Archives: Articles

By Joseph Camilleri

8 February 2013

@ theconversation.edu.au

The new year is scarcely a month old. Yet we have seen enough to know that the fires raging in different parts of the Middle East and North Africa will not easily abate – and that the firefighting efforts of Western governments may prove no more successful than in the past.

From Algeria to Afghanistan, we see governments whose survival depends on authoritarian rule or the continued support of external powers, or some mixture of the two. In a few places, in particular in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been talk of a transition to democratic institutions, but the path is strewn with obstacles. In many more places, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iraq and Yemen to name a few, terrorist cells operating under different guises and names are fanning the flames, moving elusively from one flash point to another.

Attacks by Islamist insurgents on US outposts in Benghazi, Libya, at a gas plant in Algeria, and in Mali over the past 12 months may at first sight appear to be unconnected. A closer look suggests they are the interconnected symptoms of a deeper ailment.

In Algeria, on January 16, a group linked with al Qaeda took more than 800 people hostage at the Tigantourine gas facility near In Aménas. The raid mounted by the Algerian special forces managed to free nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners, but at a high cost: 39 hostages were killed along with an Algerian security guard and 29 militants.

In Mali, the steady collapse of state control over the north of the country was followed by an inconclusive military coup in March 2012, which did little to stem the steady advance of the Saharan branch of al Qaeda. The insurgents were soon in control of the Tuareg north, effectively seceding from the rest of Mali and establishing a harsh form of Islamic law. This is the backdrop to French military intervention which has, for the time being, driven Islamists from the major cities they had occupied across northern Mali.

There is reason to think that in each case the terrorists received both weapons and training from militia camps in Libya.

During her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 23, Hilary Clinton acknowledged as much. She said:

There is no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya. There is no doubt that the Malian remnants of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have weapons from Libya.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it more forcefully, saying, “Those whom the French and Africans are fighting now in Mali are the (same) people who overthrew the Gaddafi regime, those that our Western partners armed.”

A French soldier rides an armoured vehicle through the Malian town Timbuktu. AAP/Arnaud Roine

He may well have added that the Taliban, which the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan for more than 11 years, is in part “the monster” the US helped to create when it decided to support and arm Islamist groups during the 1980s.

We are also seeing the revolving door of Islamist violence and Western intervention at work in Syria’s tragic devastation. In recent months, well armed Jihadist groups appear to be gaining the upper hand among the rebel groups fighting the Assad regime.

In this confused picture, one thing is becoming clearer by the day. US military interventions in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 have turned out to be costly operations, greatly sapping the strength of the American state, and if anything widening the spread of terror. The Western intervention in Libya suggests more of the same.

Despite hundreds of US drone strikes, the death of Osama bin Laden and the fracturing of al Qaeda, the jihadist movement is organisationally more flexible and geographically more widespread than ever. With US and allied forces to end their combat mission in Afghanistan next year, the Taliban threat remains potent. Some 1100 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in the past six months, while army personnel have been deserting in growing numbers. The number of al Qaeda fighters may have fallen in Afghanistan, but many have regrouped in Pakistan or shifted their focus to Syria, Libya, Iraq or Mali, Somalia and Yemen.

French President Francois Hollande shakes hands with a French soldier in Timbuktu, Mali. AAP/STR

France’s intervention in Mali may have temporarily disrupted the plans of Islamist groups, but for how long? François Hollande may have received a hero’s welcome in Timbuktu and Bamako, but French forces can’t remain forever. And, once they leave, will Malian forces, even with the support of neighbouring African states, succeed where they have failed in the past?

The political reality is that relations between the north and south of the country have been historically fraught. The Tuareg nomadic communities of the north have launched major rebellions over the years against what they see as exploitative southern rule. This perception is repeatedly reinforced by stories of massacres, the poisoning of wells and score-settling by pro-government militias against Tuareg civilians. Reports of mob lynchings and other reprisal killings of Tuaregs and Arabs by the Malian army as it retakes control of the north of the country can only fan the flames of grievance and mistrust.

The question, then, is not should international forces intervene to protect communities in need of protection? The “responsibility to protect” has rightly become a universally accepted principle.

