streets and surface bridges where FREE people travel, not railroad improvements possibly for transporting the masses to places they would rather not go?

The cyberstalking is relentless. I capture videos of real-time cyberstalking and offer copies to the public by donating and requesting a CD at P.O. Box 153, Redan, GA 30074. Sample film w/ my data re: prisoner abuse being covertly CHANGED was uploaded at YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icRD77mugaI

There is much information that people, especially human rights activists, need to know in order to recognize when their electronic communications are being compromised. I am not trained in computer technology and cannot advise how to secure your PCs. Anti-virus programs do not work for me. However, I have been able to alert other human rights organizations when their online data was attacked like mine - links removed from your electronic data or leading nowhere, your links coded to insert spaces upon being copied/pasted or when you hit "send" on emails to render them useless, emails being coded to present with text running together (inadequate spacing between top and bottom lines), selected text in blogs and articles coded to disappear upon copy/paste, large white spaces disbursed throughout your electronic documents that can be used to drag data thereto and render it invisible to readers, and more.

The disappearing text trick was used on ecards I sent with information about Cameron Todd Willingham's wrongful execution and ecards about Thomas Arthur's pending wrongful execution. The ecards arrived to addressees blank - the data was gone. Care2 reported a cyberattack in the ecard area on the day I sent ecards about Thomas Arthur having passed his DNA test in July and plans being made to ask for his death warrant in August while his DNA test results were held under seal by the court to prevent the world knowing that he is likely innocent. Censorship revealed on my videos was and is still used against me to prevent prisoner activism and public exposure regarding The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm fraud, and it requires collusion among numerous parties.

It takes ongoing cooperation by various oversight agencies and the justice system to continually deny human and civil rights for my murdered brother and deny his family any records and accountability after his death. Part of my censorship and cyberterrorism is done to prevent my advocacy for 1.25 million mentally ill inmates and keep them incarcerated, because prison profiteering is very lucrative. I am also stalked in person and denied police services. See Cochan Firm Fraud videos 1 and 2 at YouTube.

Concerning the Slaughter of the Mentally Ill!

2010-02-22T21:36:00.000-08:00

The wonderful lady who wrote the below posting is dead serious. Her name is Mary Neal and she is being cyberstalked by those involved in the US prison system and others who do not like Black people and who do not want any of us, meaning everyone, to get anything like real justice.

Feb 22 2010

I invite you to visit and use any data in my blog - http://FreeSpeakBlog.blogspot.com - My problems getting the United States Department of Justice to be just did not begin with this administration, but they continue under it. We combat the advancement of a fascist state where Americans are intended to be enslaved by the NWO.

Indeed, my mentally and physically disabled brother was secretly arrested for nearly three weeks and murdered in Memphis Shelby Co. Jail in 2003, and the DOJ then and now refuses to uphold justice, honor the FOIA, and denies Larry Neal and his family's constitutional rights. His murder was covered up by the jail and the cover-up was joined by many parties, including the DOJ itself. About 1.25 million people in America are cruelly imprisoned for public displays of their mental illness.

See http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com - My brother, a 20-year inpatient, was dismissed from a hospital in the 70's, and was killed over 20 years later by police officers who were sick of their enforced role of psychiatric caretakers for the harmless schizophrenic citizen. Larry's death is representative of the disregard for citizens' rights that is happening in America at this time, and like Nazi Germany, the disregard and violence will expand if not arrested now. According to information at the Jewish Virtual Library, First They Came for the Mentally Ill - http://bit.ly/bw3jOz

Please invite others to add me to their email lists if they fight for human rights and/or against H.R. 645 - a congressional proposal for six concentration camps in America for Americans If the censorship staff assigned to impede my message allow it, you can call me. My phone is under their control - 678.531.0262. Illegal cyberstalkers also sabotage my online communication by illegally editing and deleting my online input and by using cyberterror to frighten me into silence about their illegal acts.

This began with murdering my brother and denying his family due process of law, then using The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm to defraud my family into believing we had a lawsuit underway about Larry's murder while the firm actually had an empty file - held Larry's wrongful death case inactive for 10.5 months to protect the jail and the DOJ. When we sued The Cochran Firm for the fraud, the system protected the lawyers when Georgia Superior Court issued an order that our lawsuit was served wrongly because there is NO Cochran Firm office in Georgia, despite the firm being open, prolifically advertised, and contracting with unsuspecting consumers every day.

