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Teaching violence, breeding hate – Settlers create ‘hatetourism’

Gush Etzion has become a hot destination in recent months for tourists seeking an Israeli experience like no other: The opportunity to pretend-shoot a terror operative. Residents of the nearby settlements, who run the site, offer day-trippers a chance to hear stories from the battleground, watch a simulated assassination of terrorists by guards, and fire weapons at the range.”

David Pearl, who heads the Gush Etzion Regional Council, notes that this kind of experience turns the district into a world-famous “tourist gem.” At the end of the thrill-filled day, the tourists get a diploma indicating they “completed a basic shooting course in Israel.”

Israeli tourism is a double edged sword. On one hand, it manufactures enemy images of the Palestinian. Trained guides are taught to scare the tourist about the dangerous Palestinian who is all set to shoot and kill. On the other hand, Israel tourism is there to rake in the billions of dollars on offer – at the expense of the Palestinian. The number of Palestinian heritage sites now appropriated by Israel is yet another instrument of the occupation to take away the best for the occupier and leave Palestine deprived even of its own natural historical culture and heritage.

A study by the Alternative Tourism Group in Beit Sahour says: “Israel claims to present a surplus of tourism products – historical and religious places, beach resorts, heritage locales, archaeological spaces, and nature spots.  The industry relies on what has come to be known as a ‘pilgrim market’ to make its dramatic gains from the tourism industry. However, it is important, at the very outset, to underline that Israel has craftily appropriated a number of Palestinian sites and areas into its own market and parades these important locations as authentically Israeli. This has been possible because Israel, as the occupying power in Palestine, carries out the seizure of these sites through unlawful means.”

Palestine’s main attraction for a large proportion of visitors is the status of Palestine as the Holy Land. Traditionally, pilgrims have visited the country from all over the world. The conflict stemming from the occupation has caused a drastic reduction in pilgrimages. At least 15 military orders and regulations related to tourism have been issued since 1967 by the Israeli military authorities, who have assumed responsibility for tourism in the Occupied Territories. These orders raised the level of requirements for licensing and functioning of tourist institutions, without availing those institutions of the means necessary for the required improvements.

To the question: “Are tourists allowed to enter areas outside of the Israeli responsibility (Palestinian areas)?” the Israeli government is ambiguous but suggests that typically it is not safe.

The Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) argues that travel to Palestine is secure. Hospitality is an extremely important value in Palestine, as it is throughout the Mediterranean world. Palestinians welcome visitors with open arms. The greatest risk does not arise from potential Palestinian violence but dangerous situations that can arise due to the Israeli Occupation.

ATG insists that “Arab people in general and Palestinians in particular, have been demonized in the West for decades. They are often presented in the media as dangerous, conniving, and immoral. It is not uncommon for visitors to Palestine to experience a mix of emotions — bewilderment, confusion, delight, embarrassment, and anger — when they realize how false those demonized images really are.

Negative stereotypes of Palestinians have been purposely reinforced by the Israeli government, which discourages international visitors to have contact with Palestinians. Israel knows that exposure to the present and historical realities of the situation have a transformative effect on the majority of tourists to Palestine, who return to their home countries as opponents to Israel’s oppressive policies against Palestinians.”

In the face of harsh propaganda, Palestinians encourage international visitors to suspend any preconceived notions they have about Palestinians until they have a chance to meet us face-to-face.

When “tourists venture to West Bank to ‘shoot terrorists”, under the tutelage of settlers, then Israel tourism has assumed its most ugly face. Tourism is designed to be a transformational experience- an encounter between peoples that results in enhancing human values and understanding between peoples. Israeli tourism has chosen profits over people, and hate over understanding.

The ynetnews (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4243882,00.html) about how illegal settlers in the West Bank create tour packages for hate and violence must be roundly condemned and steps taken to ban it.

PU readers are urged to act by:

o   Conveying disapproval of such touristic itineraries under the very nose of the Israeli authorities – you may write to Ministry of Tourism at: info@goisrael.com

o   Disseminate this information widely to tour operators and churches- any location from where tours to Israel originate and encourage them to take the tours where ‘human encounters’ for peace, justice and human understanding take place.

The Alternative Tourism Group (www.atg.ps) offers constructive alternatives through which one can “see what Palestine is like beyond the headlines”… to see and meet “with Palestinian families, witness the real effects of occupation, and learn about the history, religions, conflicts, cultures, and traditions of this region.”

Armed Terrorist Group Attacks al-Ikhbariya TV Channel, Three Journalists Martyred

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi on Wednesday said the armed terrorist groups perpetrated the worst massacre against journalism and the freedom of media when they executed the Syria media figures in cold blood.

The Minister held those who instigate against Syria and escalate terrorism against its people fully responsible for this massacre.

Minister al-Zoubi said “This massacre won’t go unpunished and the broadcast of the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Satellite Channel will not stop and we hold the EU, Arab and International organizations responsible for this massacre.”

Al-Zoubi added: “Those who committed this crime had carried out the decision of the Arab League Council to silence the voice of Syria.”

Minister al-Zoubi asserted that the armed terrorist groups who broke into the headquarters of al-Ikhbariya perpetrated a heinous crime executing the journalists, employees and civil guards, telephone operators, exploding the studios, looting some of the Channel technical sets.

Minister al-Zoubi added that the EU decision in Luxembourg to impose sanctions on Syrian TV and Radio in addition to the continued campaigns of provocations against Syria have been crowned today with this terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya Satellite Channel.

Minister al-Zoubi  referred this heinous crime against the Syrian Media to the EU with all of its institutions, to all ministers of information worldwide, Arab and foreign press, UN, UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council, Arab League, as well as to Arab league Secretary General.

Syria’s voice with all of its media outlets would ever remain as to encounter the hatched conspiracies, blasting the Arab League recent decision to prohibit Syrian media transmission via Arabsat and Nilesat, holding the League Secretary-General accountable for this legal and political liability.

Three journalists and workers in the Syrian al-Ikhbaryia Satellite Channel were martyred Wednesday morning in a brutal terrorist attack by an armed terrorist group targeting the headquarters of al-Ikhbaryia.

The martyrs who were killed in the terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel are: Sami Abu Amin, Zaid Kahl and Mohammad Shamma.

The terrorists planted explosive devices in the headquarters of al-Ikhbaryia following their ransacking and destroying of the Satellite Channel studios, including the newsroom studio which was entirely destroyed.

al-Ikhbaryia Satellite Channel, an active Syrian media means in confronting misleading and misinformation campaigns, continued, however, its transmission regardless of the brutal terrorist attack.

Syria has been facing a sinister campaign launched by some Arab media means, especially the Qatari and Saudi, and western media means fabricating and disseminating false, virtual and biased news.

Information Ministry: Terrorist Attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel is an attack against Freedom of Information

The Ministry of Information stressed that on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 an armed terrorist group perpetrated an attack against al-Ikhbariya TV channel headquarters in Damascus Countryside.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Ministry said  ”At Wednesday dawn, June 27th, an armed terrorist group attacked the headquarter and buildings of the Syria News Satellite Channel in the Damascus countryside, adding that ”The terrorists assassinated a number of journalists, media men and technicians of the channel and its security guards.”

”They also planted many explosive charges in the news studio, the administration offices and the technical equipments rooms which completely destroyed them, then set fire to the remaining offices and tied a number of the workers and shot them dead, and abducted others,” the statement added.

The statement went on to say ”As announcing what happened and the martyrs of free word and nationalist honest media, the Ministry of Information places this horrible crime where it must be, as a crime against human norms, media conventions, and journalism.”

”This evil aggression on the freedom of media, its cadre and foundations comes in concurrence and as completion to the attempts to prevent the Syrian national media from satellite broadcasting, and carrying them out directly via the sanctions adopted against this media, the latest of which is what was issued yesterday evening by the EU Council against the General Organization of Radio &Television in Syria, and Addounia private TV channel before,” added the statement.

The statement said that ”The repeated attempts to silence and prevent the Syrian media from delivering the full truth honestly and directly to the Syrian, Arab and world public opinion will end in failure based on the creativity of this free media supported by the decent Syrian people.”

The statement added ”The Syrian Ministry of Information calls on the Council of Arab Ministers of Information to hold responsibility and become aware of the full truth of the aggression against the media men who were martyred, abducted or injured in the incident, and exercise its role to guarantee freedom of media, satellite broadcasting, life and safety of journalists everywhere.”

”The Syrian News Channel and the Syrian media, along with the souls of the martyrs, will always remain nationalist and human minarets despite hatred and terrorism,’ the stamen concluded.

People’s Assembly Denounces Attack against al-Ikhbariya TV as Attempt to Silence the Voice of Right

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Members of the Peoples’ Assembly condemned the barbarian massacre against the Syria media and journalists which aim at silencing the voice of Syria.

In a People’s Assembly session on Wednesday, the Assembly members asserted that terrorism against the Syrian journalists will not dissuade them from continuing their media message to convey the truth. The MPs stressed that the U.S. and Isreali agents in the region and the oil monarchies are behind this terrorist act which targeted the Syrian media because of its role in exposing terrorists who are destroying Syria and those who back them up with funds and arms.

Speaker of the People’s Assembly, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham stressed that the massacre aimed at replacing the stability and security in Syria with terrorism to silence the free voice of the right.

