International
Havana Diary
The fourth and final day of the conference on Marxism in the 21st Century held at the modern and spacious Palacio de Conventiones. Trees and fountains intrude into the interior while outside flora and fauna surround the grand architecture which houses many of the embassies, though not from the USA. Their former embassy has a forest of black flags flying.
The centre of gravity here is South America and most of the business is conducted in Spanish. simultaneous translations take place unless the speakers speed up with anguished reactions from the harassed translators. Much is familiar as Marx, Engels and Lenin's work is repeated. However there has been discussion on how Che Guevara introduced a much different economic system moving away from market socialism which he thought would inevitably bring about a return to capitalism. Evidently Mao was impressed by Che's ideas.
As for China now an American speaker (there are some, although they risk fines and/or imprisonment for coming to Cuba) saw it as a capitalist economy stressing this to be a common view. A Chinese contributor thought that we weren't using the right terminology to discuss China's attempts to assert herself in the midst of an onslaught of criticism on human rights and other matters. It wasn't made clear how the struggle for socialism was being conducted compared to many examples from Cuba and descriptions of events in other South American countries, notably Venezuela, where there are many examples of the wish to counter US domination and bring in humane values.
It is this aspect when it breaks through the ,ore technical theorising, which appeal. It is refreshing to see conscious and sustained attempts to bring about a different world order other than the dominant one bent on self-destruction which puts markets and profits at the centre using human beings as pawns in its game plan.
This weekend we will be going to other parts of the island and have the opportunity of meeting Cuban people who have lived through all or part of the Cuban revolution now about to celebrate its 50th anniversary. There is certainly a lot of history here. There is a large hotel representing the art deco of the twenties where so many celebrities came. Furniture and artifacts are all in keeping with the style. The colonial architecture which abounds is truly remarkable. I'm looking forward to the rest of our stay with immense pleasure.
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:01 PM May 6, 2008 | Comments (0)
Immediate and urgent action is required for Palestine
Message from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Please see the press release below and write/telephone your MP and contact the media about the meetings of donors and the Quartet this Friday. Please make the following points:
* Financial support alone is completely insufficient. A political solution must be found that delivers justice for Palestinians. The Israeli government is violating international law with impunity and must end its illegal occupation.
* Israel is continuing to build settlements after Annapolis and its policies, including checkpoints, Israel-only roads and the Apartheid Wall, are creating bantustans in the West Bank and strangling the Palestinian economy. Its illegal blockade on Gaza has created an horrific humanitarian crisis.
* Donors have previously funded vital infrastructure including schools and medical facilities that have subsequently been destroyed by the Israeli government. Surely the solution is not to appeal for more funding but for the international community to ensure that the Israeli government is brought to task for this destruction.
* Donors must show political will and bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government.
Many thanks
PSC
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 7:08 PM May 2, 2008 | Comments (1)
Ballymurphy Massacre Families to Meet TDs and Senators
From Troops Out Movement:
Ballymurphy Massacre Families to Meet TDs and Senators
TOM News 29/04/08
Families affected by the actions of the British army's Parachute Regiment in Belfast in August 1971 will be meeting with representatives of all of the twenty-six county political parties in Dáil Éireann tomorrow. In the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast the Parachute Regiment killed eleven people over a three day period, 9-11 August 1971.
Official accounts labelled all the victims gunmen and gunwomen, including a mother of eight and the parish priest. None of those killed had any connection to any armed group. They were innocent civilians. The barbarity of the killings was lost in the wider reporting of internment and became a forgotten massacre.
The British soldiers responsible for the killings went on to Derry the following January and were directly responsible for Bloody Sunday with fourteen more civilians being murdered. Now as adults, the children and the surviving siblings of those killed have been working to have the names of their loved ones cleared.
Following the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, and with separate investigative findings, the relatives are confident that they can link members of the Parachute Regiment responsible for Bloody Sunday to the killings of their loved ones in Ballymurphy in 1971.
As a direct consequence of the killings in Ballymurphy forty-six children were left without a parent. Many of those children were evacuated to the twenty-six counties - mostly to Irish army camps as refugees. Some of the children watched the funerals of their parents on news footage broadcast by RTÉ. Others were too young to comprehend the enormity of what occurred. Their lives were irrevocably changed.
Theirs is a story of great importance and significance in terms of healing, recovery, truth and justice; a story which must be heard and addressed as part of the outworkings and benefits of the wider peace process. Essentially, the legacy issues of this terrible atrocity must be addressed in the context of personal and societal healing and reconciliation as part of transitional justice.
The families are seeking political support for a number of key aims, which include an independent investigative process that will secure a statement of innocence regarding all of those killed and an apology from both the British Parachute Regiment and the British government. Importantly, this is a process that has an emphasis on truth seeking, acknowledgement and recognition.
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:35 PM April 30, 2008 | Comments (0)
Food shortages - another crisis for the exploited
Announced to day are massive profits for the oil companies BP and Shell. The reason? Global oil prices. Also announced by Avaaz is another crisis on our doorsteps, the availability and price of food. More.
A visit to a local Chinese take-way last night showed that rising prices are having a dramatic effect. The owner told me that he was just breaking even as the price of rice was rocketing and increased prices were driving away custom.
It has long been clear in the development of the European Union that markets are the driving force, the tacit assumption being put around that it's good for people. The outcomes we are seeing more and more graphically is that people come of second best, unless they are a member of an elite with the resources to absorb steep rises in prices of fuel and food. New Labour has not been about protecting working people from the effects of the globalisation of markets, said to be a good thing by many who ought to know better. Rather it has developed a new alternative elite. All major parties in UK are tied into capitalism and its logical outcomes which are creating crisis and chaos.
As war in Iraq and elsewhere brings massive financial reward to the ruling elite in the US, backed by Britain so fuel prices and shortages bring benefits to those in control. Those striking at Grangemouth about their loss of pension were quick to point out that the boss was fifteenth on the "rich list" published by the Sunday Times. The workers are told that they must "modernise". Sound familiar to those in New Labour from exhortations of Blair et al. "Modernisation" is a euphemism for throwing away your hard won rights of all of us for the benefits of the few. The religious Mr Blair has benefited rather well from his disastrous spell in office.
Posted by John Tyrrell at 11:11 AM April 29, 2008 | Comments (0)
Bus for Gaza
A bus for Gaza is drawing attention to the plight of Palestinians leading to a demonstration in London on 10th May. Now there are reports that the sewage system is breaking down (see below),
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:00 AM April 28, 2008 | Comments (0)
Sadism in Hebron. The Israeli army out of control (?)
I have no hesitation in including this article from Jewish Voice for Peace about what is going on in Hebron and possibly, likely, other areas of occupied Palestine. The Israeli army is out of control.
This article reports on a situation out of control in the West Bank town of Hebron, where young IDF conscripts are encouraged or allowed to act as sadistically as they like and to inflict what the article describes as a “reign of terror” on the Palestinian residents. The article is painful to read, but gives you a real sense of the brutal manner in which the occupation is being administered, in Hebron at least. The piece is framed in terms of the moral degradation of the conscripts themselves, the fact that they are becoming (as one young soldier puts it) “animals”.
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:53 AM April 23, 2008 | Comments (0)
Torture Israeli and U.S. style
"The Public Committee against Torture in Israel (PCATI) has revealed that the Israeli security service (Shin Bet) harms or threatens to harm the relatives of prisoners in order to extract confessions from the prisoners themselves. In some cases, the relatives are physically tortured. The accusations of torture are bad enough, but harming or threatening to harm uninvolved noncombatants for the political end of extracting a confession appears to fall under standard definitions of terrorism."
The information comes from Jewish Voice for Peace. It's just another example of information where you just can't possibly believe it can be as bad as it's described here. Not from anyone with the least pretension to regarding themselves as civilised. We appear to be witnessing regression in society! Here there appear to be no holds barred when people are actually prepared to go out and commit barbaric acts on civilians. In the name of Zionism? Hasn't that got something to do with "God"? What does this mean? We are told there is "one God" in this context embracing Judaism, Islam and Christian alike. This "one God" looks more and more like the opposite: "Mammon". As Jesus of Nazareth observed you can't serve both, but then look what happened to him.
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 7:19 PM April 20, 2008 | Comments (0)
International Conference on Penal Abolition
A high profile conference will take place in London in July at which Pauline Campbell has agreed to speak;
International Conference on Penal Abolition
New Speaker added to the agenda
We are pleased to announce the addition of campaigner and penal abolitionist, Pauline Campbell, to the ICOPA line up. Pauline became involved in the campaign for penal abolition following the death of her daughter Sarah, whilst 'in the care' of Styal Prison in 2003. She was just 18.
Pauline is one of the leading figues in England and Wales calling for the closure of women's prisons. She has, to date, organised 28 demonstrations, been arrested 15 times and been charged 5 times. She is currently awaiting criminal trial following a demonstration outside Styal Prison in February this year.
She said, "Where there is injustice, there will be protest. And long may the spirit of protest remain alive and well in our democratic society."
She joins BBC Journalist and ex-prisoner Raphael Rowe, and leading human rights lawyer, Imran Khan, to discuss 'Penal Abolition, the media and the public'.
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:53 AM April 17, 2008 | Comments (0)
Black farmers in the US. The end of the struggle?
Al Jazeera highlights the work of a researcher, John Ficaras, who is looking at the lives and histories of black farmers in the USA. It is another chapter in the story of discrimination, which far from falling away is a continuing issue as banks and government withhold support. Promises dating back to Lincoln and abolition have never materialised.
"The history of black owned farms in the United States dates back to the years immediately following the US Civil War in the mid-1800s.
At the end of the war the then US president, Abraham Lincoln, liberated all of the slaves and the reforms that followed promised that each family would receive forty acres and a mule, a promise that was never fulfilled.
Black owned farms peaked in the early 1920s with an estimated total of 15 million acres and over 900,000 farmers.
Today there are only 2.2 million acres owned by black farmers. These farmers are losing their land three times faster than white family farmers and a recent study by the university of Michigan predicts that within the next ten years there will be virtually no black owned farms.