Instead, the questions are: what form should protection take? Who should do the protecting? What can be done to prevent, rather than simply react to, mass atrocity crimes? What are appropriate strategies for dealing with rampant corruption and deep-seated ethnic, religious and economic divisions? And importantly, who may decide on these questions?

Military intervention conducted or orchestrated by the United States and its allies, however well intentioned, seems increasingly the wrong answer.

By Geoff Dyer in Washington

8 February, 2013

@ www.ft.com

Divisions within the Obama administration over how to respond to the civil war in Syria spilled into the open on Thursday when the Pentagon said it had supported a plan to arm the rebels which the White House later rejected.

Leon Panetta, the outgoing defence secretary, told Congress that he had backed a plan developed by David Petraeus, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was also supported by Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state.

The CIA plan would have attempted to supply arms to those groups in the Syrian opposition who are viewed as not being hostile to US interests.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he had also supported the plan. Neither he nor Mr Panetta said why the White House vetoed the idea.

Obviously there were a number of factors that ultimately led to the president’s decision to make it nonlethal, Mr Panetta said. “I supported his decision in the end.”

The Obama administration has been extremely cautious about intervening in the Syrian conflict, with the Pentagon consistently ruling out any direct involvement by US troops or the implementation of a no-fly zone.

However, officials started working on a plan to train and arm selected groups of rebels from last summer after the failure of the former UN envoy Kofi Annan’ s efforts to broker a political solution to the conflict.

Mr Panetta’ s comments brought into the open a dispute that has been raging within the administration for months. With regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar already arming rebel groups, some US officials have argued that the US should at least try to promote elements of the opposition that might be favourable to the US.

However, other US officials argued that it would be difficult to control where the weapons eventually would end up and feared a repeat of Afghanistan in the 1980s when the US armed jihadi groups that later turned against the west.

By Lester R. Brown

8 February, 2013

@ Inter Press Service

The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity. Over the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush and ushering in a new geopolitics of food. Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.

This new era is one of rising food prices and spreading hunger. On the demand side of the food equation, population growth, rising affluence, and the conversion of food into fuel for cars are combining to raise consumption by record amounts.

On the supply side, extreme soil erosion, growing water shortages, and the earth’s rising temperature are making it more difficult to expand production. Unless we can reverse such trends, food prices will continue to rise and hunger will continue to spread, eventually bringing down our social system.

Can we reverse these trends in time? Or is food the weak link in our early twenty-first-century civilization, much as it was in so many of the earlier civilizations whose archeological sites we now study?

This tightening of world food supplies contrasts sharply with the last half of the twentieth century, when the dominant issues in agriculture were overproduction, huge grain surpluses, and access to markets by grain exporters. During that time, the world in effect had two reserves: large carryover stocks of grain (the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins) and a large area of cropland idled under US farm programs to avoid overproduction.

When the world harvest was good, the United States would idle more land. When the harvest was subpar, it would return land to production. The excess production capacity was used to maintain stability in world grain markets. The large stocks of grain cushioned world crop shortfalls.

When India’s monsoon failed in 1965, for example, the United States shipped a fifth of its wheat harvest to India to avert a potentially massive famine. And because of abundant stocks, this had little effect on the world grain price.

When this period of food abundance began, the world had 2.5 billion people. Today it has seven billion.

From 1950 to 2000 there were occasional grain price spikes as a result of weather-induced events, such as a severe drought in Russia or an intense heat wave in the US Midwest. But their effects on price were short-lived. Within a year or so things were back to normal. The combination of abundant stocks and idled cropland made this period one of the most food-secure in world history.

But it was not to last. By 1986, steadily rising world demand for grain and unacceptably high budgetary costs led to a phasing out of the U.S. cropland set-aside program.

Today the United States has some land idled in its Conservation Reserve Program, but it targets land that is highly susceptible to erosion. The days of productive land ready to be quickly brought into production when needed are over.

Ever since agriculture began, carryover stocks of grain have been the most basic indicator of food security. The goal of farmers everywhere is to produce enough grain not just to make it to the next harvest but to do so with a comfortable margin. From 1986, when we lost the idled cropland buffer, through 2001, the annual world carryover stocks of grain averaged a comfortable 107 days of consumption.