In turn, MP Fayez al-Sayeigh said that targeting journalists leave no room for doubt that what is taking place in Syria has nothing to do with freedom or the ‘Other Opinion’, calling upon Arab and international humanitarian and media organizations to shoulder their responsibilities towards this crime.

For his part, MP Faisal Azzouz stressed that the attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV is an attack against every Syrian and every journalist in the world, adding that they want Syria to bow down not to change the regime.

MP Omar Ossi stressed that the crime came in line with their theory of ‘creative chaos’ to implement a geopolitical scheme in the region with Israel as its center.

MP Sharif Shhadeh said that the conspirers are angry with Syria because of their failure in misleading others and the success of Syrian media in exposing their crimes.

MP Adnan Suleiman said that the attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV is a violation of the principles of human rights and part of the conspiracy to prevent conveying the reality and mislead the international public opinion.

In turn, MP Mohammad Ali al-Khabi stressed that Syria will come out stronger thanks to its army, people and leadership and the criminals will be punished for their crimes.

MP Khalil Mashhadiyeh said that those who committed the crime and those who support them do not believe in the freedom of expression, stressing that the Syrian blood is sacrosanct just as the Syrian territories.

The MPs concluded that this terrorist act is rejected and condemned as it aims at concealing the voice of right and truth.

The People’s Assembly approved reports submitted by the permanent committees on electing its offices’ staffs.

The Assembly referred draft laws forwarded by the President on combating terrorism and amending Article 556 of Penalties Law to the constitutional and legislative committee for studying.

The session also tackled establishing new faculties in the Syrian universities and opening a branch for Agriculture Bank in Deir Ezzor in addition to establishing al-Dmeir National Hospital.

The comments dealt with investing transfer plants in Banias and means of distributing essential food materials to villages and towns.

Jamil: Establishing a Ministry concerned in Consumer Protection a message that the State will play a basic role in Economy

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Minister of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection Qadri Jamil said that establishing a new ministry concerned in the affairs of consumer and the control of markets has a big meaning and a message that the State wants to play a pioneering and basic role in the economic process.

“There is no alternative to the role of the State which particularly occurs during the crises.. concentration will be on promoting the private productive sector,” Jamil said during a meeting with directors of institutions affiliated to the Ministry Wednesday.

He added “we will work to achieve an important step in the social policy within the modernization and development policy and make use of all previous experiments as well as formulating an economic pattern for Syria.”

Jamil referred to some issues and negative indicators which need reconsideration through communicating with citizens, like issues of trouble between wages and profits and the economic loss because of corruption.

Russian Foreign Ministry: UN Report on al-Houla Massacre doesn’t Reflect Violence Carried out by Terrorists in Syria

MOSCOW, (SANA)- The Russian Foreign Ministry underlined that the report of the UN Human Rights’ investigation Committee into al-Houla massacre, issued today, doesn’t reflect the volume of the acts of violence carried out by the armed terrorist groups in Syria.

“The report on al-Houla massacre indicates to the tension of situation where this massacre benefited powers which have interest in destabilizing the situation before debating the Syrian file at the UN Security Council,” Vasily Nebenya, Director of the Human Rrights Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Russia Today quoted Nebenya as saying that the meeting which will be convened on June 30th in Geneva aims at supporting the plan of the UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, adding that Moscow calls on all sides not to take steps that foil these constructive efforts.

The Russian official warned that the situation in Syria is escalating, calling for backing Annan’s plan to stop bloodshed in Syria.

Syrian Journalists Stage Sit-in in Condemnation of Terrorist Attack against al-Ikhbariya TV

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian journalists staged a sit-in in front of the General Organization of Radio & Television building, with the participation of Minister of Information Omran al-Zoubi in condemnation of the terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya TV Channel.

Minister of Information Omran al-Zoubi, in a statement to the journalists, said that the massacre committed against the journalists and a free Syrian TV channel is a literal implementation of the Arab League Council’s decision on stopping the broadcast of Syrian TV channels by force.

He added that the package of sanctions issued by the European Union on Tuesday has been implemented today at the expense of civilians and journalists.

He added that the EU, the UN Security Council, the UN observer team in Syria, the UN Secretary General, the President of the Human Rights Council, the AL Secretary General, Council and foreign ministers are partners in this crime and they should shoulder their responsibilities.

The Minister said that the Ministry of Information and the Syrian state and journalists will not keep silent about what happened, expressing hope that the site of the crime would be available for all those who want to go there and met the locals to closely inspect the reality of what happened and who committed the massacre.

Minister Omran offered condolences to all journalists, adding that the incident requires calmness and review and there is team for this purpose.

Director of al-Ikhbariya TV Channel, Imad Sarah, said that targeting al-Ikhbariya means targeting the national media, the word of right and the other opinion.

A number of journalists, cultural and political figures who participated in the sit-in condemned this terrorist act, expressing confidence that the national media will continue to shoulder its responsibilities now and in the future.

Chairman of Journalist Union Elias Murad said that the AL decisions and the EU sanctions could not silence the Syrian voice.

Director of the Syrian TV , Ma’an Saleh said that targeting media aimed at targeting Syria in all its capabilities, adding that this terrorist act is a message of their failure in political violence so that they turned to terrorism and destruction.

Political analyst Afif Della said that his participation in the sit-in came to express rejection of all attempts to silence the voice of truth.

The participants prayed for the souls of the martyrs of the terrorist attack to rest in peace.

They stressed that terrorism will make them more determined in the face of terrorist acts and the media campaign launched against Syria.

Al- Ikhbariya Journalists: We’ll Continue Conveying Reality of Events

Number of al- Ikhbariya channel journalists stressed that the massacre committed against the channel will not dissuade them from conveying the reality of the events, adding that they are more resolved to defend Syria’s dignity.

Editor-in-Chief of the channel, Abdo al-Assadi, said that this massacre targeted not only al- Ikhbaryia channel, but also all the Syrian media.

Al-Assadi added that the workers who were martyred in the attack were armed only with their words and views.

For his part, Chief Editor Adham al-Taweel, said that this terrorist attack targeted the Syrian media as it managed to confront the misleading and provocative media campaign against the country.

Yara Saleh, al-Ikhbariya correspondent, said that this terrorist attack will motivate all journalists and workers at the channel to unmask these terrorists and their actions.

Sit-in in Tartous to Denounce Massacre Committed against al-Ikhbariya Journalists and Workers

Journalists in Tartous also gathered in front of the headquarters of al-Thawra Newspaper to denounce the massacre committed against al-Ikhbariya TV Channel and all other terrorist acts targeting the Syrian people.

The participants stressed that this criminal acts will push journalists to exert more efforts to expose facts and divulge the lies of the misleading channels.

The participants raised national flags and banners that stress national unity in the face of all instigative campaigns which aimed at spreading chaos.

Journalists in Lattakia pointed out that the attack against al-Ikhbariya TV proved the success of national media in confronting the lies and fabrications of instigative media.

Wide Condemnations of Attack against al-Ikhbariya TV

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian Journalists Union and National Media Council mourned the martyrdom of three journalists.

They condemned the heinous terrorist attack targeted the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Satellite channel causing the martyrdom of three of its staff.

Chairman of Journalist Union Elias Murad said “We pray for the mercy for the souls of the martyrs of the terrorist attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel and those who failed in facing all kinds of aggression against Syria,” expressing the ability and determination of the Syrian journalists to foil the schemes targeting the Syrian media.

Murad added that the attack against al-Ikhabariya Channel comes in the framework of the continued aggression against the Syrian media and journalists.

In a statement, the National Media council offered sincere condolences for the families of the martyrs, expressing condemnation of all forms of terrorism which targets Syria’s security and stability.

The statement stressed that the Syrian national media will remain one of the most important basis of Syria’s resistance to protect its role and position in the region and the world.

Chairman of the National Media Council, Taleb Qadi Amin, stressed that the terrorist attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya channel is a “coward Terrorist act” which aims at silencing the voice of the truth of the Syrian media.

Amin condemned this coward act expressing support of all Syrian media figures to their mates in al-Ikhbariya channel.

He denounced the European Countries’ sanctions on the Syrian TV and the General Board of the Radio and TV, asserting that they completed this issue through this coward act against a Syrian national media institution which represents the voice of truth.

Former Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud stressed that the brutal terrorist crime against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Channel is a part of the scheme which targets the Syrian media as it conveys the reality of the terrorist acts perpetrated against the Syrian people.

In a phone call with the Syrian TV, Mahmoud called on all the journalists to shoulder their ethical and legal responsibilities towards this crime.

Several Ambassadors accredited in Damascus expressed complete solidarity with the Syrian media and offered, on behalf of their countries, condolences for the families of the martyrs.

Arab Journalists Condemn Massacre against al-Ikhbariya TV as Criminal Act

Chairman of Iraqi Media Council, Hassan Selman, described the attack as a criminal act, adding that the Syrian people is facing a foreign-backed attack carried out by takfiri and terrorist tools.

Tunisian journalist Kawthar al-Beshrawi expressed shock over the silence of the Arab media towards the death of Syrian journalists, holding the instigators accountable for this crime.

“Today we are not taking about media, rather we are talking about camps in which journalists became reserve soldiers despite the fact that these journalists are not convinced with what they are doing,” she added.

Inspecting the site of the terrorist attack, Head of Iranian Radio & TV office in Damascus, Hassan Shemashdi, said that targeting al-Ikhbariya TV Channel aimed at taking revenge on its role in conveying the reality and revealing the conspiracy that Syria have been facing for 15 months.