This is a vanishing part of American history and Ficara uses the power of their stories and these images to keep the history of their slice of the American dream alive while their way of life falls under the plough forever."
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:25 AM April 16, 2008 | Comments (0)
Carter keeps trying
Former US President Jimmy Carter seems a lone voice in his efforts to secure peace for Israel based on talks which include Hamas. Carter phoned Condoleeza Rice but, since she was on tour, a member of her staff took the call. No one tried to dissuade Carter from his mission or suggest he did things differently. The world looks a different place in front page media hype and what is happening in the background and largely unreported. Alternative sources such as Al Jazeera, and here Haaretz provide some alternative views.
The article points out that none of the presidential hopefuls can afford to get embroiled. Why is demonstrated by the wild attempts, notably by a journalist at the LA Times, who has tried repeatedly to wrong foot Barack Obama. Obama attended a lecture by the late Edward Said, co-founder of the East-West Divan Orchestra with Daniel Baremboim. The "American Conservative" is subjecting Obama to the "Israel test". The article goes back to illustrate what happened to JFK when the pro-Israel lobby intervened.
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Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:51 AM April 14, 2008 | Comments (0)
Tibet. Some questions
The following questions and answers about Tibet came to me from the Socialist Labour Party. When I received a petition from a source I often support in the name of human rights I held back from a knee-jerk reaction because I felt a need to understand. In Snowmail a point was made that little attempt had been made to put a Chinese view across. This is not to say that colonialism is right, but those making noises live in glass houses and there are key questions to ask about what is going on: what is the agenda behind it? I was reminded that there had been a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Why? Because of the Soviet Union's presence in Afghanistan!!!
The Dalai Lama has recently been in the presence of George Bush, which is enough to start me asking questions. Nancy Pelosi is not exactly a Bush supporter, but her recent intervention in Tibetan matters has also to be questioned. The article is translated from the French being an account by a woman who has made a study of Tibetan Buddhism.
TIBET: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
China contains 1/6th of the world’s population and events affecting that part of the world should be a concern for all.
With the China/Tibet issue being much in the news recently, it is useful to discover the social, political and economic background to current developments.
Elisabeth Martens is the author of Histoire du bouddhisme tibetain:compasio (Publisher: Harmattan (Nov 1 2007) Language: French)
Elisabeth Martens was interviewed by Bénito Perez for “Le Courrier” of Geneva on 27 March 2008. Here is the entire interview in which she directly answers all questions on the history, recent events, repression, the Dalai Lama, and the social problems of Tibet.
TIBET Q&A
Tibet: Answers on the history, religion, the monk class, social problems, repression, and the role of the US.
by Elizabeth Martens
Benito Perez: Can you briefly introduce yourself? How did you become interested in Tibet and China?
Elizabeth Martens: I spent three years in China, after studying biology in Belgium, in order to specialize in traditional Chinese medicine. Of course, I took advantage of my stay there to travel throughout China—from north to south, and east to west. One of my trips in 1990 took me for the first time to a Tibetan region (i.e., inhabited by Tibetans), XiaHe in Gansu, to the great Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Labulang. I was surprised by the ease with which one could make contact with the Lamas who walked the streets and shopped at the corner grocery store; it was far from the image of our own monks who were cloistered behind their walls.
I was also surprised by the difference between the Chinese Buddhas, round as teapots mildly brewing on the stove, smiling, jolly, and the Tibetan Buddhas, much more imposing. And still more surprised to find in the Tibetan temples an incredible quantity of representations of the gods, of monsters, of Bodhisattvas, and such, one more ferocious and frightening than the next. I found that, in a certain way, this was a lot like what you find in the chamber of horrors in our churches, men impaled, crucified, or thrown into pots of boiling oil, and so on. Nothing like what is in Chinese art: in Chinese thought, and thus in the arts of China, suffering and the means by which it is brought about are not central preoccupations. From what must one free oneself at the moment when one realizes that suffering is only the flip side of well-being? I found in the Tibetan regions, where I returned several times after that (the last time in the summer of 2007), a very different culture from the Chinese. This difference seemed interesting to me: how could a country as huge as China (larger than all of Europe) reconcile 55 nationalities, each speaking its own language, especially with the disproportionate presence of the Han (about 90% of the population of China) as compared to the other nationalities?
BP: What happened, according to your information (and what are your sources?), recently in those regions of China populated by Tibetans?
EM: The violence which went down in Lhassa on 14 March 2008 was perpetrated by groups of Tibetan demonstrators. The testimony of foreigners present at the time was in agreement on this point: the aggression targeted the Chinese (the Han) and the Hui, a majority of whom are Muslims. Some people were burned alive, others were beaten, stabbed or stoned to death. The weapons used were Molotov cocktails, stones, iron bars, shanks and butcher knives. There were 22 dead and more than 300 wounded, nearly all were Hui and Han. These were criminal acts of a racist character. Serge Lachapelle, a tourist from Montreal, said: “The Muslim quarter was completely destroyed, not a single store was left standing.”
By the 18th of March, the Dalai Lama declared at a press conference that “the events in Tibet got out of control and that he is prepared to resign if the violence continues.” He added that “these acts of violence are suicidal.” It did not stop, just a few days later, through a strange bit of scheduling, US Senate Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, from showing up in Dharamsala for an official visit to the 14th Dalai Lama. She spoke of the events in Tibet as “a challenge to the conscience of the world” and demanded that China send and independent international commission to Tibet to verify the Chinese accusation that “the clique of the Dalai Lama was behind the violence”, and to check on “the manner in which the Chinese are treating their Tibetan prisoners.” This is one of the strategies used by the US: to force China to accept the teams of inspectors who carry the cachet of “Human Rights”, or to be able to say that China refused to accept them. There is no one better suited to pull off such a plan than the Dalai Lama: in his speech of 10 March, he had already demanded that China demonstrate “a greater transparency.”
Aren’t these terms curiously resonant of ‘glasnost’, which led to the break-up of the USSR? Germany, the avant-garde of Europe, lined up behind the demands for transparency made by the US: the German Minister of Foreign Affairs declared “the German Federal government demands greater transparency on the part of the Chinese government.” But the Chinese authorities speak of a premeditated and well-organized revolt. The occasion chosen to give the green light to the rioters was the anniversary of the 1959 revolt in Lhasa, a date the Tibetans in exile have declared a “National Holiday”: 10 March. On this day, a march from India to Tibet was effectively begun. It was supposed to go on for six months: until the opening of the Olympic Games in Peking. This march was organized by the “Movement for the Uprising of the Tibetan People”, an organization in which were represented the principal factions of the Tibetan government in exile: the NDP (New Democratic Party), the Tibetan Youth Congress, and the Women’s Movement.
10 March was clearly the signal to kick-off the riots: they were encouraged from abroad by multiple demonstrations in front of Chinese Embassies (e.g., in Brussels). Even in China, fliers calling for independence for Tibet were distributed in Tibetan regions. The same day, 300 Lamas from the monastery in Drepung demonstrated in the center of Lhasa in a non-violent but “provocative” manner; the police dispersed the demonstrators without clashes. This was not the case a few days later on the 14th of March: several Tibetan groups, all armed in the same way and operating in the same manner, were dispersed in city of Lhasa, bringing on hostilities and creating panic. What followed was the drama that we saw, with the anticipated repression by the Chinese. It should be remembered that international law stipulates, “Every country has the right to use force against independence movements aimed at dividing that country.” Imagine the havoc that would ensue in France if Corsican separatists set fire to French civilians in the middle of Ajacio!
BP: The general analysis of the riots has been that they were “a reaction to the colonization of Tibet by the Chinese”? There has even been talk of genocide? What’s up with this?
EM: When we speak of the “colonization” of one country by another, there should be, at least, two countries. In this particular case, we should remember that Tibet has never been recognized as an “independent country”. In the 13th century, the Mongols annexed Tibet to China, and in the 18th century the Manchus divided the Chinese empire into 18 provinces, Tibet being one of them. At the end of the 19th century, the British Empire invaded Tibet and installed their trading posts.
This happened under the reign of the 13th DL, who saw in the British occupation of Tibet an opportunity to claim independence. The basis for this was what was called “Greater Tibet”, a territory five times the size of France, about a third of China, and which corresponds more or less (because there were no maps at this time) to the territory of Tibet at the end of the Tubo dynasty of the 9th century. But China at the beginning of the 20th century had just come out of a territorial auction in which it had ceded a number of “concessions” to Western countries. To give up a third of its territory was to sign it own death warrant. So this demand for independence was inconceivable. That is to say that neither the UN nor any of its member states ever recognized Tibet as an independent country. This is an initial answer to your question.
A second answer is that when we use the term “colonization”, it implies that the invading country profits from the assets of the invaded country. But, if we consider the last fifty years in Tibet, we notice the opposite phenomenon. The Tibetan population has tripled thanks to the health care system and the rapid improvement of living standards. Which was, in fact, not difficult to achieve given the disastrous conditions under which 90% of the Tibetans lived under the theocratic regime of the Dalai Lamas. In any case, this improvement was not as fast as in the larger Chinese cities, which, with their gleaming spires, have made the whole world believe that China has turned capitalist. It’s crazy what you can make people believe with a few sequins, some lights and some big store windows. To answer your second question, about genocide, we must once more go back into history. In 1949, with the advent of the Peoples Republic of China, the Chinese government chose to set the odometer back to zero: all foreigners and foreign influences were shown the door, and all the borders were reasserted, even those in distant provinces like Tibet. In 1956, an armed rebellion was organized in several Tibetan monasteries (e.g., Litang and Drepung): the Peoples Republic of China targeted the Tibetan dignitaries, those of the clergy in particular. And so it was this part of the population that began to flee into India and which would make up the Tibetan community in exile (just as the exodus for Taiwan was made up mainly of the larger Chinese families).
