Indigenous People Rising and We may not MISS the TRAIN

Indigenous People Rising and We may not MISS the TRAIN!

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 178

Palash Biswas

Ron Paul: "We Will Remain a Pariah in the Middle East: A US puppet government protected by 50,000 American soldiers is not the road to peace."
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=6iH77Fj6qCA

We have faced HARD Times so often! Normal times happen to be quite ABNORMAL for us. Our History BLEEDS. Bleeds the Land, The SKY, The OCEAN. The AIR smells blood. SKELETONS are scattered around us and SCULLS do smile as we the DEAD walk in REAL WORLD!

Our ANCESTORS led all the Insurrections, Rising and Uprising, Revolts and Revolutions!

We live with the LEGACY! Only some times like this one, we suffer from DEMENTIA not to be CURED! Thus, we bear the SICKLES of ENSLAVEMENT as acquired PROPERTY inseparable!

But the FIGHT goes on as we see in every corner of this GOOD World. The HELL created by the TRI IBLIS Zionist Brahaminical ILLUMINITI of Post Modern Manusmriti and Apartheid and corporate US IMPERIALISM may not SEDUCE the NATURE nor the People associated with Nature, the productive forces of this GLOBE!

My wife SABITA is in Danger Zone. I am afraid that she is once again involved into a cycle of ILLNESS as she used to suffer before some years only. While she got the TUMOUR in her HEART I had not the Consultation fees. But we overcame.

During all this time, my father was also suffering from TB as he was always on MOVE to mobilise our people and tended for SEVERE Mal NUTRITION. Because he never chose to stay at home or with us, as HE was always within an UPRISING, we could never look after him. The TB transformed into CANCER. he died in 2001 almost without any treatment.

I am also a DIABETIC patient. But I neither afford any Medical care nor intend to. it would be perhaps better to die without medical care for a POETIC JUSTICE.

I have to be amongst my Indigenous People in DANDAKARANYA who are deprived of Citizenship, Reservation, empowerment, Equality, Justice, Livelihood,Civil rights and Human Rights.

I have to meet my people living in Two HUNDRED and Fifteen villages in Malkangiri, About Two hundred villages in Umorkot and about a hundred villages around TIRUDI. Three Mass Rallies are arranged on the occasion of a MATUA MAHOTSAV. I have to attend the Mahotsav. The meetings are scheduled. I may not cancel it abruptly.

SABITA has got READY to wait with ACUTE pain and RISK as we are well aware that our people, the INDIGENOUS People worldwide are RISING and we may not afford the TRAIN whatever may come! Moreover, we have to arrange the MONEY needed!

As a family and as a Community we never could afford medical care. We always believed superstitiously in nature and Natural or divine forces to CURE us. Lord SHIVA, Saviour Kali and their Incarnations or semi incarnations also helped us in our survival strategy. We always lived the life of cats and DOGS, BORN to DIE!

But our people, the East Bengal Indigenous Aboriginal Peasants irrespective of caste and religion were also BORN TO RESIST.

We DARE not to EVADE the RESISTANCE and hence, we feel ourselves a part of BLACK BROTHERHOOD.

Thus, we committed ourselves to MARXISM and MAOISM.

We worshipped FIDEL Castro and CHE.

Thus we love Latin America and AFRICA.

Thus, we supported Martin Luther King as we had shared HIS DREAM!

We never forgot our Ancestors and hence, we also supported BARRACK OBAMA, not for his Inclusiveness or Americanism, but for a CHANGE in AMERICA and in the Universe in RESISTANCE against UNTOUCHABILITY as well as APARTHEID, Against clash of Civilisation as well as WAR on TYERROR, against Corporate Imperialism as well as GLOBAL Fascism, against Brahminical Hindutva as well as ZIONISM and ZIONIST ILLUMINITI!

SABITA has to undergo a surgery once again. Last time she reincarnated from the Operation Theatre surviving Ventilation while she underwent an OPEN HEART surgery in June 1995. Though she is a LEVEL TWO Diabetic patient and lives on Insulin, we did not face major medical problems in between.

My Social Activism was a little paralysed just I got married in May, 1983.

I had landed in Coal Fields Dhanbad directly from the HIMALAYAS.

I am born and brought up in Dineshpur, in the Terai of Nainital.

Nainital happened to be my home town as I completed my higher studies from there

I have been student of GIC and DSB College, Nainital.

I began my adventure in creative Writing from my teenage days in Nainital.

Journalism was also a TEEN AGE Romance which unfortunately continues till this date.

But I was never NON Serious in my Social Interactions, relations and activism! I never got involved in real politics except once while opposing EMERGENCY, as a student leader I helped JANATA party to defeat Congress in 1977 mid term Elections.

I owe this legacy of SERIOUS SOCIAL Activism to my Village BASANTIPUR.

My father late Pulin kumar Biswas landed in Terai of Nainital from EAST BENGAL across the Holocaust of Partition of India.

It was the legacy of the MILITANT Peasants of East Bengal since Pre Aryan Age that my father never forgot his PAN AFRICAN Negroid identity. Thus he led the first Refugee Movement in Uttar Pradesh as well as Peasants` Uprising in Dhimri Block Nainital.

I had been seriously involved in Student, Environment and nationality movement.

Reaching Dhanbad I focused on Mining and mines accidents as a journalist but I was involved in JHARKHAND Movement as a social activist!

While SABITA arrived in Dhanbad, I used to be the part of the Day to day life of JHARKHAND.

But I had to hold back me very soon as SABITA had a BERTHOLENE GLAND just within two or three months. She was operated upon three times and the treatment failed. her health was deteriorating, hence we shifted to RANCHI on medical advice.

Later we shifted to Meerut in June , 1984. In DECEMBER, 84 only, she had to undergo another surgery and it was once again a BERTHOLENE Gland.

My son TUSSU was born in September, 1985. Meanwhile, Sabita got a job in a local school as teacher which created space for my social activism.

In April, 1990, the doctors detected a TUMOUR in her UTERUS and it had to be operated.

We shifted in Bareilly where she got another job as a school teacher. She was ailing all the time and my son was also not very well. Sabita suffered SEVERE reactions of medicines three or four times.

We shifted in Kolakata in November, 1991. She got paralysed once and was ailing all the time and could not get a job again. The TROUBLE climaxed in an Open heart Surgery. DR DEVI SHETTY ejected out a TUMOUR right from her heart.

REALITY Politics is meant for MASS Destruction as all political parties belong to the RULING Brahaminical hegemony. Ideologies are doctored with color and opportunity.

Just see the CLUBBING of UPA, NDA and LEFT, the third front to capture STATE power and all the Natural resources of the Periphery ECONOMY. All politicians and ECONOMIST, Icons and the CIVIL SOCIETY, the MEDIA are united ROCK SOLID to implement the ILLUMINITI AGENDA of MASS DESTRUCTION.

How may we RESIST it?

Non congress leaders have aligned with CONGRESS. ANTI BRAHMIN AKALIES have allied with RSS. NATIONALITIES are linked to the FASCIST Blind nationalism.

Marxism is transformed into CORPORATE MNC Capitalism.

Regimented GESTAPOS are engaged in ETHNIC CLEANSING and GENOCIDES.

India has become a laboratory of NUCLEAR, CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL war Fare!

False Recession has created the ALTER to sacrifice Constitution, democracy, Parliament, freedom and sovereignty.

FISCAL and MONETARY Policies and Budget, RBI and FINMIN do work together for STRATEGIC MARKETING of CORE US ZIONIST ECONOMIC as well as STRATEGIC interests feeding the GREEDY Money Machine with national REVENUE and RIVERS of BLOOD from the KILLING FIELDS Nationwide!

What have we to DO?

Just see the equations!


IPL is on with new schedule; no reduction in matches
The cloud of uncertainty over the high-profile Indian Premier
League (IPL) lifted on Friday when T20 League Chairman Lalit ...
Alliance with Congress 'broken', declares SP
Angry with the Congress for unilaterally announcing 24 candidates
in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls, the Samajwadi Party...
Buying pirated DVD? You could be helping D-Company
A leading US non-profit research organisation partly funded by
federal and state government agencies has said the D-Company ...
'Pak adept at playing games with others'Karnataka CM has no time for PC, he cancels visitGandhi items: No Govt, I bid on my own, says MallyaCricket, players are safe in India: Chidambaram
http://www.expressindia.com/
More





ET Headline
India powerless in fighting downturn: Moody's

6 Mar 2009, 2031 hrs IST, PTI




Fiscal deficit is projected to double to 6% of GDP this fiscal from the earlier projection of 2.5%. Financial crisis | Mortgage crisis | Ghosts of 1929 | Competitive economies


Did Obama cause the stock slide?
'Obama repeating Bush's market mistakes'
ICICI Bank cuts new home loan rates by 25-50 bps

Slideshows2353 hrs IST
Mahindra launches new model of Scorpio
1843 hrs IST
Indian Americans in Obama's dream team
1440 hrs IST
Take a look at the world's biggest high-tech fair CeBIT
1843 hrs IST
Yamaha launches Snazzier FZ
1638 hrs IST
New domestic departure terminal at IGI Airport
1843 hrs IST
Honda's super sports; CBR1000RR Fireblade
1843 hrs IST
Vijay Mallya buys Gandhi's items for $1.8 mn
2353 hrs IST
Sexiest Advert Ever
2353 hrs IST
Fortune list of 10 most admired companies in the world
2352 hrs IST
Freida Pinto: New style icon
2354 hrs IST
Tata Nano Europa
2354 hrs IST
The world of unique cars
2353 hrs IST
World's Top 25 Train Trips
2354 hrs IST
Paris Fashion Week
2353 hrs IST
Top 10 gadgets that make people happy
2353 hrs IST
Volkswagen Beetle to be launched in India
US axes 651K jobs in Feb; jobless highest in 25 years
6 Mar 2009, 1913 hrs IST, REUTERS


Job losses in February were broad based, with only government, education and health services adding jobs. Pink slip blues | Coming to terms with lay-off | Job-hopping



US protectionism to prolong financial crisis: Pranab
Despite crisis, London is world's top financial centre
6 Mar 2009, 1904 hrs IST, SUDESHNA SEN,ET Bureau


Mumbai has retained its rank at 49th position, though its ratings has dropped 12 points, a notch behind Johannesburg. Top Ten Global Financial Centres



RBS may sell India operations for $700 million


All headlines >>News on your MobileLog on to m.economictimes.com

Rich and the Famous

Sunil Mittal, Anil Agarwal are heroes of philanthropy
HCL chairman Shiv Nadar and Nandan Nilekani's wife Rohini Nilekani are also in the list of '48 Heroes of Philanthropy'.
India's biggest wealth creators | Top 10 Wealthiest CEOs
10 most admired cos | Mukesh Ambani: An eco-baron
More >>





News by Industry
Sun Pharma extends offer for Taro
JSW Steel sees 60 pc jump in sales
Mobile VAS to rake in Rs 18 K cr
Lack of tax break may impact NELP
Sectors: InfoTech| Telecom | Auto | Transport | Energy| Jobs | More >>
Personal Finance
Equities may outdo peers in long run
Now insurance against doubtful dues
IRDA cracks whip on agents
MFs offer asset allocation plans
Home loan rates may touch '04 level
More >>




http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) joins NDA

The BJP and the AGP on Thursday announced their seat sharing tie-up in Assam in a move that is expected to present the ruling Congress government with a stiff challenge in the approaching Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking at a joint press conference here, senior BJP leader L K Advani said,"This alliance confirms bipolarity in polity and stops fragmentation of Indian politics." Apart from suggesting that the coming polls would be a NDA versus UPA affair, he hoped that of 24 seats in the northeast, the BJP and its allies would pick the most... Read More

http://www.lkadvani.in/eng/?gclid=CNaM5P62jpkCFQMaewod01JdbA

From Jail to Freedom Park: Revisiting an excruciating and exhilarating experience in my life
March 2nd, 2009
I have been traveling constantly these days. Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh; 15 February), Madanapally (Andhra Pradesh; 27 February) and Bidar (Karnataka; 28 February) were, respectively, the places where I addressed my 31th, 32st and 33rd Vijay Sankalp Rallies. My party asked me to tour the entire country as a part of its mass contact programme, prior to the formal election campaign, and organized my first Vijay Sankalp Rally in Jabalpur in February 2008. These rallies have taken me to practically every part of the country, from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Calicut (Kozhikode) in Kerala, and from Dumka in Jharkhand to Vashim in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

In the last week alone, I have traveled to Gandhinagar in Gujarat, which is my own Lok Sabha constituency; to Mumbai, where my party workers donated to me a purse of Rs. 11.11 crore, collected from nearly 50,000 donors, towards the election fund; to Bangalore, where I addressed an anti-terrorism rally of over one lakh students, and to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh where I participated in a large rally organized by the Scheduled Castes Morcha of the BJP.

Although every event gave me deep satisfaction, there was one that brought alive many precious and deeply cherished memories associated with a defining period not only in my personal life but also in the life of India. It was when I was invited by the Government of Karnataka to inaugurate the Freedom Park in Bangalore on 27th February. This is where Click to Read More

http://blog.lkadvani.in/



VAVUNIYA
IS FULL OF
SINHALA NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS
SET UP BY MAHINDARAJAPAKSE AND HIS GANGSTERS
============ ======

A letter from a Sinhala Priest who visited the Vavuniya camp


Monday, March 2, 2009 5:25 PM

This is an experience of a Priest from South (a Sinhala priest)
This give you the real situation of camps in Vavuniya for the Vanni people. Not for free circulation but for useful action as free circulation will hamper the good work that priests and nuns do to our people.

My dear Friends,
Here is what I experienced during my short stay at Vavuniya. There are things that I can't write.
The situation is very very critical.Hope to go there again soon
This is a brief account of what I experienced during my short visit to Vavuniya from the 24th to 26 of February. I had the opportunity see the camps where IDPs are kept and meet some persons and go to the Vavuniya hospital with some priests who are also displaced and have come from Vanni area.

More than 30000 displaced persons who had come from Vanni are given temporary shelter in govt. schools and other buildings.. According to priests and nuns who were permitted to enter these places, (now some are given special pass to visit these camps) the members of the families are dispersed among the camps and reunion of them is not allowed at the moment. There are elderly and pregnant mothers, mothers with newly born babies who should be given special care, attention and place which Fathers and sisters are ready to provide but waiting for a positive response from the authorities which they say has to be given from the ministry of defense in Colombo .

As buildings are not sufficient to provide accommodations to such a big number, some temporary tents have been built in play grounds in the scorching sun where no one can stay during the day. In some cases there are two or three families in one tent. The govt. through all media constantly announces that every thing is ready and asks the people caught up in Vanni to come to Vavuniya promising them all facility and security there.

But it is very clear that govt. is not ready at all to accommodate if those people come to Vavuniya as they are unable to provide basic facilities to those who have already come. Except the places, every other basic need such as food, water, sanitary, clothes, medicine are provided by the NGOs. Still they are ready to provide whatever they can but due to very strict restrictions imposed by the govt. they are unable to do so.

These cannot be called as camps for displaced people rather prisons or still concentration camps heavily guarded by armed soldiers and covered with barb wires. We were not allowed to enter any of these camps. While we were standing in front of one of the camps on the main road, behind barb wires which were removed when UN officer John Holmesvisited the camps and returned to the same places immediately after he left Vavuniya, a soldier came and made a sign with his hand to a lady (mother) standing beside us to move away from that place.

As she began to move slowly soldier yelled at her saying “Don’t you understand Sinhala- Sinhala therenne nadda?” Then he pointing his finger to us and asked the officer at the gate in signs what’s to be done with us.

Then he approached me and asked whether I know Sinhala thinking that I am a Tamil priest. As I replied, yes, he asked whether there is any relation of mine in the camp. I told him I am going from camp to camp to find out whether my family members and relations are in the camps. But how could I find when as you don’t allow us to go in and still you chase away us not allowing us to stay out side far away from the camp. Then he politely said “what can we do father, we are carrying out the orders coming from the top.”

Later somebody sarcastically said these are orders from Rajapaksa family and which is also the truth. One of the priests told me that his parents are in a camp but he is not allowed to visit them. As we also moved away from that place, we approached that lady and asked whether she has anybody in the camp.
This was her reply:
“I came to Vavuniya some months ago and husband was in Vanni. Now he has come from that side and is in this camp. First day I saw him, spoke to him staying out side but he did not understand what I said. I found that he can’t hear and he is deaf. He was not so before, now he is unable to hear due to shelling and bombing while he was in Vanni.

Today I came to show him some photographs of our grand children who live abroad. (She showed us some photos of the children). But I don’t see him or unable to contact him. Soldiers chase me away” she told in tears and with utter helplessness.

Even the worst criminals have the right to see and speak to their family members and friends. If then why these innocent helpless people are not allowed to see their loved ones and detained them behind barb wires as criminals?
Isn’t it a grave violation of their basic human rights?
Isn’t it because that for them every Tamil is a terrorist or suspected be so?
Is it difficult to understand that they are being treated so inhumanly for the mere fact that they were born as Tamils in this country?

Here are some painful and agonizing experiences revealed by some injured persons whom I met in the hospital

A 23 years old young girl
We all were in the bunker without food for the whole day and came out to eat something. Then suddenly shells fell and we all got injured. I am without a leg and a hand. Brother and sister were also injured and they are too in the hospital. Father’s whereabouts are not known.

20 years old seriously injured young girl:
While I was bathing shells fell around our place. One of the brothers and I were critically injured. Another brother and a sister are in Vanni and do not know what has happened to them. My father died some time ago. Her mother is there to look after her. She has got 3s for A/L and now worried about her studies.

26 years graduate, a voluntary teacher:
We were all in the bunker whole night and came out in the morning to go to the announced safe zone. Then suddenly shells fell on us. Now the mother is with me. We do not know where my father, brother and sister are.

This is what I heard from a nun:
There is a boy who has lost his both hands in Mannar hospital. He got through his O/L with 10 As. Parents are there to look after him. But now army wants to send away the parents. Then who will be there to help this helpless boy who is still under treatments..

I met a young pregnant mother on the corridor sitting with her 6 year old daughter. She has lost toes of her one leg and three fingers in one hand. Daughter had wounds all over her body. Husband and the other two children are in Vanni. She is worried that if they are sent to the camp, how she can manage with her small daughter as she is unable to attend to her own work.

Priests and nuns are ready to take those pregnant mothers and mothers with new born babies as they need special care and attention but the authorities have not given a positive response yet.

This is another experience of a priest:
I met a small boy and a girl in the hospital. They are from the parish where I was, before I came to Vavuniya. The boy requested an apple and the girl some grapes. So I came out and went in with apple and grapes for those children. I was stopped at the gate by a policeman and asked to hand over my N.I.card and then to go in. I refused to hand over but showed it to him. So he could see that I am from Jaffna and shouted at me asking why you are here. In return I asked him from where are you. I told him I am a Sri Lankan and I have the right to be any where in this country. He continued to shout at me. So I asked him not to shout and if you don’t allow I will go back without giving these apple and grapes to those two kids. I told him please remember if you and your children face such calamity and if there is nobody to help you how would be your position. He stopped shouting and I came back with grapes and apple.

He further continued to say with much sadness and pain, when I see the children here in the church I remember children in Vanni where I was working. Immediately after mass they all come running to hold my hands and then to say that I touched father’s hands first. I do not know where those children are now. What crime these children have committed to be abandoned and treated in such a brutal and inhuman way. When we see the tragedy of the children can any one say a word in favour of this brutal war?

Can we who live in the South especially as church leaders be indifferent and keep silent before this genocide?

This is again an experience of a nun:
A child who is with the mother in the camp came running to see his father outside the gate who came to see them. The mother wanted to give him to the father over the gate to be kissed. But a soldier chased him away. Seen this heart breaking incident Sister approached that soldier and asked if it is your child what would you do? Then he immediately called the father and allowed him to kiss the son.
How can we who have not experienced the gravity of this brutal war at all, who have not travelled at least to Mannar and Vavuniya, who have not met and spoken to victims of this stupid war, justify and make statements in favour of it.? How can we be indifferent and take it so lightly or remain completely unaware of this human disaster?

From all these, are we not indirectly saying to the war mongers that we are not against war, we are with you, we believe what you say and not interested in what the Tamils say and finish the so called humanitarian war (annihilation) you have waged against them?

Here is a horrendous experience of a young person whom I met. I will not write down everything I heard as I still want to see these people alive.
So many dead bodies of young boys and girls were brought under the tag “terrorists killed in battle” In the post mortem it revealed that all the girls were raped. There were clear signs to prove who they were but buried as terrorists. Though I have no right to ask any question I just inquired that person what have you got to say. With full of tears in eyes replied “We may not born as Tamils in this world again, especially as Tamil women.”

There is so much to be written and that is again the agony and the tears of our Tamil brothers and sisters who cry for life and freedom which is their RIGHT.
Right to live in their own homes and land as true citizens in this country with human dignity.

Is it not the state terror of the successive Sinhala rulers treated the Tamils so brutally and suppressed their just demands?