Shemshadi said that some satellite channels did not broadcast the news on attacking al-Ikhbariya TV Channel which indicate the work mechanism of these channels in ignoring the massacres committed by the armed terrorist groups since these groups receive regional and Arab support.

Amnesty International condemns the attack

Amnesty International condemned the attack which targeted the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV that claimed the lives of several press martyrs.

“Al-Ikhbariya TV is an independent entity.. its staff is civilian who should be protected against any aggression,” UPI quoted the International organization as saying in a statement today.

For her part, Ann Harrison, Deputy Director of the Organization’s Middle East and North Africa Program, said that all sides should condemn this attack.

Lebanese Amal Movement Condemns Terrorist Attack Against Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV

For its part, Lebanese Amal Movement condemned the terrorist attack against the Syrian al-Ikhbariya Channel and the massacre perpetrated by the armed terrorist group against its staff.

In a statement issued by the Movement’s Central Information Bureau, it said that the attack constitutes an aggression against journalism, media and the freedom of press by the armed terrorist groups.

The Movement expressed solidarity with the Syrian Channel and all free mass media which defend the Arab nation’s legitimate issues , offering sincere condolences for the families of the martyrs.

Golan People Condemn Terrorist Attack against al-Ikhbariya Channel

Citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan condemned the terrorist attack which targeted al-Ikhbariya channel that comes in the framework of the EU sanctions and other Arab-League sanctions against the national media as it conveys the reality of events on the ground and uncovers the western and Arab media fabrications aimed at destabilizing Syria.

In a statement, the Golan people stressed that terrorism will never silence the free Syrian voice from conveying the reality of events to the whole world.

United States Denounce Attack on al-Ikhbariya Channel

The United States denounced the attack which targeted al-Ikhbariya Channel, with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterating his country’s condemnation of the violence in Syria.

Authorities Clash with Terrorists in Douma, Ariha and Deir Ezzor, Kill Many, Arrest Several Others

PROVINCES, (SANA) – Authorities in Damascus Countryside on Wednesday confronted an armed terrorist group who set up barriers at Khorsheed Street in Douma.

A source in the province told SANA reporter the clash resulted in killing 13 terrorists, including Mohammad Walid al-Idrees and Omar Darwish, and seizing their weapons.

In Idelb, the authorities clashed with an armed terrorist group who tried to block Ariha – Jisr al-Shughour highway in Ein al-Hamra village.

A source in Idleb province told SANA reporter that the clash resulted in killing 4 terrorists, among them Sattam Younes who was wanted for several crimes, injuring others and seizing their weapons.

The authorities in Deir Ezzor continued pursuing armed terrorist groups in al-Mwazafeen neighborhood in the city and arrested large number of terrorists who were wanted for charges of committing crimes against citizens and law-enforcement forces and sabotage acts.

Prime Minister Issues Decisions Granting State Ministers Ministerial Powers

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Prime Minister Riyad Hijab on Wednesday issued a number of decisions granting ministerial powers to the state ministers.

Hijab empowered the State Minister Abdullah Hussein Khalil to exercise the ministerial powers related to administrative development and other tasks assigned to him by the Prime Minister.

Minister of State Najm Eddin Khreit was tasked with following up on development projects in the eastern northern region while minister of State Joseph Sweid was tasked with issues related to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent organization.

Premier Hijab empowered Minister of State Mohammad Turki to exercise the ministerial powers related to the People’s Assembly while Minister of State Jamal Shaaban Shahin was tasked with following up investment and development projects in the southern area.

The Prime Minister also issued a decision on delegating Minister of State Hussein Mahmoud Farzat to carry out the tasks assigned to the Minister who is responsible for following up vital projects in the Syrian provinces in coordination with Deputy Prime Minister for Services.

Al-Hamwi: Politicized Work of the UNHRC Might Cause Syria to Consider Halting Cooperation With It

GENEVA, (SANA) – Syria’s Representative to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Faisal al-Hamwi on Wednesday said that the global conspiracy against Syria aims at achieving Israel’s desire to instigate edition and fighting among the Syrian people.

The remarks came during his speech before the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to discuss a report on al- Houla massacre.

He added that the continued shameful situation in the work of the Human Rights Council, its politicized sessions, sterile resolutions and the biased and non-objective statements by the Office of the Higher Commissioner, may push Syria to seriously consider halting all forms of cooperation with these bodies as they remain unable to offer constructive and objective solutions for the problems.

“How could some sides pretend to be worried about the Syrian people and at the same time arming the terrorists and conspiring against the Syrians,” al-Hamwi said.

He added that “Had these sides been honest, they would have supported Annan’s plan and urged all sides to hold a constructive national dialogue.”

He concluded that Syria’s delegation will not take part in this session in condemnation of its bias which aims at undermining Syria and offend its people.

China: International Community Should Work for Launching Early Political Dialogue in Syria

BEIJING, (SANA) – Spokesman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, on Wednesday said that “the international community should work on launching a timely political dialogue in Syria.”

He added that the international community should focus on carrying out the proposals of the UN Special Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, urge all Syrian sides to implement relevant UN Security Council resolutions, halt the violence and launch a political dialogue without preconditions or pre-set results.

The spokesman said that China believes “it is imperative to adhere to the right direction” in regard to finding a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

He reiterated his country’s readiness to work with the international community to push for a peaceful, fair and proper solution to the crisis in Syria as soon as possible.

People of Occupied Golan Express Appreciation for Russia’s Stances towards Syria

QUNEITRA, (SANA) – People of the occupied Syrian Golan expressed appreciation for Russia’s stances in support of Syria against the conspiracy hatched by western and some regional countries.

In a statement to the Russian Embassy, the people of Golan said that they want to convey a letter of thanks to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, after the Palestinian authorities prevented a popular delegation from the occupied Golan from entering Bethlehem city to greet its honorable guest Putin despite earlier coordination.

In a statement to SANA reporter in Quneitra, the delegation members expressed dissatisfaction with the humiliating behavior of the Palestinian authorities, stressing their firm stance in support of their homeland, Syria.

In a statement to SANA reporter in Quneitra, the delegation members expressed dissatisfaction with the humiliating behavior of the Palestinian authorities, stressing their firm stance in support of their homeland, Syria.

A well regarded and qualified author of the prime German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported (in German) how the recent massacre in Houla, Syria, was perpetrated by Sunni rebel forces. I translated the piece to English. There was some push back against the piece and an anonymous rebuttal from Houla activists.

In a new piece (in German) the reporter, Rainer Hermann, extends on the first one and explains why his reporting is correct and why other reporting was terribly wrong.

What follows is my translation of the FAZ piece:

The Extermination

The Houla massacre was a turning point in the Syrian drama. There was great worldwide outrage when 108 people were killed there on May 25, among them 49 children. Calls for a military intervention to end the bloodshed became louder and the violence in Syria has since steadily escalated. Based on Arab news channel and the visit of UN observers on the following day, world opinion almost unanimously blamed the regular Syrian army and the Syrian regime’s Shabiha militia for the massacre.

In the past week and based on reports from eyewitnesses the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put this version into question. It reported that the civilians killed were Alawites and Shiites. They were deliberately killed by armed Sunnis in Taldou, a town in the plains of Houla, while fierce fighting between the regular army and Free Syrian Army was taking place at checkpoints around the village. Our report was taken up by many media outlets worldwide and was rejected by many as implausible. We have therefore to ask four questions: Why did the world opinion so far followed a different version? Why does the context of the civil war makes the doubted version plausible? Why are the witnesses credible? What other facts support the report?

Firstly, why world opinion follow a different version? It is undoubted that during the first months of the conflict, when the opposition did not yet possess weapons and was defenseless, all atrocities were done by the regime. The assumption is therefore obvious that this would continue. [Note by the translator: Here Mr. Hermann errs. There were reliable reports about deadly attacks against government forces by well armed perpetrators, allegedly foreign financed, as early as April 10 2011.] Furthermore, the Syrian state media enjoy no credibility. They use the standard labeling “armed terrorist gangs” since the beginning of the conflict. Thus no one believes them, when that is indeed the case. Two media outlets, the Arab news channel Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have become key sources even as their owners, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are two states which are actively involved in the conflict. Not without reason do we know the saying “In war, truth dies first.”

Secondly, why is, in the context of the civil war, the doubted version plausible? During recent month many weapons have been smuggled into Syria and the rebels have long had mid-sized weaponry. Every day more than 100 people are killed in Syria with about equal numbers of dead on both sides. The militias that operate under the banner of the Free Syrian Army control wide parts of the provinces of Homs and Idlib and extend their dominion over other parts of the country. The increasing lawlessness has led to a wave of criminal kidnappings and also facilitates the settling of old disputes. If one looks through Facebook pages or talks to Syrians: Everyone knows everyday stories of “religious cleansing” – of people being killed just because they are Alawite or Sunni.

The plain of Houla, which lies between the Sunni city of Homs and the mountains of the Alawites, is predominantly inhabited by Sunnis and is burdened by a long history of sectarian tensions. The massacre took place in Taldou, one of the largest sites of Houla. Of the names of civilians killed, 84 are known. These are the fathers, mothers and 49 children of the family Al Sayyid and two branches of the family Abdarrazzaq. Residents of the city state that these were Alawites and Muslims who had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. A few kilometers away from the border with Lebanon, this made them suspect of being sympathizers of Hezbollah, detested among Sunnis. Additionally killed in Taldou were relatives of the government loyal member of parliament Abdalmuti Mashlab.