This armed rebellion was from its beginnings financially and logistically supported by the CIA. For what reason? All you have to do to understand this is read a report by the US State Dept from April 1949: “Tibet has become strategically and ideologically important. Since the independence of Tibet could serve the struggle against communism, it is in our interests to recognize Tibet as independent. (. . ) However, it is not Tibet that interests us, it is the attitude we must adopt toward China.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that! The armed rebellion, which began in the monastery in Litang, spread in waves to Lhasa, where the most important action took place, and was put down by the Red Army in 1959. After this event, it was of great importance to the US to conduct public opinion to believe that there was a genocide, and that’s why the figure of 1.2 million dead was put out by the Tibetan Buddhist authorities in exile.
Several demographic studies later showed that this figure was made up out of whole cloth. Patrick French, former director of “Free Tibet”, verified this on the spot in Dharamsala. After a lengthy review of the “official” documents putting out this figure, he became completely disgusted with the magnitude of the falsifications coming from those he had admired. He recounts this episode in his book. What is important to remember in this falsification is that if we speak of 1.2 million dead from a population of barely 2 million inhabitants, we could well be talking about a “genocide”. But if it’s actually a matter of a few thousand dead on both sides, then it’s no longer a genocide, but more like a civil war. This figure of 1.2 million dead was allowed to manipulate public opinion toward a distrusting, unto xenophobia, of the Chinese. It has been the same story for 50 years. So, if we analyze the historical facts, we can no longer speak of either an invasion, or of colonization, or of genocide. The riots which took place in March 2008 must be analyzed, first of all, in an economic context, without forgetting that Tibet has been for a long time now one of the fields of battle between the US and China.
BP: The violence of the demonstrations does not jibe with the pacifism advocated by the DL. Why?
EM: The DL and his entourage carry the banner of pacifism and have cultivated the image of tolerance and compassion that has come to be associated with Tibetan Buddhism, or so it is believed in the West, right? Yet the DL still takes time to stir up public opinion over the peaceful demonstration of 300 monks from Drepung in the streets of Lhasa on the 10th of March and immediately charges the Chinese police with repression (and it should be noted here in passing that—and anyone who has been to Tibet can confirm this—the forces of order are essentially made up of Tibetans and depend very little on the Chinese). When these violent acts had reached a level of unspeakable barbarity, he quickly distanced himself from the events. What role did he play in the events? To determine this, you have to look at who profited from these riots: neither the Chinese, nor the six million Tibetans living in China. The riots essentially served to stir up public opinion over China’s Human Rights violations, the lack of freedom of expression, and the various repressions that we charge the Chinese government with. So, this uprising served to give China a terrible image, and this just before the Olympics were to gather the world press in Peking.
I think that, in part, they reflect the enormous fear that we have of the economic power represented by today’s China. It’s true that in some ways China is still part of the Third World, but in others ways, it threatens to catch up with us very quickly and even to surpass us. Few people here (in the West—ed) are aware of China’s huge intellectual potential and that this mass of Chinese intellectuals have begun to see themselves being under the constant repression and denigration of the West. They will not remain silent much longer. To recap, I think that these riots served to further darken the image of China: provoked by these racialist riots in the Tibetan regions, China was obliged to bring out its big guns, and so we can speak honorably of a “savage repression” exerted by the Chinese government at the time of these “ethnic incidents”.
It’s the same old song: we’ve heard it constantly since 1989 (with conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, Iraq, and those that went to breaking up the USSR). It should be noted also that at the heart of the Tibetan exile community, there is a scission becoming more and more apparent: on the one hand, there are the moderates, including the DL, who do not advocate violence (not openly, at least), and who do not even demand independence, but speak of “growing autonomy”, as we know. On the other hand, and at the moment it is a majority faction within the government in exile, there are the radicals who demand total independence and are ready to take up arms to achieve it. You can imagine that such discourse would be impossible to maintain without the support of their allies of 50 years: the US, which also continues to finance and arm the Tibetan community in exile. In reality, today the US has two war horses it can use simultaneously: the DL and his followers (in Europe, especially) from whom comes the pacifist line that serves to rally Western intellectuals around the themes of “democracy”, “Human Rights”, “Freedom of the Press”, etc., that must be imposed on China (what a bizarre idea: “a democracy” that has to be imposed! . . . but it gets across 200% of the time), and then the “hardcore” faction of the Tibetan government in exile, which is acquiring more and more adherents because of the tough talk of the struggle for independence at all cost. Apparently, these are the ones who have ignited and carried out the recent violence.
BP: Isn’t this an expression of real discontent?
EM: Yes, of course. What I’ve been describing so far is the “outside” instigators of the riots. But it’s obvious that if there weren’t a “suitable situation” on the ground, the instigators couldn’t instigate anything. As I said, the internal reasons are essentially economic, and therefore social. First, we must remember that mass education in Tibet didn’t begin until the 60s, which explains why Tibet is behind the rest of the country. What this means is that the first university students or advanced technicians in Tibet did not start working until the 80s, about 10 years later than the Han Chinese (and 10 years in China is like 100 years for us!). This is a disadvantage that they still have not made up. This disadvantage at the level of training, as well as in the type of work offered to each group, explains why all the “important” positions are held by the Chinese.
Besides this first problem, which is real, difficult to resolve, and the source of “ethnic” conflict, there is also the disadvantage, well recognized in China, of the country folk compared to the inhabitants of the large urban centers. If many Tibetans have benefited from the economic advances China has made, many others have been left behind in economic stagnation. This fact does not just impact Tibet, but effects the whole of China: the inequalities are becoming more and more glaring between the more fortunate (or even those of average fortune) and the more unfortunate. What is without doubt is that very few Chinese living in Tibet are unemployed—if they come to Tibet, it’s because they know there is a job waiting for them, if not they would go elsewhere—, while there are many young Tibetans would are without jobs. In general, they come from the countryside and have only had elementary school educations. They lack qualifications, while the Chinese who come to work in Tibet are qualified technicians, university trained, or experienced administrators, and, of course, merchants. Even if education is facilitated for Tibetans (as it is with other ethnic minorities elsewhere in China), the requirements for gaining an education are lower and the entrance exams less rigorous for the Hans, the Tibetans don’t always see their interests in pursuing a higher education. But bringing the Tibetans to educate themselves would be an interesting way of reducing social inequality, while China “stands by its commitment” to inject billions of Yuan just for the development of the Tibetan economy. What’s more, in Tibetan towns, the free market favors the Han and Muslim Hui who have more experience in trade than the Tibetans. So, here again, the Tibetans feel they have been dealt out of the game by the Han and the Hui.
Just to note that the racial hatred toward the Muslims has for a long time been rooted in and propagated by Tibetan Buddhism (e.g., by the Kalashakra): it is because of the Muslim invasions of northern India in the 10th and 11th centuries that the Tantric masters sought refuge in Tibet. Indian Tantrism came to Tibet and became Tibetan Buddhism, and held on to an age-old rancor for Islam because of their persecution by Muslims.
BP: Didn’t China annex Tibet? Can we deny the existence of a national claim for Tibet, for a “Tibetan nation” distinct from China?
EM: As I said earlier, Tibet was annexed to China by the Mongols, that is, during the period when the Mongols extended their empire into China (13th century). When China regained control of its empire, with the Mings, from the 14th to the 16th centuries, it pretty much lost all interest in that distant Tibetan region and Tibet remained “passively” annexed to China. Then the Manchus took over China and made Tibet a Chinese province. This tactic was repeated by the British and then by the US.
So what is meant by the term “nation”? If you want to talk about a nation historically distinct from China, you have to go back to the Tubo dynasty that ruled Tibet from the 7th to the 9th centuries. It would be like our now claiming to be the empire of Charlemagne! If you want to talk about a specific culture, it seems obvious that Tibet does not have the same culture as China, not just because of the differences in their spoken and written languages, but also because of the differences in their traditions, their religions, their inhabitants, and so on. This had not stopped the many instances of cross-culturing, to the point that I asked myself what would jump off in the way of family dramas and breakups if one day Tibet really became independent and shoved all the Han Chinese out the door, along with all the Muslims (these are the two ethnicities targeted by the government in exile): they would have a helluva problem telling just who was who and who belonged to what ethnicity. In fact, the ethnic analysis is only a way of explaining to the general public why the wars fought among the great powers happened: this was also seen in the Balkans, in Iraq, in the USSR, and it is happening again in Tibet. What flabbergasted me was that public opinion has still not caught on. And what worries me is that the stakes in this conflict have by far surpassed those of the other conflicts: on the one hand, China can not just let itself do whatever, and on the other, the world economy is at risk of serious shock.
BP: Today, can the Tibetans live according to their culture/religion?
EM: Tibetans are for the most part very devout, that can be seen in their daily life: the stone mills turn lightly, we see them kneeling in front of the temples from morning till night, on the highways we regularly encounter pilgrims en route to Lhasa, prayer flags around their necks, the monasteries are packed with monks, even very young children (which is forbidden by Chinese law), bank notes piled up at the feet of the Buddhas, in the distance we can hear the sounds of trumpets and mantras.
Religious practice is far from being repressed. It can only be an expression of bad faith to claim otherwise! Or of never having been to Tibet. In education, bilingualism is required and practiced in every school that we visited (primary, secondary and higher education); institutes of Tibetology were open for those young Tibetans (and others) who wished to deepen their study of Tibetan culture: here we found they gave courses in language, medicine, theology, music and dance, and so on. So I think that it is pure nonsense to say that the culture and the religion are being oppressed or destroyed. Again, it is the information we are fed at home: after shedding some light on the deception as to the ethnic genocide, we were quickly diverted to “cultural genocide”. It is obvious, that if I, as one small individual, were to contradict this notion, no one would believe me, but it is enough to go and see the place for yourself to be convinced.
So what are they talking about when they point a finger at “Chinese repression”? What is banned and severely punished is any attempt at “separatism”, or the division of China. What may seem trivial activities in our countries, like carrying a Tibetan flag in the streets (the flag that was created in 1959, at the time of the exodus, and which is thus of a political color), or distributing leaflets in the street, or passing out photos of the DL (who is a political effigy), or organizing demonstrations, and such. For this sort of activity there are very quick (doubtlessly too quick?) arrests, and sometimes imprisonment. China is quite severe on this matter because they know that the support for the Tibetan independence movement is huge, that this support comes from the West and is aimed at dividing China. As I said, the bone of contention here is not so much the six million Chinese Tibetans up against the Chinese state, but the pitting of China against the West, and it is expressed in the economic problems that exist in today’s Tibet.