Unless Americans wake up, more will be secretly arrested. More will be killed. As in Nazi Germany, such violations against citizens' rights always begin with the least among us. Therefore, because my brother was sick and my family is black and lack wealth, our human and civil rights are violated.

Mary Neal
Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
Group website: http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI
Personal Website - http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com

Suspect in theft of Auschwitz sign in Poland arrested in Sweden

2010-02-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

The Baltimore Sun
BY MALIN RISING, Associated Press Writer
February 11, 2010

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Swedish police on Thursday arrested a former neo-Nazi leader that Polish investigators suspect of being involved in the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at Auschwitz.

Swedish Prosecutor Agneta Hilding Qvarnstrom said 34-year-old Anders Hogstrom was detained in Stockholm on a European arrest warrant.

Hilding Qvarnstrom said Hogstrom will be appointed a defense lawyer and questioned by Swedish investigators before authorities can decide on extraditing him to Poland.

Polish officials have said Hogstrom is suspected of incitement to commit theft of a cultural treasure.

The infamous sign — which means "Work Sets You Free" in German — was stolen in December from the site of the Nazis' former Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Polish police found it in the woods three days later cut up into three pieces and charged five Polish men with its theft.

The Polish prosecutor has said he has evidence that Hogstrom visited Auschwitz with two Poles last spring and told them to steal the sign.

Experts on Sweden's extreme-right say Hogstrom founded and led the Swedish neo-Nazi group National Socialist Front in the 1990s. During that time he helped organize yearly celebrations of Adolf Hitler's birthday and advocated repatriation of refugees to their home countries, according to Expo, a research foundation that has mapped right-wing extremists.

However, Expo said he left National Socialist Front in 1999 after two of its members were convicted of a high-profile police murder, and he then became an active opponent of the extreme right.

Hogstrom has reportedly given conflicting information about his alleged role in the theft.

The Tabloid Aftonbladet quoted Hogstrom as saying he was acting as a middleman between the Polish thieves and an English-speaking buyer. But in a video clip posted Jan. 9 on the Web site of another tabloid, Expressen, Hogstrom said he had simply been tipped off about the theft and tried to stop it.

The Auschwitz sign is one of the most well-known slogans for Nazi Germany's atrocities during World War II and the Holocaust.

Between 1940 and 1945 more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau or died of starvation or disease while forced to perform hard physical labor at the camp.

Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

UNHCR News Story: Celebrities visit refugee camp in Ethiopia after scaling Kilimanjaro

2010-02-09T22:11:00.001-08:00

Jessica Biel sits at a desk in the school at Kebribeyah camp.
UNHCR / K. Gebre Egziabher / January 2010

Celebrities visit refugee camp in Ethiopia after scaling Kilimanjaro

KEBRIBEYAH REFUGEE CAMP, Ethiopia, January 18 (UNHCR) – Fresh from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, actress Jessica Biel and musicians Kenna and Santi White, have visited a refugee camp in Ethiopia to see how water shortages affect the lives of millions of forcibly displaced people across Africa.

The American entertainers, together with Elizabeth Gore, executive director of global partnerships at the United Nations Foundation, toured Kebribeyah Refugee Camp last Friday, three days after scaling Africa's highest peak. The camp in eastern Ethiopia hosts some 16,500 Somali refugees who have fled persecution and conflict in their country.

The "Summit on the Summit," was organized by Kenna to highlight global water shortages, which affect more than 1 billion people, and to raise funds for UNHCR and other organizations helping to meet the water needs of the vulnerable. Others in the climb included actors Emile Hirsch and Isabel Lucas, rapper Lupe Fiasco, conservationist and explorer Alexandra Cousteau, environmentalist Kick Kennedy and award-winning photographers Michael Muller and Jimmy Chin.

In Kebribeyah, Biel and her VIP colleagues saw and heard how shortages of clean water affect all aspects of life in the camp while also gaining insight into how water shortages are tackled by organizations like the UN refugee agency.

"When I became a refugee in 1991, we hardly had two litres of water per person per day; we now get up to 15 litres a day, but that is still far from being sufficient." Habiba Ali Oumer, a refugee representative, told the visitors. She urged them to help. UNHCR is constantly looking at ways to boost water supply. The daily recommended consumption is 15-20 litres per person per day.