The homes of the three families are located in different parts Taldous. The members of the families were targeted and killed up to one exception. No neighbor was injured. Local knowledge was a prerequisite for these well-planned “executions”. The AP news agency quoted the only survivor of the family Al Sayyid, the eleven year old Ali, as saying:. “The perpetrators were shaved bald and had long beards.” This is the look of fanatical jihadists, not of the Shabiha militia. The boy said he survived because he had pretended to be dead and smeared himself with the blood of his mother.

On April 1 the nun Agnès-Maryam, from the monastery of Jacob (“Deir Mar Yakub”) which lies south of Homs in the village of Qara, described in a long open letter the climate of violence and fear in the region. She comes to the conclusion that the Sunni insurgents operate a stepwise liquidation of all minorities. She describes the expulsion of Christians and Alawites from their homes, which are then occupied by the rebels, and the rape of young girls, who the rebels pass off as “war booty”; she was an eye witness when the rebels killed a businessman in the street of Wadi Sajjeh with a car bomb after he refused to close his shop and then said in front of a camera from Al Jazeera that the regime had committed the crime. Finally she describes how Sunni insurgents in the Khalidijah district of Homs locked Alawite and Christian hostages into a house and blew it up only to then explain that this was an atrocity of the regime.

Why are, in this context, the Syrian witnesses (in my report) regarded as credible? Because they do not belong to any party of the conflict, but are caught in the middle and have no other interest than to stop a further escalation of violence. Several such people have already been killed. Therefore, no one wants to reveal their identity. In a period in which an independent review of all facts on the spot is not possible there can be no certitude that all details have happened exactly as described. Even as the massacre in Houla took place in the version described here, no conclusions can be drawn from it for other atrocities. As before in Kosovo every massacre must be examined individually after this war.

What other facts support this version? The FAZ was not the first to reported on a new version of the massacre of Houla. Other reports could just not compete with the big key media. The Russian journalist Marat Musin, who works for the small news agency Anna, was in Houla on May 25 and 26, in part became an eyewitness and also published the statements of other eyewitnesses. Additionally the Dutch Arabist and freelance journalist Martin Janssen, who lives in Damascus, contacted the Jacob Monastery in Qara, which has taken in many victims of the conflict with the nuns doing devote humanitarian work, after the massacre.

Sunni rebels perpetrate “liquidation” of all minorities

The nuns told him how on that May 25th more than 700 armed rebels, coming from Rastan, overran a roadside checkpoint of the army near Taldou, how these, after the massacre, piled up the corpses of the killed soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and how they, on next day, told their version of the alleged massacre by the Syrian army in front of the cameras of rebel-friendly channels and to the UN observers. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on May 26 at the UN Security Council that the exact circumstances are unclear. The UN could confirm, however, “that there has been artillery and mortar attack. There were also other forms of violence, including shots from up close and serious abuses.”

The following sequence of events can be reconstructed: After the Friday prayers on May 25th more than 700 gunmen under the leadership of Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf came in three groups from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba and attacked three army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, snuffed out the families of Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq. They had refused to join the opposition.

15 June 2012

@Moon of Alabama

For a while, the phone stopped ringing. Not completely—reporters called, but many old friends did not.

That’s how my mother remembers the days following my father’s arrest on terrorism charges in February 2003. At dawn, a team of FBI agents and police, clad in black uniforms, descended on my family’s three-bedroom apartment in Tampa, Florida. They arrested my father and carted away dozens of boxes filled with our personal possessions, from school report cards to laptop computers and journals.

My father, Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida, was indicted on fifty-three counts of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had been designated by the government as a terrorist group. The conspiracy case, which involved three other Palestinian men, was based largely on my father’s charitable contributions, associations, speeches and other First Amendment–protected activities. Prosecutors would introduce as evidence books my father owned, magazines he edited, conferences he organized and, particularly bizarre, a dream one of his co-defendants had about him. My father faced multiple life sentences plus 225 years if convicted. The charges against him included conspiracy to kill and maim persons abroad, yet prosecutors freely admitted that my father had no connection to any violence.

As the government built its case against my father, FBI agents interrogated one Muslim family after another. Overwhelming fear pervaded the community. My father, a pillar of that community, had founded and run an Islamic school near the mosque where he also led prayers. After the arrest, my mother, Nahla, was asked to withdraw my younger siblings from the school that she and my father had worked so hard to build. Returning for a visit, my mother was asked what she was doing there. Shopping for groceries, she saw a longtime friend turn her back to avoid talking to her. “It was shocking and depressing,” my mother recalls.

One day my mother read a letter to a local newspaper that condemned my father’s harsh prison conditions and the one-sided media coverage of his case. The author said my father had the right to a presumption of innocence, adding, “History will teach us that what can happen to one man can happen to any of us. Are we going to sit back and watch, or are we going to speak up?” The letter was signed by Melva Underbakke, a peace activist and English language instructor who also worked at the University of South Florida. My mother called to thank her. They became friends, and Mel, as she became known to us, formed a group called Friends of Human Rights to support my father.

Mel introduced his case to her fellow congregants at the progressive First United Church of Christ. Many joined the cause, including the church’s minister, the Rev. Warren Clark, who began visiting my father weekly in a ritual he dubbed “Tuesdays with Sami.” The two men exchanged jokes, as well as stories from the Koran and Bible about perseverance in adversity.

My father’s trial lasted six months. Prosecutors presented seventy-five witnesses, including nearly two dozen from Israel. Their testimony centered on attacks that even the US government acknowledged my father had nothing to do with. The prosecutors also introduced 400 phone calls out of nearly half a million that the FBI had recorded over a decade of relentless, indiscriminate surveillance of my family. My father’s attorneys did not call a single witness: their defense was the First Amendment.

“This was a political case, discriminatory both in its selection of Dr. Al-Arian as a Palestinian Muslim and of his critical speech against Israel,” said Linda Moreno, one of my father’s trial attorneys. “The case was about speech, popular to some and unpopular to others.”

Outside the courthouse, Friends of Human Rights held weekly protests under the scorching Florida sun, carrying banners that read “Everyone Deserves a Fair Trial” and “Charity to Orphans and Widows Is Not a Crime.” Inside the courthouse, my siblings and I studied the jurors, looking for signs of how they would decide. We dreaded the day they would return a verdict, but Mel was optimistic. Taking walks on the boardwalk and along the nature trails of a neighborhood park, she would reassure my mother that the jury would find my father innocent.

On December 6, 2005, they did just that, acquitting my father on eight of seventeen counts and voting ten to two to acquit him on the rest. The judge, who did not disguise his bias in favor of the prosecution, initially instructed the jurors to keep deliberating, but on realizing that they were leaning toward acquittal, he reversed course and told them to stop. When one juror was asked why he didn’t vote to convict, he stated simply, “I didn’t see the evidence.”

It’s been nearly a decade since my father’s case began, yet he has been under house arrest since 2008. A Virginia prosecutor, Gordon Kromberg, created a pretext to bring new charges against him by calling him to testify before a grand jury investigating a Muslim think tank. It’s the same strategy Kromberg used in the case of Sabri Benkahla, a Virginia man who was acquitted in a 2004 terrorism case: unhappy with the result, Kromberg summoned Benkahla to testify before a grand jury and then charged him with making false statements. Benkahla was sentenced to ten years in prison.

This potential perjury trap put my father in a Catch-22 that violates the plea agreement he made in Florida: testify and possibly be charged with perjury; refuse and be charged with criminal contempt. My father insisted on upholding his plea deal, filing to dismiss the case based on the fact that the government had reneged on its promise to end all dealings with him, including forcing him to cooperate in other cases. My father is now waiting for a judge to rule on whether the case will proceed.

In the meantime, Mel has continued to advocate on behalf of those she believes were wrongly accused of terrorist activities in the wake of 9/11. She has traveled across the country to screen the award-winning documentary, USA vs. Al-Arian, about my father’s case, as well as to speak, often before church groups, about other cases. Mel says she does not think unfair prosecutions, such as those based on speech and association, will be confined to Muslims.

“I think everybody is at risk at this point,” she said. “If we all speak up together, then we’re all safer.”

* * *

My father was not the only Palestinian activist targeted after 9/11. Three months after the attacks, the Bush administration shut down the largest Muslim charity in the United States. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development focused much of its efforts on giving aid to Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza (though the group was also active in the United States as well as in many other countries, including Bosnia and Turkey). But in 2004 the group and its officials were charged with forty-two counts, including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization (Hamas), tax evasion and money laundering.

The trial against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was considered the largest terrorism financing case in US history. Yet prosecutors did not argue that the charity or any of its officials were involved in violence, either through funding or direct participation. Instead, they told jurors that the charity sent money to schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by Hamas, which has been listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department since 1997. The prosecutors argued that since money is “fungible,” those donations freed up other funds for Hamas to use in violent attacks.

The problem with this argument is that these same Palestinian charities also received donations from organizations like the US Agency for International Development and the International Red Cross. Hadi Jawad, a member of Hungry for Justice, an umbrella group of HLF supporters, said the government has taken sides in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through its prosecution of the HLF. “It’s about demonizing an entire people,” Jawad told me. “They’re saying that [Palestinians] are not worthy of aid and help, even when they’re destitute, hungry and need medical attention.”