PB: What is the nature of Tibetan Buddhism and its structure/clergy?
EM: Ok, so, you’re asking me to rewrite my book! To recap: Tibetan Buddhism came out of Tantrism, one of three great schools or “vehicles” of Buddhism. According to scholars of Buddhism, this vehicle is the farthest removed from the Dharma (or the original teachings of Buddha in the 6th century BC). First of all, because this vehicle is the most recent (6th century AD), so Buddhism had time to go through several changes, and did so largely because of the intellectual difficulties in its teaching. And then, because Tibetan Buddhism had the particularity of exerting a spiritual as well as a temporal power, which is not the case with the two other vehicles of Buddhism.
In fact, Tantrism fled to Tibet in the 10th and 11th centuries because of the historical circumstances I have just told you about (Muslim invasions). At this time, Tibet was totally disorganized on the political and social levels. But the Tantric communities who came north from India were very structured and hierarchical. This is why, when they had moved into Tibet, which badly needed a reorganization, they took control of the region “spontaneously”, by applying their own standards. Tantrism became Tibetan Buddhism from the moment it adapted itself to the local morals, customs and religion (Bön). You could say that at this time, the Buddhist religion was beneficial because it guided Tibet toward a structured feudalism. The problem was that this feudalism, over a millennium, became rigidly set in an extremely repressive and conservative religious power. Tibet was halted in its evolution because of this omniscient and omnipotent religious power. We must not forget that the monasteries owned more than 70% of the land in Tibet, the rest belonging to the families of the nobility. There has never been a theocratic rule as powerful or as rich as the one in Tibet. There was no comparison with what happened in Europe during the Middle Ages where the monasteries were tucked away in a dark corner of the castle grounds. With the arrival of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, it was much more difficult for the Tibetan clergy to give up this power.
BP: You said that Tibetan Buddhism allowed the imposition of a feudal system. But that was the case with most all religions. Isn’t this all in the past now?
EM: Certainly, that was the case with most religions, as religion has always had one foot in politics, as we say. Tibetan Buddhism permitted a tribal society, as it was before the 9th century, to evolve into a better structured, feudal society. Feudalism is no longer very popular anywhere, and the former Tibetan elite, now in exile, has no intention of returning to the old system. They, too, have modernized and are strong partisans of the “free market” model with a reinstallation of the private ownership of land, thus especially outside the Chinese system, and based on the Western model.
PB: How do you explain the very pro-Tibetan feelings in the West, especially in the media?
EM: Public opinion follows the media, and the media obey the economic interests. Don’t we live in an economic dictatorship here at home? Censorship is as real here as it is anywhere, but just better hidden. In the West, you are not locked up in prison for your opinions, but rather in your head, then in the illnesses that ensue. I wonder sometimes which is worse. So your actual question becomes: “How do you explain the pro-Tibetan feelings conveyed by our economic system?” Neither the US nor Europe fully appreciates the dazzling advances made by China on the world stage. All the plans are in place to bring it down: “We have to raise hell during the Peking Olympics!” squeals Danny Cohn-Bendit in his speech before a plenary session of the EU parliament on how Europe must act toward China. And this, not even a week after the events that lit up downtown Lhasa! It is so monstrous, yet that shows in a very simple way that the “big world of diplomacy and high finance” doesn’t have a solution for the Tibetan problem, and what is really important for them is to “raise hell in China.”
How do you get the Western public to swallow this pill, especially without losing the approval of intellectuals? For that you have to call on His Holiness, who with a smile of the “eternal snows” could make a cat back down in front of a mouse. Hasn’t Tibetan Buddhism gussied itself up in its best bib and tucker to charm a West “devoid of spiritual values”? Surfing into our lives on the 70s wave of “getting back to the source”, it was not difficult to pass it off as the Dharma, presented to us as a sort of “spiritual atheism”, a philosophy of life, a way of being, an internal therapy, etc., in short, everything BUT a religion.
Continue reading "Tibet. Some questions"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:25 PM April 12, 2008 | Comments (0)
A wounded buffalo
As the argument about who won the election in Zimbabwe goes on the situation deteriorates by the minute. I received the following letter from Bulawayo along with an accompanying article.
Dear all
This is an interesting analogy and describes exactly the situation here at
present. It has just come over the tv that the courts have no jurisdiction
over the electoral commission and cannot force them to make the results
known. Is there NO ONE out there who can help us? The situation is
becoming more desperate by the day. I queued this morning for a bag of
very second grade rolls, limited to 6 per customer! One does not ask the
price these days we are just grateful if we can get. I made some soda
bread yesterday with bread flour I had but used the last of the bi-carb and,
of course, there is none in the shops. The shelves remain pathetically
empty and managers are reluctant to put anything on the shelves as there is
still the threat that they may be required to halve the pces and they
certainly cannot survive a further episode like that. If the situation is
like it is in Bulawayo what can it be like throughout the country? We
experienced people passing by when we were having a picnic indicating that
they too were hungry but we just were not in a position to help as we had
barely enough for us. If we had not had a chance to go out of the country
several times recently we certainly would not be able to cope now. One
chap waiting in the bread queue went down on his knees. I do not know if
he was praying or just too weak to stand for as long as was required.
Life is indeed pathetic here at the moment and deteriorating by the day.
My brother and his wife leave next week and I leave the week after until
February and January respectively. Charles will come back for part of that
time. Everyone one speaks to is getting ready to move on but there are so
many who do not have the luxury of that option. I have resigned as
Chairman of the senior citizen centre but it does not mean I will forget
about them. I certainly will do what I can from afar. It seems one of
the senior citizens misunderstood the situation and was frantic that the
soup kitchen was closing! We were able to assure him that this would not
be the case. I hear today that a small piece of beef now costs Z$2
billion! How many people are going to be afford such a luxury.
We just appeal to any of you who can to help if you can. We are very
nearly flat on our backs, let alone being on our knees! The situation is
GRAVELY SERIOUS!!!!!!!
Eddie Cross who wrote the piece which follows is a very optimistic man but
does not always get things right! That crystal ball does have a habit of
dimming over.
Best wishes to all, Juliet
Continue reading "A wounded buffalo"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 5:28 PM April 7, 2008 | Comments (0)
Palestinian land remains up for grabs from "settlers"
The following comes in an e-mail from Jewish Voice for Peace.
The article below, on the re-establishment of an illegal settlement in the West Bank, does a good job of explaining the facts of the incident described, but a little more explanation is necessary to explain its significance.
The outpost of Shvut Ami was to be evacuated for the 10th time. This outpost, it is not disputed, is on private Palestinian land. A unique tactic was agreed upon for this last attempt to return the land to its rightful owners by the Israeli lawyer, human rights organizations, the local Palestinians and the Army. The Army would evacuate the settlers as usual, but knowing that they would immediately be free to return, Israeli activists from Yesh Din and Anarchists Against the Wall were officially "invited" by the property owner to be on site along with Palestinians from Qudum. Coordinating with the Army, it was agreed that only those "invited"—and cleared by the Army—would be allowed on the property after the evacuation of the settlers. Activists were preparing to spend about a month, in daytime and nighttime shifts, in this way to guard the property from settlers.
Thus it was all the more devastating when about 100 settlers attacked and beat the first six activists on the site just a few hours after the evacuation. The Army and Police failed to protect them adequately, and they were forced to withdraw in fear of their lives. The rule of law and justice for the Palestinian owner were once again overturned by brute force, with the collusion of the army and police forces. The activists and villagers, who had put their trust in the Army, were betrayed, and the settlers once again found success by disdaining the law.
The one ray of hope in this story is that it actually drew a rare official apology from the Army, and the evacuation will be undertaken yet again sometime in the next couple of weeks. The coalition of Palestinians, Israeli activists and lawyers remain determined to try again. --Rebecca Vilkomerson
---------------------------
Continue reading "Palestinian land remains up for grabs from "settlers""
Posted by John Tyrrell at 8:52 AM April 7, 2008 | Comments (0)
Sikh man from UK cheated by Surat priest
Express News Service reported from Surat on March 18, 2008:
"A Sikh man of Birmingham in the United Kingdom came to Surat and handed over an application to Surat police Commissioner about a priest from Suratwho allegedly had conned him in the United Kingdom.
Karnail Singh, a shopkeeper in Birmingham, came to India to attend some function at his native Jalandhar in Punjab a couple of months ago. After completing the function, he came to Surat and met Surat Police Commisiioner and handed him an application about a priest. who had come to the United Kingdom in 2004and had cheated him to the tune of £15,000.
Singh later also contacted Umra police inspector and explained the details of his case.
According to Singh, he came in contact with Kandarp Kumar Joshi, a resident of Harihar Park at Althan Road at his friend Naresh Kumar's house in Birmingham on December 11, 2004. Joshi, reportedly a priest, then visited Singh's house and told him that something is wrong in his house and his daughter will not get married unless and until some holy work is done. Joshi, posing himself as a preacher, charged him £8,000 for getting his house free from black magic.
Joshi later told him that fro continuation of the work he has to go back to India with the money. Singh kept faith in him and also gave him air fare.
Later when inquired about the work, Joshi asked Singh to remain tension freeas the work was under progress.
Singh said 'After waiting for a long period and seeing no progress in the work we understood that we have been cheated. After that he did not pick our calls. My relatives in Punjab found out his residential number and called him to ask him to return the money or they will take the matter to the police. We asked him to deposit £15,000in our account. But he only deposited £2,294 in my account on 25th March, 2005 and asked for some months' time to make the rest of the payment. After waiting for a year, we learnt that he had shifted to a new place. We located his new residential address and tried to contact him but he never took our call.'