"I am really taken by the resilience of the Somali refugees," a visibly touched Biel said after listening to Oumer. "I want to ensure that all those kids I met in the camp school continue to get clean water," she added.

The celebrities spent the whole day visiting the camp infrastructure installed by UNHCR, including the school. "When I grow up, I would like to do something worthwhile for myself, my family and my country," one young student told Biel.

Money raised by the "Summit on the Summit" campaign will be distributed through the UN Foundation to UNHCR and several other groups, including the Children's Safe Drinking Water Programme (CSDW) and Water For People and Playpumps International. The Foundation's Gore said people could continue donating until Word Water Day on March 22, "by which time we expect to raise enough resources to cover the needs we saw in the camp, and perhaps more needs in other camps in Ethiopia."

Ethiopian-born Kenna, whose uncle died of a water-borne disease, was impressed by what he saw in Kebribeyah. "I'm particularly happy to learn that UNHCR runs the water system for the refugees in partnership with the local Ethiopian authorities," he said, pledging to raise enough to upgrade and maintain the system.

UNHCR Deputy Representative in Ethiopia Cosmas Chanda said provision of water was a critical element of UNHCR's protection work and his office welcomed the keen interest shown in the plight of refugees by such high-profile personalities. "We welcome their effort in fund-raising on behalf of refugees."

The eastern region of Ethiopia, where UNHCR helps some 60,000 Somali refugees in four camps, is dominated by semi-arid lowlands with an annual average rainfall of 300mm-500mm. There are no permanent rivers running through the sites where the refugees are staying. Providing adequate amounts of safe drinking water is a daily struggle for UNHCR and its partners.

The inhabitants of Kebribeyah depend on the Jarrar Valley Water Supply System, which pipes water to the camp from a distance of some 20 kilometres. Two of the system's six boreholes have been connected to the national electricity grid in recent months, making supply of water to the camp more reliable. When the project is complete, the daily supply per person should rise to 20 litres. Increasing the number of water points in the camp is another challenge.

By Kisut Gebre Egziabher in Kebribeyah Refugee Camp, Ethiopia

Health crisis in Haiti enters a deadly new phase

2010-02-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

Second wave of misery brings diarrhea, infections and malnutrition

By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press Writer
MSNBC online
health/infectious diseases
Tues Feb 9 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Fourteen-month-old Abigail Charlot survived Haiti’s cataclysmic earthquake but not its miserable aftermath. Brought into the capital’s General Hospital with fever and diarrhea, little Abigail literally dried up.

“Sometimes they arrive too late,” said Dr. Adrien Colimon, the chief of pediatrics, shaking her head.

The second stage of Haiti’s medical emergency has begun, with diarrheal illnesses, acute respiratory infections and malnutrition beginning to claim lives by the dozen.

And while the half-million people jammed into germ-breeding makeshift camps have so far been spared a contagious-disease outbreak, health officials fear epidemics. They are rushing to vaccinate 530,000 children against measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

“It’s still tough,” said Chris Lewis, emergency health coordinator for Save the Children, which by Tuesday had treated 11,000 people at 14 mobile clinics in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and Leogane. “At the moment we’re providing lifesaving services. What we’d like to do is to move to provide quality, longer-term care, but we’re not there yet.”

Haiti’s government raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 on Tuesday — the same death toll as the 2004 Asian tsunami. Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said she expects the toll to rise as more bodies are counted, and noted the number does not include bodies buried privately by funeral homes or families.

The number of deaths not directly caused by the quake is unclear; U.N. officials are only now beginning to survey the more than 200 international medical aid groups working out of 91 hospitals — most of them just collections of tents — to compile the data.

Some 300,000 people are injured. At Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, patients continue arriving with infections in wounds they can’t keep clean because the street is their home. The number of amputees, estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 by Handicap International, keeps rising as people reach Port-au-Prince with untreated fractures.

Violence bred of food shortages and inadequate security is also producing casualties. Dr. Santiago Arraffat of Evansville, Ind., said he treats several gunshot wounds a day at General Hospital.

“People are just shooting each other,” he said. “There are fights over food. People are so desperate.”

Nearly a month after the quake, respiratory infections, malnutrition, diarrhea from waterborne diseases and a lack of appropriate food for young children may be the biggest killers, health workers say.