At least now stop our petty arguments to show that we are neutral or do not take a side which reveals our hypocrisy. We believe in a God who takes the side of the oppressed. Hence we have a moral right to take the side of the oppressed Tamils.
The need of the hour is our SYMPATHY AND CONCERN

QUOTE
“The cost of freedom is always high, but our people always paid it. One path we shall never choose, is the path of surrender, or submission.”
John F Kennedy (35th US President)

THE END
DID YOU WATCH THE BBC INTERVIEW - (THE HARD TALK)
WITH SL HUMAN RIGHTS MINISTER MAHINDA SAMARASIGHE. ......... ......today
Interviewed by Stephen Sakur


Israel Rights groups says army holding a Palestinian family hostage every night
Machsom Watch, an Israeli Human Rights Group, reported that Israel soldiers have been attacking the home of a Palestinian family in a village near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, every night over the past week and a half.
http://www.imemc. org/article/ 59128

Palestinian Resistance
Islamic Jihad: the ongoing Israeli attacks will not be ignored
Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, vowed on Wednesday to respond to the Israeli raid north of Gaza which killed one of its militants and injured another.
http://english. ramattan. net/newsdetails. aspx?news_ id=39976

Armed wing of Hamas says ready to resist 'any Israeli aggression'
Gaza ? Ma?an ? The Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades said on Tuesday that Israel?s repeated threats to attack Gaza "confirm their loss" in the recent assault there. In a statement sent to Ma?an, Al-Qassam spokesperson Abu Ubaidah said that Israel?s failure to achieve its aims has been "shown to the world" and that Israel wants to justify its losses by making new threats. He insisted that "resistance forces" will remain ready "to stand against any aggression. " The Hamas spokesperson also addressed Israel, saying, "Performing another attack against Gaza will record another failure in your collapsed history. " [end]
http://www.maannews .net/en/index. php?opr=ShowDeta ils&ID=36211
The Lancet: The wounds of Gaza are deep
Dr Ghassan describes it as multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008.
http://pulsemedia. org/2009/ 01/30/the- wounds-of- gaza-2009/

Twenty-thousand Jerusalem homes under threat
Thirty-four more families received notifications to evacuate their homes in southern Silwan. The Al Abasiya area to the south of Al Aqsa Mosque was raided by dozens of Israeli soldiers, police and municipal workers. According to the notices, demolition is slated to take place within 10 days.
http://english. pnn.ps/index. php?option= com_content&task=view&id=4905&Itemid=1

Iran holds own global summit to aid Gaza
TEHRAN - Iran on Wednesday is to begin a two-day international conference to help rebuild the Gaza Strip and support the Palestinians, just days after a global donors meeting in Egypt. The summit in Tehran is attended by by officials from neighbouring countries. "The conference will discuss the issue of aiding Palestinians and also find a solution to the Zionist regime?s adventures against Palestinians, " Ali Larijani, speaker of Iran?s parliament, told FARS news agency. He said Iran?s solution to the Israel-Palestinian issue, which is based on a "democratic principle", has already been outlined by Iran?s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei has called for the return of all Palestinian refugees to what is now Israel followed by a referendum on the future of the territory. Tehran, a supporter of a democratic one-state solution, is firmly opposed to a two-state solution to solve the Israel-Palestinian issue.
http://www.middle- east-online. com/english/ ?id=30759

Solidarity, Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment
March 30th: Global Day of Solidarity with Palestine?A New Stage in the BDS Campaign
One of the many BDS Israel campaign posters. This year, March 30th has been declared as an international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Throughout the world, demonstrations, conferences, marches and other initiatives will unite solidarity groups and political movements in joint actions to remind the world that, despite the smokescreen named the peace process, the Palestinian people are still under colonial occupation and oppression. March 30th was declared international mobilization day for the rights of the Palestinian people at the World Social Forum, held last month in Brazil, and the commitment of the global social movement to make it a demonstration of strength is undeniable.
http://www.alternat ivenews.org/ content/view/ 1615/236/

A worldwide appeal by concerned Jewish men and women
Jewish Voice for a Just Peace (JVJP)- Press Release - Appeal to the Israeli government: We the undersigned Jews want the Israeli occupation, settlements and blockade of Palestinian territories to come to an end. We call for humane living conditions and security for all the people in Israel and Palestine.
http://www.kibush. co.il/show_ file.asp? num=32288

U.S. Military Aid to Israel
In these days of economic crisis, budget overruns, earmarks, and multi-billion dollar bailouts, when Americans are being forced to tighten their own belts, one of the most automatic earmarks?a bailout by any measure?goes to a foreign government but is little understood by most Americans. U.S. military aid to Israel is doled out in annual increments of billions of dollars but remains virtually unchallenged while other fiscal outlays are drastically cut.
http://www.counterp unch.com/ christison030520 09.html



Clinton visit: In a West Bank café, Palestinians ask how much will change
Patrons at 'Stars and Bucks' critique her statements. 'We already know the quotes by heart,' one says. Ramallah, West Bank - If there is any place in this de facto capital of the West Bank where all things American are welcomed, it's here at Stars and Bucks ? an unabashed Starbucks knockoff complete with green-and-white logo, cozy couches, and myriad mochas and lattes.
http://www.csmonito r.com/2009/ 0305/p05s01- wome.html

Chasing dreams of future peace
A journey to Ramallah from Jerusalem tells you a lot about the state of peace and war between Israel and the Palestinians. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not get the delays at checkpoints that most people face. But if she looked out of the window of her armour-plated SUV she would have seen some of the ways this place is changing, and why that undercuts the policy that she is here to promote.
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/middle_ east/7924609. stm

Was Hamas the work of the Israeli Mossad?
The accusation that the Palestinian movement Hamas was the brainchild of Israeli intelligence has become so commonplace it often requires no substantiation. The claim is hogwash, of course, and sullies the history of a popular movement that has given many occupied Palestinians a sense of empowerment and self-respect.
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ Middle_East/ KC06Ak02. html

Iqbal Tamimi - Palestinian Women are Israel's Demographic Nightmare
No condolences to apartheid Israel?.yes, it has killed 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza because its fears are of a demographic nature, its army never cared what age or gender it killed, Israel?s machine was harvesting Palestinians of all ages and sizes?young and old, disabled and healthy, pregnant women and young girls, the ones resisting the occupation and the ones who are still too young to understand such expressions?.. Israel?s nightmare is of a demographic scale, it is frightened to be outnumbered?so the answer was to starve people to death, stop them from receiving medication so that they would die of ?natural causes? then bar the media from investigating that and then knit a freshly made lie to suit its new tailored fib. Israel?s actions mean there was a terrorist in every cradle, there were tunnels turning bread to arms.
http://palestinethi nktank.com/ 2009/03/05/ iqbal-tamimi- palestinian- women-are- israels-demograp hic-nightmare/





Indigenous People Rising
Historic Changes Across Latin America
By JAMES COCKCROFT
http://counterpunch.com/cockcroft11282008.html

Palestinians set up protest camp against demolition of their homes in Jerusalem
Palestinians from Ras Khamis neighborhood, near Jerusalem?s old city, set up a protest camp near their homes in protest against Israel?s decision to demolish their neighborhood. The Israeli municipality says that there are 55 homes in the Palestinian Ras Khamis neighborhood that are built without the required permissions. Hatem Abdel al-Qader, the Palestinian Prime Minister?s advisor for Jerusalem affairs, stated that lawyers managed to stop the demolition until March 10th, by court order.
http://imemc. org/article/ 59111

Homeless Gazans protest at UN
Gaza ? Ma?an ? Palestinians made homeless by the recent Israeli assault on Gaza held a protest on Wednesday outside the headquarters of the UN?s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The protesters are saying that they still have not received any aid from the UN since their houses were destroyed in December and January. Israel completely destroyed at least 2,000 Palestinian homes and left as a many as 12,000 damaged during its three-week offensive on Gaza. 46,000 people were displaced, according to the United Nations.
http://www.maannews .net/en/index. php?opr=ShowDeta ils&ID=36229

Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy. They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally – what they describe as "unity in diversity." Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: "We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive."

Fifty-five million indigenous persons, or 400 indigenous peoples, inhabit Indo-Afro-Latin America. Most reside in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. They reject the Europe-imposed term "Indians." They call themselves "the native peoples" ("Ios pueblos originarios" in Spanish). They constitute 67 percent of Bolivia's population. In Ecuador they are 40 percent, mainly in the cold highland Sierra and sweltering Amazonian tropics. They often ally with Afro-Ecuadorians along the Pacific coast, who account for 10 percent of the populace.

Spokespersons for the native peoples realize that the differences between their cosmic visions and those of Europe and the United States are part of an ongoing set of class and ideological conflicts that must be resolved if world peace and ecological balance are to be achieved. They recognize too that they must overcome divisions in their own ranks and that their struggles necessitate solidarity with other oppressed peoples around the globe. They link up internationally, as in the case of the worldwide 87-nation "Via Campesina" so important in the World Social Forums of this century. Sensitive to the world ecological crisis, the native peoples' movements conducted the 2008 First Interregional Summit of the Amazon, the region known as "the lungs of the planet."

In Bolivia and Ecuador, the native peoples and their supporters are re-founding the State, "democratizing democracy," and introducing juridical pluralism. They are playing a prominent role in popular campaigns against neo-liberal capitalist globalization and US-European interventionism. Recognized and honored in UN and ILO declarations on indigenous rights, they emphasize human and planetary rights, including the rights of Nature ("Pachamama," or "Mother Nature," literally "Mother Universe").

The CIA has often characterized the social movements of the native peoples as a major challenge to US hegemony. Territories they occupy contain 80 percent of Latin America's biodiversity, several important watersheds, and such valuable resources as petroleum.

Bolivia and Ecuador, historically wracked by poverty, military coups, and massacres of native peoples, peasants, students, and workers, exemplify many challenges. Both countries remain two of the poorest in the world and have experienced recent cholera epidemics. The average income of a Bolivian peasant is $50 a year. That is one reason why peasants, whenever possible, base their lives on the indigenous legacy of terraced irrigation works and the "ayllu," or commune. Many try to emigrate. One of every four Bolivians works outside the nation. Their remittances account for 10 percent of Bolivia's GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Brazilian economic interests account for 20 percent of Bolivia's GDP. Bolivia's profitable energy and mining sectors sell gas to fuel 70 percent of the industry of São Paulo, Brazil, South America's largest city. Control of Bolivia's principal agricultural export, soybeans, is 35 percent Brazilian. Some of Brazil's farmers, together with a hundred Bolivian families, control five-sixths of Bolivia's farmlands.

Ecuador remains the largest banana producer in the world but now gets more money from oil, forestry products, and the remittances of its emigrants (more than 3 million persons, out of a population of 14 million). Ecuador is a significant source of petroleum. It has abundant cedar, ceibo, and mahogany, and several 250-year-old trees. It is the world's largest producer of Balsa wood. In 2003, forestry interests from Colombia provoked genocide against the already reduced, small, nomadic Tagaeri and Taromenari native peoples.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales, an Aymara elected in 2005 with a majority of votes in the initial round, an unprecedented event for Bolivia's multi-party system, has often pointed out that "The fight of our people is an historic struggle against empire." Native peoples throughout the Americas tend to see empire as an uninterrupted process of 516 years of genocidal subjection in the face of their proud resistance. They understand well the continuity of colonialism/imperialism: the routine use of kidnappings, disappearances, torture, and male violence against women; ecological destruction; and the creation and perpetuation of an un-payable external debt for economic blackmail.

Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés once called Bolivia's indigenous peasants and miners "the clandestine nation." Now they and other peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean are changing history. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, a US-trained economist elected in a runoff in 2006, has declared: "We are living not in an epoch of changes, but in a change of epochs."

Recently, Bolivia and Ecuador, like Venezuela, have experienced democratic elections, even popular referenda and, in the cases of Bolivia and Venezuela, recall votes. Their presidents have won these elections by impressive majorities. On behalf of the oppressed they have been implementing policies against neo-liberal capitalism's practices of "free trade," deregulation, and privatization. In various ways, they have advocated "a new socialism for the 21st century." Evo Morales evokes an Aymara-type "communitarian socialism based on reciprocity and solidarity."

In an address at the United Nations in September 2008, Evo, as he is popularly known, proposed "Ten Commandments" to save the planet, life and humanity:

Put an end to the capitalist system

Renounce wars (Evo says "I don't believe there can be peace under capitalism")

Create a world without imperialism or colonialism

Honor the right to water

Develop clean energies

Respect Nature (Pachamama)

Recognize basic services as human rights

Combat inequalities

Promote diversity of cultures and economies

Seek "Vivir bien" -- living well (what is known in Ecuador as "sumak kawsay," living fully), instead of living better at the expense of others

Evo pointed out that Bolivia's recently drafted constitution "is to support a new pact with all humanity and Pachamama, from the heart of the Andes, from the South, for all the world."

Revolutionary Processes Rooted in Indigenous and Social Movements
Revolutionary processes in Bolivia and Ecuador are rooted in the social movements of native peoples and others. In Bolivia, mass mobilizations against the privatization of water in 2000 and 2004 succeeded against the powerful US-based transnational corporation Bechtel. Similar mobilizations for nationalizing gas in 2003 toppled the government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, known as "el gringo" because of his speaking English better than Spanish. Sánchez de Lozada's regime was responsible for the massacre of more than 60 citizens in El Alto, a new Andean city of more than a million poor people above La Paz, the world's highest capital.

One of President Evo Morales' first acts after taking office in 2006 was to nationalize oil and the production of gas. With proceeds from the nationalizations, he created a "dignity pension" for people over 60 years of age and a "family income supplement" to help keep children in school. He extended credit with zero percent interest to farmers of corn, wheat, rice and other basics. Under Morales, Bolivia has eliminated its fiscal debt, repaid half its foreign debt, and quadrupled employment in the mining and metallurgical sectors. Its GDP has almost doubled in three years, while its foreign reserves have almost quintupled to over $8 billion. Cuban teams of teachers and medical personnel have helped reduce illiteracy by 80 percent and extend free health care to half the populace. Cuba's "Miracle Mission" has conducted free eye operations to restore the full vision of nearly 300,000 Bolivians.

Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linares often reassures foreign capitalists and says Bolivia's economy will be "Andean/Amazonian capitalism," featuring strong support for small and medium enterprises, including cooperatives and handicrafts. Despite these reassurances, the US Government has sought to undermine Bolivian democracy the way it so often has done in the past. It has lifted its restrictions on the CIA's use of assassination against foreign leaders. Both Evo Morales and Ecuador's Correa have denounced assassination plots on their lives.

Upon assuming the presidency, Evo ordered the CIA desk in the presidential palace removed. Later, in the face of US pressures on behalf of Bechtel and other transnational corporations, he pulled Bolivia out of the World Bank's Disputes Resolution Court. During 2008, department-level Bolivian officials expelled various personnel of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which had established an "Office of Transition Initiatives" to fund the rightist opposition. Evo discovered that US Ambassador Philip Goldberg was promoting and financing extreme rightist leaders in the gas-rich eastern breakaway departments who, in the name of departmental autonomy, in effect separatism, were ordering massacres of native peoples and occupying federal offices. This was a thinly veiled attempt at a "civil" coup d'état, a coup in quest of military support.

Ambassador Golberg had served earlier in countries undergoing violent breakups, such as the former Yugoslavia. He served as ambassador to Kosovo, where the United States tolerated or supported paramilitary massacres of Serbs and other ethnic minorities. His superior is John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State and chief State Department official for Latin America. Negroponte is the former 1980s'ambassador to Honduras who oversaw the "contra" war against the democratically elected Sandinista government. He and the State Department's embassy staffs help coordinate US efforts to undermine or topple today's socialist oriented governments and social movements, like those in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

Goldberg's Embassy began enlisting Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright Scholars to "spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans in Bolivia. It also worked with a special intelligence unit of the Bolivian police. Goldberg was photographed meeting with coup-plotting leaders and a known Colombian paramilitary figure. In September 2008, at the height of the unsuccessful "civil" coup attempt, Evo expelled Goldberg. The United States responded by sending home the Bolivian ambassador.

Meeting in Chile in September, the newly created Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) unanimously condemned the ongoing attempted coup and its massacres. UNASUR unconditionally supported Evo's democratic government and sent observers to government-proposed negotiations in which the opposition finally agreed to participate. When the negotiations later failed because of right-wing intransigence despite major concessions by Evo, the UNASUR observers again condemned the right for its anti-democratic and criminal conduct.

Meanwhile, a UNASUR investigating team of experts confirmed details of a September 11, 2008 massacre of peaceful protesters, mostly native peoples, in Pando Department, when 18 people were gunned down, 60 were wounded, and more than 100 persons "disappeared." The rightist governor said to be responsible for the massacre, Leopoldo Fernández, an ally of the 1970s' dictator Hugo Banzer, fled toward Brazil but was captured by the military and jailed.

On November 1, 2008, Bolivia's government suspended indefinitely the operations of the US Drug Enforcement Agency because of the DEA's financing fascistic opposition forces behind the coup attempt and "criminal groups" plotting to kill government authorities. President Evo Morales offered evidence of this and other DEA crimes, such as its involvement in narco-trafficking and its investigations ordered in 2003 of leftist leaders, including Evo himself. He said that Bolivia would continue to protect small-scale growers of coca to maintain the cultural use of the product by native peoples and would play a key role in a new unified South American effort against narco-trafficking to be backed by regional funding. Washington countered by suspending long-term trade preferences with Bolivia.

In Ecuador, occupations of government buildings and general strikes became an annual affair in the 1990s. Mass movements of the underclasses, students, workers, and native peoples began to link up. The native peoples launched five uprisings. From 1995 to 2005 the popular movements toppled seven presidents. In January 2000, the native peoples took over Ecuador's parliament and actually "governed" the nation for 24 hours! The old State -- led by a comprador bourgeoisie in the coastal region of Guayaquil, landed oligarchs there and in the Sierra, military officers and paramilitaries, and an ultra-reactionary Catholic Church -- began to totter.

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador initially tried to reassure Washington. He maintained the US dollar as the nation's currency. He simultaneously challenged the US Government by declaring he might not recognize the legality of Ecuador's foreign debt. He expelled the World Bank's permanent representative and said that in 2009 he would not renew the lease for the US military base in Manta.

Then, on March 1, 2008, the United States and Colombia mounted a military bombardment and invasion of Ecuador that used the Manta base and killed at least 24 people, including Raúl Reyes, a guerrilla commander of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who at the time was meeting with Mexican university students in the northern Ecuadorian jungle. Afterwards, Correa denounced US control of high officials of Ecuador's security and intelligence forces and dismissed leaders in the Armed Forces, Police, and his own Minister of Defense. The Organization of American States (OAS) showed its independence from traditional US control when it voted to denounce the military attack on Ecuador.

In November 2008, President Correa, contrary to economic integration plans already underway in South America, went along with the European Union's call for bilateral trade negotiations. Colombia and Peru, but not Bolivia, already had agreed to accept bilateral negotiations. The Ecuadorian government also announced a partial privatization of the Nappo River. It planned to allow state development of mining in Yasuni Park, declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1989. But at the same time, Correa accepted the report of an independent international commission of inquiry into Ecuador's foreign debt from 1976 to 2006. The report found that many loan agreements involved corruption, illegalities, and "looting"; violated national sovereignty; contributed to greater poverty and inequality; and were "odious" because of their often being contracted in years of military dictatorships. Correa announced that the "illegitimate, corrupt, and illegal debt" would likely not be paid.

Meanwhile, Latin America's indigenous and social movements called for "the recognition of the historical, social and environmental debt" that most of the "creditor" nations had incurred "during five centuries of the colonization of Abya Yala." ("Abya Yala" means "Continent of Life" in the language of the Kuna peoples of Panama and Colombia.)

Re-founding the State, New Constitutions

Throughout Indo-Afro-Latin America vigorous movements to "democratize democracy" have taken root. The social movements that put an end to the worse period of US-supported "dirty wars" and toppled the military dictatorships of the 1964-1984 period did not settle for the limited democracies that replaced them. People had fought and died for human rights and not the amnesties that were granted the dictators and their henchmen as a condition for allowing the new "democracies." To walk down the street and suddenly see one's torturer coming out of the corner store was one more form of torture.

Moreover, the newly introduced "representative democracies" typically served the interests of big money and economic neo-liberalism rather than those of the general populace.

As poverty spread, movements sparked by native peoples and other groups, especially women and youth, mobilized against the IMF and its defenders in the newly elected parliaments and presidencies. For many, to "democratize democracy" meant to introduce economic democracy and not just limited political democracy. People began demanding constituent assemblies. The elections of Morales and Correa paved the way for a re-founding of the State and an official rejection of neo-liberalism.

In elections for Bolivia's constituent assembly the only requirement was that 30 percent of the delegates had to be women. Candidates from Evo Morales' MAS (Movement to Socialism) won 137 of the 255 seats; 64 of the MAS delegates were women. Delegates finalized the new constitution of 411 articles in December 2007, only after being forced to move the location of the assembly's meetings because of right-wing violence and sabotage of the process. This violence was part of the "civil" coup attempt that actually commenced the day Evo was elected president.

Ecuador's voters elected their constituent assembly in September 2007. It included 80 members of Congress from Correa's heterogeneous political coalition "Alianza País," 40 from the conservative opposition, 10 from small leftist parties, and 5 from theCONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, founded in 1986). Other organizations, such as the CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon) and the FENOCIN (National Federation of Peasants, Native Peoples, and Blacks), pressured the assembly to make constitutional changes in defense of their interests. On September 28, 2008, voters approved the 444-article Constitution by a 65 percent "Yes" vote. Concluded President Correa: "Neo-liberalism has been crushed and put in the dustbin of history."

Both nations' new constitutions distinguish between the old representative democracy and a new participatory and communitarian one. They call for plural nationhood; genuine interculturalism (instead of cosmetic multiculturalism); recognition of differences among cultures; and "unity in diversity." As a result, the native peoples' communities have constitutional rights to local self-governance and their own juridical procedures based on indigenous customs and traditions. Bolivia's Constitution calls for juridical pluralism within a proposed "Plurinational Constitutional Court of Justice."

Only when there is plural nationhood can there be real interculturalism. Plural nationhood entails re-founding the State. In the eyes of the native peoples, the old State was a colonial one, formed of select individuals. It championed individual freedoms solely for the elites. In no way did it represent collective societies like those of the Quechua, Aymara, Guaraní, Shuar, Siona and other native peoples. The new State is to be an independent, unitary, plurinational one that celebrates human diversity and true democracy. In indigenous terms, exit colonialism and enter all humanity.

Bolivia's proposed new constitution contains the following provisions, presented here in a synthesized form and in no particular order:

A unitary, plurinational, communitarian and democratic State.

All 36 peoples to have equal rights and regional autonomies, that is, a democratic decentralization of power.

Nationalization of natural resources and State control over forests and biodiversity.

Three forms of economic ownership: public, private, and communitarian -- in effect, a mixed economy compatible with the Vice President's vision of an Andean/Amazonian capitalism.

State involvement in strategic sectors of the economy, and foreign private investment to be subordinated to national development plans.

Agrarian reform with expropriation of huge landed estates (latifundia).