Surat Police Commissioner R.M.S. Brar said 'I have told him to explain the entire incident to Umra police inspector Ramesh Patel and that we will decide our course of action later.' "
Continue reading "Sikh man from UK cheated by Surat priest"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 1:45 PM April 5, 2008 | Comments (0)
Hyderabad opens new airport
Q. Why is Terminal 5 like a mortuary? A. You can't take your baggage with you. At much the same time as Terminal 5 was opening at Heathrow an airport of comparable size was opening in the fast growing hub of technology and scientific achievement in Hyderabad, India: the Rajiv Gandhi Airport.
They reported no problems with baggage handling and everything appears to have gone smoothly.
A meeting in Birmingham called by the Asian Rationalist Society (Britain) described something else going on in India. Barely 150 km from Hyderbad is a village outside of which there is a Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) community. One of India's notorious godmen had announced that before the children in the community could receive an education they would need to make a sacrifice. Not a sheep or goat, but one of their children. It would have to be a human sacrifice he insisted. Fear spread through the community and children were kept from going to school. Here the Rationalists stepped in. They spend time in communities demonstrating the cheap conjuring tricks and sleight of hand which the holy men use to trick people into believing they have supernatural powers. They managed to persuade some of the young people and some elders in going with them to the temple to confront this godman. Having got wind that he was to have visitors he ran off and so there was great disappointment. However the community now feel enlightened and empowered to act against these villains.
Continue reading "Hyderabad opens new airport"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 6:30 PM March 30, 2008 | Comments (0)
Rachel Corrie's parents praise Bil'in residents for their non-violent protest
This week's news from Bil'in tells of Israeli troops firing tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets:
"Israeli military attacks weekly Bil'in protest, 17 injured including 7 journalists."
Rachel Corrie's parents were among those supporting the rights of villagers who undaunted by the armed-to-the-teeth bullies of the US backed Israeli government. What precisely is a terrorist, and who are the terrorists?
Friday March 28, 2008 16:51
Scores of residents of Bil’in, a village near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, along with their international and Israeli supporters, took to the streets on Friday to conduct their weekly nonviolent protest against the Israeli Wall and illegal confiscation of the village's land.
Israeli troops manning the wall and its gate that cuts off the villagers from their land showered the protesters with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets immediately after the protesters reached the gate.
17 were injured including seven journalists. Medical sources identified some of the injured journalists as Fadi Al Arouri, a photojournalist, Najud al Qassem, a cameraman, Moheb Al Bargouthi, a reporter, and George Haltah, a cameraman.
Also among those injured was Eyad Burnat, of Bil'in popular committee, who told IMEMC "I was trying to protect one of the village youth who was attacked by the soldiers when soldiers attacked and beat me up."
The parents of Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist who was killed by the Israeli army in Gaza five years ago, took part of the Bil'in protest. Her father, Mr Craig Corrie, praised the nonviolent resistance in Bil'in and called for more support for the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom.
Rachel Corrie was killed in 2003 in Rafah city, in the southern part of the Gaza strip when an army bulldozer ran over her while she was protecting a local family home from being demolished by the Israeli army.
http://www.imemc.org/article/53799
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI51PKXPUHA
Continue reading "Rachel Corrie's parents praise Bil'in residents for their non-violent protest"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:08 AM March 29, 2008 | Comments (0)
Good tidings at Easter
Some good news from the Independent. It's Easter Day and the other Good News appears to have been banished from British television at least. No religion in the schedules apart from the Mozart Requiem and a programme on the history of choral music. The other headline on Good Friday was that I could go and place my bet at the bookies, and then on Saturday the storm about embryology where Gordon Brown plans to put a three line whip on the party to vote for merging human and animal cells. Catholic MPs are put on the spot as their leaders speak out in horror. Just in time I found two of J.S. Bach's Cantatas for the second day of Easter, BWV6 and 66. The opening chorus, including a dialogue between fear (counter tenor) and hope (tenor), was particularly uplifting.
However the news I speak of is of a turbine emerging from the former shipyards of Belfast. It has a number of things to commend it. It speaks of power from tidal energy. Evidently, unknown to us - like the Nubia of ancient times never mentioned in the shadow of Egypt, a scientist has been experimenting with a turbine in the Nile in the Sudan. From the experiment in the river attempts were made to transfer the idea to harness tidal power.
Continue reading "Good tidings at Easter"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 12:27 PM March 23, 2008 | Comments (0)
A death unites the community in Bethlehem
The death of a Palestinian leader, shot in an ambush by Israeli forces, brought together Muslim and Christian communities.
Many met together in the Church of the Nativity, held to be on the site of the birthplace of Jesus, to mourn the loss of a leader who carried both a Koranic text and a picture of Mary. mother of Jesus.
"Mohammed Shehadeh was one of four Palestinians shot in an Israeli undercover ambush here last week, killings that have fuelled support for Hizbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among Christians and Muslims alike.
School principals, teachers and students from the Bethlehem School, the Catholic School and the Greek Orthodox School paraded to the mourning tent outside the church chanting and waving placards praising the Palestinian 'martyr'.
'People admired Shehadeh's ability to stand up to the Israelis,' said Sami Awad, Christian executive director of the Holy Land Trust, dedicated to promoting non-violent action against Israel's occupation. 'There's a lot of admiration for the charisma that Nasrallah has and the way he speaks and presents his views in public.' "
Continue reading "A death unites the community in Bethlehem"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 11:56 AM March 16, 2008 | Comments (0)
Media coverage of Israel and Palestine
Jewish Voice for Peace sent the following concerning the way that the media and political leaders have treated news about Palestine and Palestinians in a completely different way to Israel and Israelis.
David Cromwell works with a British organization called Media Lens.
What is Media Lens? - Here is part of their self description. http://www.medialens.org
"Media Lens is a response based on our conviction that mainstream newspapers and broadcasters provide a profoundly distorted picture of our world. We are convinced that the increasingly centralised, corporate nature of the media means that it acts as a de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests. The costs incurred as a result of this propaganda, in terms of human suffering and environmental degradation, are incalculable."
Media Lens "recommend(s) Herman and Chomsky's "propaganda model of media control" as a basis for understanding the manner in which truth is filtered from, rather than consciously obstructed by, the modern media system.
They quote historian Howard Zinn, who has written::
"Society has varying and conflicting interests; what is called objectivity is the disguise of one of these interests - that of neutrality. But neutrality is a fiction in an unneutral world. There are victims, there are executioners, and there are bystanders... and the 'objectivity' of the bystander calls for inaction while other heads fall."
In the essay below, Cromwell contrasts English media attitude towards Palestinian victims of Israeli violence, with its attitude towards Israeli victims of Palestinian violence. Just like in the US, Israelis fair much better, both in newspapers coverage, and in BBC broadcasts.
Racheli Gai
David Cromwell: Israeli Deaths Matter More
March 12, 2008
The horrific shooting of eight young people at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem last Thursday was followed by saturation media coverage. International statesmen lined up with condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims and their families.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced: "This is clearly an attempt to strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process." (Jon Smith, Press Association, 'Brown: massacre "strikes at heart of peace"', March 7, 2008)
Foreign Secretary David Miliband described the slaughter as "an arrow aimed at the heart of the peace process so recently revived." (Donald Macintyre and Eric Silver, 'Massacre in the heart of Jerusalem', The Independent, March 7, 2008)
The Guardian's front page declared: "the descent into violence in the Middle East accelerated last night" in a "dramatic escalation". (Rory McCarthy, 'Eight dead as gunman hits Jerusalem religious school', The Guardian, March 7, 2008). A Daily Mirror headline read: 'Kids Murdered In The Library' (Allison Martin, March 7, 2008). The Telegraph asserted that the attack "is likely to be remembered as the moment the Middle East peace process died." (Tim Butcher, 'Hopes of peace in the Middle East are blown away in a hail of bullets', Daily Telegraph, March 7, 2008)
The contrast to reactions to the killing of over 120 Palestinians, including many women and children, in occupied Gaza the previous week could hardly be more striking. On one day alone, 60 people died in a hail of Israeli firepower using F-16 planes, Apache helicopter gunships, tanks, armoured bulldozers and ground troops.
No Western leader was heard condemning the Israeli assault on Gaza as "an attempt to strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process." To our knowledge, no reporter suggested that "the peace process" had now "died". No headlines screamed of Palestinian babies "murdered" in their beds. In short, news reports from the Gazan bloodbath typically lacked the anguished details and tone that suffused the reporting from Jerusalem less than a week later.
Nor was there the same heightened pitch and intensity of news coverage following Israel's deadly 'incursion' into Gaza in mid-January. 17 Palestinians were killed in one day, and around 50 injured, while President Bush was visiting the region. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said:
"Al-Jazeera, 'Abbas: Israeli raid "a massacre" ', January 15, 2008; "Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres. These massacres cannot bring peace."
But for the Western media the massacres that really matter, the ones which "strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process", are those inflicted on Israelis.
Continue reading "Media coverage of Israel and Palestine"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 8:42 PM March 14, 2008 | Comments (0)
Tony Blair, our Saviour!
Not content with the long list of jobs and wide range of expertise already on offer, our Hero dons his Superman outfit to save the planet - and don't we need it! He's in charge of a brigade which is going to cut carbon emissions.
His government said it was going to do this, but if I remember rightly it didn't quite turn out as it should have. Same with his appointment as peace envoy for the Middle East it was difficult to see how his CV fitted the job description when he had willfully overseen conflict resulting in untold death and misery. Indeed how did this fit in with his religious pretentions and resulting job as lecturer? Whatever it is you can sure it's going to be lucrative for him. Volunteering's not his game!
Continue reading "Tony Blair, our Saviour!"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:24 AM March 14, 2008 | Comments (0)
Women from the West Bank in Birmingham
Three women representing Palestine spoke at the Council House in Birmingham (11/3/2008) of the situation they continue to face daily at the hands of an occupying force. No one had come from Gaza because of the impossible restrictions placed on its people. There the Israelis say its is because of rockets being fired that such force is necessary, but as one speaker pointed out no rockets come from places like Nablus but it makes no difference to continuing attacks on them by the Israeli army.