Part of the problem is ignorance. Abigail’s mother, 20-year-old Simone Bess, waited a week after her child fell ill to bring her in, Colimon said.

Colimon ushered Bess into an adjacent tent when it became clear the Swiss doctors trying to hydrate and keep her child breathing would fail. Bess screamed in agony and crumpled to the paving stones when she heard.

“Please give me my child!” she wailed. “My one and only child. Tell them to do something for her! Tell them to wake her up!”

Twenty yards away, the child’s father, James Charlot, curled up against a wall, shaking with grief.

A shortage of medical equipment and spotty electrical power — service has been restored to about 20 percent of Port-au-Prince — have worsened the medical emergency.

A respirator might have saved Abigail, Colimon said. But the hospital has none. Nor does it have electrocardiogram machines. The sweltering heat inside the pediatric tent may also have been a factor.

“This whole tent — all (the infants inside) are dried up because it’s so hot in there,” said Willow Walsh-Hughes, of Draper, Utah, a nurse who hugged and stroked Bess as her child’s life slipped away.

The wire-thin Bess had stopped lactating after the quake, Walsh-Hughes said. Because breast-feeding is the best way to avoid infant diarrhea, a mother’s ability to lactate can determine a baby’s survival.

At another General Hospital tent, Farah Paul, 16, held her acutely malnourished daughter Roselande. Doctors said the wan-looking, 4-month-old baby was coughing and not gaining weight.

Paul said her breast milk dried up the day of the quake, even before she learned that her sister, mother and aunt had been killed in the disaster. Doctors said Paul had given the baby porridge and bananas, food the child could not digest.

Acute child malnutrition is only expected to worsen until the summer harvest in August, said Mija Ververs, a UNICEF child nutrition expert.

Ververs said that while shock and trauma can cause a mother to stop lactating, it is a myth that hungry women can no longer breast-feed.

“Little infants are like parasites in a way. No matter how little the mother gets herself, she is always able to nourish a child,” Ververs said.

She noted that breast-feeding provides the best nutritional chance for babies in a crisis such as Haiti’s and protects against disease by helping them build immunity. Powdered infant formula is a terrible idea, doctors say, because mothers living in tent camps have limited access to clean water and are unable to sterilize bottles.

Forty-seven percent of Haiti’s population of more than 9 million is under age 18. The Caribbean country has the Western Hemisphere’s highest birth rate and its highest child and maternal mortality rates. Haiti also has the hemisphere’s highest malnutrition rate — with some 17,500 children under age 5 acutely malnourished even before the quake, according to UNICEF.

At a Save the Children clinic west of the capital, about 30 people stood in line for help. Camp residents subsisting in part on plantains from an adjacent grove said two adults and five children died of starvation there last week. A clinic doctor, Nermie Augustin, said she was seeing a lot of infants with diarrhea.

A mother of five, Janina Desir, said her children were barely getting one meal a day.

“Since this morning all they’ve had was coffee — and a tiny portion of bread,” she said. “No milk.”

An official from a major field hospital said the case of 10 American Baptists charged with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission was impeding the evacuation of critically injured youngsters to the U.S.

“Pilots are very reluctant to take off from the United States and take back children without the proper papers,” said Elizabeth Greig, chief administrative officer for the University of Miami-Medishare Foundation. “That fear has been exacerbated by the kidnapping case, and now they’re just paralyzed.”

The evacuation of eight critically injured children in all has been held up, Greig said. None of them are orphans, she said, but obtaining identity papers after a catastrophic quake can be impossible.

She said she could not say with confidence whether any children have died as a result.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Import Human Rights to Angola

2010-02-03T18:31:00.001-08:00

Amnesty International USA
February 2010

Angola will participate in the United Nation's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in February 2010. This is an important process where the human rights conditions in a country are evaluated and United Nation's member States provide recommendations on areas of concern and suggestions for improvement.

Despite Angola’s voluntary pledge to protect and promote human rights at the national level, made in the context of its election to the UN Human Rights Council in 2007, human rights continue to be violated in the country. The authorities have not only failed to prevent third parties from carrying out forced evictions, but have also ordered such evictions to be carried out. Human rights defenders have been subjected to harassment with threats being made to the continued existence of their organizations. One human rights organization has been banned and the United Nations Office for Human Rights was closed. Cases of suppression of freedom of expression and association have occurred, particularly in the province of Cabinda and at least one journalist remained in prison for almost a year after an unfair trial.