Re-election and removal of any elected official by popular mandate -- already implemented on August 10, 2008, when the opposition's demand for a referendum was granted and 67 percent of the votes favored keeping Evo Morales as president; Evo's supporters also won several governorships while increasing their vote percentage in the few departments they lost to the rightist opposition.

Election of the judiciary; recognition of communitarian and ancestral forms of conflict resolution.

A plurinational Parliament with only one chamber (in effect, the elimination of the structurally elitist Senate).

Free and equal health care and education; end of illiteracy.

Sucre to replace La Paz as the capital (a concession to the rightist opposition).

A ban on discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, culture, nationality, religion, ideology, disability, pregnancy.

Prohibition of foreign military bases.

Potable drinking water as a human right.

Most observers expect that Bolivian voters will approve the constitution in the referendum scheduled for January 25, 2009. The articles on land ownership will be submitted separately at the same time.

Ecuador's Constitution contains the following provisions, also presented in a synthesized form and in no particular order:

State to tighten control of strategic industries, such as oil, mining, and telecommunications, and to protect biodiversity.

State to reduce monopolies.

Some of foreign debt to be declared illegitimate.

Agrarian reform; end of latifundia; prohibition of genetically modified seeds.

Free health care; free education for all through college; State-assisted housing programs.

A lay State; civil marriage for gay partners (measures opposed by one of the continent's most reactionary Catholic Churches)

Women's rights, including valuation for work in the home.

Free responsibility over one's own sexuality and life; recognition of diverse types of family; yet, the right to life from the moment of conception (feminist activists generally welcomed their gains and said the clause on life at conception could be eliminated through future popular mobilizations).

Equal rights for the disabled.

Universal social security; pensions for stay-at-home mothers and informal sector workers.

Presidential control over Central Bank; less autonomy for the Armed Forces.

Consecration of Nature's collective rights.

Potable drinking water as a human right; prohibition of privatization of water.

Food sovereignty and the right to have secure food sources.

Right to have access to the mass media and to establish community media.

Prohibition of foreign military bases.

A solidarity-based and sustainable economic system; a "private, social and solidarity" economy, in effect a mixed economy.

Integration into the rest of Latin America, especially via UNASUR

Prohibition of State taking over private debts, in effect no bank bailouts

Balanced living (sumak kawsay)

There are, to be sure, ambiguities and contradictions in both nations' new constitutions. Ecuador's, for example, includes loopholes for big capital and latifundistas, such as Article 323, a prohibition against all forms of confiscation. In Bolivia, some have criticized an overemphasis on local indigenous autonomies with inadequate attention given to the 70 percent of the population that is urban or to the important role women play in the creation and defense of "informal" economies key to human survival and advancement.

Also, one area of great concern to native peoples in Ecuador is the clause calling for their "previous informed consultation" on mining, oil, or other economic rights granted outsiders in territories where they reside. Consultation with native peoples does not mean their "consent." There have already occurred killings and repression of protests against foreign petroleum firms. President Correa has gone so far as to characterize some of the protesters as "terrorists." The UN and ILO declarations on indigenous peoples' rights are generally interpreted as calling for "previous consent." "Petroleum is the blood of the Earth," goes a saying of the U'wa people resisting foreign oil interests in Colombia, "if you suck the blood you kill us."

Clearly, new laws do not necessarily translate into new realities. The movements that gave birth to the new constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador will have to be maintained and strengthened if the articles on environment, plurinationalism, and social rights are to be fulfilled or expanded in practice.




Right-wing Opposition in Historical Context
A long time ago, a Mayan said:

They destroyed our crops
They cut our branches
They burned our tree trunks
But they could not kill our roots.

In 1781, Tupak Katari, the leader of a widespread and nearly successful revolt by South America's native peoples against Spanish colonialism, was captured and tortured. His body was torn apart, literally "quartered." Before his death, he proudly announced to his captors: "I will return and I will be millions."

Evo Morales, a strong advocate for world peace and non-violence, has said the right-wing opposition is attempting to "quarter" Bolivia but will not succeed. In a sense, Tupak Katari has returned and is millions. The Bolivian rightists, relatively strong in four departments rich in commerce, narco-trafficking, agriculture, gas, and other natural resources but unable to win national elections, seek to create a secessionist State centered around the economically powerful city of Santa Cruz. This would leave the rest of Bolivia impoverished.

Just as in Bolivia, there are anti-democracy rightists in Ecuador and Venezuela with links to US governmental agencies and paramilitary elements in Colombia. They too seek to topple the new democratically elected revolutionary governments by splitting off the richest areas into separate, new States: the industrial, oil, agricultural, and commercial region of Guayaquil in southwestern Ecuador and the oil-rich Zulia in northeastern Venezuela.

Bolivians have a long history of popular resistance to right-wing elements that have governed the nation on behalf of domestic and foreign elites. They have learned from their earlier struggles. In 1952 they achieved the continent's first revolution since the Mexican Revolution of 1917. They introduced a short-lived agrarian reform and nationalization of tin mines, the main industry at the time. Many miners were Marxists. In 1946 the Miners' Congress passed the "Pulacayo Thesis," a program echoing the ideas of Bolshevik revolutionary thinker and military commander Leon Trotsky. This program called for workers' control of the means of production, a genuine democracy, and internationalization of the revolutionary struggle. Armed miners turned the tide in 1952 just when it looked like the rightist military might crush the democratic revolutionary forces in a bloodbath.

However, the United States gradually reversed Bolivia's 1952 Revolution by training the Armed Forces and sending in economic advisers favorable to free-market capitalism and foreign capital. By 1964, the Revolution was not only reversed. It was being replaced by a series of military dictatorships and occasional civilian governments that carried out several massacres of workers, peasants, and students, in a "dirty war." Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, later extradited to France and convicted in 1987 of mass murder, helped set up Bolivian concentration camps. Poverty increased. Because of silicosis, overwork, and the decline of the mining sector, the lifespan of the average miner today is just 35 years.

A guerrilla struggle led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara in southeastern Bolivia failed when US-trained Bolivian Army forces captured Che on October 8, 1967, and, on US orders, killed him the next day. Crosses labeled "Saint Che" began appearing in several rural locations.
In 1971 a Peoples' Assembly backed by the military government of General Juan José Torres approved a worker-peasant alliance and a program for socialism. Torres was overthrown by General Banzer, leading to a savage seven-year wave of repression known as "the Banzerato," a prosperous period for Bolivia's elites and foreign capital. The boom city of Santa Cruz began concentrating most of the nation's wealth.

Popular protests by the poor majority and by the small economically squeezed middle classes continued. By 1980, strikes, revolts, and massacres reached another severe stage. The so-called "Cocaine Coup" of that year established a particularly brutal and corrupt dictatorship that lasted more than two years. In 1985, Harvard-educated economist Jeffrey Sachs introduced a "shock therapy" neo-liberal treatment of the economy that laid off thousands of miners, who had to migrate with their families to the countryside or cities to try to find work to survive. In the early 1990s, Sachs introduced the same economic approach in the former Soviet Union. In both cases the results were disastrous for the majority of the peoples.

During and after Sachs' "shock therapy," Bolivia's resistance movements reached new levels of community-based organization. People perfected roadblocks and other acts of civil disobedience. Women's committees, a traditional institution among miners, began running urban slums. A street vendors' union grew each year to its present size of 800,000 members. Bolivia's citizens conducted huge marches "For Life and Peace," "For Life and Bread," and for "People before Profits."

Native peoples completed an historic 33-day "March for Territory and Dignity" (1990). A movement by coca growers led by Evo Morales gained strength and called itself the Movement to Socialism. Workers, steet vendors, ex-miners, desperate peasants, and heads of households in El Alto and other urban slums organized neighborhood defense-and-struggle committees. Women and youth played pivotal roles. Most of the time Bolivia was under a state of siege, with all opposition repressed. Nonetheless, the social movements kept reappearing and gaining strength, toppling government after government until Evo's election in 2005.

Prefect Ruben Costas in Santa Cruz and several ex-Nazis and large landholders began to organize their ¨civil" coup. They referred to Evo with racist epitaphs and claimed no "Indian monkey" could possibly govern the nation. They sent fascist goon squads to attack, beat up, and kill native peoples. They took over national offices, including airports, making it impossible for the nation's president to fly to important areas.

Several of the fascistic right-wing leaders of the opposition movement are anti-communist fanatics whose pro-Nazi families came to Bolivia from Eastern Europe after World War II, often protected or encouraged by the US government, as in the case of Klaus Barbie. One current leader, Branco Marinkovic, a Croatian-Bolivian, is widely believed to be in the pay of the man in the government of "el gringo" who ordered the El Alto massacre of 2003 and later fled to the United States with "el gringo" and other top government officials.

Over the years, the fascist leaders of the four breakaway departments routinely have hired Brazilian gunmen, some of whom joined Bolivian and Peruvian gunmen in the Pando massacre of September 11, 2008.

Pando is the department that gave refuge to the murderers of Chico Mendes, the world-renowned trade-union and environmentalist leader of Brazilian rubber tappers assassinated in 1988. Ever since then, these assassins and their henchmen have been operating on behalf of Pando's elites to help maintain labor discipline and political loyalty, but with decreasing success.

Even though momentarily defeated in their attempt to topple Bolivian democracy, right-wingers of all varieties have not stopped their pressures on Evo. The social movements and native peoples continue to mobilize in defense of Evo´s government.

In the middle of October 2008, some 50,000 to 200,000 people conducted an 8-day, 150-kilometer march that was joined on its last day by Evo himself. The marchers surrounded the national Congress in La Paz to demand approval of a future referendum on the new constitution. They succeeded in winning the required two-thirds majority of votes and then celebrated in the streets.

However, prior to the successful vote, centrist and rightist political parties in Congress modified more than 100 articles. Details of the changes are rather complex, but it is clear that greater though not complete autonomy is to be granted the breakaway departments. Also, Evo will not be allowed to run for re-election after the December 6, 2009 presidential and congressional elections. His potential years in the presidency thus would have to end in 2014.
In both Bolivia and Ecuador, as in Venezuela, the rightist opposition is increasingly divided. For example, Bolivia's PODEMOS (Social Democratic Power in Spanish), the largest opposition group, now has at least four squabbling factions.

But the opposition is not just from the right. While leftists generally support Evo and Correa, even if critically at times, there are a few who feel that both nations' presidents are moving too slowly and with too many compromises. Some even see the emergence of "a new neo-liberalism with a human face." Also, there are people inside the governments of both nations who act as cliques that tend to undermine democratic processes and thus serve the rightist opposition's claims that the presidents are "dictators."

Cooptation and clientelism are occurring, more so in Ecuador than in Bolivia, but the social movements continue demanding genuine democracy and a new type of socialism that meets all human needs in harmony with ¨Pachamama.¨ The chances of either a civilian or a military coup seem slimmer each day but can never be ruled out. Both nations´ Armed Forces have sworn to uphold the constitutional processes underway. The Bolivian and Ecuadorian peoples are on the alert against possible traitorous officers or soldiers.

Decline of US Hegemony

Events in Bolivia and Ecuador reflect a growing defiance of the "big brother to the North." Latin American nations are integrating into a larger "gran patria" independent of the United States, an idea originally advocated by "the Liberator" Simón Bolívar in the Wars of Independence against Spain when he attempted to unify the region against future US hegemony. Bolívar was unsuccessful, in part because of US opposition. He concluded in 1829: "The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty."

In addition to UNASUR, several new institutions have been created in this recent integrative process. Among them are the following:

Rio Group (created in 1986 by members of the Contadora Group active in seeking peace in Central America, today an organization of almost all Latin American and Caribbean states whose most recent new member is Cuba)

TeleSUR (a continent-wide television news and entertainment channel countering the slant and distortions of CNN and most US mass media)

RadioSUR

PetroSUR and PetroCARIBE (for energy integration with discount prices on Venezuelan oil, gas, and know-how)

Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas -- ALBA, a socially responsible instead of profit-guided alternative to the now defeated US initiative Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

MERCOSUR – Common Market of the South, an earlier alternative to the FTAA

Community of Andean Nations and Caricom (two more regional trade blocs)

Latin American Court of Justice

Banco del Sur (Bank of the South, a response to US-dominated, neo-liberal financial institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank).

Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas (a South American Parliament is to be built in San Benito, Bolivia)

Security Council of South America (a military alliance of 12 nations excluding the United States)

There are also plans for a single unified currency possibly to be called "pacha" and a Monetary Fund of the South (Fondo Monetario del Sur) as an alternative to the US dollar and the IMF (International Monetary Fund). There is talk of an economic Stabilization Fund as well.

In the past, the US Government and Latin American oligarchies would not have tolerated this for a second. They would have mounted bloody military coups and new dictatorships in the name of defending democracy. But those days of US hegemony are long gone. Spain's capitalists now have more investments in the region than those of their US counterparts. The United States and the OAS have been largely absent from all major decisions about conflicts; new coalitions like UNASUR and the Rio Group make those decisions, without a single dissenting vote so far. Even the influential US policy-creating Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in its May 2008 report, says the Monroe Doctrine is dead and should not be resurrected. Significantly, Washington has accepted the 12-nation Security Council of South America.

US military and diplomatic failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, together with the global financial crisis triggered by US bank failures in 2007-2008, have extended the United States' loss of hegemony worldwide. The Euro and other currencies have long since weakened the dominance of the US dollar. The gigantic US economy has become dependent on investments and loans from China, Japan, the European Union, and sundry oil kingdoms. According to CNN reports, the two-trillion-dollar US bank rescue plan may cost each US citizen $40,000 by 2010. The three-decade economic reign of neo-liberalism is spiraling rapidly downward into the abyss of human suffering it has helped generate. Multiple Poles of Power and the rise of new economic and geopolitical alliances are replacing the 18-year-long dominance of a sole Super Power.

Conclusion

It is evident that Bolivia and Ecuador, like so many Latin American countries, are undergoing historic changes in the correlation of social and class forces and in relations with the United States. Only the rightists and the US Government oppose these two new popular and vigorous democracies. Others are trying to learn from them.

In July 2008, the 8,000-mile "Longest Walk 2 All Life is Sacred – Save Mother Earth" reached Washington, D.C. One of its leaders, Dennis Banks, cofounder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), summed up its goal as one of "environmental protection, an end to global warming, the protection of Indigenous cultural survival, and the empowerment of Native youth." Most of the marchers expressed solidarity with Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

US policy on Latin America in 2008, however, continued down the anti-democratic path. The Pentagon sent the modernized Fourth Fleet to police the oceans and waterways of the region. More military bases were constructed in Colombia, bordering Ecuador and Venezuela. US support for the mega-project IIRSA (South American Regional Integration of the Infrastructure in Spanish) increased. It is a multi-billion dollar transcontinental transport and commercial development plan that will violate several indigenous territories. Despite widespread bank failures and skyrocketing unemployment rates at home and abroad, US aid programs continued to give short shrift to meeting human needs and instead contributed to the military repression of social and indigenous movements or renewed attempts at "civil" coups.

The world faces a profound ecological crisis. World hunger is rapidly increasing. In a relatively short time there will not be sufficient potable drinking water, food, or petroleum to maintain current standards of living even in the most industrialized nations.

Neo-liberal capitalism faces both deepening economic crisis and loss of credibility on a world scale. The indigenous and popular movements of Bolivia and Ecuador, on the other hand, have achieved significant advances and now have a chance to push for even greater gains in the re-founding of their States and the introduction of new programs in defense of the environment and the peoples of the world.

In November 2008, some 400 academics of the prestigious Latin American Studies Association sent a letter to president-elect Barack Obama in which they expressed their hope that his presidency would convert the United States into "an ally instead of an adversary of the positive changes taking place in the Hemisphere." It remains to be seen if Obama will maintain old policies; make mere cosmetic changes; or create new policies in the interests of all the peoples of Latin America – and the United States.

James Cockcroft can be reached at: jcockcro@yahoo.com

In 2007, the UN passed its Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with only four "No" votes (United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). It echoed and expanded the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples that entered into force in 1991.Award-winning Canadian novelist Thomas King, son of a Cherokee father and Greek mother, has pointed out that "Mother Earth" is a potent concept for native peoples, but it has been abused to the point where it sometimes has no more power or import "than the word freedom tumbling out of George W. Bush's mouth." King then cites Mohawk writer Beth Brant: "We do not worship nature. We are part of it." See Thomas King, The Truth about Stories (Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003), p. 114.

From books of Chilam Balam (The book of books), documents written in Yucatec Maya with Spanish characters during the 17th and 18th centuries.

A fine tribute to human goodness
By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Mar 4, 2009, 00:50

The caravan of 300 kind hearts that set out on Feb. 14 from London to
Gaza, under the auspices of the Viva Palestina organization, is nearing
the Libyan/Egyptian border. And the great news is Egypt has agreed to
open its Rafah border long enough to let their 100 aid-bearing vehicles,
including fire engines, ambulances, trucks, vans and a boat, through.
This is more than just an aid convoy. As the participants of several
ethnicities and faiths admit, UNRWA and other NGOs are far more
effective distributors of essentials urgently needed by the 1.5 million
residents of the Gaza Strip still subsisting under the shameful 14-month
long Israeli siege. The message due to be delivered by these 300
extraordinary "ordinary people" is all important: "We truly
care and we've driven across continents to prove it." For the
rest of us it surely signifies the goodness of human nature and the
strength of people power, which if correctly channeled, can move
mountains.

Their belief in the seemingly impossible has already wrought a miracle.
Their sincerity has melted the hearts of Moroccan and Algerian
politicians who agreed to open their common frontier closed since 1994,
something the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strove to
achieve and failed. Their commitment to people less fortunate has been
exemplary. How many of us would dig into our own pockets and persuade
our families, friends and complete strangers to do the same so that we
could take off in the middle of winter on a mission with an unknown
duration unsure of the welcome we would receive en route? These
individuals had no idea where they would sleep or shower or how they
would get back home once they had donated their vehicles. Most had never
undertaken such a journey before and they hadn't a clue what to
expect. Thankfully, however, their faith has been rewarded.

A few days ago, I telephoned the award-winning journalist and television
chat-show host Yvonne Ridley, who, along with a team from Press TV, has
traveled with the convoy since Day One. As she was driving through the
snow-capped mountains of eastern Algeria, she described the experience,
thus far, as "absolutely amazing" and told me that everywhere
they journeyed they were greeted by smiling well-wishers carrying
goodwill letters addressed to the people of Gaza. They have also been
overwhelmed with gifts of money, bottled water and food, she told me.
Some people's generosity has been incredible.

In France, a boxer purchased a brand new van to replace one that had
broken down and insured it as well. In Morocco, a private individual
erected a marquee and prepared a feast for all, consisting of 22 lambs.
And after refueling in Algeria, they were astonished to discover that an
Algerian businessman had picked up the entire fuel tab; no small sum.
The governments of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have been wonderful.
They have allowed the convoy to travel unimpeded and offered assistance.
But they have ensured it was kept well away from the main population
centers out of reluctance to whip up public emotion, which is already
high following Israel's slaughter of 1,400 Palestinians, a terrible
toll that includes 600 women and children.

However, Libya has spared no efforts to roll out the red carpet.
According to Farid Arada writing on the Viva Palestina website, "The
hospitality of the Libyan people, government and the Qaddafi Foundation
has left the convoy members in tears."
Apparently, the Qaddafi Foundation has "ensured the smooth and safe
passage of the convoy through Libya by providing everything the convoy
needs from free fuel to accommodation, repairs, etc."

Moreover, 60 Libyan vehicles loaded with humanitarian supplies have
joined it with another 240 expected. Indeed, the Libyan daily Libya
Al-Youm quoted one of the convoy members as saying, "This is the
best welcome we received. What is different this time is that the
authorities did not try to stop the people mingling and getting close to
us. Nothing was orchestrated; it was all natural and spontaneous."

This all-British effort, however, has not been supported by the British
government that has sent its own convoy -- British ships to assist
Israel in maintaining its lockdown of Gaza. Moreover, UK authorities
arrested nine members of the convoy before they could even turn on their
engines as terrorist suspects merely because they were carrying large
sums in cash. Well, of course they were. They had been collecting
donations for the journey. They were eventually released and they rushed
to catch up with their friends.

The government-owned BBC has been similarly unhelpful. After refusing to
air a charitable appeal on behalf of charities, such as the Red Cross
and Save the Children, related to Gaza, it has declined to cover the
convoy's progress. One frustrated Irish participant told how he had
approached the BBC several times to interview him only to be told
"no way." In the end, he had to resort to stealth. He managed to
persuade program executives to give him airtime on an entirely different
subject. But when he injected Gaza into the conversation, he says he was
promptly cut off. Sad isn't it?

This endeavor makes British people proud and represents tens of
thousands of donations from every corner of the country, yet British
people have to tune into Press TV -- the only network traveling with the
convoy -- for news.

Now all eyes are on Egypt. I am positive that they will get a rousing
welcome from warm-hearted Egyptians, whose hospitality is second to
none. That's provided they are given access. Whatever happens, the
most important thing is that they get to meet the people for whom this
journey was made and to whom it is dedicated -- the people of Gaza.

God bless them and God bless all those who battled against vehicle
breakdowns, lack of sleep, discomfort and biting cold nights to deliver
their message of love face to face.
"We're like one big family," Yvonne Ridley said. "We
love one another, we fight and we complain. Everyone will emerge
stronger and more capable from this. One young man told me `I think
we need the people of Gaza more than they need us.'" Surely, the
moral of this good news story is that all of us, regardless of
nationality, race or religion, need each other.

Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs.
She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at
heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.

===

Day 19 - A Night Under The Desert Stars..
Wednesday 4th March

It was an experience they will never forget. Spending a night under the
desert moonlight, ' I loved it' one of the drivers said. Even for the
novice campers, it was a unique insight into the beauty of the desert in
the middle of nowhere. I have personally experienced a night under the
desert stars myself in the Sahara Desert last year whilst on holiday in
Morocco, and it truly is an amazing experience!

The first group were about 30KM from Amsa'ad border crossing point
at midday today which is about 2k from the border. The second contingent
is not far away.