I was concerned to learn that there was now no British Consulate in the Palestinian territories. Since the office had closed in Ramallah it was necessary for people to travel to Jerusalem to get visas, a near impossible task. This was true of the United States, but some European states maintain a presence. This seems to me to mark the British approach which is all the time to support the criminal Israeli administration. Many Jewish people are ashamed of what is being done to Palestinian people in their name.
Continue reading "Women from the West Bank in Birmingham"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 4:14 PM March 13, 2008 | Comments (0)
New Labour's Humanitarian Approach
Iraq is safe for return. New Labour has said so. UNCHR doesn't agree, but 1400 failed asylum seekers are being told that they will be forced into destitution in UK. They will also have to sign a waiver clause disclaiming the responsibility of the British Government if anything happens to them and their families. Proud to be British and swear an oath of allegiance to this fatuous crowd?
Having gone into Iraq in the first place against the wishes of a majority in the UK once again responsibilities are shelved. The same can be said of the treatment of those who came from former colonies when Britain set out to exploit vast areas of the world in competiton with other European powers. If you come from the Indian Subcontinent you have to be 21 to come as a couple, but only 18 if you come from Eastern Europe. Nothing to do with continuing racism?
Continue reading "New Labour's Humanitarian Approach"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:46 AM March 13, 2008 | Comments (0)
Smelly and Scratcher miss out
Ending up in a prison In Equatorial Guinea is not an ideal to be aimed for. It's precisely where Simon Mann has ended up while others associated with the attempted coup to gain influence over the country's oil reserves have done a bit of dodging, including Smelly and Scratcher. Who they? Characters from a Dickensian novel? Don't know about Smelly but Scratcher's escapades and dodgy deals are well documented.
Of course Simon is very very sorry and he's been saying so for four years while in a Zimbabwean jail. Don't think he would have been sorry if the coup had come off and the sorry gang had ended up with the promised millions. Other names came out of a hat. Peter Mandelson, surely not!? Jeffrey Archer, well he's been inside but Mr Mann doesn't think so. JACK STRAW? Well he's not been involved, but he's had to do a bit of a turn around about the government having no idea what was going on.
Continue reading "Smelly and Scratcher miss out"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 12:08 AM March 13, 2008 | Comments (0)
Letter from Gaza
The following is from a doctor living in the Jabalia Camp inside Gaza:
Sent: Sunday, 9 March, 2008 8:07:29 AM
Subject: Re: Palestinians in the Midlands (UK) mourn the victims of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank
Dear brother Kamel,
Thank you for your email and would like to send you how was my life during the brutal Israeli attacks.
"I am surrounded by firing on all sides of my house. We have no water or electricity and no phones and my children are thirsty. I am scared to death to take a cup of coffee for fear that my children won't have any water to prevent dehydration. Sunday afternoon we decided to fast the second day.
Homelessness waits me around the corner or maybe in another five minutes, and that I was once homeless before," Even when going to bed where the fire ceases, I start to imagine from where the bullet will come, from this window, this door or that wall. Or a bomb will destroy the wall and where the bullet will go to my head, chest arms or any part of my body. Even I started to think of my children who will be killed and what will happen if I was killed.
I am crying over Jabalya, because the Israelis have once again tried to silence the barrage of Hamas rockets that kill and maim and traumatize Israeli citizens. The greatest fallout is being heaped on the innocents civilians.
Jabalya is the largest of the Palestinian refugee camps (180,000), where I was born, raised and still living in. It was the birth place of the first Intifiada and people are looking for their rights to live in peace equally.
"How can the deaths of one or two innocent Israelis mean that we have to suffer the deaths of more than 130 innocent Palestinians in Gaza? Is that fair; can that be accepted by rational people of us. It will bring more animosity, hat redness and bloodshed. I am against sending rockets and I say this loudly, but in the meantime it needs from the Israelis also to condemn the Israeli attacks and Palestinian killings neither sending r?" (you know that I am against killing of human being and any civilian from both sides and no difference between Israeli and Palestinian blood, in the mean time I mentioned killing more than a hundred Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are children and women will not bring peace to any I want to ask the Israeli leadership if they are serious about peace or not?
After Anapolis: Ehud Olmert announced to expand the Israeli settlements and started attacking Nablus and Ramallah. Are there any rockets from Nablus or Ramallah?
There is a need to work together and seriously to achieve the peace for all, not the peace that serves the interest of one group.
Immediate actions must be taken to prevent the situation from being irreversible and contain this violence.
In both communities there are enemies for peace. These actions start by building the trust through removing the check points and the closure on the Gaza Strip and have an independent state. At the same time Palestinians and Israelis had to work together and side by side to secure the lives of all.
All the best
I. A. MD, MPH
Jabalia Camp
Continue reading "Letter from Gaza"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 12:42 PM March 9, 2008 | Comments (0)
Jewish Voice for Peace Condemns Escalation of Violence in Middle East
I don't really know how to express the revulsion that the majority of us as humans have on hearing of the killing and maiming of our fellows. Jewish Voice for Peace has put across their reaction referring to their response from Oakland, U.S.A. on 6th March.
"Jewish Voice for Peace believes the loss of just one person is one life too many. There is no difference in the immeasurable heartache felt by the parents of dozens of children killed in Gaza last week, or the parents of the 8 students killed yesterday in Jerusalem. All killings must stop."
However they point out the role of the organisation which was attacked in the systematic attack on Palestinians: "The Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva is the birthplace of Gush Emunim, one of Israel's rightwing settler movements. Human rights groups have documented how the group systematically assaults Palestinians, destroys their crops, and attacks children on their way to school. "
The weekly reports of non-violent protest in the village of B'ilin puts another story across. Palestinians have indeed noted the expressions of sympathy sent to Israel on what happened at the school in contrast to what happened to them in Gaza not to mention the daily occurrences across the rest of Palestine exemplified by the following latest e-mail form B'ilin.
Several wounded in Bil’in’s weekly anti-wall protest
Friday March 07, 2008 18:47
"Dozens of the residents of Bil’in near Ramallah took to the streets on Friday in their weekly march protesting the confiscation of the village’s land and the illegal construction of the wall in the village.
The residents were joined by a number of international and Israeli peace activists, in addition to a number of the supporters of Palestinian Democratic Federation Party (Fida), who are celebrating the eighteenth anniversary of the party.
Protestors carried signs condemning the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and others demanding the dismantling of the wall that is causing serious hardships to the farmers in the village.
The protestors were stopped by the Israeli soldiers at the iron gate of the wall and were prevented to reach their confiscated land. Troops used tear gas and sound bombs to force the protestors to leave.
Palestinian youth who were in the march responded by throwing rocks at the soldiers, who, in turn, fired rubber-coated steel bullets. As a result, a number of Palestinians and Internationals were treated for gas inhalation.
Meanwhile an Israeli peace activist identified as Marina and a Palestinian protestor identified as Naji Shouha were wounded by the rubber-coated steel bullets; their wounds were described as moderate."
For more information:
The Bilin Friends of freedom and Justice -society
Email: majdarmajdar@yahoo.com
Tel: 972 547 847 942
e-mail
Continue reading "Jewish Voice for Peace Condemns Escalation of Violence in Middle East"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:55 AM March 8, 2008 | Comments (0)
Jerusalem killings provoke revenge
If the killings in Jerusalem are revenge attacks then expect more either way. The policies being followed ensure that they will get bigger and bloodier. Already there are reports of more deaths in Gaza and at the moment an ongoing invasion of Bethlehem.
The above gives reports of the attack on a school on Jerusalem killing 8 students in the Jerusalem Post and the Palestinian News Network.
Continue reading "Jerusalem killings provoke revenge"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:39 AM March 7, 2008 | Comments (0)
Dealing with flooding in Southern Africa
A scheme to "harvest" flood water in Malawi is reported in Al Jazeera (6/3/2007). Global warming has meant above average rainfall across Africa with resultant threat to life and livelihood. Deforestation hasn't helped.
The floods have been compared by organisations such as UNICEF to other major disasters, however as with floods a year ago have not received the coverage that might be expected. The report above comes from Al Jazeera which often reports on significant matters ignored by the world's press elsewhere.
Continue reading "Dealing with flooding in Southern Africa"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:25 AM March 6, 2008 | Comments (0)
Vanity Fair and Gaza
They might carry on alarmingly about democracy, but if and when it happens with the wrong result all hell can break out from the US and allies. Well that's the way it looks when Bush watched Hamas win in Palestinian elections, judged by most observers as a model of democracy.
Jewish Voice for Peace comments:
This is a rather explosive report, based on an article by David Rose:
"The Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008,
Vanity Fair reported that it has "obtained confidential documents, since
corroborated by sources in the US and Palestine, which lay bare a covert
initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams to
provoke a Palestinian civil war." The magazine adds that the plan "was for
forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's
behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the
democratically-elected Hamas-led government from power."
For me, the major lesson is that once again the US is being shown as an
extremely destructive force, whose aims have nothing to do with the well
being of Palestinians or Israelis.
Judith Norman adds:
One irony of this situation is that Israel originally (covertly) helped Hamas when it was first founded in the late 80's, on the grounds that a religious extremist movement such as this would help undermine the PLO. As Uri Avnery points out (in a piece recently posted on JPN: ) "it is ironic that the Israeli leadership [and, we can add, the US leadership as well] is now supporting the PLO in the hope of undermining Hamas."
Both policies - Israel's initial support for Hamas and this latest US effort to undermine it - have been disastrous as far as Israeli security is concerned. The article in Vanity Fair concludes: "It is impossible to say for sure whether the outcome in Gaza would have been any better-for the Palestinian people, for the Israelis, and for America's allies in Fatah-if the Bush administration had pursued a different policy. One thing, however, seems certain: it could not be any worse."
Racheli Gai
Continue reading "Vanity Fair and Gaza"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 7:20 PM March 5, 2008 | Comments (0)
The case for banning nuclear weapons. An Iranian view
I hadn't intentionally looked at the Jerusalem Post (5/3/2008) so I was taken by surprise by this leading article headed up by "the Iranian Threat".