Noor Elashi is the daughter of one of the HLF defendants, Ghassan Elashi. She was 18 when her father was arrested. “I saw my father being pushed into the police car,” she recently recalled. “He told me, Keep your head up high, because your father did nothing wrong.”

Noor says the Muslim community was largely supportive, organizing a dinner in honor of the men a few months before trial. “It was a little surreal,” she said. “People stood in a long line to hug each member of the ‘Holy Land Five’ and just said their goodbyes.” People believed in the men’s innocence but were skeptical that they would be given a fair trial.

Despite the show of support, Noor, too, experienced isolation after her father’s arrest. “Someone is not going to have a conversation with you about why they’re not contacting you anymore,” she said. “A lot of it is silence. That’s how people deal with it: they say nothing. And sometimes saying nothing is the worse thing they can do.”

The first attempt to try HLF officials, in 2007, ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a consensus. (According to interviews, most wanted to acquit.) But after a retrial a year later, five HLF officials were convicted on more than 100 charges and sentenced to up to sixty-five years in prison.

Since then, attorneys have appealed the case based on a number of questionable occurrences during the trial, including the judge’s decision to allow testimony from an anonymous Israeli intelligence agent, introduced to jurors simply as Avi, who claimed that he could “smell” Hamas. It marked the first time in US legal history that an expert witness was allowed to testify under a concealed identity. In another highly unusual move, prosecutors unveiled a list of more than 300 unindicted co-conspirators involved in the case. Such identities are normally kept secret under the Justice Department’s guidelines. Many Muslim community leaders and the majority of American Muslim institutions were on the list, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties advocacy group. Soon after, the FBI cut off its outreach dialogue with the group, hampering its own investigations.

“The problem with being put on a list like that is you have absolutely no legal recourse to clear your name,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told me. “With a stroke of a pen, you’re put on a list, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Our detractors have seized on it and repeated it ad nauseam.”

One legacy of the Holy Land trial is the Muslim Legal Fund of America, founded by Texas Muslims in the Dallas suburb of Richardson. Khalil Meek, the co-founder and executive director, compares the group’s mission to that of the NAACP’s legal defense fund. “We take cases that we think have the most impact on the Muslim community and support litigation that’s greater than the individual,” he said. The fund raised $2 million last year; in May it opened chapters in Chicago, Newark, Los Angeles and Washington, with plans to start eight more by early next year. It is also underwriting the National Security Defense Project, based in Texas, which Meek hopes will be a resource center for defense attorneys working on terrorism cases around the country. Meek says that while other American Muslim groups focus on advocacy and education, tackling issues like workplace discrimination, the founders of MLFA realized that no institution was handling criminal cases. As the government pursues more cases targeting Muslims, the need for legal advocacy has increased, inspiring the formation of similar groups across the country. These include the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, Project Salam and the Muslim Justice Initiative.

* * *

This legal advocacy infrastructure is an important outgrowth of the post-9/11 era. In November 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney created the “1 percent doctrine,” which held that if there is even “a 1 percent chance” that a threat is real, “we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” As policy, this has led to innocent Muslims being framed or entrapped in plots wholly manufactured by the FBI.

One of the most egregious cases took place in Albany, where a local imam—a Kurdish immigrant named Yassin Aref—found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The case began with a notebook, discovered in 2003 in the wreckage of a bombed-out encampment in Iraq. Aref’s name was on one of the pages, alongside the Kurdish word kak, which US authorities translated as “commander.” (It actually means “brother.”) With that, Aref was suddenly a government target. The FBI enlisted the help of Shahed Hussain, an informant facing deportation for fraud who has since been involved in several other sting operations throughout the Northeast. Hussain approached a friend of Aref’s, Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, and offered him a loan of $50,000. After giving him the money, Hussain told him it had come from the sale of a missile to be used in an attack against the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations. That, too, was part of the FBI sting.

Aref, knowing nothing about the supposed missile sale, was asked to witness the loan payment. The informant spoke in code, using the word chaudry—a common South Asian surname—to refer to the missile. Aref was arrested and, in March 2007, sentenced to fifteen years in prison on terror charges, including support for a foreign terrorist organization and money laundering.

“It’s fabricated police work,” says Andrew Shryock, a University of Michigan professor, regarding these types of prosecutions using government informants. “And the disturbing thing is not that it produces arrests but that the public tolerates it.”

Aref’s case galvanized peace activists in Albany, who held vigils and wrote letters to the judge calling for Aref’s release. Among them was Steve Downs, a former attorney for New York state, who volunteered in his defense. The day after Aref’s conviction, he visited his client in prison. “He looked at me and said, ‘I want to fire you as my lawyer,’” Downs told me, smiling. “But he said, ‘I want to hire you as my brother.’ He said, ‘I don’t have any family in this country, and I need family more than I need lawyers.’”

Downs and the Muslim Solidarity Committee, as the mostly non-Muslim Albany activists called themselves, raised thousands of dollars to help cover the rent for Aref’s wife and four children. Downs and others also drove Aref’s children to visit their father in prison, fourteen hours away in Indiana.

“I’m not sure I would’ve had the guts to do any of this by myself,” Downs says of the activism around Aref’s case, which drew strength from the number of people involved. Now 70 and retired, Downs says his profession long discouraged him from involvement in political causes, so that for twenty-eight years, he was in a “cocoon.” Today, he is glad to have broken free of it.

“When I was 3 years old, my father died in World War II,” he recalls. “He was a Navy doctor. Later, I asked my mom, ‘Why did he die?’ She would say, ‘Well, there was this war—the Nazis came to power in Germany.’ I would ask, ‘How did Hitler come to power if he was so bad?’ And she would say, ‘Because good people who could have stopped him didn’t do anything.’

“A lot of time growing up, I was angry at good people who didn’t do anything,” Downs says. “Until one day, I realized I was one of those people.”

By Laila Al-Arian

13 June 2012

@ The Nation

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that the Nation Defense Project is associated with the University of Texas in Austin.

On June 13 journalist Rainer Hermann confirmed his earlier report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung refuting the official version of the Houla massacre in Syria.

The media have almost unanimously described the May 5 events in Houla as an atrocity committed by the Syrian government, relying almost exclusively on reports from the so-called rebels. Western powers have used the massacre as a pretext to whip up pro-war sentiment and intensify their pressure on the Assad regime. The US and UK reacted to the massacre by withdrawing diplomats from Syria.

In his June 7 report, Hermann asserted that the victims of the massacre in Taldou, a village in the Houla region, were members of the Alawite und Shi’ite minorities and that the killers were not troops loyal to the Assad regime, but forces aligned with the Sunni-based, sectarian Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Although the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the most prominent German-language newspapers and Hermann a well-known journalist, the report has largely been ignored by the German and international media and criticized in a few reports.

In his new article June 13 Hermann defends his reporting and adds further details about the massacre. This report has also been met largely with silence.

The Houla plains region, Hermann writes, “is burdened by a long history of sectarian tensions. … Of the names of the civilians killed, 84 are known. These are the fathers, mothers and 49 children of the Al Sayyid family and two branches of the Abdarrazzaq family. … Additionally killed in Taldou were relatives of the … member of parliament Abdalmuti Mashlab.”

Hermann goes on to describe what happened: “The family members were targeted and killed with only one exception. No neighbour was injured. One had to have knowledge of the place to carry out these well-planned executions”.

Hermann then quotes 11-year-old Ali, the only member of the Al Sayyid family to survive the bloodbath: “Those responsible had shaved heads and long beards”. In Hermann’s opinion, this points to “fanatical jihadists” and not the “Shabiha militia”.

The version of the event advanced in the global media, in particularly lurid fashion by Britain’s Observer and Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, blames the Shabiha militias, regarded as assault detachments of the Assad regime. These articles rely on the testimony of a Major Jihad Raslan said to have first served in Assad’s army, who then deserted because he was so appalled by the “events in Houla”. Hermann’s article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung exposes these reports as a bunch of lies.

Hermann reconstructs the sequence of events as follows: “After the Friday prayers on May 25 more than 700 armed people led by Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf, forming three groups from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba, attacked three army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, wiped out the Al Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq families. They had refused to join the opposition”.

In his article, Hermann refers to earlier reports by other journalists and nuns from the Jacob Monastery in Qara. Nuns had described to Dutch journalist Martin Jannsen how the rebels piled the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and told UN observers their version of the alleged massacre in front of cameras from rebel-friendly television channels.

The nun Agnès-Maryam had already described the escalation of sectarian violence around Homs in an open letter toward the end of April. She warned of a step-by-step liquidation of all minorities by the Sunni rebels and described the displacement of Christians and Alawites from their homes and the rape of young girls who had been given to the rebels as spoils of war.

Herman also refers to Russian journalist Marat Musin who works for the Anna news agency and was in Houla on May 25 and 26, thus becoming an eyewitness of the events as well as a reporter. So far Musin seems to have given the most detailed description of what took place. His version coincides with Hermann’s and that of the nuns on all decisive points.

These reports and the latest article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung confirm that Syria is being ravaged by a civil war deliberately promoted by Western powers to destabilize the country and prepare it for regime change. The rebels do not speak for the majority of the population. They are made up of former members of the regime, soldiers, mercenaries, terrorists and secret agents pursuing a reactionary political agenda, many of them using the support by the West to settle old scores and carry out sectarian conflicts.