They will all gather there until tomorrow morning when they are expected
to start crossing into Egypt.
Depending on arrangements on the Egyptian side and on the processing
time from both the Libyans and the Egyptians border control, they should
start the final leg of their epic journey tomorrow.
According to an Email translated from Arabic (translated by Farid
Arada), sent by the deputy convoy leader, it is likely that the convoy
will take the following route:

SALUM
SIDI KRIR
INTERNATIONAL HIGHWAY
DUMYAT PROVINCE
ALSALAM BRIDGE
AL-ARICH
RAFAH.




The convoy should reach GAZA on Saturday or Sunday depending on
breakdowns and refuelling times.
Will keep you updated..........

Prior knowledge of 9/11 attacks overheard in Hebrew

December 1, 2006 -- In October 2000, approximately 11 months prior to September 11, 2001, a former Israeli Defense Force member and veteran of the Yom Kippur War (1973) was collecting English Ivy cuttings at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery located at McCellen and 245 Mount Olive Ave. in Newark, NJ. The Gomel Chesed Cemetery is a ‘Jewish’ cemetery.

While he was scouting the cemetery for ivy cuttings, he overheard what he believed to be a conversation spoken in Hebrew, which drew his attention. Curious, he walked toward the voices until he was close enough to accurately hear the conversation and confirm that it was indeed being spoken in Hebrew. He found himself along a heavily vegetated fence line that sat on top of an eight-foot high retaining wall, which concealed his presence from the men engaged in the conversation. The two men he saw and overheard were casually leaning against the retaining wall beneath him.

As he watched and listened, a third man arrived to the meeting in a Lincoln Town Car. He emerged from the rear seat of the car while the driver and another passenger remained in the car. The two men leaning against the wall, upon seeing the arrival of the third man, changed their relaxed posture into that of attentiveness, signifying respect and the importance or ranking of the person that had just arrived. It was clear that the two men were waiting and expecting the arrival of the third, indicating that the meeting was pre-arranged.

What the observer of these happenings heard beneath him after the normal niceties were exchanged between the three men alarmed him. The man who arrived in the Town Car said, “The Americans will learn what it is to live with terrorists after the planes hit the twins in September.” One of the men that had been leaning against the retaining wall expressed concerns regarding whether the upcoming presidential election (November 2000) between Bush / Cheney and Gore / Lieberman could impact the plans. The man that arrived in the Town Car pacified the doubts by saying, “Don’t worry, we have people in high places and no matter who gets elected, they will take care of everything.”

Is this Muckraker Report source that has requested that I not use his name in this article, credible? Initially, I had my doubts. However, after listening to his account of what he attempted to do with the information he had obtained in the Gomel Chesed Cemetery, coupled with the plethora of independent media accounts of a vivid Israeli connection to 9/11, I decided that I should avoid contempt prior to investigation, and check out this story.

The source informed me that he wrestled with what to do with the information he stumbled upon while searching for English Ivy. Truthfully, he fears for his life. Having served in the IDF and possessing a firm understanding of how the Israeli government and the Mossad really operates, his fears are justifiable and prudent rather than the result of skittish paranoia.

According to his account, on February 9, 2001, approximately 8 months prior to the airplanes being flown into the twins, he sent an e-mail to then Attorney General Ashcroft informing the Attorney General that he had important terrorism-related information. The U.S. Department of Justice did not directly respond to the source. It forwarded the e-mail to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Shortly thereafter, on March 28, 2001, the source received a letter from Arthur Radford Baker (FBI) informing him that if he had information to share, he should contact the FBI Newark Division. The source contacted the FBI Newark Division and was told that two agents would be in contact with him, but no FBI agents came at that time.

The source continued to call the FBI Newark Division in attempt to pass his information onto the agency. He wanted to do this in person to ensure that it wasn’t carelessly discarded or dismissed. He also sought a guarantee of protection by the FBI. As September 2001 drew closer, he grew more impatient. He began to act with a sense of urgency because in his words, “Time was running out!”

As he was getting nowhere with the FBI Newark Division, the source decided to write a letter to Arthur Radford Baker on May 21, 2001, the person that sent the letter advising him that he should contact the FBI Newark Division. In this letter, the source reiterated that he had important information to share with the government, but would need a guarantee of protection by the FBI before he could disclose all that he knew.

On the day that the source received a response letter from Arthur Radford Baker, June 26, 2001, now less than 3 months prior to the 9/11 attacks, two FBI agents finally paid a visit. They were Agent Robin Gritz and Agent Andrew Stengel. The agents were shown the second letter received that day from Arthur Radford Baker by the source. The letter informed the source that the FBI would not be able to do anything on his behalf.

Without the guarantee of protection, the source was unwilling to disclose the complete details of what he heard at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery in October 2000. However the two agents, Gritz and Stengel, spent 2-3 hours attempting to draw the information out of the source. What he did tell Gritz and Stengel is that there would be an attack in New York City and airplanes would be used. He emphasized once again that he could not provide greater detail without a guarantee of protection.

The source has spoken favorably to the Muckraker Report regarding Agent Gritz and Agent Stengel. They must have been in a difficult situation. It is assumed that they wanted the information the source had, yet were confronted by a letter from the upper echelon of the FBI command structure that indicated that the FBI was not willing to provide protection for the source, regardless of the information he provided. All they could offer was to “see what they could do”. However, given the seriousness and scope of the intelligence the source maintained, he could not risk revealing the information on the flimsy non-committal being offered to him by two FBI special agents, particularly in light of the fact that he had just received a letter from FBI Headquarters telling him that the FBI was unwilling to do anything on his behalf. Even though Gritz and Stengel told the source that they would see what they could do for him, the source has never heard from either of them again.

I contacted the FBI Newark Division on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 to confirm whether Agent Gritz and Agent Stengel met with the source on or about June 26, 2001. I was directed to the FBI Newark Division Legal Unit where I spoke with a woman who identified herself as Amy. She suggested that I put my request in writing and fax it to her, which I did that same day.

On Friday, November 24, 2006 I received a phone call from Amy confirming receipt of my written request. She informed me that she would be out of the office the following week, and that somebody else from the Newark Division Legal Unit would handle my request.

On Tuesday, November 28, 2006 I received a phone call from Kathy at the FBI National Press Office. She informed me that the Legal Unit decided that I needed to file a Freedom of Information Act request.

On Wednesday, November 29, 2006 I contacted Agent Robin (Gritz) Laird. Since her meeting with the source on June 26, 2001, Agent Gritz has been promoted to a supervisor position within a counter terrorism unit at FBI headquarters. Once I had Agent Gritz on the phone, I introduced myself and immediately explained that I was attempting to confirm a meeting that herself and Agent Stengel allegedly had with the source on June 26, 2001. Agent Gritz was already aware of my inquiries. She indicated that she understood that the Press Office was handling my request. I told her that I decided to call her directly and emphasized that I only wish to confirm the meeting. Gritz said, “I’m not allowed to discuss this with you. I would get in trouble.”

The Muckraker Report has received copies of the contact cards that Agent Gritz and Stengel left with the source on June 26, 2001. Both cards have old phone numbers crossed out and new phone numbers handwritten on them. Clearly, the handwriting would be that of the agents.

I also have copies of the letters received by the source from Arthur Radford Baker.

The copies of the letters, the business cards, the way my initial request quickly reached FBI Headquarters, and the fact that Agent Gritz was obviously informed of my inquires and told that she was not to discuss anything with me, is sufficient evidence that there is yet another effort to cover up any information that strays from the “official” 9/11 story, especially any information that further exposes an Israeli connection to September 11th.

In addition to overhearing in Hebrew, the statements, “The Americans will learn what it is to live with terrorists after the planes hit the twins in September”, and “Don’t worry, we have people in high places and no matter who gets elected, they will take care of everything”, the source also reports that he overheard one of the three men in the Gomel Chesed Cemetery say, “The Arabs are so stupid. They don’t even imagine that we are using them.” This comment should not be overlooked.

For the reader that is unfamiliar with the under reported stories of an Israeli connection to September 11, 2001, it is important to do your own research. There is plenty to read and learn. However, as with any other news story that has been purposely censored, you will have to collect the pieces of the puzzle in individual news reports and piece them together to finally see the big picture. Be forewarned, the picture is not pretty.

Here are some search topics to consider.
Israel: Complete 9/11 Timeline
9/11 Investigative Journalist Harassed and Beaten at his Home by Undercover Cops
Odigo says workers were warned of attacks
The Israeli Spy Ring
The Israeli Spy Ring Scandal
Israeli 9/11 Crook Flees with $57 Million to Israel
Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge
Dov Zakheim and the 9/11 Conspiracy
Urban Moving Systems and Detained Israelis

These suggested research links are a great place to start. If you study them, and follow the links imbedded in the content, in addition to further research, you will begin to have a better understanding of the absolute death grip Israeli influence has on the United States. You’ll also discover that this influence is not sentimental but rather criminal and treasonous to the fullest extent. I recommend that you print the content within these links as soon as possible so that you have a hard copy for future reference.

Of all the stories about an Israeli connection to 9/11, the Muckraker Report believes that the story of the Urban Moving Systems and the five Israelis detained on 9/11 is related to what was overheard at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery in October 2000.

As reported by Scott Da Vault for What Really Happened, ‘an employee of Urban Moving Systems, who would not give his name, said the majority of his co-workers were Israelis and were joking on the day of the attacks. (September 11, 2001) The employee said, ‘I was in tears, and these guys (Israelis) were joking, and that bothered me.’ These guys (Israelis) were like, “Now America knows what we go through.”

In October 2000, at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery, a former IDF member and veteran of the Yom Kippur War overheard, in Hebrew:

“The Americans will learn what it is to live with terrorists after the planes hit the twins in September.”

In closing, here are some additional quotes to consider carefully.

I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing – although that was part of it – by a sovereign government…It will become public at some point when it’s turned over to the archives, but that’s 20 or 30 years from now.”

--Senator Graham (FL) as quoted in Senator: At Least One Foreign Country Assisted the 9/11 Terrorists

"While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk."

-- Unnamed reporter as quoted in American Media Censorship and Israel

"Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide."

-- Carl Cameron, as quoted in The Spies Who Came In From The Art Sale
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
-- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.


http://www.iht. com/articles/ 2009/03/05/ opinion/edmoon. php

No crime more brutal
By Ban Ki Moon

Thursday, March 5, 2009
Seldom have I been as shocked and saddened than by what I saw recently in the eastern Congo. There, I met a young woman - a girl, really, just 18 years old. She told me this story.
One day, toward the end of last year while working with other women in a field near her village of Nyamilima, in North Kivu, armed men appeared. They were soldiers, in uniform, who began shooting. The girl tried to flee but was caught by four men. Thus she became a victim of that most brutal of crimes. A group of women found her, near-dead, and took her to a local clinic.

I met her in a hospital in Goma, the provincial capital of the eastern Congo. As a result of the violence against her, she had developed fistula - a rupture of the walls of the vagina, bladder and rectum that renders victims incontinent and prone to infection and disease. It is a traumatic injury of a sort rarely seen in the developed world, except in association with the most difficult childbirths. But in Congo, where rape has become a weapon of war, it is almost commonplace.

Her doctors at the hospital, HEAL Africa, see such cases every day. On the Saturday that I visited, 10 surgeries for fistula were scheduled. Last year, the clinic provided medical treatment to roughly 4,800 victims of sexual violence, nearly half of them children. The numbers are even higher at the PANZI Hospital in South Kivu, according its director, Denis Mukwege, whom I met recently in New York.

The young woman I met was among the luckier ones, if that word can be used to describe such grim circumstances. Surgeons can repair her wounds. But can they heal her soul? She suffers not only from physical injury. She also bears the curse of stigma. She has been ostracized from her village and family, all in the name of a false sense of shame. She faces a very difficult future entirely alone.

Words failed me, hearing of these terrible tragedies. But if it was hard to express the full dimension of my feelings, and I had no such trouble giving voice to my anger. I raised the issue, very strongly, with President Joseph Kabila when we met earlier that morning. I told him that the chief weapon in combating sexual violence is the political will of a leader.

After my visit to HEAL Africa, I also spoke forcefully to the commander of the Congolese forces in the eastern Congo, telling him all that I had heard. I said the same to the governor, the deputy governor, the chief of police and the head of the provincial parliament, as well as other local authorities. I spoke about it again the next day, in Kigali, with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, whose army has just completed a joint military operation with Congo against rebel militias operating in the region.

In short, I spoke about it to everyone I met - and I will keep doing so. Sexual violence against women is a crime against humanity. It violates everything the United Nations stands for. Its consequences go beyond the visible and immediate. Death, injury, medical costs and lost employment are but the tip of an iceberg. The impact on women and girls, their families, their communities and their societies in terms of shattered lives and livelihoods is beyond calculation.

It is sometimes said that women are weavers and men, too often, are warriors. Women bear and care for our children. In much of the world they plant the crops that feed us. They weave the fabric of our societies. Violence against women is thus an attack on all of us, on the very foundation of civilization.

Far too often these crimes go unpunished. Perpetrators walk free. UN peacekeepers in the country performed heroically in protecting civilians during the recent fighting, to the maximum of our capabilities. Of course, they themselves must be above reproach. We, too, have had cases of violence against women within our ranks, in Congo and elsewhere. In each instance we held those responsible to account.

I left Goma encouraged. The situation on the ground is improving. Earlier this year, one large rebel group agreed to disband and has begun to integrate into the national army. The government's joint military operation with Rwanda, completed during my visit, has succeeded in driving another major rebel group away from civilian centers. Our task is to help consolidate these gains. If the fighting in eastern Congo stops, or significantly diminishes, the country's roughly 1.3 million refugees can return home in security and, with UN assistance, begin to rebuild their lives. Acts of violence such as those committed against so many women will become less frequent. Perhaps one day they will end altogether.

This must be our goal. It is fitting that this Sunday, March 8, marks International Women's Day. It is an occasion to speak out, loudly.

Violence against women cannot be tolerated, in any form, in any circumstance, by any political leader or any government. The time to change is now. Let our voices be heard.

Ban Ki Moon is the secretary general of the United Nations.




A MESSAGE FROM NOAM CHOMSKY

March 04, 2009
Dear Enrique,
I'm writing you today because hundreds of
thousands of children in Gaza are suffering
terribly following the recent Israeli
attacks-paid for by your tax dollars and
mine.

Even before this horrifying assault, there
were tremendous shortages of food, medicine,
electricity and fuel because of the Israeli
blockade that has been going on for nearly
two years.

We must do everything we can to stop the
immoral acts of the Israeli government and
our own government's political and financial
support.

But right now, the children desperately need
our immediate help. I'm asking you to make a
contribution to the Middle East Children's
Alliance (MECA) to help meet the most basic
needs of children in Gaza.

I am a founding advisor and supporter of
MECA. For the last 21 years, MECA has been
sending food and medical aid to children in
Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon-more than $12
million in aid to date. And MECA supports
community projects to improve children's
lives in the West Bank and Gaza.

MECA's Director Barbara Lubin just returned
from three weeks in Egypt working to get aid
into Gaza, and then four days in Gaza. She
said, "I have been to Palestine many times
over the last two decades, but never have I
seen anything like what I saw this time. I
will never forget the sadness, the smell of
death, the destroyed homes, schools, mosques
and cemeteries"

In the aftermath of the bombardment MECA
delivered four tons of medicine for infants
and children, an ambulance that's
outfitted
as a mobile intensive care unit, several tons
of powdered milk and baby cereal, 29
state-of-the- art wheelchairs, and a truckload of
crayons,
coloring books and paper to the children of
Gaza and their families.

I am asking you, please, give
whatever you can possible afford to help
save the lives and ease the pain of thousands
and thousands of children who are
traumatized, injured, orphaned, and
homeless.

Your contribution now will help:

* Send more medical aid in the months
ahead
* Launch a major mental health intervention
program for children in Gaza
* Build water purification and
desalinization systems in Gaza
schools
Gaza is no longer on the front page, but I
know you understand that the catastrophe is
far from over for the children and families
who are trying to survive and rebuild their
lives under the most desperate
circumstances.

Thank you so much for your support,
Noam Chomsky
Cambridge, Massachusetts

DONATE
NOW

Middle East Children's Alliance
____________ _________ _________ __

email: meca@mecaforpeace. org
web: http://www.mecaforp eace.org
Forward email

Lancet Withdraws Gaza Article, Author Responds
http://pulsemedia. org/2009/ 03/04/lancet- withdraws- gaza-article/

On 2 February 2009,
The Lancet Medical Journal’s Global Health Network online published Dr
Swee Ang and Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta’s ‘The Wounds of Gaza’, first published here at PULSE. It introduced the article by stating:
Two Surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr
Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here
they describe their experiences, share their views, and conclude that
the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the
event of another attack.
On 2 March 09 the Journal removed the article (though The Lancet Student still has it), stating: “We have taken down the blog post The Wounds of Gaza because of factual inaccuracies.”

No specific faults or amendments to the alleged inaccuracies are
suggested. The reader comments, overwhelmingly in support, remain
posted. A letter penned by four israelis (surprise, surprise!) that
objects to the article was published on February 18. Our friend Dr Swee responds to this development and elaborates on the figures.

Dr Swee Ang on reporting from Palestine and Lebanon
Many of us are afraid to put numbers down because the
pro-Israel Lobby will inundate us with emails and complaints. This has
gone to the extent that only figures sanctioned by the Israelis are
credible. Everything else is viewed as suspect!

Over the last twenty-six and a half years, I have taken many blows
over this kind of issue. The only question I ask myself when writing is
- when is the version according to the victims going to be articulated?
The people of Gaza knew that 5,000 were killed in the Khan Younis
massacre in 1956; 100,000 gone missing in 1967 of which 35,000 were
murdered - just because they cannot go to the Sinai and take pictures,
or dig up the mass graves, does not mean we refuse to let them state
their case.

I looked at Northern Gaza - how often have I driven down Sala -Uddin
Road in 1988 and 1989. I remember every turn and corner- I know the
citrus orchards, the farms and the homes. Often I would stop my
ambulance to give a ride to the farm workers and they in return would
give me freshly picked lemons and oranges. I now see it completely laid
waste by Israeli explosives like the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima,
and yet we were called liars when we put forward the figure of one and
a half million tons of explosives. We have seen apartment blocks not
only reduced to rubble but incinerated - how many kilotons of
explosives are responsible for this kind of damage?

The Lancet Global Health Network withdrawing ‘The Wounds of Gaza’ is not a problem at all. The wonder is how it even got to be published in the first instance.

My book From Beirut to Jerusalem,
when first published in 1989, was reprinted hard back and then
paperback within 2 months, as it was sold out on publication, and again
sold out as soon as reprinted. Then Tom Friedman came out with a book
with exactly the same title half a year later and by the same
publisher. My book was withdrawn from the shelves. It went out of print
for many years.

But the truth has to come out. Most times at great inconvenience to some of us as we well know.

I just want you to know that I am not afraid to believe the
Palestinians. It is a scandal that the extent of the Khan Younis
massacre had not come to light for all these years. It is a scandal
that what happened in the Six Day War was not published. The
intimidation to silence witnesses has to stop. We cannot allow the case
to be stated only by the perpetrators of the killings.

Like the Palestinians in Gaza - I am also not afraid. My witness of
Gaza counts. So does your witness. We should not be afraid of saying
what the Palestinians told us. They are the ones whose families were
killed, who bear the wounds of violence, who are dispossessed and
persecuted. Their voices must be heard.
Dr Swee Ang on the explosives used in Gaza
The actual tonnage of the explosives dropped on Gaza can
only be accurately known to the IDF themselves. So other figures can
only be estimates. However some of us have many years of experience
looking at bombed out countries.

Over the 22 days, Gaza was intensely bombed from land, air and sea.
The bombs dropped from the air are large, and most of them are more
than a ton on average. In the south the bombs used to destroy the
tunnels and structures around them are large heavy bombs.

Of the 21,000 buildings destroyed, 4000 of them are completely
demolished. Some believe that these are by small nuclear fission bombs.
However there is no proof and it is impossible to tell, though the
effect of all structures, especially concrete, being incinerated, would
suggest that the size of these bombs are of the order of
kilotons—whether they are conventional explosives or otherwise. If you
were to look at the effect of the atom bomb on Hiroshima (about 15 - 20
kilotons), you would see the incineration of concrete similar to that
of that seen in these 4,000 buildings. These 4,000 buildings would have
been destroyed by 4,000 kilotons of explosives. The other 17,000
destroyed buildings are the result of bombs of single figure tonnage
judging from the kind of destruction. Apart from bombs being dropped on
buildings reducing them to rubble, bombs were also dropped on fields,
orchards, farms and roads.

We do not know enough of the explosive values of DIME to comment and
hence have not speculated on it. They have been used in Gaza. But from
what is commonly known about them, they are very heavy bombs, more so
than conventional.

As to the person who queried the “million and a half tons of
explosives dropped in 22 days” as such an amount would have obliterated
Gaza [a question put forward to www.womenforpalesti ne.org, a site which
carried Dr Ang’s article]—we can safely answer him that the whole of
Northern Gaza has indeed been obliterated - he or she is most welcome
to see for themselves! The whole stretch of Northern Gaza has been
converted to a complete wasteland. In the South again vast stretches of
agricultural areas have also been demolished.

The figure of one and a half million tons of explosives in our view
is a conservative estimate. Those who are sceptical about it need to
see it for themselves.
Dr Swee Ang on the figure of 35,000 political prisoners being executed during the 1967 Six Day war
The number 35,000 was from the International
Co-operation Department (ICD) of Gaza. Within the first 2 hours of the
attack on Egypt, 11,000 Egyptian soldiers were killed. But we are not
talking about them, as they would be those killed in action.

After the first 2 hours till the end of the 6-Day War, about 100,000
Egyptian and Palestinian combatants were missing and never found. These
included many young men in Gaza who had joined the Egyptians and the
early PLA (of Nasser) to fight the Israelis. There are at least 2 mass
graves in El-Arish on the edge of the Sinai desert, and the Israelis
themselves had admitted to killing those captured, but had not admitted
to killing so many. The Gaza information had stated 35,000 executed,
but we had not asked them the whereabouts of the remaining 65,000. Many
of the missing still have surviving relatives living in Gaza. The names
of those executed could be traced from the ICD in Gaza. 1967 is a long
time ago, and I do not see what advantage it is to the ICD in Gaza to
make up these figures.