The story gives prominence to an Iranian politician asking the UN to investigate how a Zionist state was allowed to become a nuclear superpower. It then asks the question why nuclear wapons shouldn;t receive the same treatment as biological or chemical ones. Quite so!
Continue reading "The case for banning nuclear weapons. An Iranian view"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:15 AM March 5, 2008 | Comments (0)
END ISRAEL'S WAR CRIMES
How can a nation that suffered a holocaust, and continue to remember it as a catastrophic part of their history, perpetrate such an act against other human beings? How can they do it and get merely apologetic noises from the likes of the UK government? These are the real terrorists and need to be seen and treated as such. Civilians, women and young children are killed with impunity daily. The following is from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign:
EMERGENCY ACTION: End Israel's killing of Palestinians now! Lift the siege on Gaza!
Wednesday 5 March 1-2pm Parliament Square - Emergency protest.
Saturday 8 March 4-6pm opposite Downing Street
Write, email and phone your MP
Over the last week, Israel has killed 115 Palestinians in Gaza, including 63 on Saturday alone, and 350 wounded. A third of those killed were babies and children. Palestinians in the West Bank are also being shot and killed by the Israeli army, including a 19 year old student protesting near Ramallah against Israel's assault on Gaza. The Israeli government is committing war crimes - and the British government must act now.
Rory McCarthy wrote in the Guardian on 3 March about one of the victims of Israeli fire: 'Abu Saif hurried upstairs and found, lying on the floor in the front room, Safa, aged 12 [his daughter]. There was a hole in her chest where the bullet had entered and a hole in her back where it had exited. It took her three hours to die'. He continued: 'At one point yesterday a crowd of several hundred mourners carried through the streets the body of a young infant girl, Salsabeel Abu Jalhoum, who died aged 21 months. There were many others, like Mohammed Maboheh, a boy aged 16, who was shot dead on Saturday morning while standing on his balcony in the Abed Rabbo district of Jamalia, and whose father was in intensive care last night with a bullet wound to the chest... and there were Eyad and Jacqueline Abu Shabak, brother and sister aged 16 and 17, shot dead around midnight on Friday in the front room of their home'.
Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz: 'The IDF penetrates the heart of a crowded refugee camp, kills in a terrifyingly wholesale manner, with horrible bloodshed, and Israel continues to disseminate the lie of restraint'. And Dr Mustafa Barghouti has pointed out that "Israel is killing babies, children and entire families while the world remains silent. This very silence is enabling the Israeli crimes. It must stop."
We need to send a clear message to Gordon Brown during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons that the British government must take action to bring Israel to account. Contact your MP, write to the local and national press, and join us on Wednesday and Saturday.
Other recent press:
Haaretz: 'Restraint' is deceitful, and 'forbearance' is vain by Gideon Levy.
Even yesterday evening, after the IDF already had killed about 50 Palestinians, at least half of them unarmed, and including quite a number of women and children, Jerusalem continued to claim, "At present there will be no major ground operation." It's incredible: The IDF penetrates the heart of a crowded refugee camp, kills in a terrifyingly wholesale manner, with horrible bloodshed, and Israel continues to disseminate the lie of restraint. Two days earlier Israel killed more Palestinians than have been killed by all the Qassams over the past seven years. Among the dead were four children and an infant. The next day Israel killed another five boys. And who is the victim? Israel. And who is cruel? The Palestinians.
Continue reading "END ISRAEL'S WAR CRIMES"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:24 PM March 3, 2008 | Comments (0)
Middle Eastern tours
Condoleeza Rice is desperate. A few weeks back she flew into London to press Gordon on the need to step up troops in Afghanistan. Don't know if that's why they sent Harry, who knows!? It's the Washington Post's view (3/3/2008) that interested me today indicating that the scene is shifting in Middle Eastern affairs, with the U.S. seemingly being moved out in the cold.
Egypt get U.S. aid, but as the Post points out it wasn't Washington that called Cairo, it was Tehran. And there hasn't been contact down that route for decades. No one has ever believed the Bush has any real interest in dealing with the key to peace in the region and everything that has happened since Annapolis, a PR job, points to moves backwards.
Continue reading "Middle Eastern tours"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 8:57 AM March 3, 2008 | Comments (0)
Israel threatens a holocaust (shoah)
Israel became a state because of a holocaust. "The Holocaust" some say, (supported by Oxford Dictionary entries,) there is only one Holocaust. What happened to a large number of colonised Africans and others, for example, they won't put in the same league. Now an Israeli minister is threatening "shoah" (which refers to disaster or holocaust in Hebrew against Palestinian people.) To prove a point some 50 people, including civilians, women and children, died from attacks from the Israeli forces. We are able to watch a genocide unfold in front of us with our leaders struck dumb. Bush is allocating millions to Israel for "defense"
Yesterday in Birmingham we met at Birmingham's Council House to discuss the 5 years which has elapsed since the unprecedented march which happened in London and simultaneously in other cities around the world. We considered well publicised wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and "hidden wars" in Somalia and Pakistan. Every one of these has the hallmark of the US "war on terror" which although taking 9/11 as its justification predates this. Two of the speakers from the Lebanon and Somali had been branded "terrorists". One protested that he "had never even killed a chicken" in his life. Ibraham Mousawi, who the Daily Mail attacked and opposition politicians called to prevent his entry into the UK, spoke of the double standards. He spoke as a Muslim who above all was a human being and called us all to promote human values. What a monstrous thing to do, to tell the truth about what is happening to Palestinians who resist the aggression of Israel and the US, aided and abetted - yes the shame of it!!! by New Labour.
It was considered that the demonstrations had led to the early departure of leaders such as Blair in the UK and Howard in Australia. If it brought a different order in Oz announcements such as the one to map Muslims in Britain, another highly provocative act defying belief, shows no lessons have been learned. At first Brown appeared to be moderating his language when he refused to repeat the slogan "war on terror". Now, far from signaling a change to the totally insensitive approach which brands all British Muslims as potential, if not actual terrorists it repeats the glaring damage done under Blair. When such a proposal was made in the US there was uproar and the proposal was ditched. Evidently those in the UK now feel so threatened that they keep quiet. Is this what happened in Germany in the thirties when then no one even imagined what was about to take place.
Continue reading "Israel threatens a holocaust (shoah)"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:20 AM March 2, 2008 | Comments (0)
Secrecy in every corner, and we still preach "democracy
After the findings that drugs commonly prescribed for depression are not only useless for many people with mild to moderate illness but actually harmful, we find that the pharmaceutical industry cloaked in secrecy. Once again the profit deity holds sway. This comes at a time when the government is told to make cabinet papers available regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq.
The need for secrecy it seems is not there in the interests of people. Each time it is there to protect powerful interests who have come to dominate. Globalisation is put forward as a desirable goal under this pattern of thinking, and it is the logic which has underpinned the European Common Market.
Continue reading "Secrecy in every corner, and we still preach "democracy"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 11:18 AM February 27, 2008 | Comments (0)
15 injured in Bil'in non-violent protest this week
This week's news from Bil'in tells us that as soon as the peaceful protesters left the village, because of the illegal seizure of their land and the erection of an obscene wall, the Israeli army put up barricades, fired tear gas and sound bombs. As a result 15 were injured, many needing treatment at hospital in Ramallah.
This doesn't merit a word in the world's news. Why? I don't have an answer, except to say that it is controlled.
Continue reading "15 injured in Bil'in non-violent protest this week"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:15 AM February 24, 2008 | Comments (0)
Kosovo. A new U.S. colony
The following article was sent by the SLP. Seems UK is as much tied to US foreign policy as ever however disgraceful the act. Having revealed that an earlier attempt to attack Serbs was from the Third Reich, what is now happening in protests indicates how provocative the unseemly acceptance of Kosovan independence was. And the Kosovan flag contains symbols of the European Union! "Beautiful" was the remark by one European commentator. Some European countries are not convinced so the Europe is divided.
The Socialist Labour Party wrote in its introduction to the article:
"The demonstration of over 500,000 people in Belgrade and the attack on the U.S. Embassy show the depth of outrage and anger over the seizure of the Serbian province of Kosovo. In the past three days two Kosovo border posts were destroyed, one by fire the other in an explosion, along with ten McDonald's outlets and several Western banks and other hated targets.
Millions of people see this week’s recognition of Kosovo “independence” as an effort to legitimize a direct U.S. colony and to permanently secure a giant U.S. military base in the region."
Continue reading "Kosovo. A new U.S. colony"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 1:59 PM February 23, 2008 | Comments (0)
Re. Kosovo's Independence from Serbia
A note from Bharat Bhushan with an article by George Monbiot written in 2001. Wondered why the Foreign Secretary was looking so smug today when he welcomed Kosovan independence, as did surprise surprise George W. Russia and China are about to reject it (along with Spain) so watch out!
Re: Kosovo's independence from Serbia
just a brief article written in 2001 by George Monbiot exposing the link between Trans Balkan pipeline from Caspian Sea via central asian countries to Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas and then passing through Bulgaria and Macedonia to Albanian port of Vlore and the Albanian interest in the separation of ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo from Serbia.
very timely.
Bhushan
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Published on Thursday, February 15, 2001 in the Guardian of London
A Discreet Deal in the Pipeline
Nato Mocked Those Who Claimed There was a Plan for Caspian Oil
by George Monbiot
Gordon Brown knows precisely what he should do about BP. The company's £10bn profits are crying out for a windfall tax. Royalties and petroleum revenue tax, both lifted when the oil price was low, are in urgent need of reinstatement. These measures would be popular and fair. But, as all political leaders are aware, you don't mess with Big Oil.
During the 1999 Balkans war, some of the critics of Nato's intervention alleged that the western powers were seeking to secure a passage for oil from the Caspian sea. This claim was widely mocked. The foreign secretary Robin Cook observed that "there is no oil in Kosovo". This was, of course, true but irrelevant. An eminent commentator for this paper clinched his argument by recording that the Caspian sea is "half a continent away, lodged between Iran and Turkmenistan".