International news media are supporting the war preparations of US imperialism and its allies in an unprecedented campaign of agitation and propaganda. That is why Hermann’s article and the well-documented reports of other journalists and eyewitnesses are mostly being hushed up.

By Clara Weiss

16 June, 2012

@WSWS.org

On the 48th anniversary of the founding of the Group of 77 and China , Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka participated as a panelist at round table entitled “What future and what challenges for UNESCO?” organized by the group to mark the occasion. The event was attended by scholars, researchers, diplomats and journalists.

The roundtable dealt with the themes among others, of “The moral and financial crisis of UNESCO”, “The reconstruction of UNESCO in the face of current challenges”, and “Reflections on the real priorities of UNESCO”. Ambassador Jayatilleka was selected by the Group to speak on the “Responsibility of the countries of the South to save UNESCO”.

Also participating in this round table were: Prof. Eric GEOFFROY (Professor at the University of Strasbourg, France), Prof. Jean BRICMONT (Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain, writer), H.E. Jean MUSITELLI (Member of the French Conseil d’Etat), H.E. Olabiyi Babalola Joseph YAI (Ambassador/Permanent Delegate of Benin to UNESCO), H.E. Mr. Mohammad Réza MAJIDI (Ambassador/Permanent Delegate of Iran to UNESCO), Mr. Michel COLLON (writer, independent journalist), Mr. Sidiki COULIBALY (President of the ISAU), Mr. Ronan GRIPPAY (President of the STU), Mr. Malik AIT SI SELMI (former Deputy Director of Human Resources in UNESCO), Mr. Augustin GATERA (Centre of Languages and African Cultures Studies -Rwanda), and Ms. Chloé MAUREL (Researcher, Centre for the Cultural History of Contemporary Societies, Caen).

[Please find below full statement of Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka]

Full Statement of Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka

“UNESCO’S FUTURE & THE CHALLENGE FOR THE SOUTH”

at UNESCO Headquarters

Paris, June 14, 2012

Looking at it from the point of view of the South, I see that UNESCO has the strength to regain the initiative. This is demonstrated with the vote on Palestine . We did something that almost nobody else has done for quite some time. Let us never forget that potentiality. Let us never be trapped in negativism and fatalism. Recognizing that potentiality, however, does not preclude us from also recognizing the crisis of UNESCO and the crisis the South faces within UNESCO.

UNESCO has become a target. This is not the result of conspiracy but the result of a systemic re-modeling; a byproduct of the world system. UNESCO has been transformed from a subject into an object. We can see this transparently if we examine the dismantling of the institutional spaces for thinking within UNESCO.

Over a period of years, the institutional spaces for the practice of philosophy, of ethics, of reflections, of ideas –the ‘laboratory of ideas’ function of UNESCO– has been dismantled and dispersed. One could put it up on a chart and track this dispersal, diversion and dismantling.

UNESCO has been and is being gradually lobotomized and we have done nothing so far to challenge this! While the function of reflection, of deep thinking has been atomized, on the other hand UNESCO is been transformed and is sought to be transformed into a soft power accessory, an auxiliary of the hegemonic centers and ideologies. This is why UNESCO identified itself uncritically with the one dimensional conception of the Arab Spring: not a critical one, not a dialectical one, not a deep thinking reflection but precisely a one dimensional conception.

So UNESCO has been politicized but in one sense– and we have not resisted or challenged this. We must stop this transformation of UNESCO, this conscious transformation of UNESCO, into a mere conduit and disseminator of hegemonic ideologies which also appropriate notions of Human Rights and distort them as part of an interventionist project. This global interventionist project has been discussed today by Prof Jean Bricmont and Michel Collon among others.

The philosophical function of UNESCO almost no longer exists. Michel Colon quoted quite accurately from Régis Debray. Régis Debray lives in Paris and I know he is somewhat reclusive but still, Régis Debray is one of the many outstanding intellectuals who we do not see at UNESCO. I do not know if he would come if invited, but has anyone invited him? Why is it that UNESCO in 1951 had Jean Paul Sartre discussing the ethics of violence but UNESCO in 2012 does not reach out, for most of the time, to the outstanding intellectuals within Paris and in France, let alone in the rest of Europe–because there are no budgetary constraints really in doing so, but it is not done.

So the thinking function, the critical thinking function, the function of reflection is deliberately being ‘disappeared’. Now is this the result of financial crisis? Yes and no because well before the post-Palestinian induction cuts, the budgetary issue has been used in a neo-liberal manner, as it has been in some of our countries at certain times where budget cuts are made. Now who decides on the priorities? Certain programs, institutional spaces are dispersed, are cut back in the name of rationalization. But it is really a counter-reformation that has been proceeding, a long counter-reformation within and of UNESCO, taking it away from the founding values and functions that inspired the organization.

The task for the South is to counter that counter-reformation.

For lack of time I will refer to only one very serious problem. UNESCO has also been subject to a massive ideological barrage as a result of which we do not look at our own history in a balanced and critical manner. I refer to the period in which UNESCO was at the forefront of the battle for a new international information order– and the importance of information, of examining the hegemonic structures of global information as part of the striving for peace and against war, has been mentioned by Michel Collon among others, today.

UNESCO shies away as if Director-General M’Bow was Satan Incarnate! It is possible that there were certain excesses, certain unilateralism, and certain over-emphases during that period, but today while we must firmly uphold the struggle for the freedom of expression and the rights of individual journalists, we must simultaneously look at the hegemonic structures and global information order. This is a critique and project which UNESCO stood at the forefront of, but we are not doing this, we have not done this, we have been almost brainwashed or hypnotized into thinking that this was a dark age of UNESCO and that we must never go back there. But that is surely part of our heritage that we must be proud of, and we must look back at the Sean Macbride report , reflect upon that period where UNESCO put the study of the international information order on the agenda.

So in conclusion, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I propose a few ideas. One, a very prosaic one: closer, structured cooperation between G77 and China and the Non Aligned Movement within UNESCO. There is surely an overlap but there has to be closer structured liaison and coordination. Two, as I said before, we must reexamine or reintroduce into the agenda the theme of information and its unequal sources and structures; the unequal exchange for information between North and South. Three, we must take up the flagship theme of the New Humanism but we should do it from the point of view and perspective of the Global South. In my own reading, the first time I came across the phrase new humanism, not in capitals, has been in the unabridged Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci and I suggest that the countries of the Global South have a session in which the New Humanism would be looked up from the perspective of the regions of the South, and of the South as a whole.

Embassy of Sri Lanka

Paris

18th June  2012

In a traditional cowboy movie, we know what to do: we look for the guy wearing the white hat to be sure who to cheer, and for the one wearing the black hat to know who deserves to die, preferably gruesomely, before the credits roll. If Hollywood learnt early to play on these most tribal of emotions, do we doubt that Washington’s political script-writers are any less sophisticated?Western military intervention is exactly what factional nation’s in the Middle East and North Africa do not need. (AFP/Timothy A. Clary)

Since 9/11, the United States and its allies in Europe have persuaded us that they are waging a series of “white hat” wars against “black hat” regimes in the Middle East. Each has been sold to us misleadingly as a “humanitarian intervention”. The cycle of such wars is still far from complete.

But over the course of the past decade, the presentation of these wars has necessarily changed. As Hollywood well understands, audiences quickly tire of the same contrived plot. Invention, creativity and ever greater complexity are needed to sustain our emotional engagement.

Declarations by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu aside, there are only so many times we can be convinced that there is a new Hitler in the Middle East, and that the moment is rapidly approaching when this evil mastermind will succeed in developing a doomsday weapon designed to wipe out Israel, the US, or maybe the planet.

In 1950s Hollywood, the solution for audience ennui was simple: High Noon put the noble sheriff, Gary Cooper, in a black hat, and the evil gunslinger in a white one. It offered a veneer of complexity, but in reality the same good guy-bad guy formula played out along familiar lines.

If Washington required a new storyline after the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, it did not have to work hard to write one. It was assisted by the rapid changes taking place in the political environment of the Middle East: the so-called Arab Spring. Washington could hardly have overlooked the emotionally satisfying twists and turns presented by the awakening of popular forces against the deadening hand of autocratic regimes, many of them installed decades ago by the West.

The reality, of course, is that the US and its allies are pursuing the same agenda as before the Arab Spring: that is, they are looking to preserve their own geo-political interests. In that regard, they are trying to contain and reverse dangerous manifestations of the awakening, especially in Egypt, the most populous and influential of the Arab states, and in the Gulf, our pipeline to the world’s most abundant oil reserves.

But for Washington, the Arab Spring presented opportunities as well as threats, and these are being keenly exploited.

Both Afghanistan and Iraq followed a model of “intervention” that is now widely discredited and probably no longer viable for a West struggling with economic decline. It is not an easy sell to Western publics that our armies should single-handedly invade, occupy and “fix” Middle Eastern states, especially given how ungrateful the recipients of our largesse have proven to be.

Humanitarian wars might have run into the sand at this point had the Arab Spring not opened up new possibilities for “intervening”.

The Arab awakening created a fresh set of dynamics in the Middle East that countered the dominance of the traditional military and political elites: democratic and Islamist forces were buoyed with new confidence; business elites spied domestic economic opportunities through collaboration with the West; and oppressed ethnic, religious and tribal groups saw a chance to settle old scores.