As many of you will be aware, a similar situation occurred with the
Sabra and Shatilla massacre, where Palestinian sources believed that
3,000 were killed and IDF only admitted to over 300. Bayan Al-Hout had
compiled at least one and a half thousand names to date, and the list
is still increasing. We still do not know the whereabouts of the men
murdered in the Stadium, now that some soldiers of the Phalange have
admitted to executing people there. The bodies buried in Martyr’s
Square were from within the camp itself, and not those abducted to the
Stadium.
March 4, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Posted in Gaza, Israel, Palestine
Tagged with Dr Swee Ang, Lancet, The Wounds of Gaza

http://www.presstv. ir/detail. aspx?id=87468& sectionid= 3510203

US marks 4 more years of lapdog policies
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:23:56 GMT

The US pledges 'unshakeable' commitment to Israel, suggesting a Palestinian state to be viable only without its democratic government.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Israel on Tuesday after a visit to Egypt to attend a reconstruction conference on Gaza. She held talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and right-wing Israeli politicians who are set to take over affairs in Tel Aviv.

"It is important that the United States always underscore our unshakeable, durable and fundamental support for the state of Israel" and "our unrelenting commitment to Israel's security," she told the echelons on Tuesday.

US "support" for Israel consists mainly of monetary and political support as well as help at the UN Security Council in countering anti-Israel resolutions through the use of its veto powers.

The right-wing success in winning the majority of Knesset seats in the recent Israeli elections has raised questions as to whether the White House will give in to the right-wing idea of a pure Jewish state or whether it will support a two-state solution.

Clinton did touch on the issue, drawing a picture that was not entirely in line with that of hawkish Prime Minster-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who is charged with forming the next government.

"We happen to believe that moving towards a two-state solution is in Israel's best interests", she told a news conference attended by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, saying that "eventually, the inevitability of working towards a two-state solution is inescapable. "

Without mentioning the issue of Israel violating its ceasefire agreement and it killing nearly 1,350 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in its three-week war on the Palestinian territory, she tacitly attributed the crisis in the region to rocket fire from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

According to the US official, military measures adopted by the democratically- elected Palestinian government contradict the demands of "international actors".

"In the absence of Hamas agreeing to the principles that have been adopted by such a broad range of international actors, I don't see that we or they -- or anyone -- could deal with Hamas," Clinton said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

Clinton had also explained the US stance on Hamas at the aid conference in Gaza, insisting that the Palestinian government confined to Gaza is obliged to recognize Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements if it seeks an end to its isolation by the West.

She made no mention, however, of Israel having violated UN resolutions adopted against its policies and its requirement that Tel Aviv withdraw to its 1967 borders -- which is a major bone of contention between the Palestinians and Israel.

Several UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli actions against Palestinians have been defied by Israel. The US, Israel's number one ally, has also exercised its veto powers to prevent the adoption of nearly 45 anti-Israeli resolutions sought by the council since 1972.

Since 2004, Washington has vetoed numerous resolutions which called for Tel Aviv to halt its operations in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip -- which had been occupied by Israeli forces from 1967 to 1994.

With US support, Israel continues to defy agreements it entered at the Annapolis conference and has stonewalled peace by refusing to compromise on key issues, including the status of Jerusalem (al-Quds), the fate of Palestinian refugees, the final borders, Israeli settlements and prisoners.

MSH/AA


The Israel donors conference
By Amira Hass
Tags: Gaza, Hillary Clinton, U.S.

The extent of the funding pledged to the Palestinian Authority by donor
countries reflects the extent of their support for Israel and its
policies. The American taxpayers' contribution to the Ramallah
government's bank account is dwarfed by the large sums the U.S.
government donates to Israel every year. It's impossible to get excited
over the American pledge of $900 million (two-thirds of it for
strengthening Salam Fayyad's government and the rest for Gaza's
recovery) and forget the $30 billion the United States has promised
Israel in defense aid by the end of 2017, as last week's Amnesty
International report noted.

The $900 million pledged to the Palestinians in Sharm el-Sheikh
should be seen as part of the regular American aid to Israel. As an
occupying power, Israel is obligated to assure the well-being of the
population under its control. But Israel is harming it instead, after
which the United States (like other countries) rushes to compensate for
the damage.

The Clinton and Bush administrations - and Barack Obama appears to
be following in their footsteps - erased the phrase "Israeli
occupation" from their dictionaries and collaborated with Israel in
ignoring its commitments as enshrined in international law. The
billions of dollars that Israel receives from the United States for
weapons and defense development - which played a significant role in
the destruction in the Gaza Strip - are part of Israel's successful
propaganda, which presents the Rafah tunnels and Grad rockets as a
strategic threat and part of the Islamic terror offensive against
enlightened countries.


The West has blown the Hamas movement out of proportion, exaggerating
its military might to the point of mendacity; this allowed for an
extended siege and three weeks of Israeli military intractability. In
the Palestinian and larger Arab world, this embellishment helps Hamas
depict itself as the real patriotic force.

The hundreds of millions of euros that have been donated or pledged
to help Gaza, as though it were beset by natural disasters, are
overshadowing the trade ties between Europe and Israel. The Western
countries concerned about humanitarian aid for the Palestinians also
buy from Israel arms and defense knowledge developed under the
laboratory conditions of the occupation, that serial creator of
humanitarian crises.

And the 1 billion petrodollars? First of all, they were generated
from a natural resource that logic dictates should benefit the Arab
peoples. Second, they were pledged at a conference that boycotted Gaza
(neither Hamas nor business people or social activists from the Strip
participated in the donors conference). This is how Saudi Arabia lends
its hand to the American and Israeli veto of inter-Palestinian
reconciliation.

Every cent paid to the Palestinians - whether for the Ramallah
government's budget or medical treatment of children wounded by Israeli
pilots or soldiers - lets Israel know that it can continue its efforts
to force a capitulation deal on the Palestinian elite. Only by
recognizing that surrender is the goal can one understand that 16 years
after Oslo, no Palestinian state was established. When did Shimon
Peres, Ariel Sharon and Tzipi Livni begin talking about two states?
Only after their bulldozers and military bureaucrats crushed the
realistic physical basis of a Palestinian state. And this basis is:
June 4, 1967 land (including East Jerusalem), Gaza - an inseparable
part of the state - and zero settlements (and that applies to Gilo and
Ma'aleh Adumim).

During the 1990s it was still possible to describe donations to the
Palestinians as an expression of confidence and hope in Israel's
readiness to free itself of the occupation regime it had created. But
not in 2009. Support for Israeli policy - this is the only way to
understand the fact that other countries keep pouring in hundreds of
millions of dollars meant to put out the fires set by this policy,
without extinguishing the source of the blaze.
http://www.haaretz. com/hasen/ spages/1068553. html

The monumental folly at
Sharm el-Sheikh

By
Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
The
international pledges at Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday of some $4.5 billion
in aid
to the Palestinians to rebuild the Gaza Strip and promote the
development of
the West Bank seem like a monumental folly in view of the surrounding
political
context of this gesture. The financial generosity of the donors was
largely
offset by their political cowardice on two fronts: in challenging
Israel to
live according to the norms of law in its treatment of the Palestinians
under
its occupation; and in coming to grips with Palestinian political
realities,
especially the legitimacy and role of Hamas.

On
both
counts, the generous donors seem unwilling to admit that they are
perpetuating
a wasteful cycle of Palestinian and international construction in
Palestine
that is being set back by repeated Israeli destruction through war,
followed by
repeated rounds of reconstruction. This recurring cycle is striking for
its
sheer waste, but also for what it reveals about the willingness of the
international community to use reconstruction aid as a political tool -
a
failed tool that should be abandoned in favor of a more productive
approach.

It
was
bad enough when the Israeli government in recent years was able to
convince the
United States to largely adopt its positions in the Arab-Israeli
conflict; it
was another step backwards two years ago when the four Quartet members
(the US,
the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia) also sided with
Israel by
refusing to deal with Hamas until the latter recognized Israel and
stopped
military resistance. This trend has now gone one step further by lining
up a
wide range of donors who seem to be willing to use their aid to try to
bolster
the authority of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, while denying
Hamas any
international legitimacy and ignoring Israeli actions on the ground
that make
peacemaking seem so distant.
This
occurs while Israel makes it clear that it plans to continue expanding
its
settlements in the occupied West Bank, and while the expected coalition
that
will rule in Israel seems to represent a step backwards in peacemaking
-
through its unwillingness to formally accept the creation of a
Palestinian
state in the West Bank and Gaza as a realistic element of a permanent
agreement. Throwing large amounts of money into Palestinian
reconstruction
while reinforcing a political context that only perpetuates Israel's
regular
destruction of Palestinian institutions is wasteful folly at best, and
complicity in criminality at worst.

The
latest danger is that major external players like the United States and
the
Europeans will now try to equate the Israeli colonization of the West
Bank and
Jerusalem with the small and largely harmless mini-rockets that Hamas
and
others are firing mostly into the desert of southern Israel. These are
not
parallel or equal actions and should not be bundled into a package of
moral or
political equivalence. Both must stop if peace and normalcy are to
reign one
day for both people, but lasting peace requires the ability to grapple
with the
deeper causes of the conflict.

This
means, from the Palestinian perspective, addressing the siege and
strangulation
of Gaza, the colonization of the West Bank by Israeli settlers, and the
wider
issue of Palestinian refugee-hood from the 1947-1948 period. From the
Israeli
viewpoint, peace requires the Palestinians and Arabs to live with a
predominantly Jewish Israeli state that is seen as legitimate, and to
stop
armed resistance against it. This is the equation that touches on the
core,
existential needs and rights of both sides.

Camouflaging
the Israeli colonization of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem under
a cloak
of money while the underlying colonization remains unchanged has not
worked in
the past and will not work today. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
will
discover this for herself soon enough as she enters the difficult world
of
Arab-Israeli politics. Her statement at the Gaza reconstruction
conference
Monday that the US supports the creation of a Palestinian state
alongside
Israel will remain devoid of credibility or impact if Washington
continues to
acquiesce silently in the Israeli colonization of Palestinian land.

Resolving
a conflict must start with a clear and honest acknowledgment of the
basic
causes of the conflict. In this case conflict resolution requires
ensuring the
integrity of statehood for Palestinians and Israelis, and removing the
causes
of their mutual communal exile, disenfranchisement and sense of
vulnerability
in the recent past. Using billions of dollars in international aid to
maintain
much of the Israeli siege of Gaza while trying again to prop up the
Abbas
government and ignoring the role of Hamas will not move anyone closer
to
genuine peace or security.
Repeating
the mistakes and biases of the past is a foolish way of approaching
peacemaking. We have enough adults in the Middle East who act like
animals; the
last thing we need is adults in the international donor community who
act like
children.
Rami
G.
Khouriis published
twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
ISRAELI ARMY IMPOSES ANOTHER CURFEW ON WEST BANK VILLAGE,
INVADES HOUSE OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE TEAM
For Immediate Release

Date: March 3, 2009
Time: mid-evening to late night

HARIS, SALFIT –
Several Israeli military jeeps entered Haris, a village in the Salfit
district of the West Bank, again tonight and declared an all-night
curfew, allegedly in response to stone-throwing on Highway 5, which is
used by Israelis. This was at least the second time in the past month
that curfew had been declared in this village; on February 24th the army also placed a roadblock in front of Haris's main
entrance, which it did not remove for five days. Tonight was also the
first time that soldiers entered the home of the international peace
team based here.

Villagers
returning to Haris tonight, including an International Women's Peace
Service team member, were questioned as they entered and asked to show
identification. A few metres on from the entrance of the village,
soldiers from two jeeps surrounded the IWPS team member with guns
pointed, demanding to know where she was going, and to open her bag.

By 9:30 p.m. two military vehicles had arrived on the street and at the house where this peace team is based. Outside the house, IWPS's landlord,
who holds a responsible position with the local government, was
questioned as to his international tenants. One soldier insulted him by
calling him a bad name, he reported.

The
soldiers then entered the home of the landlord and of one of his
brothers next door, bringing the brother out of the house and asking
him about the stone-throwing – and what he did for a living. The
landlord was also asked about the stone-throwing. He was at home alone
with his young son (aged seven), and worried about his wife returning
home during the curfew with their four-year-old daughter (from a visit
with their eldest son in prison).

Soldiers
insisted that the landlord and the IWPS team member come out of the
house; the soldiers again had their guns pointed, and the team member
was once again asked to show her passport. One young soldier told her
it was illegal for her to be living in Haris, as it was a "closed area," though later retracted this statement after consultation with his senior officer.

Soldiers
then demanded entry into the IWPS flat, on the second floor of the
house, and two soldiers searched from room to room with guns drawn.
Only one team member was at home at the time. The house was not
ransacked or searched for anything other than people, and the incursion
was brief.

The
visit marks the first time that soldiers have entered the apartment of
this volunteer organization. As well, Haris has not had a roadblock in
front of its main entrance for several years, nor is curfew routinely
declared. Since February, military planes and helicopters have also
been heard flying overhead at night. These incidents form part of an
increased army presence and control over Salfit (West Bank) villages in the last two months.

For further information, please contact the IWPS office at 09-251-6644, or iwps@palnet. com.

Aftermath (4) Hammad’s death barely made the
news
04 March 2009
In this new series of personal testimonies, PCHR looks at
the aftermath of Israel’s 22 day offensive on the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing
impact it is having on the civilian population.

html format:
http://www.pchrgaza ..org/files/ campaigns/ english/aftermat h/4.html


pdf format:
http://www.pchrgaza .org/files/ campaigns/ english/aftermat h/aftermath_ 4.pdf
The following article brings us the psychological scars in the aftermath of the horrors lived by the Gaza residents. But please notice what the BBC understands by a "balanced" and "impartial" report: blaming the "militants" on all accounts, parroting Israeli lies to justify their crimes against an innocent and besieged population.

Struggle to help Gaza's traumatised

Hala, 7, has stopped speaking since her brother's death, and covers her head when he is mentioned

By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Gaza

Omsyat, 12, has become nervous and aggressive, Hala, 7, has
completely stopped speaking and Sobhy, 11, burned the toys he was
brought with a candle, says their mother, Wafa Awersha.

Psychiatric nurse Rowiya Hamam nods as she sits on a thin mattress on floor of the tent in al-Atatra in northern Gaza.

In what is now their home, Mrs Awersha updates her on how the
five children are coping with their brother's death in the recent
conflict.

Sobhy stares at the floor fiddling with a toy as he is asked about his loss
Ibrahim, 9, was hit by Israeli bullets on 4 January and
died before his siblings' eyes, with their injured parents barely
conscious nearby, the family say.

His body lay for four days outside their house before the fighting waned enough for neighbours to take it away on a donkey cart.

Israel blames civilian casualties on militants' practice of
operating from populated areas and says Palestinian fighters fired at
its forces during the daily unilateral three-hour ceasefire it
instituted to allow emergency workers to reach the dead and injured.

Several hundred of the 1,300 Palestinian deaths were children
and some accounts of civilian deaths have raised concerns of war
crimes.

After Ibrahim's death, Sobhy began behaving like his sibling and asking to be called Ibrahim, Ms Hamam says.

"School's fine," he says, when asked. "I like maths." But he stares at the ground and tears soon well in his eyes.


Audio gallery: Children's drawings
Mrs Awersha says he used to be top in his class, but he struggles to concentrate now.

Hala covers her head with a blanket whenever Ibrahim is mentioned,
while Diya, 3, beheaded the soft toys he was given, Ms Hamam says.

'For my kids'
Ms Hamam is one of a team of mental health workers in Gaza that
say they have been "overwhelmed" by the scale of the needs since the
conflict.

She has visited the Awersha family several times, bringing toys
and games, trying to help the children express their feelings and
teaching them deep breathing exercises.
Mrs Awersha smiles and teases the children as she scrapes the
girls' matted hair into pony tails and helps them put on the school
smocks rescued from the rubble of their home. The tent buzzes with fat,
black flies.

Mrs Awersha exhales hard when asked how she is coping. And then the tears flow.

Wafa says she jokes with her children, but cries when she is alone
"Maybe you found me making people laugh, but honestly I'm doing this just for my kids," she says.
Whenever she goes back to her bulldozed home and stands in the spot where Ibrahim was killed, she weeps and weeps, she says.

Gaza's mental health professionals have been working flat out in
schools, kindergartens, clinics, homes and tents to try to help similar
cases.
Hassan Zeyada, who heads the Gaza Community Mental Health
Programme's centre in Gaza City, and his colleague, psychiatrist Sami
Owaida, say they are exhausted.

"Many of our colleagues lost relatives. We have to give support, but sometimes we feel that we need support," says Dr Oweida.

Dr Zeyada also points out the difficulty of treating "ongoing
and continuous trauma" in a place where a long-term political solution
remains elusive.

"Sometimes you feel you are wasting your efforts. Another
invasion, another war, another attack will happen - you feel they will
demolish or destroy all your efforts," he says.

Anxiety
Ongoing trauma too plagues the residents of Israel's southern
towns, who live under the constant threat of Palestinian rocket fire,
with about 8,000 rockets and mortars fired since 2001.

At least 18 people have been killed in that time. Children
under eight have known little else but a constantly heightened state of
anxiety.


Children hit hard as Gaza toll rises
Sderot longs for end to rockets
And even after the recent fighting, which Israel said was aimed at
reducing the rocket fire, a steady flow of rockets and mortars has
continued.

But while mental health workers on both sides say at least 20-30%
of the population suffers symptoms of trauma, the Israeli south is
clearly better equipped to tackle the problems than Gaza.
GCMHP say there are only five clinical psychiatrists in Gaza trained to international standards, and no clinical psychologists.

'Basics for life'
John Jenkins, the World Health Organization' s mental health
project manager for the West Bank and Gaza , says that, as well as
difficulties in getting people with the right skills into Gaza ,
shortages of drugs such as tranquilisers and antidepressants are a
constant problem.

He says it is too early to assess the scale of the mental
health needs from the recent conflict, as the impact of trauma takes
time to emerge.

Living in a tent makes it harder for children to regain a sense of normality
But human beings' ability to deal with stress is "quite remarkable",
he says, and the majority of people do not need specialist treatment.

"What people




Report on UK companies with links to settlements

An
excellent 68-page comprehensive report on UK companies that have direct
economic links with illegal Israeli settlements, prepared by researchers
at the School of Oriental and African Studies in
London.

See www.monabaker. com/documents/ UK_companies_ and_Israeli_ settlements_ SOAS_090210. pdf

++++++++++++ +++++++++ +

CALL FOR ENDORSEMENT OF BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS

The Palestine National Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
Committee has launched a major endorsement gathering drive for BDS
leading up to the Global Day of Action on March 30 (which was called by
the World Social Forum last month). (See below for more information) .

BDS is a people's tool, focused on mobilizing world public opinion on a
tangible effort to end the era of Israeli apartheid, occupation and
human rights violations against the Palestinians. Like with South
Africa, it has the real potential to transform the situation here
sooner rather than later. Israel's apartheid and occupation will not
last and the sooner it ends, the more lives will be saved and the
sooner the building of a real non-secular democracy can begin (or two
democracies depending if there is one state or two).

Please support this important effort by:

1) Adding your organizations as an endorser:
www.bdsmovement. net/?q=node/ 52

2) Asking other organizations you work with to endorse.

3) Posting a link on your group’s home page (if you have a website) to
the BDS endorsement page for the month of March

4) Publicizing the BDS to your members and at your events.

5) Organizing and/or participating in a local BDS event for March 30

CALL FOR ENDORSEMENT OF BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS

Now is the time to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
to end the disastrous era of Israeli apartheid, occupation, and human
rights violations against the Palestinian people.

During the month of March, 2009, the Palestine National BDS Committee
has launched a major endorsement gathering drive. This leads up to the
Global Day of BDS actions on March 30 that was announced at the World
Social Forum held last month in Brazil.

Please join us by endorsing BDS! Sign on at:
www.bdsmovement. net/?q=node/ 52. If you can sign on by March 28, your
name will be included in the endorsement declaration for March 30.

If you can, please add a link to this endorsement page on your
organization’s home page for the month of March. And please pass this
request along to other groups and help publicize BDS to your members,
constituents, and the general public.

We also invite you to take part in the March 30 Global BDS Day of
Action by organizing and participation in local and regional actions.
Please promote this day of action on your websites and to your mailing
lists. For more information, see:
http://www.bdsmovem ent.net/? q=node/314

After efforts and sacrifices of many years, we are at a historical
turning point. Poignantly aware of yet another war crime by Israel,
concerned citizens and activists around the world are mobilizing. Now
is the time to accelerate the international campaign for BDS. This
successful strategy has been used in many human rights efforts
including the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. With the
momentum of world opinion and action, it will also work to end the
systematic violation of human rights by Israel.

Formore information, please contact endorsements@ bdsmovement. net.

Consider sending a Rapid
Response

Dear
all

I trust some or most
of you are aware of the very telling analysis in this week's BMJ re hostile mass
lobbying of medical journals when they publish something that casts Israel in a
bad light. Rapid Responses- which can be posted up by anyone at bmj.com- are
flowing thick and fast. Usual accusations etc. Fiona Godlee and Tony Delamothe,
who wrote the editorial, could I'd say do with a few more Rapid Responses of
support. They have been brave!

One point not made
yet is that its not just BMJ, and World Medicine previously. The Lancet has had
pressure and threats periodically from the same sort of sources- this goes back
as far as their reporting of Pauline Cutting's experiences as a surgeon in
Beirut refugee camps in 1982 during Israeli invasion.

Please
consider sending a Rapid Response asap, even if brief and no more than
to support BMJ coverage of this issue and their resistance to hostile pressures
to suppress debate legit in a medical journal that has always taken seriously
its remit to address not just disease etc but its social and political
roots.