For the past few weeks, a freelance researcher called Keith Fisher has been doggedly documenting a project which has, as far as I can discover, has been little-reported in any British, European or American newspaper. It is called the Trans-Balkan pipeline, and it's due for approval at the end of next month. Its purpose is to secure a passage for oil from the Caspian sea.
The line will run from the Black sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic at Vlore, passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. It is likely to become the main route to the west for the oil and gas now being extracted in central Asia. It will carry 750,000 barrels a day: a throughput, at current prices, of some $600m a month.
The project is necessary, according to a paper published by the US Trade and Development Agency last May, because the oil coming from the Caspian sea "will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the Bosphorus as a shipping lane". The scheme, the agency notes, will "provide a consistent source of crude oil to American refineries", "provide American companies with a key role in developing the vital east-west corridor", "advance the privatisation aspirations of the US government in the region" and "facilitate rapid integration" of the Balkans "with western Europe".
In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west.
"We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."
The project has been discussed for years. The US trade agency notes that the Trans-Balkan pipeline "will become a part of the region's critical east-west Corridor 8 infrastructure ... This transportation corridor was approved by the transport ministers of the European Union in April 1994". The pipeline itself, the agency says, has also been formally supported "since 1994". The first feasibility study, backed by the US, was conducted in 1996.
The pipeline does not pass through the former Yugoslavia, but there's no question that it featured prominently in Balkan war politics. On December 9 1998, the Albanian president attended a meeting about the scheme in Sofia, and linked it inextricably to Kosovo. "It is my personal opinion," he noted, "that no solution confined within Serbian borders will bring lasting peace." The message could scarcely have been blunter: if you want Albanian consent for the Trans-Balkan pipeline, you had better wrest Kosovo out of the hands of the Serbs.
In July 1993, a few months before the corridor project was first formally approved, the US sent peacekeeping troops to the Balkans. They were stationed not in the conflict zones in which civilians were being rounded up and killed, but on the northern borders of Macedonia. There were several good reasons for seeking to contain Serb expansionism, but we would be foolish to imagine that a putative $600m-a-month commercial operation did not number among them. The pipeline would have been impossible to finance while the Balkans were in turmoil.
I can't tell you that the war in the former Yugoslavia was fought solely in order to secure access to oil from new and biddable states in central Asia. But in the light of these findings, can anyone now claim that it was not?
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
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Continue reading "Re. Kosovo's Independence from Serbia"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 11:05 PM February 18, 2008 | Comments (0)
One Palestinian journalist injured by army fire in Bil'in weekly protest
This is a weekly report from the Palestinian village of Bil'in. Every week villagers accompanied by international supporters, including Israelis, march to protests against the illegal wall cutting into their land. Each week they are met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Each week someone is injured. This week casualties are relatively light.
Friday February 15, 2008- ffj
The villagers of Bil'in, located near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, along with international and Israeli supporters, conducted their weekly protest against the illegal Israeli wall being built on village land. Israeli troops attacked the protest and injured one journalist.
As the case each week for over two years now, the protest started after Friday prayers, with participants marching from the village center towards the construction site of the Wall, which, according to both the International Court of Justice and the Israeli supreme court, is being built illegally on village land.
This week the protesters managed to reach the gate of the wall separating the villagers from their lands. Troops closed the gate and fired tear gas and sound bombs at the peaceful demonstrators. Soldiers then fired rubber-coated steel bullets which injured a journalist, Imad Burnate and broke his Camera.
While the protest was happening a group of Israeli soldiers were using Palestinian homes located at the gate as shoot out posts, local and international peace activists intervened and managed to make soldiers leave the homes.
Continue reading "One Palestinian journalist injured by army fire in Bil'in weekly protest"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:19 AM February 16, 2008 | Comments (0)
Sorry
It has happened in Australia. "We are sorry" for the sufferings inflicted on the Aboriginee population. Ken Livingstone apologised for for slavery of African peoples on behalf of Londoners. Liverpool has set up a museum on behalf of the nation. A video of the Prime Minister's address shows large numbers of people of all backgrounds inside and outside parliament looking deeply moved. (Source Guardian 14/2/2008).
Jesse Jackson visited Birmingham on his travels and very politely said it would be much appreciated from Birmingham, UK. Nothing happened so I issued an apology as a former councillor and cabinet member of Birmingham City Council. I challenged the present leaders to make a stand. The reaction? Adrian Goldberg raised it on "The Stirrer". Since then the line has gone dead.
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:29 AM February 13, 2008 | Comments (0)
Retribution not justice
A mother whose son was killed when the twin towers was hit became a dignified presence on Channel 4 News (11/2/2008). She had only just heard that proceedings were beginning against those held in Guantamo Bay accused of responsibility for the attack.
The British woman spoke of her grief while at the same time stating that any trial had to be open and "transparent". Calling for death sentences was not an answer for her, or, she believed, her late son. She identified herself with grieving mothers in Iraq or where ever conflict was causing unnecessary suffering.
Continue reading "Retribution not justice"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:22 AM February 12, 2008 | Comments (0)
U.S. ups and downs
The U.S. nominations for candidates is nothing if not interesting in as much as it is teasing pollsters to breaking point. Now the Clinton/Obama race turns to favour Obama with four convincing wins. McCain, who we thought was forging ahead out of sight, finds himself challenged by Huckabee. Clearly he has benefited from the withdrawal of Romney
It seems as if it may have dawned on American Republicans that they are bringing in a Bush third term since McCain identifies with Iraq, so clearly loathed by the American people.
Continue reading "U.S. ups and downs"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 11:24 AM February 10, 2008 | Comments (0)
Deaths of US soldiers at their own hands rises dramatically
The effects of war on men and women is well known, highlighted in the cases of those British soldiers "shot at dawn" because they suffered shell shock. Unsurprisingly it is having a devastating effect on American troops as the Washington Post reports.
British sources seem to be very quiet on the matter. Deaths in custody have become the subject of much debate - with little apparent effect on government with Blunkett marching off to South Africa to find yet more inhumane ways of incarcerating more and more people. New Labour presides over an increasingly uncaring, inhumane society. We thought the Tories were bad!
Continue reading "Deaths of US soldiers at their own hands rises dramatically"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:22 AM February 4, 2008 | Comments (0)
Israeli support for Palestinians
One would have thought residents of Sderot and the surrounding area would be in full support of the Israeli government and Ehud Olmert. Apparently not as the following articles from Jewish Voice for Peace indicate. In Hebron too there is a former Israeli soldier conducting a tour pointing out the suffering of Palestinians at Israels hands. It's the distant lobby of those living overseas who have no actual connection with Israel, but who are affected by sentiment and the all powerful Zionist lobby which support Israeli government policy, a lobby against which no presidential candidate dare utter a sound. Among American leaders ex President Jimmy Carter alone raises a voice.
Continue reading "Israeli support for Palestinians"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 10:56 AM January 26, 2008 | Comments (0)
Birmingham UK show solidarity with Gaza
A group gathered together near the Bullring in Birmingham yesterday (23.1.2007) to show their solidarity with the people of Gaza. Passers by took leaflets and candles were lit to remind us that lights have gone out in Gaza because of the inhumane blockade by the Israeli government.
There are further rallies being held across the globe, including London and again in Birmingham on Saturday, 26th January.
Continue reading "Birmingham UK show solidarity with Gaza"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 8:29 AM January 24, 2008 | Comments (0)
Waiting to die in Gaza
It appears there is nothing in the way of the Israeli government doing just as it pleases so that the seriously injured in Gaza cannot be saved if emergency power fails. The population is being punished. They are punished because they upheld their democratic right and voted for a group which displeased the Israeli government, the US government, the British government all of whom yell and bawl "democracy". They keep preaching, but not practicing, as they parade their religiosity and maintain their "holiness".
Al Jazeera reports that Israel has allowed relief supplies as "a temporary measure" but how far this will be effective for the poor and the sick remains to be seen. PNN reports the death of five people due to the cuts to supplies.
Continue reading "Waiting to die in Gaza"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 8:50 AM January 22, 2008 | Comments (0)
Saving Iraq
Tony Blair embarked on Mission Impossible having been advised of the likely outcome. There was little planning or forethought and so the inevitable happened.
It seems incredible that those who cry democracy loudest practice it the least. Although we pride ourselves living in a democracy the whim of the elected leader can carry the decision based on the particular views, prejudices, whims of a single person. This has happened repeatedly in Britain's history not least over Palestine where both Jews and Palestinians blame the British for todays chaos. Many decisions were made on the basis of belief based on sentiment and religious upbringing so that the Zionist cause had blind support.
Continue reading "Saving Iraq"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 9:32 PM January 21, 2008 | Comments (0)
Palestinian Mothers cry for help
What is going on in Palestine and particularly in Gaza is taking place in full view of the world. Yet no one of the candidates in the US elections will utter a world. The only voice from America's leadership is from former President Jimmy Carter.
What is going on n Palestine is dictated by people who have never been to that part of the world but hold onto some sort of dream which manifests itself as Zionism. As power is being shut down in Gaza, food withheld and medical help women of Palestine plead for outside help.
At the same time in the West Bank Palestinian land continues to be seized by the Israeli government despite its illegality even in Israeli terms.
Continue reading "Palestinian Mothers cry for help"
Posted by John Tyrrell at 4:17 PM January 20, 2008 | Comments (0)
Blair can't take a hint
Just as you think and hope you have heard the last of him, up he comes again. Blair, evidently egged on by Sarkozy, is standing for the permanent presidency of the E.U. In contrast Bush got the message and made himself scarce. No one wanted him around their campaign for the next presidency!
Familiar too is the cant emerging from Blair. There is no right and left, people just want to be saved by people like him from terrorists and all the other bogeys all invented and put about by the right. Everything about Blair is right wing from his Thatcherite policies to his religious affiliations, his support for the extremist government of Israel and failure to understand the dispossession of the poor. The good news is that Europeans generally didn't like his stance on Iraq, nor his lack of enthusiasm for the Euro. In the latter case he might have a point, but from my point of view I don't like the way that the new Europe is dominated by trade rather than humanity.
Continue reading "Blair can't take a hint"
Posted by John Tyrrell at