Not surprisingly, Washington has shown more interest in cultivating the latter two groups than the first.

In Libya, the US and its allies in Nato took off the white hat and handed it to the so-called rebels, comprising mostly tribes out of favour with Gadaffi. The West took a visible role, especially in its bombing sorties, but one that made sure the local actors were presented as in the driving seat. The West was only too happy to appear as if relegated to a minor role: enabling the good guys.

After Libya’s outlaw, Muammar Gadaffi, was beaten to death by the rebels last year, the credits rolled. The movie was over for Western audiences. But for Libyans a new film began, in a language foreign to our ears and with no subtitles. What little information has seeped out since suggests that Libya is now mired in lawlessness, no better than the political waste lands we ourselves created in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of regional militias run the country, extorting, torturing and slaughtering those who oppose them.

Few can doubt that Syria is next on the West’s hit list. And this time, the script-writers in Washington seem to believe that the task of turning a functioning, if highly repressive, state into a basket case can be achieved without the West’s hand being visible at all. This time the white hat has been assigned to our allies, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, who, according to the latest reports, are stoking an incipient civil war not only by arming some among the rebels but also by preparing to pay them salaries too, in petro-dollars.

The importance to Western governments of developing more “complex” narratives about intervention has been driven by the need to weaken domestic opposition to continuing Middle East wars. The impression that these wars are being inspired and directed exclusively from “inside”, even if by a heterogeneous opposition whose composition remains murky to outsiders, adds a degree of extra legitimacy; and additionally, it suggests to Western publics that that the cost in treasure and casualties will not be born by us.

Whereas there was a wide consensus in favour of attacking Afghanistan, Western opinion split, especially in Europe, over the question of invading Iraq in the same manner. In the post 9/11 world, the villain in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, seemed a more credible threat to Western interests than Saddam Hussein. The critics of Operation Shock and Awe were proven resoundingly right.

The Arab awakenings, however, provided a different storyline for subsequent Western intervention — one that Washington had tried weakly to advance in Iraq too, after Saddam’s WMD could not be located. It was no longer about finding a doomsday person or weapon, but about a civilising mission to bring democracy to oppressed peoples.

In the era before the Arab Spring, this risked looking like just another ploy to promote Western interests. But afterwards, it seemed far more plausible. It mattered little whether the local actors were democratic elements seeking a new kind of politics or feuding ethnic groups seeking control of the old politics for their own, vengeful ends. The goal of the West was to co-opt them, willingly or not, to the new narrative.

This move effectively eroded popular opposition to the next humanitarian war, in Libya, and looks like it is already achieving the same end in Syria.

Certainly, it has fatally undermined effective dissent from the left, which has squabbled and splintered over each of these humanitarian wars. A number of leading leftwing intellectuals lined up behind the project to overthrow Gadaffi, and more of them are already applauding the same fate for Syria’s Bashar Assad. There is now only a rump of critical leftwing opinion steadfast in its opposition to yet another attempt by the West to engineer an Arab state’s implosion.

If this were simply a cowboy movie, none of this would be of more than incidental interest. Gadaffi was, and Assad is, an outlaw. But international politics is far more complex than a Hollywood script, as should be obvious if we paused for a moment to reflect on what kind of sheriffs we have elected and re-elected in the West. George Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama probably have more blood on their hands than any Arab autocrat.

Many on the left are struggling to analyse the new Middle East with anything approaching the sophistication of Washington’s military planners. This failure derives in large part from a willingness to allow the war-merchants to blur the meaningful issues — on the regimes, the opposition groups and the media coverage — related to each “humanitarian intervention”.

Yes, the regimes selected for destruction are uniformly brutal and ugly towards their own people. Yes, the nature of their rule should be denounced. Yes, the world would be better off without them. But this is no reason for the West to wage wars against them, at least not so long as the world continues to be configured the way it is into competing and self-interested nation states.

Nearly all states in the Middle East have appalling human rights records, some of them with even fewer redeeming features than Gadaffi’s Libya or Assad’s Syria. But then those states, such as Saudi Arabia, are close allies of the West. Only the terminally naïve or dishonest argue that the states targeted by the West have been selected for the benefit of their long-suffering citizens. Rather, they have been chosen because they are seen as implacably opposed to American and Israeli interests in the region.

Even in the case of Libya, where Gadaffi’s threat to the West was far from clear to many observers, Western geo-political interests were, in fact, dominant. Dan Glazebrook, a journalist specialising in Western foreign policy, has noted that shortly before the West turned its sights on Libya Gadaffi had begun galvanising African opposition to Africom, the Africa command established by the US military in 2008.

Africom’s role is to organise and direct African troops to fight to ensure, in the words of a US Vice-Admiral, “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”. In overthrowing Gadaffi, Africom both removed the main challenger to its plan and put into effect its mission statement: not a single US or European soldier died in the operation to unseat Gadaffi.

Highlighting the hypocrisy at the heart of the interventionist agenda should not be dismissed as simple whataboutery. The West’s mendacity fatally undermines the rationale for intervention, stripping it of any semblance of legitimacy. It also ensures that those who are our allies in these military adventures, such as Saudi Arabia, are the ones who will ultimately get to shape the regimes that emerge out of the rubble.

And yes too, the peoples of the Arab world have the right to live in freedom and dignity. Yes, they are entitled to rise up against their dictators. Yes, they have the right to our moral sympathy, to our advice and to our best efforts at diplomacy in their cause. But they have no right to expect us to go to war on their behalf, or to arm them, or to bring their governments down for them.

This principle should hold because, as the world is currently configured, humanitarian intervention guarantees not a new moral order but rather the law of the jungle. Even if the West could be trusted to wage just wars, rather than ones to promote the interests of its elites, how could we ever divine what action was needed to achieve a just outcome – all the more so in the still deeply divided societies of the Middle East?

Is the average Libyan safer because we pulverised his or her country with bombs, because we crushed its institutions, good and bad alike, because we left it politically and socially adrift, and because we then handed arms and power to tribal groups so that they could wreak revenge on their predecessors? It is doubtful. But even if the answer is unclear, in the absence of certainty we are obliged to follow the medical maxim: “First, do no harm”.

It is the height of arrogance – no, more a God complex – to be as sure as some of our politicians and pundits that we deserve the gratitude of Iraqis for overthrowing Saddam Hussein at the likely cost of more than a million Iraqi lives and millions more forced into exile.

Societies cannot have democracy imposed from without, as though it were an item to be ordered from a lunch menu. The West’s democracies, imperfect as they are, were fought for by their peoples over centuries at great cost, including horrific wars. Each state developed its own checks and balances to cope with the unique political, social and economic conditions that prevailed there. Those hard-won freedoms are under constant threat, not least from the very same political and economic elites that so vociferously campaign for humanitarian interventions abroad.

The reality is that greater freedoms are not awarded by outside benefactors; they are struggled for and won by the people themselves. No modern society achieved democracy except through a gradual, painful struggle, where lessons were learnt, often through error, where reverses and setbacks were plentiful, and where lasting success came with the realisation by all sides that legitimacy could not be secured through violence. If we owe other societies struggling for freedom anything, it is our solidarity, not access to our government’s arsenals.

In fact, the West’s duty is not to intervene more but to intervene far less. We already massively arm tyrannies such as those in the Gulf so that they can protect the oil that we consider our birthright; we offer military, financial and diplomatic cover for Israel’s continuing oppression of millions of Palestinians, a major cause of political instability in the Middle East; and we quietly support the Egyptian military, which is currently trying to reverse last year’s revolutionary gains.

Popular support for humanitarian wars could not be maintained without the spread of propaganda masquerading as news by our corporate-owned media. Over the past decade they have faithfully marketed the Middle East agendas of our war-making governments. As the fanciful pretext for each war is exposed, the armchair generals assure us that the lessons have been learnt for next time. But when the script is given a makeover – and the white hat passed to a new lawman – the same discredited media pundits justify war yet again from the safety of their studios.

This is another reason to tread cautiously. In the case of Syria, the source of the certainty expressed by our newsrooms is often no more than a one-man outfit in the British town of Coventry known as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. If Rami Abdulrahman did not exist, our interventionist governments and their courtiers in the media would have had to invent him. The Observatory produces the anti-regime news needed to justify another war.

This is not to argue that Assad’s regime has not committed war crimes. Rather, it is that, even were “humanitarian interventions” a legitimate undertaking, we have no comsistently reliable information to make an assessment of how best we can intervene, based on the “news” placed in our media by partisan groups to the conflict. All that is clear is that we are once again being manipulated, and to a known end.

These are grounds enough to oppose another humanitarian war. But there is an additional reason why it is foolhardy in the extreme for those on the left to play along with West’s current agenda in Syria, even if they genuinely believe that ordinary Syrians will be the beneficiaries.

If the West succeeds in its slow-motion, proxy intervention in Syria and disables yet another Arab state for refusing to toe its line, the stage will be set for the next war against the next target: Iran.

That is not an argument condoning Assad’s continuing rule. Syrians should be left to make that decision.

But it is an admonition to those who justify endless meddling in the Middle East in the service of a Western agenda. It is a caution against waging wars whose destructive power is directed chiefly at civilians. It is a warning that none of these humanitarian wars is a solution to a problem; they are only a prelude to yet more war. And it is a reminder that we have no right to play God.