All papers can be
accessed easily via bricup.org.uk# bmj. Or go to bmj.com, find the article, click
on 'Abstract' or something, click on 'Sens a Response'.

To send Rapid
Response click on 'Send a Response' to left of each article.

Cheers
Derek

Adalah-NY: The
Coalition for Justice in the Middle East
Media Contact: info@adalahny. org
UK Government Boycotts Israeli
Tycoon Lev Leviev over Settlement Construction

Decision a Victory for Coordinated Campaign in Palestine,
US, UK and Israel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY, March
4 – The government of the United Kingdom has
decided to boycott Israeli diamond and real estate mogul Lev Leviev over his
companies’ construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in the
Occupied West Bank, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily reported today. The decision by the UK government followed a coordinated advocacy
campaign by human rights advocates in New York, the UK, Palestine and Israel
demanding that the UK government end plans to rent the new UK Embassy in Tel
Aviv from Leviev’s company Africa-Israel.

The UK’s Tel
Aviv Ambassador notified Leviev of the decision by letter, following a British
parliamentary debate, and inquiries with Leviev’s company Africa-Israel over its
activities in the West Bank, Ha’aretz reported. According
to Ha’aretz, “The embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed the
details of the story.”

The Ha'aretz article did not note the construction
of the settlement of Zufim on the land of the village of Jayyous by Leviev's company Leader.The Israeli army has
recentlyintensified
efforts to crush Jayyous’ protest campaign against the construction of
Leviev’s settlements and Israel’s wall on village land. Sharif Omar, the head of
Jayyous’ Land Defence Committee, commented, “We feel heartened by the UK
government decision opposing Leviev’s settlement construction, and we expect our
brothers and sisters in the UAE to follow the UK government's
example by banning Leviev from selling his diamonds in Dubai. We need
more pressure in order to end Israeli repression, return our land, and
restore our rights.”

Adalah-NY has
held 13 protests at Leviev’s Madison Avenue jewelry store since it opened. UNICEFand Oxfam have renounced Leviev over human
rights abuses, Hollywood stars have distanced themselves from him,
and the Dubai government is under pressureto boycott Leviev’s businesses.. Additionally,
Africa-Israel has also lost 90% of its value and has been engaged in
an embarrassing New York
real estate battle.

Leviev's
companies have built Jewish-only homes on occupied Palestinian land in the
Israeli settlements of Zufim, Mattityahu East, Har Homa and Maale
Adumim, impoverishing villages
like Bil’in and Jayyousand violating international law. Leviev
also funded the settlement organization the Land
Redemption Fund. In December, the Israeli financial
journal Globes published an expose of Leviev's serious
human rights abuses and failure to fully comply with the Kimberley Process in
Angola (article in
English). And in Namibia, Leviev
recently fired around 200 striking diamond polishers,
some of whom were already struggling to
survive on less than
$2 per day.

After Israeliand Britishpapers reported the UK’s plans to rent its new Tel Aviv
embassy from Leviev, eight groups in the US, UK and Palestine
launched a letter-writing
campaign to the UK’s Foreign
Office. Among those writing to demand a boycott of Leviev were ex-BBC Middle
East Correspondent Tim Llewelyn, US academics Norman Finkelstein and Noam
Chomsky, Vice President of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini, and British lawyer Daniel Machover, writing in the
Independent. A November 22
letter in the Guardian by
eight Palestinian civil society leaders, including Palestinian Legislative
Council members Mustafa Barghouti and Hanan Ashrawi, called on the UK to
“publicly guarantee that it will not do business with settlement-builders
such as Lev Leviev.”

Omar
Barghouti, one of the initiators of the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS)said, "I wholeheartedly congratulate British
activists and Adalah-NY for this substantial achievement for the boycott
movement. This is a step in the right direction for the British government, a
government that has taken thousands of steps in the wrong direction, not least
of which is its open complicity in Israel's war crimes in Gaza and the rest of
the occupied territory. Time for a British arms ban on
Israel.”

PSC Upcoming Actions and
Events Update

- Protest at Israel Science
day
- Lobby of Parliament for
Gaza
- PSC Activists
Days
- 30 March Boycott
Actions

============ ========= ========

Protest at Israel
Science Day

LondonThursday 5 March

Meet at 9.30am, Science Museum, Exhibition Road, South Kensington,
London

For more information: www.bricup.org. uk

Please circulate widely!!


=========== ========= ========

Join us at
the Emergency Lobby of Parliament for Gaza - Wednesday 11 March

We all watched
the carnage in Gaza with horror in January. Hundreds of
thousands of us marched in protest and in solidarity with the people trapped
under Israeli bombardment.

We need to take
that spirit of solidarity right into Parliament, on an emergency lobby in
support of Gaza
from 2-6pm on March 11th. MPs rely on your vote - we need as
many people as possible to come to the lobby and show MPs that this is an issue
that they cannot ignore.

Lobbying your MP
is easy and effective –It’s best to
contact them in advance, but if you can’t, please just turn up on the day and
we’ll give you all the information you need.

The Lobby
will be followed by a meeting in the House of Commons “Remember Gaza” at 7pm in the House
of Commons, Committee Room 9.

Speakers include:
Jamal el
Khoudary, independent MP from Gaza
Richard
Burden MP
Martin
Linton MP
Sarah Teather MP

For more details
visit http://www.palestin ecampaign. org/index9b. asp?m_id= 1&l1_id=3& l2_id=62& Content_ID= 452

============ ========= =======

PSC
Activists Day Workshops

PSC is having
a programme of activists days across the country, starting with Bristol and Sheffield on 14 March and London on 21 March. More
activists days will be set up over the next few weeks.

These
activists days will focus on discussion on the current situation and how we can
build a mass solidarity movement and work to change government policy. We will
be looking at how to build support including; working locally, acting globally;
getting the message out; liaising with local media; lobbying MPs and MEPs; and
involving all sections of the community.

Whether you are a new member, or have
been involved for some time – whether you are already part of a branch or want
to set a new one up – these days are for you!

-14 March
Bristol 12-4pm: BroadmeadBaptist Church, Union Street:
BS1 3HY

-
14 MarchSheffield 12-4pmSt.MatthewsCh urch, 45 Carver Street
(off Division
Street) S1 4FT

- 21 March London(Central London - venue
to be confirmed)

============ ========= ========

March 28-30th – Mass
Boycott Focus on Waitrose and Tesco

At the World Social Forum in Belem last year
the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions National Committee
called for a global day of action on Monday March 30th 2009 in support
of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

In the
UK we are urging PSC supporters to
take action against Waitrose and Tesco during the 28th-30th March as part of the
international call to action. Waitrose and Tesco are the most intransigent
British supermarkets on the issue of Israeli settlement goods and Israeli
produce. Both supermarkets have failed to engage with Palestine Solidarity
Campaign when we have raised the issue of settlement goods and labeling with
them.

Supermarkets are beginning to feel the effects of our boycott actions.
During January and February countless stalls, pickets and demonstrations were
held outside supermarkets. There have been several reports in the press that
Israeli goods are remaining in warehouses or on the shelves past their
sell by date. The groundswell of support for Gaza has brought the boycott to the attention
of thousands of supporters; we need to engage these supporters in our
actions.

For more info on the Waitrose and Tesco positions and
points to make to them on Israeli and Israeli settlement produce see http://www.corporat ewatch.org/ ?lid=3207

Or you can always just say 'I believe you
should not be selling Israeli goods or goods from the illegal Israeli
settlements - because Israel is occupying stolen land, is destroying
Palestinian lives and livelihoods and has committed many war crimes against the
Palestinians - most recently in Gaza'. Or words to that
effect…


Actions we
would like you to take:

- On Monday March 30th make
sure everyone you know calls Waitrose Customer Services on 0800
188 881 and Tesco Customer Services on 0800 505555 to complain
about their sale of Israeli products and illegal Israeli settlement
products.

- Organise a boycott action in your area outside
Waitrose or Tesco during the period from 28th-30th May
- Try to get local
press interested. Why not organise a stunt, street theatre for example, outside
your local store, to attract media attention.
- send a text message to 4 other people and ask them
to call Tesco and Waitrose too. We need as many people to phone in on the 30th
as possible.
- Write to
Waitrose and Tesco:
Waitrose:
Email: customer_service@ waitrose. .co.uk
Waitrose Customer Service Department
Waitrose
Limited
Doncastle Road
Bracknell
Berkshire
RG12 8YA
Fax 08456 049
050
Tesco:
Email:customer.service@ tesco.co. uk

Tesco PLC
New Tesco House
Delamare Road
Cheshunt
Hertfordshire
England EN8 9SL


============ ========= ========= =======For more events
up and down the country please visit our website, and click on events to see the
full list.
www.palestinecampai gn.org

============ ========= ========= =======
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign
(PSC)aims to raise public awareness
about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian
people. PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to
bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent,
non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from
communities across the UK. Join PSC
today!

PalestineSolidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London
WC1N
3XX
Tel: 020 7700
6192
Fax: 020 7609 7779
Email: info@palestinecampa ign.org
Web: www.palestinecampai gn.org

Last update - 12:00 04/03/2009
Revealed: German firm used hair from Auschwitz victims in textiles
By Haaretz Service
Tags: israel news, jewish world

The German auto parts manufacturer Schaeffler used the hair of Auschwitz inmates in order to make textiles during the Second World War, according to Polish researchers.

In an interview with the German Spiegel TV, Dr. Jacek Lachendro, the deputy head of the Auschwitz Museum research department, stated that almost two tons of the hair on display in Auschwitz was found at the Schaeffler factory in Kietrz at the end of the war.

He added that former factory workers had said that in 1943, two trainloads of hair were delivered to the Kietrz factory.

Polish authorities found it bore traces of Zyklon B, the gas used to murder over 1 million Jews in the Auschwitz gas chambers.

Related articles:
· New Berlin exhibition shows blueprints for Auschwitz death camp
· Poland seeks foreign donations to preserve Auschwitz facilities
· Auschwitz security officers arrest Nazi memorabilia dealer
http://www.haaretz. com/hasen/ spages/1068584. html

http://www.huffingt onpost.com/ 2009/03/03/ un-racism- conference- euro_n_171419. html

UN Racism Conference: European, Muslim Nations Clash Over Israel
ELIANE ENGELER| March 3, 2009

GENEVA — European Union countries Tuesday stepped up
their opposition to Muslim attempts to shield Islam from criticism and
attack Israel through a U.N. conference on racism.
EU members were unusually outspoken in
appearances before the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying they were
worried about preparations for a global racism conference to be held
next month because attention was being diverted from the real problems
of racial discrimination.
"I am deeply disturbed by the turn this event is taking," Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said.
"The thematic world conference is used by some to
try to force their concept of defamation of religions and their focus
on one regional conflict on all of us," Verhagen told the 47-member
council.
References to Israel and protection of religion
in the current draft conclusion being negotiated for the so-called
Durban II conference are unacceptable, Verhagen said.
"We cannot accept any text, which would put
religion above individuals, not condemn discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation, condone anti-Semitism or single out Israel," he
said. Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Italy voiced similar concerns..
Islamic countries, still angry over cartoons and
films attacking Muslims, have been campaigning for wording that would
equate criticism of a religious faith with a violation of human rights.
The informal negotiations have proven difficult with many issues that
marred the first U.N. conference on racism in 2001 re-emerging _ such
as criticism of Israel.
The April 20-25 meeting is designed to review
progress in fighting racism since the global body's first such
conference eight years ago in Durban, South Africa.
That 2001 meeting was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the
legacy of slavery, and particularly marred by attacks on Israel and
anti-Israel demonstrations at a parallel conference of non-governmental
organizations.
The U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the
2001 conference over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for
criticism and likened Zionism _ the movement to establish and maintain
a Jewish state_ to racism. The European Union also refused to accept demands by Arab states to criticize Israel for its "racist practices."
In the end, the 2001 conference dropped criticism
of Israel. It urged governments to take concrete steps to fight
discrimination and recognized the plight of the Palestinian people and
the need for Israel to have security.
Israel and Canada had already announced they
would will boycott Durban II. The Obama administration said Friday the
U.S. will stay away from this year's conference unless its final
document is changed to drop all references to Israel and the defamation
of religion.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottakisaid Monday that countries should not put conditions for the
participation in the meeting. Durban II should deal with contemporary
forms of racism, such as religious profiling and Islamophobia, he said.
CONTROVERSY:

This is a very interesting item, more for what is implied than for what is said. So the author says: Yet the religion of those who carry out this campaign is not to be
mentioned, lest it "associate" the faith with human rights violations
or terrorism.

Well? Why should the Islamic faith be mentioned always a Muslim commits a crime, but silenced when it is a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist? The draft isn't so wrong after all: the faith of the criminal or terrorist or offender should not be relevant, even if he or she claims to do it on its behalf.

And now look at this: In Paragraph 6, an obvious attempt is being made to confuse
ethnicity with confessional allegiance. Indeed this insinuation (incidentally
dismissing the faith-based criminality of 9/11 as merely "tragic") is
in fact essential to the entire scheme. If religion and race can be run
together, then the condemnations that racism axiomatically attracts can be
surreptitiously extended to religion, too.

You know, for a moment I thought the author was referring to Israel, as enshrined as a Jewish state, a definition which raises a lot of criticism for its apartheid implications. But no, God forbid, the author is referring to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Don't expect for him to add Israel to the lot, he may be afraid and rightly so to be branded as anti-Semitic! !!

But let us concede that the author has a point in stating: the absurd and
many-times discredited assertion that religion can be the basis of a
nationality. Great! As extended to the Jewish nationality, the pillar of Zionism and its state, Mr Hitchens might contribute to the root of a big problem we have in the Middle East, lest he loose his job!

And last but not least: The
useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon
of moral blackmail, is testimony to its success.Meaningless ? Useless? I wouldn't dare say so as far as anti-Semitism is concerned. And yet both "terms" share a lot. For sure the hatred of neo-Nazis... And in reverse, if Islamophobia is a bludgeon
of moral blackmail, what about anti-Semitism when used to silence anti-Zionist criticism of Israeli racist policies ...?

Oh, oh, look out, this is mined territory: don't say a word!

http://www.slate. com/id/2212662/




Don't
Say a Word
A U.N. resolution
seeks to criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith.
By Christopher HitchensPosted
Monday, March 2, 2009, at 2:07 PM ET
The
Muslim religion makes unusually large claims for itself. All religions do this,
of course, in that they claim to know and to be able to interpret the wishes of
a supreme being. But Islam affirms itself as the last and final revelation of
God's word, the consummation of all the mere glimpses of the truth vouchsafed
to all the foregoing faiths, available by way of the unimprovable, immaculate
text of "the recitation," or Quran.

If there
sometimes seems to be something implicitly absolutist or even totalitarian in
such a claim, it may result not from a fundamentalist reading of the holy book
but from the religion itself. And it is the so-called mainstream Muslims,
grouped in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, who are now demanding through the agency of the United Nations that Islam not only be allowed to make
absolutist claims but that it also be officially shielded from any criticism of
itself.

Though
it is written tongue-in-cheek in the language of human rights and of opposition
to discrimination, the nonbinding U.N. Resolution 62/154,
on "Combating defamation of religions," actually seeks to extend
protection not to humans but to opinions and to ideas, granting only the latter
immunity from being "offended." The preamble is jam-packed with
hypocrisies that are hardly even laughable, as in this delicious paragraph,
stating that the U.N. General Assembly:
Underlining
the importance of increasing contacts at all levels in order to deepen dialogue
and reinforce understanding among different cultures, religions, beliefs and
civilizations, and welcoming in this regard the Declaration and Programme of
Action adopted by the Ministerial Meeting on Human Rights and Cultural
Diversity of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, held in Tehran on 3 and 4
September 2007.

Yes, I
think we can see where we are going with that. (And I truly wish I had been
able to attend that gathering and report more directly on its rich and varied
and culturally diverse flavors, but I couldn't get a visa.) The stipulations
that follow this turgid preamble are even more tendentious and become more so
as the resolution unfolds. For example, Paragraph 5 "expresses its deep
concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights
violations and terrorism," while Paragraph 6 "[n]otes with deep
concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the
ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the
tragic events of 11 September 2001."

You see
how the trick is pulled? In the same weeks that this resolution comes up for
its annual renewal at the United Nations, its chief sponsor-government
(Pakistan) makes an agreement with the local Taliban to close girls' schools in
the Swat Valley region (a mere 100 miles or so from the capital in Islamabad)
and subject the inhabitants to Sharia law. This capitulation comes in direct
response to a campaign of horrific violence and intimidation, including public
beheadings. Yet the religion of those who carry out this campaign is not to be
mentioned, lest it "associate" the faith with human rights violations
or terrorism. In Paragraph 6, an obvious attempt is being made to confuse
ethnicity with confessional allegiance. Indeed this insinuation (incidentally
dismissing the faith-based criminality of 9/11 as merely "tragic") is
in fact essential to the entire scheme. If religion and race can be run
together, then the condemnations that racism axiomatically attracts can be
surreptitiously extended to religion, too. This is clumsy, but it works: The
useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon
of moral blackmail, is testimony to its success.

Just to
be clear, a phobia is an irrational and unconquerable fear or dislike. However,
some of us can explain with relative calm and lucidity why we think
"faith" is the most overrated of the virtues. (Don't be calling us
"phobic" unless you want us to start whining that we have been
"offended.") And this whole picture would be very much less muddied
and confused if the state of Pakistan, say, did not make the absurd and
many-times discredited assertion that religion can be the basis of a
nationality. It is such crude amalgamations—is a Saudi or Pakistani being
"profiled" because of his religion or his ethnicity?—that are
responsible for any overlap between religion and race. It might also help if the
Muslim hadith did not prescribe the death penalty for anyone trying to abandon Islam—one could then be surer who was a
sincere believer and who was not, or (as with the veil or the chador in the
case of female adherents) who was a volunteer and who was being coerced by her
family.

Rather
than attempt to put its own house in order or to confront such other grave
questions as the mass murder of Shiite Muslims by Sunni Muslims (and vice
versa), or the desecration of Muslim holy sites by Muslim gangsters, or the discrimination against Ahmadi
Muslims by other Muslims, the U.N. resolution seeks to extend the
whole area of denial from its existing homeland in the Islamic world into the
heartland of post-Enlightenment democracy where it is still individuals who
have rights, not religions. See where the language of Paragraph 10 of the
resolution is taking us. Having briefly offered lip service to the rights of
free expression, it goes on to say that "the exercise of these rights
carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be
subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for respect
of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of
public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and
beliefs." The thought buried in this awful, wooden prose is as ugly as the
language in which it is expressed: Watch what you say, because our declared
intention is to criminalize opinions that differ with the one true faith. Let nobody
say that they have not been warned.
--

Thanks for your support and commitment,

!VENCEREMOS!
Enrique
Email: Enrique Ferro: ferro.enrique@ gmail.com

BSP and future of India
Posted by: "Karthik Navayan" navayan@gmail.com
Thu Mar 5, 2009 9:39 am (PST)
BSP and future of India

The elections of 2009 will go in the history of Indian politics as the
unprecedented one. This is the outcome of the politics that or
socio-political dynamics triggered in the past by the great leaders like
Phule and his worthy successor, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. The concern for more
equal society led these men (and many more men and women) into public life.
They devoted their lives to the creation of equal society, and they were
very clear about their goals and how they can be achieved through humane and
non violent way. Using surgical tools, they performed autopsy of the
diseased Indian society to free it from the great disease- the caste system.
The social movement in India has no parallel. The plights of the people
discriminated by the caste system has no parallel. In each social group,
humanity is divided on various grounds. The caste system divided humanity on
the ground not intelligible to rational mind. It is difficult to discern the
ground on which the humanity is divided into 6000 conflicting castes. The
principles of division; purity and accident of birth, the former more
abstract and later more concrete, in practice led to straightforward
classification of Indians into three major classes. These are Brahmins,
non-Brahmins and Bahishkrit, besides the religious minorities, more or less
divided into the same the classes.

The cornerstone of Babasaheb Ambedkar€ ’²s life was to gain humanity for the
Bahishkrit (the Obstracised Indians/boycotted Indians). His politics was
shaping in the context of changing political situation in India. He
formulated his strategies based on the real time need of the time and its
future implications. The strategies that he formulated worked and triggered
movements and organisations, which are acting as an instrument to realise
his vision. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is one of instruments or, as it were,
an organ evolved out of churning that took place within the Bahishkrit
Indians, since the advent of Babasaheb Ambedkar. BSP is not only evolved,
but kicking as more advanced political species in the game of struggle for
survival. This is not at all Darwinian struggle for the survival of the
fittest. This is the struggle for the survival of the values to ensure the
survival of all. The value that will ensure the survival of all is the value
of fraternity; is the value of equality and value of liberty. Edmund Burke
remarked liberty, without wisdom and virtue, is dangerous, when he
criticised French revolution, and by all means all revolutions, that are
sudden and bloody. Babasaheb Ambedkar realised this very early on, and never
guided his people on the track of violence (sadly, some of his followers are
praising the violent ways in his name). This does not mean that Dr.
Babasaheb Ambedkar was political pacifist, far from that, he politically and
legally very aggressive, and participated in the political and social
reforms, to change the dynamics of the society.

The Government of India Act 1935 was the outcome of debates following Round
Table Conference during 1930-1933, in which Babasaheb Ambedkar participated
and contributed in evolving the principles of transfer and distribution of
powers amongst the Indians. Though political groups like Indian National
Congress wanted power to be transferred to them, they opposed any
distribution of it to Bahishkrits. The post 1917 struggle in India is
nothing but the discussion on distribution of power, as it was made clear
that power will be eventually transferred to Indians. Power is transferred
to Indians in 1947, and then began the process of creation of a nation
state. Our Republic is the creation of the constitution that came into force
in 1950. Lot of content of the Government of India Act was mainstreamed into
the present constitution. The distribution of power to all Indians, and to
the Depressed Classes (Scheduled castes of today) is therefore not only
important in the historic light, but also in the light of our Nation. Our
nation is not just founded on the principle of sovereignty over land, but on
liberty, equality and fraternity and much needed social harmony. Social
harmony is unattainable in the unjust and unequal society.