The United States should participate in Angola’s review and raise these human rights concerns along with appropriate recommendations that are in line with international human rights standards.

Angola Human Rights

2010-02-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

Forced Evictions

Amnesty International USA

On World Habitat Day, Amnesty International called for the end to forced evictions in Angola. A forced eviction is the removal of people against their will from the homes or land they occupy without legal protections and other safeguards.

The Angolan capital Luanda hosted UN World Habitat Day in October 2008. The same month a construction company forcibly evicted at least 17 families and demolished their homes in the Iraque neighborhood of the city.

More than 10,000 families in Luanda have been made homeless after being forcibly evicted from their homes since July 2001. These evictions have been carried out by police officers, soldiers, municipal officials and private security guards, often using excessive force and firearms. Police have on some occasions also arrested and briefly detained those resisting the evictions and members of the local housing rights organization, SOS-Habitat, who were trying to persuade the authorities to stop the forced evictions.

Most recently, around 3,000 families were forcibly evicted from their homes in the adjoining neighborhoods of Iraque and Bagdad in the Kilamba Kiaxi municipality of Luanda. The families' homes were demolished, their possessions destroyed, and they were left without shelter. The demolitions, which took place between 20 and 26 July 2009, were carried out at an unprecedented scale and left Bagdad completely flattened and Iraque partially destroyed. Those still in Iraque endure threats of forced eviction.

Armed police, soldiers and presidential guards arrived in both neighborhoods at 3am on 20 July and ordered people out of their homes before bulldozers began to demolish the houses. The residents stood and watched as their homes were being demolished. Some of those who tried to stop the demolitions were beaten. None of those evicted will be re-housed or compensated, according to the Luanda Province Vice-Governor. He claimed that residents of Iraque and Bagdad had occupied the land and built their houses illegally, in an area earmarked for development projects. Private consortium Projecto Camama is expected to build a luxury housing complex on the land.

Few families involved in any forcible evictions in Luanda have been compensated for their losses. Some were re-housed about 30 to 40 kilometers from the city in areas lacking jobs, schools, hospitals, basic services and sanitation. However, the vast majority have been left to fend for themselves. Many have been the victims of repeated forced evictions and hundreds of families remain without shelter, living in the ruins of their former homes.

The end of the 27-year-long civil war in 2002 brought new opportunities for development and reconstruction which increased pressure on urban land. Most of Luanda's estimated population of 4.5 million remain at risk of losing their homes to make room for up-market housing, offices and infrastructure projects. Forced evictions to make way for such development have targeted the poorest neighborhoods and affected families that are among the least able to assert their rights and seek recourse from the justice system. Left to fend for themselves, families must construct makeshift shelters or share already-overcrowded accommodation with family or friends elsewhere.

Mass evictions around Luanda are typically carried out without prior notice, let alone consultation. In the cases documented by Amnesty International and local human rights groups, police and other government officials carried out forced evictions and house demolitions without eviction orders. Even when families are notified about an eviction, they have no meaningful opportunity to challenge it. In one case in Luanda?s Cidadania neighborhood in April 2006, for example, the municipal administration ordered 12 families to vacate their plots within 48 hours. The notice alleged that the families were illegally occupying land reserved by the state for industrial purposes, but it did not explain how the families could refute this. Residents told Amnesty International they had purchased the land from the municipality.

Government officials often justify forced evictions by claiming houses targeted for destruction are illegally built on land owned by the government and earmarked for development projects. In fact, the legal situation in most cases is not so straightforward. Land use is governed by several sets of laws, and those that deal with urban areas have been only partially implemented. But Angola does have some very clear international obligations, including giving people adequate notice of any proposed evictions ? the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing recommends at least 90 days. Force should only be used when strictly necessary, and then only in a manner that is proportionate to the circumstances. The government has publicly acknowledged that Angola's land law obliges it to compensate - whether by money, materials or alternative housing and land - those who are subjected to expropriation of land for public interest.

Elections
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has indefinitely delayed presidential elections that were scheduled for late 2009; they will be the first presidential elections since 1992's failed attempt that led to escalating violence and a resumption of civil war. Amnesty International will be carefully watching and monitoring the upcoming election process.