By Jonathan Cook

26 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Apocalypse has been given a bad name.  The Seventh Day Adventists are still around.  The Nike sneaker cult failed to open Heaven’s Gate.  The new millennium brought us George W. Bush, not Jesus H. Christ.  And everybody’s terrified of “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

But our species is living beyond its means.  If we continue down this path, the planet, our food supplies, our climate, and life as we know it will collapse.  If we bring population growth, consumption, and pollution under control, the damage already set in motion will play out for centuries, but complete catastrophe will likely be averted.

Nobody likes to be told that the end might be near.  Either it is or it isn’t.  And the question is resolved by a personal lifestyle choice.  Do I wish to be a pessimist or an optimist?  Of course, optimist is far more popular.  Even most predictors of apocalypse have actually believed they were predicting a good thing.  The world was to be replaced with something better.  Even our best environmentalists who understand the radical changes needed for survival guarantee they will happen.  Harvey Wasserman says he simply believes in happy endings.

Meanwhile, we can barely get half of us in the United States to “believe” that global warming is happening.  Of course, we step outside and there’s a sauna, but that could just be “natural.”  So what if the ocean is a few inches higher?  The people who’ve been predicting that for decades have been wrong until now, and now they’re only a little right — if you even believe them.  The ocean looks about the same to me.  And if they predict exponential acceleration of such changes, meaning that once the changes have become visible it won’t be long before they’re enormous, well that just proves one thing: they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.  They’re pessimists.

In 1992, governments finally got together in Rio and took some baby steps.  In 2012, they reconvened and collectively proclaimed , “To hell with all that.  This rock may be doomed, but that’s our great-grandchildren’s problem.  Screw them! This is Rio.  Roll down the windows.  Turn up the air conditioning.  Pass me a drink!”  Well, actually, a few scientists and diplomats stood off to the side and muttered , “What we need to save us is a really bad catastrophe.”  And a 17-year-old girl stood up and blurted out the truth , which made everybody feel really important.  Imagine: you were at the meeting that could have chosen to save the planet; how cool is that?  Imagine how the judge feels who is sitting in Washington, D.C., deliberating on whether the atmosphere ought to be protected or destroyed.  The atmosphere!  Of the earth!  Now that’s power, and the longer you deliberate the longer you can fantasize about possibly even using that power.

In 1972 a group of scientists published a book called Limits to Growth .  It passionately urged the changes needed before human growth and destruction exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet.  In 1992, the same authors published Beyond the Limits .  There were by then, they found, too many humans doing too much damage.  We were beyond sustainable limits and would need to change quickly.  In 2004, they published an update, arguing that we were already 20 percent above global carrying capacity, and that we had “largely squandered the past 30 years.”  Their warnings grew sharper: “We do not have another 30 years to dither.”

The updated book charts the course we’ve been on these past 30, now 40, years.  Population has exploded in less industrialized countries.  Many millions of poor people have been added to our species, while a shrinking percentage of the world’s population has continued to hoard most of the wealth.  The planet has become less equitable through the repeated act of giving birth.  Then it has become less equitable still through economic growth that has been made to benefit most those least in need.  Meanwhile, nations with high population growth have been least able to invest in infrastructure, being obliged to take care of their people’s immediate needs.  This has resulted in still greater poverty, triggering higher birth rates in families dependent on children to survive.  These vicious cycles can be broken, and have been broken, but not by wishing or hoping.  And time is running out.

Sustainable agriculture is being practiced in some places and could feed us all if practiced everywhere and the food distributed to everyone.  The problem is not figuring out what to do so much as simply doing it.  But we can’t do it individually, and we can’t wait for those in power to do it on their own.

Corporations will not learn to make more money by behaving responsibly, not to a sufficient extent to reverse current trends.  The logic of the market will not correct itself, except in the most brutal sense.  If we wait for Wall Street to decide that destroying the Earth is a bad idea, the basic systems of life on Earth will collapse in shortages, crises, and widespread suffering.  Instead, we have to enforce change as a society, and we have to do it now.  If we’d acted in 1982, write the authors of Limits to Growth , we might have avoided serious damage.  If we’d acted in 2002, we also still had a fighting chance.  By 2022, it will be too late to avoid decline.  We’re halfway there.

Limits to Growth offers the crisis of the ozone layer as evidence that humanity can face up to a global environmental disaster and correct it.  Of course, we can.  We have always had that option and always will.  Even beyond 2022, we will have the option of lessening the destruction to as great an extent possible.  But slowing the damage to the ozone layer required changes to a relatively small industrial cartel, nothing to compare to big oil.  The question is not, I think, whether the world can act collectively on behalf of the Earth.  The question is whether the world can act collectively against the organized strength of the fossil fuels industry, its closely aligned military forces in the United States and NATO, and governments far gone down the path of inverted totalitarianism.

For you optimists, I should point out that living sustainably need not mean suffering.  We could live better lives with less consumption and destruction.  Our culture can grow while our population declines.  Our society can advance while our production of waste products retreats.  Our mental horizons can broaden while our food sources narrow.  Millennia from now, people living sustainably on this planet could look back with wonder at the insanity of the notion that everything had to grow , and with gratitude toward those who gave their fellow passengers an awakening smack to the face.

Here’s one small place to start .

26 June, 2012

@ Warisacrime.org

books include ” War Is A Lie .” He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org . He hosts Talk Nation Radio . Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook .

Jimmy Carter, former US president, denounced the US administration for “clearly violating” 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It’s unprecedented! It’s neither Fidel Castro nor Hugo Chavez, neither Moscow nor Beijing, but a former US president is accusing the US president of sanctioning the “widespread abuse of human rights”. Mr. Carter has not mentioned Barak Obama, the US president, by name. However, he used the words “our government” and “the highest authorities in Washington”.

Mr. Carter made the point by referring the authorization of drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists. In a New York Times op-ed article on June 25 he said the “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.”

Drone strikes are a fact in the daily life of people of Pakistan. In Yemen, it’s a fact also. It’s apprehended that peoples in other lands can have the same experience. Interests of Naked Imperialism (title of a book by John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review,) will determine the extent of drone operation.

Citing the New America Foundation estimates ABC News said in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 killing at least 1,488 persons, at least 1,343 of them considered militants. The foundation estimates are based on news reports and other sources. (“Jimmy Carter Accuses U.S. of ‘Widespread Abuse of Human Rights’”)

“Instead of making the world safer”, Mr. Jimmy Carter wrote, “America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.”

The Guantanamo Bay detention center and waterboarding issues were not skipped by Mr. Carter. He criticized the US president for keeping the detention center open, where prisoners “have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers.”

Mr. Carter blared the US government for allowing “unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications.”

He also condemned recent legislation that gives the president the power to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely, although a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect for any suspects not affiliated with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Carter said: “This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration.”

Mr. Carter urged “concerned citizens” to “persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership”.

Mr. Carter is keeping his hope on the moral leadership of the US. But, military-industrial complex has taken it out long ago. Moral standard is being set by the economic interests that utilize military power and manipulate diplomacy to widen and to make safe its domain of accumulation. The system has its own conscience, which is different from human conscience. The system has its own mind, which is different from human brain. The conscience, the mind, the ethics, the moral standard of the system is political, not apolitical; it’s a-human, a-personal. It’s neither a president nor a group of good-soul senators, not even generals, who determine the moral standard. Dominating interests determine the moral standards, the ethics, the targets of drone.

What to tell the mothers of the children killed by drones in Pakistan villages? What to tell the children maimed by drones in Pakistan villages? What to tell the old father, who lost his young son, probably the only earning member of the family? What moral standard can bring in peace to these mothers, to these children, to these fathers, who are poor, working people, who know nothing about geopolitics, great game in the central Asian zone, peak oil, oil pipeline, western hemisphere designed democracy and its stooges, MNC-interests? All geopolitics, all power, all interests turn incapable to bring in solace to the hearts of crying humanity in rural mud houses demolished by drones! Ringing bells of humanity are not within hearing range.

It’s not only a fact in the rugged mountain villages in Pakistan or Yemen. The question of human rights in the US was raised by the UN more than once.

It was reported that the UN envoy for freedom of expression was drafting an official communication to the US government demanding to know “why federal officials are not protecting the rights of Occupy demonstrators whose protests are being disbanded – sometimes violently – by local authorities.” Frank La Rue, the UN “special rapporteur” for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that “the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.” “Citizens have the right to dissent with the authorities, and there’s no need to use public force to silence that dissension”, he said.

It was also reported that tThe UN was to conduct an investigation into the plight of the US Native Americans. A UN statement said: “This will be the first mission to the US by an independent expert designated by the UN human rights council to report on the rights of the indigenous peoples.”

Many of the US’ estimated 2.7 million Native Americans live in federally recognized tribal areas overwhelmed with unemployment, high suicide rates and other social problems.

Accusations of human rights violation in the US are now a regular diplomatic event in the Chinese capital. China raises the issue seriously. It has become a part of public diplomacy. Once, only years back, it was only a US monopoly. Now China has stepped in boldly.

But Mr. Jimmy Carter’s voice is not a part of public diplomacy. He is a dignified personality. It shows dissent within the upper echelon of the US society. And, dissent signifies state of governance, understanding, rapport, efficiency of ruling mechanism. So, Mr. Carter voice is significant.

By Farooque Chowdhury

26 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Dhaka-based Farooque Chowdhury is a free lancer.