In the present circumstances, the power is not distributed equally in India
and tilts heavily in favour of certain classes. BSP is the great leveller of
the power following on the principles and strategies that Babasaheb Ambedkar
developed. Even if we take the state wise survey of the distribution of
power post-constitutional era, it is largely concentrated in the hands of
dominant castes. Marathas in Maharashtra, Kammas and Reddys in Andhra,
Vokkalingas in Karnataka, Chettiyars in Tamil Nadu, to cite a few cases of
unequal distribution of power. South India is totally hijacked by a few
castes, and the dominant castes not only perpetuate the atrocities, but
divide the other fragile castes to further their political goals, to cite an
example, Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra.

BSP is not only upsetting the dominant castes, but the dominant political
rhetoric of the political parties. Congress party has no issue, their only
issue is to retain the power, and eventually control the administration.
There is no commitment to constitutional goal and furtherance of it. BJP has
issue of Hindutva (to state it clearly, Brahminatva) , and its commitment to
Brahminatva is clear. Only BSP has the clearly led program of annihilation
of the caste system and hence program for the realisation of our
constitutional goal and hence of realisation of the nation state as the
ground for liberty, equality, fraternity and harmony. The success of BSP
lies in building on the political consciousness that Babasaheb Ambedkar
cultivated throughout his struggle. In Indian political scenario, only BSP
has and will have the strong national core group of the voters. Congress
party is benefitting from its structures and experiences in manipulating
caste groups and its history of 128 years. BJP benefitted by its educated
executives. The BSP benefits from the strong core of voters (and possibility
of further consolidation in all the states over time) belonging to
Bahishkrit Samaj fighting for creation of values for all. No political party
commands such a strong core of voters in India. This is going to make BSP a
central player in the coming years. The consolidated power of the followers
of Babasaheb Ambedkar will attract other castes cheated and exploited over
years by other dominant castes and parties they represent.

The success of BSP depends on two factors: strong core of committed voters
and all inclusive alliances. Strong core of committed voters will lead to
people ready for alliances from all over. Non transferable vote bank and
consolidation of it is the key to success of the political process in India
and levelling of power. In great sweep, power was snatched away from
Scheduled Castes in 1932, but reworking on important issues and several
areas, Babasaheb Ambedkar ensured that India will be ushered into a great
nation. The election of 2009 is a call for change and democracy and
potentially an important stepping stone in creating just and harmonious
India. To compare Indian politics with the American politics is stretching
the imaginations too far, as the nature of the politics is widely different.
BSP€ ’²s rise to power will have unprecedented impact on the world polity.

Mangesh Dahiwale

--
Battula Karthik Navayan, Advocate, C/o Siddhartha Hospital,Parigi Road,
Shadnagar,
Mahaboobnagar District, 509216-AP Cell:09346677007,
email:navayan@gmail. com
http://karthiknavay an.blogspot. com/
http://www.orkut. co.in/Main# Profile.aspx? uid=103798050959 32756525

Latest news on Bt brinjal and GM crops in India
Posted by: "Indian Society For Sustainable Agricultur" indiansocietyforsustainableagri@yahoo.co.in
Thu Mar 5, 2009 9:41 am (PST)


News Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development
************ ********* ********* *********
€ ¢Â
1. SC to hear plea on GM crops€ ¢â’ ’¹ moratorium
2. Mahyco€ ¢â’ ’¹s Bt brinjal encounters health safety roadblocks
3. Study shows Mahyco€ ¢â’ ’¹s Bt brinjal is unsafe
4. Bt brinjal can resist attack of FSB larvae, safe for consumption: ISAAA study
€ ¢Â
5. 6,000-year-old species of rice discovered in Meghalaya
------------ --------- --------- --------- --
€ ¢Â
SC to hear plea on GM crops€ ¢â’ ’¹ moratorium
€ ¢Â
http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ sc-to-hear- plea-on-gm- crops-moratorium /428093/0
€ ¢Â
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted: 2009-02-26 20:22:35+05: 30 IST
Updated: Feb 26, 2009 at 2022 hrs IST
€ ¢Â
New Delhi, Feb 25: The Supreme Court is slated to hear next month a petition seeking moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops as the petitioners have now come up with fresh evidence from some leading scientists with a view to strengthen their argument on the issue.
€ ¢Â
In a supplementary rejoinder affidavit filed before the apex court last week, the petitioners namely Aruna Rodrigues, PV Satheesh and Rajiv Baruah submitted six letters from eminent scientists like Dave Schubert, Dr Michael Antoniou, Stuart Newman, Andrew Kimbrell, Bill Freese, Jack Heinemann and Lawrence Busch endorsing Pushpa M Bhargava's regulatory guidelines as essential criteria for safety testing and risk assessment of GMOs.
€ ¢Â
Bhargava is the founder-director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and former vice-chairman of the National Knowledge Commission. He is a special invitee to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) by an order of the Supreme Court in the ongoing writ petition 260 of 2005.
€ ¢Â
Bhargava has been critical about GEAC's haste in releasing GM crops without adequate bio-safety protocol. He has alleged a nexus between seed companies, bureaucrats and politicians.
€ ¢Â
The scientists in their letters have expressed anguish and surprise at the "unprofessional and unscientific attitude" of GEAC. Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury criticised GEAC's "distasteful personal attack of a truly significant figure of Indian science, Pushpa M Bhargava" which according to him is neither relevant to his expertise nor to the dispute.
€ ¢Â
The petitioners also filed reviews made by Gilles-Eric Seralini, University of Caen, France and president of the Scientific Council of the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering, (CRIIGEN) and Judy Carman, director, Institute of Health and Environmental Research Inc. (IHER), Australia exposing the hollowness of the claims of Mahyco's bio-safety data on Bt brinjal.
€ ¢Â
In their rejoinder, the petitioners pointed out the genetic contamination of maize by GM crops in Mexico, the centre of origin.
€ ¢Â
They have also submitted five more independent and "peer reviewed" studies that raise serious concerns about the bio-safety hazards of GM crops. These include a new report by the Italian government's National Institute of Research on Food and Nutrition published in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry and has found significant changes in the immune response of young and old mice that have been fed the GM maize MON 810.
€ ¢Â
A long-term study on female mice fed on genetically modified soybean: effects on liver ageing' published by Histochem Cell Biology, 2008 and a three generation study on rats fed with Bt corn - Biochemical and Histopathological Investigation - by Aysun Kilic published by Elsevier in late 2007 have also been submitted before the apex court.
€ ¢Â
The petitioners also submitted a peer reviewed study on Bt cotton was carried out at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute which suggest that Bt cotton may constrain the availability of N, but enhances P-availability in these soils. The study is entitled € ¢â’ ’³ Mineral Deficiency Stress: Transgenic Bt-Cotton Affects Enzyme Activity and Nutrient Availability in a Sub-Tropical Inceptisol. The study - Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic and Placental Cells € ¢â’ ’³ made by Nora Benachour and Seralini in 2009 has also been submitted before the apex court.
------------ --------- --------- --------- ----
€ ¢Â
Mahyco€ ¢â’ ’¹s Bt brinjal encounters health safety roadblocks
€ ¢Â
http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ mahycos-bt- brinjal-encounte rs-health- safety-roadblock s/412210/ 0
€ ¢Â
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted: 2009-01-19 23:10:24+05: 30 IST
Updated: Jan 19, 2009 at 2310 hrs IST
€ ¢Â
New Delhi, Jan 18: The commercial release of Mahyco's Bt brinjal has run into rough weather, with the Union health ministry and consumers' organisations questioning about the health safety aspect. In the 91st meeting of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee GEAC), the representative from the health ministry raised the issue of health safety on the basis of some international studies.
€ ¢Â
The Union health minister, Anbumani Ramadoss has also recently taken cognisance of the developments, after pressures from NGOs and farmers' organisations. The Supreme Court's nominee and noted biotechnologist Pushpa M Bhargava has been equally critical of GEAC's hurry to release GM food crops without adequate bio-safety studies. Mahyco, however, continues to claim absolute safety of its product.
€ ¢Â
The NGOs campaign against the release of Bt binjal has been fuelled by global studies questioning the health and bio-safety generated by developer Mahyco, which has borrowed the technology from the US seed multinational Monsanto. The first such study to come in recent times was that by a team headed by Gilles-Eric S€ ¢Ã©ralini of the France-based Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN). This study is followed by that of the Australia-based Institute of Health and Environmental Research Inc (IHER).
€ ¢Â
Judy Carman and her team at IHER found that the type of studies undertaken by Mahyco were insufficient to prove the health safety of Bt brinjal. The study alleged that there have been no reproductive studies and the studies that have been done, often used animals and measurements that were inappropriate or insufficient measures of human health.
€ ¢Â
The methodology and results were often insufficiently reported to be able to determine what the studies were actually measuring or how various variables were measured.
Included in this, the study said that the statistical results have not been reported to a suitable standard. For example, means, standard deviations, and p-values, which would be required for any peer-reviewed scientific journal, were not done. The sample sizes were insufficient to be able to find statistical difference for many measurements even if real clinical differences were occurring between groups. Indeed, much of the research presented by Mahyco could be regarded as being burdened with Type II error. This type of statistical error occurs when sample sizes are so low that the study cannot realistically be expected to find a difference between groups of animals even if clinical differences were occurring, the study said.
€ ¢Â
The study concluded that in such a situation, Bt brinjal was unsafe for human consumption and would expose 1.15 billion Indians to health hazards, particularly children, expectant mothers and elderly persons. Cancer, autoimmune problems, heart diseases, diabetes, or infectious diseases may be the outcome.
€ ¢Â
The pro-GMO lobby has, however, raised the issue that food and environmental security can be achieved, by citing the Environmental Resource Indicators report recently released at the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting by Field to Market, the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --
€ ¢Â
Study shows Mahyco€ ¢â’ ’¹s Bt brinjal is unsafe
€ ¢Â
http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ study-shows- mahycos-bt- brinjal-is- unsafe/408810/ 0
€ ¢Â
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted: 2009-01-10 22:07:12+05: 30 IST
Updated: Jan 10, 2009 at 2207 hrs IST
€ ¢Â
New Delhi, Jan 9: An independent analysis of Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company€ ¢â’ ’¹s (Mahyco) Bt brinjal bio-safety data revealed that it was unsafe for human consumption.
The finding was based on the dossiers submitted by the seed company in its application to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) requesting for commercial release of Bt brinjal.
€ ¢Â
The study was submitted by a team headed by Gilles-Eric S€ ¢Ã©ralini of France-based Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) which concluded that Bt brinjal might be a serious risk to human and animal health.
€ ¢Â
The study noted, € ¢â’ ’¼The parameters affected in animals fed with Bt brinjal are in blood cells or chemistry, but in different manners according to the period of measurement during the study or sex. In goats, the prothrombin time is modified and biochemical parameters such as total bilirubin and alkaline phosphates are also changed, as well as feed consumption and weight gain. For rabbits, less consumption was noted and also prothrombin time modification, higher bilirubin in some instances, albumin, lactose dehydrogenase and the hepatic markers alanine and aspartate aminotransferases. Sodium levels were also modified, as well as glucose, platelet count, mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration and haematocrit value. In cows, milk production and composition changed by 10%-14% .€ ¢â’ ’½
€ ¢Â
€ ¢â’ ’¼Rats which were GM-fed had diarrhoea, had higher water consumption, suffered from decrease in liver weight as well as decrease in the relative liver to body weight ratio. Feed intake was modified in broiler chickens with glucose in some instances. Average feed conversion and efficiency ratios are changed in GM-fed fish. All that makes a very coherent picture of Bt brinjal to be potentially unsafe for human consumption. It will be also potentially unsafe to eat animals who have these problems. These differences are most often not reported in the summaries of different experiments, but are present in the raw data, € ¢â’ ’½the study added.
€ ¢Â
According to the study, these differences were, when discussed, disregarded often on the grounds that they were within the range of a wide € ¢â’ ’¼reference€ ¢â’ ’½ group. The reference group represents a wide range of brinjal types and is not a strict comparison. Other reasons for disregarding the differences were that they did not show linear dose response or time response, or that they were only present in either males or females, but not both. Such declarations that the differences seen were not of biological relevance and unsubstantiated by the data presented from the feeding trials.
€ ¢Â
Clear and significant differences were seen to increase food safety concerns and warrant further investigation. Bt brinjal cannot be considered as safe as its non-GM counterpart, the study concluded.
------------ --------- --------- --
€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â Bt brinjal can resist attack of FSB larvae, safe for consumption: ISAAA study
€ ¢Â
http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ bt-brinjal- can-resist- attack-of- fsb-larvae- safe-for- consumption- study/429491/ 0
€ ¢Â
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted: 2009-03-02 23:01:04+05: 30 IST
Updated: Mar 02, 2009 at 2301 hrs IST
€ ¢Â
New Delhi, March 1: A study conducted by the global pro-GMO lobby, ISAAA, has claimed that Bt brinjal can resist the attacks of the common enemy fruit shoot borer (FSB) larvae and also be safe for human consumption.
€ ¢Â
The study, co-authored by Bhagirath Choudhary and Kadambini Gaur, said that Bt brinjal hybrids containing cry 1 Ac gene express Bt protein in all parts of the plant throughout its life cycle. To get activated and exhibit insecticidal property, Bt protein must be ingested by FSB.
€ ¢Â
When FSB larvae feed on Bt brinjal plants, they ingest Bt protein along with plant tissue. In insect gut, it is solubilised and activated by gut proteases generating a toxic fragment. The activated insecticidal protein then binds to two different receptors in a sequential manner.
€ ¢Â
Quoting extracts from a paper in the American Academy of Microbiology, the study said that the first contact of the insecticidal protein is with the cadherin receptor, triggering the formation of oligomer structure. The oligomer then has increased affinity to a second receptor, amino-peptidase- N (APN).
€ ¢Â
The APN facilitates insertion of the oligomer into membrane causing ion pores. These events disrupt digestive processes such as loss of trans-membrane potential, cell lysis, leakage of the mid-gut contents and paralysis that in turn cause the death of FSB.
€ ¢Â
The 102-page study entitled - The Development and Regulation of Bt brinjal in India - however, said that Bt brinjal does not harm or pose any threat to higher order organisms and non-target organisms, as they lack specific receptors and conditions for activation of Bt protein in their gut and hence is safe for human consumption.
€ ¢Â
Apart from Cry 1 Ac gene, Bt brinjal contains a selectable marker, nptll gene, which encodes enzyme neomycin phosphotransferase, Cauliflower Mosaic Virus 355 promoter and aad gene, which encodes for bacterial selectable marker enzyme3n(9)- 0- aminoglycoside adenyl transferase.
€ ¢Â
Addressing the concern of a possible genetic contamination of non-Bt brinjal, the study said that the maximum distance travelled by pollen could be between 15 to 20 metres and outcrossing could vary from 1.46% to 2.7%.
€ ¢Â
The study attempted to resolve the issue of the centre of origin of the crop by saying that reports suggested Central and South America as the centre of origin of the species of genus Solanum to which potato and brinjal belong.
€ ¢Â
It further said that brinjal probably originated from African wild species S incanum, S melongena and was first domesticated in South-East China and taken to the Mediterranean region during Arab conquest in the 7th century. There are studies, which also report that brinjal originated in the Indo-Burma region.
€ ¢Â
The ISAAA study however noted that as brinjal appears in ancient Indian literature, India may be a secondary centre of diversity, while Africa may be the primary centre. Noted scientist Vavilov, however, regarded India as the original home of brinjal.
€ ¢Â
The ISAAA study lauded the regulatory system in India and hoped that India would be able to give to the world the first Bt brinjal.
------------ --------- --------- -
€ ¢Â
6,000-year-old species of rice discovered in Meghalaya

€ ¢Â
http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ 6-000yearold- species-of- rice-discovered- in-meghalaya/ 409467/0
€ ¢Â
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted: 2009-01-12 23:11:04+05: 30 IST
Updated: Jan 12, 2009 at 2311 hrs IST
€ ¢Â
Shillong, Jan 11: Meghalaya Mission for Indigenous Knowledge has found a 6000-year-old traditional species of rice in the Garo hills of the state.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
This biological diversity is now an important genetic store for rice worldwide. Mira Nair's film - Still, the Children are Here - told exclusively through the voices of the Garos, follows two extended families in the village Sandolpara, as they grapple with survival and change in this native community. Elders say they are poorer today. "Even though we reap the same grain as the grandmothers, we are poorer," they say.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
In Sandolpara, 6,000-year-old species of rice are still grown. Women are the caretakers of these varieties of rice. They select the right varieties for cultivation and handle processing and storage of rice. Men help in cultivation and manage the fields. "These hardy strains of rice must be protected and should not be contaminated by any hybrids or genetically modified (GM) crops," the document paper of the Meghalaya Mission for Indigenous Knowledge noted.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
The draft document also pleaded that the government should provide subsidies to farmers for growing these traditional varieties, so that the traditional rice varieties are available to consumers at cheaper rates and can compete with already-subsidised rice from other parts of the country.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
The vice chancellor of the Shillong-based North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Pramod Tandon said, "Our major objective is to conserve and conduct research in traditional knowledge and to improve the socio-economic conditions of the people." He said that the important gene centre located in the campus had not been given due consideration by the Union government, which funds this university. The gene bank contains rich depositories of traditional rice and citrus among other rare plants.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
He mentioned water lily as a rare species now found only in Meghalaya. Earlier, some species of water lily were found in Siberia, Russia, though the climatic conditions in Meghalaya and Siberia vary to a large extent. "We have taken up the difficult job of micro-propagation of the water lily in a farmer's pond in Smit village," he said. The seeds of the water lily are eaten by the local people.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
Among other rare plants are Dancing Girl, Holly Tree and Mishmi Getta. Dancing Girl varieties are under the women's empowerment scheme of the department of biotechnology (DBT). "Unplanned urbanisation, mining and quarrying have destroyed the biodiversity and ecology of the region, alleged Tandon. He disclosed that the Mishmi Getta was illegally exported to China for its medicinal value and how the Italians once indulged in biopiracy of the Texas Bacata, the extracts of which are used to cure breast cancer. The Khasiana variety of the Picher plant is grown in nitrogen deficient land in the state. Out of 13,000 orchid varieties, 560 alone are found in north-eastern India.€ ¢Â
€ ¢Â
The Guwahati-based North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd has documented the methods of propagation and the use of several aromatic and medicinal plants like Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin Benth), Citronella (Cymbopogon winterianus Jowitt), Lemongrass (Cymbopogon flexuosus Steud Wats), Vetiver (Vetiveria zizanioides Linn), Sugandhmantri (Homalo,ena aromatica Schott), Agar (Aquilaria agallocha Roxb), Sarpagandha (Rauvolfia serpentine Benth ex Kur), Pipali (Piper longum Linn), Amlakhi (Emblica officinalis Gaertn), Hilikha (Terminalia chebula Retz), Bhomora (terminalia belerica), Arjuna (Terminalia arjuna Wight and Arn). Among other crops of economic importance are Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni-Nemsi, Vanilla planifolia Andrews and Brahmi or Bacopa monnieri (L) Wetts.




EIGHTH REPORT: A SEARCH TO GORKHA - POINT: AIGL AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Posted by: "Dipak De" ranjan2dev@bsnl.in
Thu Mar 5, 2009 9:43 am (PST)
TO

PWAP,

INDIA.

EIGHTH REPORT: DATE 28/02/2009

A SEARCH TO FIND 'GORKHA' - POINT: ALL INDIA GORKHA LEAGUE AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

A SECTION OF NEPALESE IN DARJEELING AGITATING TO CREATE A STATE, NAMED "GORKHALAND" BY BIFURCATING THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL IN INDIA.

According to information -

In 1923 the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (All India Gorkha League) was formed at Dehradun in United Province i.e. Uttarpradesh state, now in Uttaranchal state. It spread to Darjeeling. On 15 May 1943, All India Gorkha League (AIGL) came into existence in Darjeeling of West Bengal.

[...Damber Singh Gurung, B.L (LLB) M.L.A (Bengal) raised the voice on behalf of Gorkhas living in India. Resolving in view of the fact that the condition of the Gorkhas spread throughout India was very deplorable and the political status of the Gorkhas was uncertain and the future of the Gorkhas was at stake, a political party of Gorkha [Nepali, Bhutia and Lepcha], THE ALL INDIA GORKHA LEAGUE was born on 15th May, 1943. League made an article of faith that Gorkha minorities should be given equal rights at everything. League brought to the notice of the House that there were three million Gorkhas domiciled in India who were educationally and economically backward. League looked after the interest of Gorkhas in all respect, particularly to establish the political rights of Gorkhas in India. Gorkhas domiciled in British India realized that at this time it was their first duty to fight all they can] - website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) .

[History, 1940:

Within five generations, our forefathers cleared the vast areas of forest in Bengal, Assam and Burma in quest of new life........ ........

.........In due course of time, the Gorkhas domiciled in British India consisted of Military pensioners, Government servants, Traders, Farmers, and Plantation Laborers and were about 3 million, most of whom were settled in Darjeeling (in Bengal), Shillong (in Assam), Dehra Dun (in United Provinces) and in Burma and the rest scattered all over British India] - website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) . [Note: 3 million means 30,00,000]

[In India, Nepalese were living in great numbers since five generations. Every State of India had Legislative Assembly where laws were framed on behalf of interest of the public. If arbitrated correctly, according to the number, ten seats in the Legislative Assembly of Assam should be allotted but Gorkhas were debarred. In Bengal, only one Gorkha, the president of All India Gorkha League, Mr. Damber Singh Gurung was the representative of Darjeeling District but this seat was not reserved, neither appointed. It was Bengal's sly policy of appeasement toward Gorkhas, perhaps to win their votes. Damber Singh didn't see much advantage in being a member of the Constituent Assembly as long as we didn't have our own representative in the Advisory committee. It was the function of the Advisory Committee to give advice to the Constituent Assembly as to the manner in which the safeguards for the minorities, backward and tribal peoples were to be provided] - website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) .