This safety cushion was not to last either. After 2001, the carryover stocks of grain dropped sharply as world consumption exceeded production. From 2002 through 2011, they averaged only 74 days of consumption, a drop of one third. An unprecedented period of world food security has come to an end. Within two decades, the world had lost both of its safety cushions.

In recent years, world carryover stocks of grain have been only slightly above the 70 days that was considered a desirable minimum during the late twentieth century. Now stock levels must take into account the effect on harvests of higher temperatures, more extensive drought, and more intense heat waves.

Although there is no easy way to precisely quantify the harvest effects of any of these climate-related threats, it is clear that any of them can shrink harvests, potentially creating chaos in the world grain market. To mitigate this risk, a stock reserve equal to 110 days of consumption would produce a much safer level of food security.

The world is now living from one year to the next, hoping always to produce enough to cover the growth in demand. Farmers everywhere are making an all-out effort to keep pace with the accelerated growth in demand, but they are having difficulty doing so.

Food shortages undermined earlier civilizations. The Sumerians and Mayans are just two of the many early civilizations that declined apparently because they moved onto an agricultural path that was environmentally unsustainable.

For the Sumerians, rising salt levels in the soil as a result of a defect in their otherwise well-engineered irrigation system eventually brought down their food system and thus their civilization. For the Mayans, soil erosion was one of the keys to their downfall, as it was for so many other early civilizations.

We, too, are on such a path. While the Sumerians suffered from rising salt levels in the soil, our modern-day agriculture is suffering from rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. And like the Mayans, we too are mismanaging our land and generating record losses of soil from erosion.

While the decline of early civilizations can be traced to one or possibly two environmental trends such as deforestation and soil erosion that undermined their food supply, we are now dealing with several. In addition to some of the most severe soil erosion in human history, we are also facing newer trends such as the depletion of aquifers, the plateauing of grain yields in the more agriculturally advanced countries, and rising temperature.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that the United Nations reports that food prices are now double what they were in 2002-04. For most U.S. citizens, who spend on average nine percent of their income on food, this is not a big deal. But for consumers who spend 50-70 percent of their income on food, a doubling of food prices is a serious matter. There is little latitude for them to offset the price rise simply by spending more.

Closely associated with the decline in stocks of grain and the rise in food prices is the spread of hunger. During the closing decades of the last century, the number of hungry people in the world was falling, dropping to a low of 792 million in 1997. After that it began to rise, climbing toward one billion. Unfortunately, if we continue with business as usual, the ranks of the hungry will continue to expand.

The bottom line is that it is becoming much more difficult for the world’s farmers to keep up with the world’s rapidly growing demand for grain. World grain stocks were drawn down a decade ago and we have not been able to rebuild them. If we cannot do so, we can expect that with the next poor harvest, food prices will soar, hunger will intensify, and food unrest will spread.

We are entering a time of chronic food scarcity, one that is leading to intense competition for control of land and water resources – in short, a new geopolitics of food.

Lester Brown is the president of Earth Policy Institute. For further reading on the global food situation, see Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity, by Lester R. Brown (W.W. Norton: October 2012).

New Era of Food Scarcity Echoes Collapsed Civilisations

ShareThisShareThis

Comments are moderated

By Nicola Nasser

06 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

The timing of the Israeli air raid early on January 30 on a Syrian target, that has yet to be identified, coincided with a hard to refute indications that the “regime change” in Syria by force, both by foreign military intervention and by internal armed rebellion, has failed, driving the Syrian opposition in exile to opt unwillingly for “negotiations” with the ruling regime, with the blessing of the U.S., EU and Arab League, concluding, in the words of a Deutsche Welle report on this February 2, that “nearly two years since the revolt began, (Syrian President Bashar Al-) Assad is still sitting comfortably in presidential chair.”

Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps saying that Israel is preparing for “dramatic changes” in Syria, but senior Israeli foreign ministry officials accused him of “fear-mongering on Syria” to justify his ordering what the Russians described as the “unprovoked” raid, according to The Times of Israel on January 29. Another official told the Israeli Maariv that no Israeli “red lines” were crossed with regard to the reported chemical weapons in Syria to justify the raid. On January 16 Israel’s National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said there was “no evidence” to any Syrian steps to use such weapons. On last December 8 UN Chief Ban Ki-moon said there were “no confirmed reports” Damascus was preparing to use them. Three days later U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: “We have not seen anything new” on chemical weapons “indicating any aggressive steps” by Syria. On January 31 NATO Chief Fogh Rasmussen said: “I have no new information about chemical weapons (in Syria).” Syria’s Russian ally has repeatedly confirmed what Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 2 that “we have reliable information” the Syrian government maintains control of chemical weapons and “won’t use” them. That’s what Syria itself keeps repeating, and “there is no particular reason why Israel is to be believed and Syria not,” according to a Saudi Gazette editorial on February 3.

More likely Israel is either trying to escalate militarily to embroil an unwilling United States in the Syrian conflict, in a too late attempt to pre-empt a political solution, out of a belief that the fall of the Al – Assad regime will serve Israel’s strategy, according to the former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, (Major general, reserve) Amos Yaldin, or to establish for itself a seat at any international negotiating table that might be detrimental in shaping a future regime in Syria.

Escalating militarily at a time of political de-escalation of the military solution in Syria will not secure a seat for Israel in any forum. This is the message that the Israeli chief of General Staff, Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, should have heard during his latest five – day visit in the U.S. from his host in Washington, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey; the head of Israel’s National – Security Bureau, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Ya’akov Amidror, who was in Moscow at the same time, should have heard a similar message from his Russian hosts.

The Israeli military intervention at this particular timing fuels a Syrian fire that has recently started to look for firefighters among the growing number of the advocates of dialogue, negotiations and political solutions both nationally, regionally and internationally.

The escalating humanitarian crisis and the rising death toll in Syria have made imperative either one of two options: A foreign military intervention or a political solution. Two years on since the U.S., EU, Turkish and Qatari adoption of a “regime change” in Syria by force, on the lines of the “Libyan scenario,” the first option has failed to materialize.

With the legitimate Syrian government gaining the upper hand militarily on the ground, the inability of the rebels to “liberate” even one city, town or enough area in the countryside to be declared a “buffer zone” or to host the self-proclaimed leadership of opposition in exile, which failed during the Paris – hosted “Friends of Syria” meeting on January 28 to agree on a “government – in – exile,” more likely because of this very reason, the second option of a political solution is left as the only way forward and as the only way out of the bloodshed and the snowballing humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli raid sends a message that the military option could yet be pursued. The rebels who based their overall strategy on a foreign military intervention have recently discovered that the only outside intervention they were able to get was from the international network of al-Qaeda and the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood. No surprise then that the frustrated Syrian rebels are loosing ground, momentum and morale.

An Israeli military intervention would undoubtedly revive their morale, but temporarily, because it does not potentially guarantee that it will succeed in improving their chances where failure doomed the collective efforts of all the “Friends of Syria,” whose numbers dwindled over time from more than one hundred nations about two years ago to about fifty in their last meeting in Paris.

Such intervention would only promise more of the same, prolonging the military conflict, shedding more of Syrian blood, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, multiplying the numbers of those displaced inside the country and the Syrian refugees abroad, postponing an inevitable political solution, and significantly rallying more Syrians in support of the ruling regime in defending their country against the Israeli occupier of their Syrian Golan heights, thus isolating the rebels by depriving them from whatever support their terrorist tactics have left them.

More importantly however, such an Israeli intervention risks a regional outburst if not contained by the world community or if it succeeds in inviting a reciprocal Syrian retaliation. Both Syrians and Israelis were on record in the aftermath of the Israeli raid that the bilateral “rules of engagement” have already changed.

All the “Friends of Syria” have been on record that they were doing all they could to enforce a “buffer zone” inside Syria; they tried to create it through Turkey in northern Syria, through Jordan in the south, through Lebanon in the west and on the borders with Iraq in the east, but they failed to make it materialize. They tried to enforce it by a resolution from the UN Security Council, but their efforts were aborted three times by a dual Russian – Chinese veto. They tried, unsuccessfully so far, to enforce it outside the jurisdiction of the United Nations by arming an internal rebellion, publicly on the payroll of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, logistically supported by Turkey and the U.S., British, French and German intelligence services and spearheaded mainly by the al-Qaeda – linked Al-Nusra Front, a rebellion focusing on the peripheral areas sharing borders with Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, after the failure of an early attempt to make the western Syrian port city of Latakia on the Mediterranean play the role the city of Benghazi played in the Libyan “change of regime.”