While the government's human rights record showed improvements in a few areas since the end of the war in 2002, it remained plagued by other serious problems, including rapid urbanization and corruption. In September 2008, legislative elections remained free from violence and were considered ?generally credible.? However, the elections were marred by state-run media affording undue advantage to the incumbent party. Indeed the incumbent MPLA won over 80% of the vote. The ruling party has held the levers of power since independence from Portugal in 1975, and does not appear to be ceding its tight, centralized control over government planning, media, and policymaking anytime soon.

Amnesty International is especially concerned about the arrest and detention of associational groups, journalists, human rights defenders, and students, among others. The treatment of journalists, advocates and other members of civil society must improve in order for the upcoming presidential elections to be considered valid in the eyes of the world.

Fernando Lelo Freed!

Journalist Fernando Lelo was released from prison on August 21st. Lelo spent nearly 2 years in prison, convicted by the Cabinda Military Court for crimes against the security of the State. On September 19, 2008, José Fernando Lelo was sentenced to 12 years? imprisonment by a military court in Cabinda, Angola, after being convicted of crimes against the security of the state. Amnesty International believed his arrest and conviction to be politically motivated, his trial unfair, and thereby considered him a prisoner of conscience and called for his unconditional release from prison. On appeal, the Supreme Military Court released Fernando and acquitted him of all charges, ordering his immediate release.

Amnesty International spoke to Fernando since his release, who thanked AI for all the work done on his behalf and encouraged us to continue to work for the release of other prisoners of conscience. In addition to Amnesty International speaking with Lelo once during his incarceration, he said that he knew of the continuing work Amnesty International was doing on his behalf while he was in prison through his lawyer and friends. Amnesty International USA also called attention to his case in its letter to Secretary of State Clinton prior to her visit to Angola in July. Thank you to everyone who took action on his behalf.

Police Brutality and Prison Conditions
Amnesty International's report, Above the Law: Police Accountability in Angola, documented instances of police brutality in Angola. For example, on 2 September 2005 a group of police officers went to the house of Domingos Maurício. They reportedly entered and searched the house without a warrant, claiming that Domingos Maurício was hiding weapons. Although they found no arms, they arrested him. He was taken to a police unit. On the night of September 4, his family received a call from the police station informing them that Domingos Maurício had died. The family reported that they found his naked body on the floor of the cell, with cuts all over and covered in blood. The police reportedly claimed that he had died of tuberculosis. However, an autopsy revealed that he had died from traumatic shock from a blow from a heavy object. Despite this revelation, the police commander of the division refused to retract the police version of events. According to reports, the commander general of the police nevertheless paid certain expenses, including paying for a coffin, two 25kg bags of rice, beans and 20 liters of oil, in return for the family's "silence".

Amnesty International has reported on Angola's poor prison conditions in two reports, Lundas: The stones of death. Angola?s deadly diamonds: Human rights abuses in the Lunda provinces, and Operation Kissonde: The Diamonds of Humiliation and Misery. A prison rebellion in 2008 led to unconfirmed numbers of casualties, most likely due to the uncommonly harsh and overcrowded conditions in Angola's prisons.

Nigeria: Forceful Eviction - Alaba Traders May Go to Jail

2010-02-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

allAfrica.com
18 Jan 2010
By Emmanuel Edom

For allegedly resorting to self help and rule of the jungle in evicting its members from their shops, over 10 members of the Fancy and Furniture Dealers Association (FFDA) of the popular Alaba International Market, Ojo Lagos may go to jail.

This is sequel to an alleged disregard of court orders, acts of vandalism and jungle justice meted out against some of its members, who were forcefully evicted from their shops contrary to rule of law.

Already the victims have initiated a legal process aimed at committing the offending union leaders to prison.

A Lagos magistrate court had restrained the Fancy and Furniture Dealers Association (FFDA) section, of the Market, from illegally evicting their aggrieved members.

Others, restrained by the court, are the Association Chairman, Mr. Wilson Eze, his task force officer, Mr. Ndubuisi Chukwuezi, Estate Agency, John Bros Continental Agencies, property Developers, Mr. Christopher Nwaneri and Chief Samuel Ogunbiyi.