[In other countries, according to the law, foreigners were entitled to have citizenship if they complete five or ten years of service toward that country. But, Gorkhas were denied citizenship and constitutional rights in these countries [India and Burma] they fought and gave their life for] - website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) .

WHO IS A GORKHA (as appeared in the above-mentioned presentation) ? ---------

1. Within five generations, our forefathers cleared the vast areas of forest in Bengal, Assam and Burma in quest of new life .. Gorkhas domiciled in British India... were about 3 million.

2. A political party of Gorkha [Nepali, Bhutia and Lepcha], THE ALL INDIA GORKHA LEAGUE was born.

3. In India, Nepalese were living in great numbers since five generations.

4. According to the number, ten seats in the Legislative Assembly of Assam should be allotted but Gorkhas were debarred.

According to above (in the year 1940) -

GORKHA MEANS NEPALI, BHUTIA AND LEPCHA;

GORKHA MEANS NAPALESE;

GORKHAS WERE DOMICILED IN INDIA AND REACHED ABOUT 3 MILLION;

GORKHAS WERE NOT CITIZEN OF INDIA (as mentioned Gorkhas were denied

Citizenship) .

[Aims and Objectives of Gorkha League:

1. To organize and consolidate all the Gorkhas spread throughout India and elsewhere into one organic whole.

2. To make realize that the Gorkhas belong to the great martial race.

3. To preserve the civilization, tradition and culture of the Gorkhas.

4. To further the development of the Nepali language and make the propaganda for its use.

5. To establish the political rights of the Gorkhas in India.

6. To promote friendships and harmony with all the communities of India.

7. To have connection with the Independent kingdom of Nepal the mother country of the Gorkhas with devotion and loyalty.

8. To have separation of Darjeeling district and Doors from Bengal] -

website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) .

According to the website of the All India Gorkha League, as mentioned above -

It appears that GORKHAS WERE NOT CITIZEN OF INDIA as mentioned in the 'aims and objectives Gorkha League', in serial number 7 -

[To have connection with the Independent kingdom of Nepal the mother country of the Gorkhas with devotion and loyalty].

[Shri Dambar Singh Gurung: L.L.B., MLA (Bengal), Member of Constitutional Assembly of Free India, President: AIGL (1943-1948)

No Gorkhas should forget the most respectable person Sri. Dambar Singh Gurung, because he was the main person to move the intellectuals to raise the voice for the Gorkha identity and the rights of the Gorkhas interspersed among the people in India.

He was both foresighted and farsighted, so he formed a political party named "All India Gorkha League" in order to seek the security and the rights of the Gorkhas on the 15th May 1943 in Darjeeling.

He use to be anxious about the Gorkhas uncertain future. So he met with the then prominent leaders of India, namely Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Baldeu Singh, Subhas Chandra Bose, Manlana Azad, Jinna, Sardar Patel and so on, and discussed the difficulties the Gorkhas were facing and their future] - website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) .

[1934 - The All India Gorkha League submitted the Memorandum to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar B. Patel, the Congress High Command, the Cabinet Mission and the Constituent Assembly through the Sub-Committee.

1934 - The All India Gorkha League submitted the Memorandum at Gangtok to Honorable Dr. B.V. Keskar, Deputy Foreign Minister.

1948 - One of the esteemed members and also President of the All India Gorkha League debates in the Constituent Assembly Debates.

1952 - All India Gorkha League led by N.B. Gurung its President, submitted another Memorandum on the Problem of Darjeeling District on 29th April 1952 to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Prime Minister of India when he visited Kalimpong. This Memorandum summarised the demands made at different times during the last 45 years. Firstly by local organizations of the Hill people including the Hillmen's Association and, in recent years, by the All India Gorkha League.

1957 - On 1st December 1957 representatives of various political parties including Deo Prakash Rai, the leader of the All India Gorkha League and Ratanlal Brahamin leader of the Communist Party of India submitted another Memorandum to Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlala Nehru during his visit to Darjeeling.

1981 - The All India Gorkha League led by its President P.T. Lama, sent a letter to the Home Minister Zail Singh on 13th April, 1981 ] -

website of AIGL dated 17/10/2008 (to be checked with original to find correctness) .

When the All India Gorkha League (AIGL) formed? - In the year 1923 or in the year 1943? (Note: 1948, it might be 1946).

[A Letter to Damber Singh Gurung by Netaji Subash Chandra Bose
The following is a letter sent by Netaji Subash Chandra Bose to Damber Singh Gurung

ALL INDIA CONGRESS COMMITTEE

38/2 Elgin Road, Calcutta

8th August 1938

Dear Mr. Gurung,

I was very glad to have discussions with you regarding the grievances of the Hill people of the District of Darjeeling. The grievances as jotted down by you are just and legitimate, and I think it is the duty of the Government to remedy them. So far as the Congress Party is concerned, I can assure you that we will do our very best to remove these grievances as early as possible. As you are aware Congress Party represents the opinion of the masses. It is therefore, our duty to serve the masses and to redress their just and legitimate grievances. Most the grievances you mentioned are common to the masses in the rest of Bengal. It is our firm belief that not only should these grievances be redressed but we should aslo give special attion to Hillmen in the District of Darjeeling, who from a small minority in the province and who have been suffering from various disabilities and unfortunately are backward in many ways. When the Congress Party is in a position to remedy the above grievances, not only will it undertake that work as speedily as possible but will also see that a special Committee is appointed to investigate the special problems of the Hillmen and report as to how these problems should be solved. In the light of the above remarks, I hope you will have no difficulty in appreciating the attitude of the Congress towards the special problems and grievances of the Hillmen in your District.

Yours sincerely,

Subash Chandra Bose] - to be checked with original to find correctness.

According to above-mentioned presentation, it appears that - Shri Damber Singh Gurung submitted representation to Shri Subhas Chandra Bose for the 'grievances of the Hill people of the District of Darjeeling' AND NOT ON BEHALF OF GURKHAS i.e. Gurkha soldiers.

[Constituent Assembly Debates (Proceedings) - VOLUME I

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

Thursday, the 19th December 1946

The Constituent Assembly of India met in the Constitution Hall, New Delhi, at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. Chairman (The Honourable Dr. Rajendra Prasad) in the Chair.

PROGRAMME OF BUSINESS

Mr. Chairman: Yesterday I told the Members that I would be able to give some decision with regard to the programme of the work of the Assembly this morning. I have been considering that matter and some Members have seen me also in that connection. The work we have to get through is this........ ....

............ ......... ......... ......... .........

Mr. F. R. Anthony (Bengal: General): It is quite impossible. I am personally prepared to sit as long as the Members are ready to sit but not after the 26th......

The Hon'ble Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru (United Provinces: General) I want to bring to your notice a fact that may interest the House, that the- United Nations General Assembly did sit even on Sundays, both the Committees and the General Assembly, in order to expedite its work........ .........

............ ......... ......

Mr. Kiran Shankar Roy (Bengal: General): Mr. Chairman, I think that the Members should have copies of the Rules at least two or three days before general discussion so that they may consider the Rules ............ ......

The Hon'ble Mr. B. G. Kher (Bombay: General): May I be permitted to say that the drafting of the Rules ............ ......... ....

Dr. Syama Prasad Mookherjee (Bengal: General): I think we should not meet during the Christmas week........ ......... ........

Mr. Somnath Lahiri (Bengal: General) : Mr. Chairman, The Right Hon'ble Dr. Jayakar, grown grey in the service of interpreting British Imperialist laws, has probably interpreted the limitations of the Cabinet ............ .....

Sri Raj Krushna Bose (Orissa: General): We have a right to know whether the speaker is supporting the Resolution or opposing it. I am afraid all that he is saying at this time is not relevant ............ ......... .......

Shri Vishwambhar Dayal Tripathi (United Provinces : General): Sir, we must know whether he is supporting the Resolution or he is supporting the amendment... ...

............ ......... ......... ......

Mr. H. V. Kamath (C. P. and Berar: General): I submit, Sir, that Mr. Lahiri when speaking on his own amendment was ruled out of order by you, and is he in order now in doing the same?....... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .........

Mrs. Hansa Mehta (Bombay : General): Sir, I consider it a proud privilege to speak in support of this historic Resolution so ,ably moved by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. I do not wish to refer to the

Mr. P. R. Thakur (Bengal: General): Mr. Chairman, Sir. Dr. Ambedkar did not say anything last time about the Depressed Classes. So, I consider it a great honour to speak to the Members of the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the Scheduled Castes in general of India. I stand here to support..... ......... ........

Diwan Bahadur Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar (Madras: General): Sir, after the eloquent speech of our......... ......... .......

Mr. Jaipal Singh (Bihar: General): Mr. Chairman, Sir, I rise to speak on behalf of millions of unknown ............ ......... .......

Sardar Harnam Singh (Punjab: Sikh): Just a misprint. The original text contained the words "should contain full representation of the interests affected." ........

Dr. Suresh Chandra Banerjee (Bengal: General) : May I know what is the correct word Sir ? 'Due' or 'Full'...... ......... ......... ..

Mr. Debi Prosad Khaitan (Bengal: General): Mr. Chairman, Sir, representing the mercantile community, I want to look at this proposal from the businessman' s point of view. From that standpoint, I heartily support the proposal that has been put forward by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, and oppose the proposal.... ........

Mr. Damber Singh Gurung (Bengal: General) : Mr. Chairman, Sir, I understand here today as the only representative of 30 lakhs of Gurkhas permanently domiciled in India. It is 30 lakhs, near about the population of the Sikhs, still I am the solitary representative here in this House. I need not give any introduction as to who these Gurkhas are. They have made themselves sufficiently known to the world by their excellent fighting qualities. It has been proved to the hilt during the last World War No. 1 and No. 11 that they are the greatest fighting race in the World.

It is on behalf of these valiant Gurkhas that I, as the President of the All--India Gurkha League, wholeheartedly support the Resolution moved by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. It is high time that we should take such a strong step. If we adopt the policy of wait and see as has been advocated by Dr. Jayakar and supported by Ambedkar, we will never reach our goal. The Interim Government which is functioning to-day would not have come into existence if we had adopted that policy. Fortunately these two Doctors are not Doctors in Medicine, otherwise they would have killed the patient by delaying the operation. (Laughter). We have waited too long and we should riot wait any longer. It will be simply our weakness.

Sir, it has been very often said that the Gurkhas have been the stumbling block on the path to freedom. It may be true if it is viewed from that angle of vision but it must always be remembered that, especially in the Military Department, duty first and duty last, and the discipline is the most essential thing without which no nation can rule. Now in Free India you will ask us to do the same thing as we were asked to do under the British Government, if there be any disrupter of the constitutionally established Government, and you will praise them for maintaining that discipline.

Sir, the problem of the Gurkhas is quite different. They are scattered throughout India. It is only in the district of Darjeeling and the Province of Assam that they are concentrated to a certain extent. Their number in these two areas is about 14 lakhs and the rest are scattered throughout India. They are very very backward educationally and economically. Though we were made to do the dirtiest work in India for which we have been even called butchers by Indians, though hundreds and thousand of Gurkha lives were sacrificed to keep the British rule in India and elsewhere, nothing has been done by the British Government so far for the uplift of the Gurkhas. We have been very sadly neglected. Only at the time of War they remember the Gurkhas. It has always been the policy of the British Government to keep us backward and ignorant so that we may be sacrificed any time, anywhere they liked.




The

Gurkhas are apprehending whether the same policy will be followed by the Congress too. There is strong ground for this apprehension. Before the election of Members to the Constituent Assembly, the 'All--India Gurkha League approached the Congress High Command to give adequate representation to the Gurkhas too in the Constitution Assembly but our claim was totally ignored and not a single seat was given for 30 lakhs of Gurkhas, whereas as many as 3 seats were given to the AngloIndians whose population is only 1 lakh 42 thousand in India. I do not think that Gurkhas will, any more, tolerate this kind of injustice. I have, very recently been to Nepal, leading a delegation of the All-India Gurkha League to His Highness the Maharaja of Nepal and I hope Nepal will not allow any such exploitation of the Gurkhas. Sir, the demand of the Gurkhas is that they must be recognised as a minority community and that they must have adequate representation in the Advisory Committee that is going to be formed. When the Anglo-Indians with only I lakh 42 thousand population have been recognised as a minority community, and Scheduled Castes among the Hindus have been recognised as a separate community, I do not see any reason why Gurkhas with 30 lakhs population should not be recognised as such. The Gurkhas whose total population including Nepal is 15 millions shall have to play a very very important part in Free India. I request the leaders to consider this very seriously.

Lastly, I would like to say a word, Sir. If Mr. Jinnah thinks himself to be an Indian, I would request him to come to India and settle the differences here, as this is' our domestic quarrel. Why should he seek the help of those who kept us in slavery for centuries? I would think that a kick from a brother is more palatable than a hypocritc pat from an outsider. If the major party does not do any justice to the cause of the minorities, we will combine together and revolt and make India a hot bed and I am afraid, the ancient history of India may be repeated. But I must make one point clear, that no minority will support the fantastic claim for Pakistan of Mr. Jinnah. We stand for a United India.

In spite of all this, if Mr. Jinnah goes on throwing the challenge of civil war, I ask the country-men to accept that challenge and let us fight it out. As for the Gurkhas, we will fight along with those who want one India and oppose those who want to divide it.

Dr. Sir Hari Singh Gour (C. P. and Berar: General) : Sir, as I listened to the speeches of the Hon'ble ............ ......... ....

Shrimati Dakshayani Velayudan (Madras: General): Mr. Chairman, before I express my views on the......... ......... .....

Mr. Chairman: It is already quarter past one. The House will now adjourn till day after tomorrow, 11 o'clock.

The Assembly then adjourned till Eleven of the Clock, on Saturday, the 21st December 1946] ------------ ----

(to be checked with the original to find the correctness) .

Some points from the above-mentioned presentation of Shri Mr. Damber Singh Gurung (Bengal: General) -

1. 30 lakhs of Gurkhas permanently domiciled in India. It is 30 lakhs, near about the population of the Sikhs, still I am the solitary representative here in this House. I need not give any introduction as to who these Gurkhas are. They have made themselves sufficiently known to the world by their excellent fighting qualities.

2. It is on behalf of these valiant Gurkhas that I, as the President of the All--India Gurkha League.

3. Sir, it has been very often said that the Gurkhas have been the stumbling block on the path to freedom.

4. It is only in the district of Darjeeling and the Province of Assam that they are concentrated to a certain extent. Their number in these two areas is about 14 lakhs and the rest are scattered throughout India.

5. Though we were made to do the dirtiest work in India for which we have been even called butchers by Indians, though hundreds and thousand of Gurkha lives were sacrificed to keep the British rule in India and elsewhere, nothing has been done by the British Government so far for the uplift of the Gurkhas.

6. I have, very recently been to Nepal, leading a delegation of the All-India Gurkha League to His Highness the Maharaja of Nepal and I hope Nepal will not allow any such exploitation of the Gurkhas.

7. The Gurkhas whose total population including Nepal is 15 millions shall have to play a very very important part in Free India.

8. If the major party does not do any justice to the cause of the minorities, we will combine together and revolt and make India a hot bed and I am afraid, the ancient history of India may be repeated.

From the above-mentioned points, it appears that -

1. Gurkha means the Gurkha soldiers under service for British rule in India;

2. All India Gorkha League was formed for the cause of valiant Gurkhas i.e. for the cause of Gorkha soldiers;

3. Citizens of India often said that the - Gurkhas have been the stumbling block on the path to freedom (Gurkhas means Gurkha soldiers) i.e. they are colonial British service for their interest who tried to keep India as their colony.

4. 30 lakhs of Gurkhas permanently domiciled in India. It is only in the district of Darjeeling and the Province of Assam they are about 14 lakhs and the rest are scattered throughout India - i.e. GURKHA SOLDIERS WERE NOT CITIZENS OF BRITISH INDIA but domiciled.

5. We have been even called butchers by Indians i.e. citizens of India do not like them.

6. Hundreds and thousand of Gurkha lives were sacrificed to keep the British rule in India and elsewhere i.e. Gurkha soldiers served for the cause of British rule in India and elsewhere and this was the stumbling block on the path of freedom of India.

7. I have, very recently been to Nepal, leading a delegation of the All-India Gurkha League to His Highness the Maharaja of Nepal and I hope Nepal will not allow any such exploitation of the Gurkhas i.e. Gurkha soldiers had direct connection with the Maharaja of Nepal as it appears that they were citizens of Nepal and they were only domiciled in India.

8. Revolt and make India a hot bed i.e. this is a warning that the Gurkha soldiers would might be one day revolt against the Government of India after the independence of India. [the speech delivered was on Thursday, the 19th December 1946].

Part II, CITIZENSHIP, Article 5 of the Constitution of India reads: "At the commencement of this Constitution, every person who has his domicile in the territory of India and - (a) who was born in the territory of India; or

(b) either of whose parents was born in the territory of India; or

(c ) who has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India for not less than five years immediately preceding such commencement,

shall be a citizen of India."

[IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSITUTION]

Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: '(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality, (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. "

Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reads : "An alien lawfully in the territory of a State Party to the present Covenant may be expelled there from only in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with law and shall, except where compelling reasons of national security otherwise require be allowed to submit the reasons against his expulsion and to have his case reviewed by and he represented for the purpose before, the competent authority or a person or persons especially designated by the competent authority."

Declaration by the Government of India - "With respect of Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Government of the Republic of India reserves its right to apply its law relating to foreigners," - signed on 07/03/1979.

General Comment No. 15: The position of aliens under the Covenant : . 11/04/86.

CCPR General Comment No. 15. (General Comments)


Convention Abbreviation: CCPR

GENERAL COMMENT 15

The position of aliens under the Covenant

(Twenty-seventh session, 1986)

7. Aliens thus have an inherent right to life, protected by law, and may not be arbitrarily deprived of life. They must not be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; nor may they be held in slavery or servitude. Aliens have the full right to liberty and security of the person. If lawfully deprived of their liberty, they shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of their person. Aliens may not be imprisoned for failure to fulfill a contractual obligation. They have the right to liberty of movement and free choice of residence; they shall be free to leave the country. Aliens shall be equal before the courts and tribunals, and shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law in the determination of any criminal charge or of rights and obligations in a suit at law. Aliens shall not be subjected to retrospective penal legislation, and are entitled to recognition before the law. They may not be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence. They have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the right to hold opinions and to express them. Aliens receive the benefit of the right of peaceful assembly and of freedom of association. They may marry when at marriageable age. Their children are entitled to those measures of protection required by their status as minors. In those cases where aliens constitute a minority within the meaning of article 27, they shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion and to use their own language. Aliens are entitled to equal protection by the law. There shall be no discrimination between aliens and citizens in the application of these rights. These rights of aliens may be qualified only by such limitations as may be lawfully imposed under the Covenant.] - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland.

IT APPEARS (as above) THAT AN ALIEN HAS NO POLITICAL RIGHT. Accordingly, (as above) A NEPALI CITIZEN HAS NO POLITICAL RIGHT IN INDIA.


Article VI of Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between The Government of India and The Government of Nepal (1950) reads: 'Each Government undertaken, in token of the neighbourly friendship between India and Nepal, to give the nationals of the other, in its territory, national treatment with regard to participation in industrial and economic development of such territory and to the grant of concessions and contracts relating to such development. "

Article VII reads: 'The Government of India and Nepal agree to grant, on a reciprocal basis, to the nationals of one country in the territories of the other same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, movement and other privileges of a similar nature.'

It is an allegation - who is the citizen of India and who is the citizen of Nepal inside the Nepali agitators who are demanding GORKHALAND by separating the State of West Bengal in India? It is to be seriously ascertained.

Colonial British recruited the Nepalese as soldier in GURKHA REGIMENT and these Nepalese called as GURKHA SOLDIER when they were in service.

Upon Independence of India in 1947, the name of Gurkha Regiment changed to GORKHA REGIMENT. When a Nepali is in service as soldier in GORKHA REGIMENT, he is called Gorkha soldier and after retirement or separation from the Regiment he is an ordinary Nepali person.

After enquiry it is found -

THERE IS NO EXISTENCE OF 'GORKHA ETHNIC GROUP' IN NEPAL, AND

THERE IS NO EXISTENCE OF 'GORKHA RACE' IN NEPAL - according to National Census of Nepal 2001.

THE ORIGINATION OR EXISTENCE OF 'GORKHA ETHNIC GROUP' OR

'GORKHA RACE' IN INDIA DOES NOT ARISE AT ALL.

Date: 28/02/2009.

Address: 18/20A, Dover Lane, Dipak De

Kolkata - 700 029. [Human Rights Activist; acceptable to National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi; Doing M.Phil in Human Rights; with the: Amnesty International India with permission; in touch with: PWAP, India; PUCL, India; Asian Human Rights Commission, Hongkong; Human Rights Watch, Geneva; United Nations on line volunteer on Human Rights]

E-mail: ranjan2dev@bsnl. in; dipakdev@vsnl. net



Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has seized one food company and threatened to nationalise another as he demands that the industry produce cheaper rice.

Chavez seized a local unit of Cargill, an American food corporation and also threatened to nationalise Polar, the country's largest private company, on Wednesday, less than three weeks after he won a referendum allowing him to run for re-election indefinitely.

Chavez is popular among many low income citizens for pressing companies to produce cheap goods as well as launching government initiatives to provide subsidised food to slum areas.

Chavez said he ordered the takeover because Cargill was skirting price controls implemented by his government, by not producing the type of rice that is subject to the controls.

"Prepare the decree, we are going to expropriate Cargill," he said. "We are not going to tolerate this."

In recent days, he also seized some rice mills belonging to Polar, after accusing the food industry of skirting price controls and failing to produce enough cheap rice.

Polar, which is the country's largest private sector employer and produces and distributes everything from beer to flour, has vowed to take legal action over the rice mill takeovers.

Cargill operates one rice mill in Venezuela, and said earlier in the week that it was expecting a visit from officials






Palash Biswas




Pl Read my blogs:



http://nandigramunited.blogspot.com/

http://www.bangaindigenous.blogspot.com/

http://www.troubledgalaxydetroyeddreams.blogspot.com/