The order issued by a grade one magistrate, Mr. G. L. Hotepo, sitting at the Badagry magisterial District, was at the instance of the displaced traders, who had filed a suit on September 4th, 2009, delineated as MISC/ MCB/28/2009.

In the suit filed by their lawyer, Hon. P. C. P Ezeani, the complainants who sued as plaintiffs and were represented in court by Messr: Ikechukwu Anachusi, Peter Ilogbene and Emmanuel Abasili, had approached the court seeking legal protection against an alleged unlawful act of assault, obstruction, dispossession, intimidation, interference and forceful ejection by the defendants.

According to their 23 paragraph affidavit in support of the motion Ex-parte under the magistrates courts of Lagos State civil procedure Rules 1994, deposed by Anachusi, the plaintiffs told the court how in the year 2001, they rented their shops from BCN properties through John Bros Continental Agencies, whereby they provided the money for the construction of the said shops.

Exhibiting various receipts as evidence of rent payment to BCN properties for seven years, the plaintiffs said they were shocked that in June, 2009, Ogunbiyi and Nwaneri, who were Estate agents to their Landlord, approached them demanding that they pay directly to them which they rejected.

Upon this objection by the plaintiffs, Ogunbiyi and Nwaneri were said to have resorted to self help by employing the service of the Association through Eze and Chukwuezi, who then gave the plaintiffs ultimatum to vacate their shops before September 2009.

Further narrating their ordeal to the court, Anachusi said the plaintiffs now live in fear due to the incessant harassment, intimidation and threat to their lives by the defendants.

"In their bid to carry out their threat of forcible ejection, the defendants have placed thugs, hoodlums and other faceless individuals with dangerous weapon such as Knives, axes, and machetes around our shops," Anachusi said.

Praying for justice, the plaintiffs noted that their fundamental rights have flagrantly been violated, abused and trampled upon and their source of livelihood obstructed.

Countering the plaintiffs, the defendants in their notice of preliminary objection, urged the court to stay further proceedings in the suit, on the ground that the court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the case.

Further urging the court to set aside all orders made in the suit, the defendants argued that the substantial issue involved in the matter relates to title and ownership of the shops.

However, in a 38 paragraph affidavit deposed by Nwaneri, he affirmed that he entered into an agreement with Chief Michael Olu Ogunjimi and Chief Samuel Ogunbiyi to erect shops on a parcel of land purportedly belonging to Ogunjimi.

According to him, Ogunjimi fell out of favour with the owner of the land, the Sabo- Oniba Family, upon which Nwaneri said he re-purchased the land from the said land owners, which he averred led to series of on going litigations in the various courts.

Acting on the motion Ex-parte and upon hearing Ezeani's argument, the magistrate ordered an interim injunction restraining the defendants and its agents from forcefully ejecting, Obstructing and interfering with the plaintiffs use and occupation of their shops marked Nos: A70A, A70B, A70C, A70D, A70E, A70G A71B, A71F, A71K, and A71L, formally known as shops A70 and A71, pending the determination of the motion on notice.

Hotepo, also granted an order stopping the defendants and its servants from leasing, assigning, letting out or mortgaging the shops while the tenancy of the plaintiffs are still subsisting.

"An interim order is hereby granted restraining the defendants whether by themselves or through their cohorts, servants, agents and privies or any other person however called, from harassing, intimidating and or assaulting the plaintiffs or generally disturbing their quiet enjoyment of the tenancies of their shops..."

However, despite the court directives, the defendant were alleged to have locked up the shops in dispute, this was after setting up a three man committee in disobedience of the order.

Following this development, Ezeani has filed a notice of consequence of disobedience of the court order, otherwise called form 48 and 49, praying the magistrate to commit the defendants to prison for contempt of court.

According to the court, the content motion will be entertained on January 27th, 2010, which is the next day of adjournment.

Outside the court, the plaintiffs alleged that they paid N2, 500 before their shops were temporary unlocked last week by the defendants. They also accused the Divisional Police Officer (D.P.O), Ojo Police Division, Mr. Isaac Ogbogbo of conniving with the defendants to intimidate and dispossess them of their shops.

"Despite the court order, they locked up our shops and ejected Mr. Paul Onwuejekwa. When we reported their unlawful actions at Ojo police Division, the D.P.O. who already had the phone numbers of the defendants, summoned them to the station and threatened us to pay our rent into an account supplied by the defendants within one week, which is contrary to the court order.

"He further warned that our failure to pay into an Access Bank Account NO: 0680230003356, Alaba Branch, belonging to Fancy and Furniture Dealers Association, who are not legal owners of the disputed shops. One week after the shops were temporary unlocked, they would relock our shops and forcefully evicted us. And this is exactly what the defendants boasted, that they would use the Ojo police Division against us. What kind of injustice and disregard of rule of law is this?" Anachusi queried.

Meanwhile, when this reporter contacted the D.P.O, he denied knowledge of the case, but a visit to the market on January 13, 2010, showed all the disputed shops sealed with the Associations padlocks.

Kenya: Plan to Demolish Riverside Shanties Postponed

2010-02-03T18:08:00.000-08:00

allAfrica.com
Dec 18 2009
By George Omondi

The government has postponed its plans to demolish informal settlements along Nairobi river basin due to lack of a resettlement site.

The environment ministry officials say various alternative sites have been suggested but evictions will not be conducted until an agreement is reached with the affected people to ensure that none of them is rendered homeless during the exercise.

"Our main target is to clean the rivers but to do so, some people will have to be resettled to other areas," said Mr Hudson Mukanga, an assistant director of environment in charge of Nairobi Rivers Rehabilitation Programme (NRRP)

He added, "We have left the component that entails moving people and structures pending until an alternative land that can accommodate all the affected residents is identified."

Human Rights groups had earlier raised fears of a fresh humanitarian crisis following the government's directive that the slum dwellers should give way for the implementation of NRRP.

The National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) estimates that 127,000 people have encroached on Nairobi's riparian lands.

Amnesty International-Kenya and the Nairobi Youth Human Rights Network have been collecting signatures from Nairobi residents with the aim of blocking eviction of the slum dwellers, without giving them alternative land.

When it broached the idea of cleaning up the three rivers in Nairobi almost a year ago, the Government promised to develop guidelines on evictions and even formed a task force in 2006 to devise a humane plan for the exercise.

But human rights groups, alarmed by the time it has taken to develop the guidelines, warned that the vacuum was setting stage for violent evictions that could create another group of people in need of special care.

"Even at the moment, the reality on the ground is that small-scale forced evictions of people living in informal settlements regularly occur in contravention of international human rights standards," said Mr Moses Opiyo, a youth coordinator with Transparency International.

The Sh14.5 billion clean-up exercise is funded by donors, among them the Nairobi-headquartered United Nations Environmental Programme.

Addressing parliament recently, Environment Assistant Minister Ramadhan Kajembe, said just over Sh355 million had been spent in the NRRP, mainly in removing solid waste from the river courses and in planting trees along their banks.

The red flag of the rights groups was raised at a time that the government has been fighting to save its face over the Mau Forest complex evictions that have created a new crop of the internally displaced persons (IDPs), even before all Kenyans displaced in the last year's post election violence were resettled.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga says all the Mau evictees who are holding genuine title deeds will be allocated alternative land by the government.

However, the human rights groups and a section of the Rift Valley have censured the government for evicting the settlers before giving the alternative land.

The plan to evict a section of Nairobi slum dwellers goes back to July last year when the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) announced it would move some 127,000 people from the banks of Nairobi, Ngong and Mathare rivers to pave way for the clean up their basins.

At the time, Nema Director General Dr Muusya Mwinzi said the plan whose implementation would involve the demolition of some 4,236 structures erected on the riparian land targeted slums like Mathare Valley, Kosovo, Huruma and Mathare North where 32,940 people would be resettled and 3,820 structures demolished.

Also included in the plan are 37,350 people and 1,245 structures spread out in Kianda, Gatwikira, Kisumu Ndogo, Lindi, Siranga, Soweto, Line Saba, Mashimoni and other villages in Kibera.

The clean-up, Dr Mwinzi announced, would also see the removal of 1,290 people and 43 structures in Kyambio slums, 34,380 people and 1,146 structures in Mukuru slums; 1,230 people and 41 structures in Museum/Race Course, 780 people and 26 structures along RC-Gikomba; and 15,840 people and their 528 structures in Gikomba.

It is estimated that resettling all the affected people will cost the government Sh1.5 billion.

In June this year, Nema officials announced that it has already identified a 200-acres piece of land in Mwiki area.