Now, Israel has stepped in the conflict, publicly for the first time, to try its hands to enforce a “buffer zone” of its own in an attempt to succeed where all the “Friends of Syria” have failed.

On February 3, British “The Sunday Times” reported that Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to ten miles inside Syria, modelled on a similar zone it created in southern Lebanon in 1985 from which it was forced to withdraw unconditionally by the Hezbullah – led and Syrian and Iranian – supported Lebanese resistance in 2000. Israeli mainstream daily Maariv (“evening” in Hebrew) the next day confirmed the Times report, adding the zone would be created in cooperation with local Arab villages on the Syrian side of the UN-monitored buffer zone, which was created on both sides of the armistice line after the 1973 Israeli – Syrian war.

Israel in fact have been paving the way materially on the ground for an Israeli – created buffer zone. Earlier, in a much less publicized development, Israel allowed the UN-monitored buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli – occupied Syrian Golan Heights to be overtaken by the “Islamist” Syrian rebels. The European Jewish Press reported on January 1, 2013 that the Israeli premier Netanyahu, during a visit to the Israeli – occupied Golan Heights, was informed the rebels “have taken up positions along the border with Israel, with the exception of the Quneitra enclave.” Earlier on last November 14 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted by the AP to confirm that the “Syrian rebels control almost all the villages near the frontier with the Israeli – held Golan Heights.” On December 13 Israeli “The Jerusalem Post” quoted a “senior military source” as saying that “The rebel control of the area does not require changes on our part.”

UN observers monitoring the zone number about one thousand. An “Israeli officer” told a Mcclatchy reporter on last November 14 that the rebels in the zone are “fewer than 1,000 fighters.” Canada withdrew its contingent of monitors last September; Japan followed suit in January. In the previous month, France’s ambassador to the UN, Gérard Araud, warned the UN peacekeeping force on the Golan may “collapse,” according to The Times of Israel, citing the London – based Arabic daily of Al – Hayat.

The 1974 armistice agreement prohibits the Syrian government from engaging in military activity within the buffer zone; if it does it would risk a military confrontation with Israel and, according to Moshe Maoz, professor emeritus at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, “The Syrian army doesn’t have any interest in provoking Israel,” because “Syria has enough problems.”

However it would be anybody’s guess to know for how long Syria could tolerate turning the UN monitored demilitarized buffer zone, with Israeli closed eyes, into a terrorist safe haven and into a corridor of supply linking the rebels in Lebanon to their “brethren” in southern Syria.

Israel did not challenge militarily the presence of the al – Qaeda – linked rebels on its side of the supposedly demilitarized zone nor did it complain to or ask the United Nations for a reinforcement of the UN monitors there.

Ironically, Israel cites the presence of those same rebels along the borders of the Israeli – occupied Golan Heights as the pretext to justify “considering creating a buffer zone” inside Syria!

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com

By Countercurrents.org

6 February 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

At least 54 countries co-operated with USA inn global kidnap, detention and torture operation mounted after 9/11 attacks, says Globalizing Torture , a comprehensive report. The countries include Afghanistan , Canada , Egypt , Iceland , Iran , Ireland , Jordan , Pakistan and the UK .

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign governments that used torture, or by the CIA itself in clandestine “black sites” using torture techniques [1].

Globalizing Torture is the most comprehensive account yet assembled of the human rights abuses associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations.

It details for the first time what was done to the 136 known victims, and lists the 54 foreign governments that participated in these operations. It shows that responsibility for the abuses lies not only with the United States but with dozens of foreign governments that were complicit.

More than 10 years after the 2001 attacks, Globalizing Torture makes it unequivocally clear that the time has come for the United States and its partners to definitively repudiate these illegal practices and secure accountability for the associated human rights abuses.

Ian Cobain reported [2]:

The full extent of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program has been laid bare with the publication of the report showing there is evidence that more than a quarter of the world’s governments covertly offered support.

The 213-page report compiled by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a New York-based human rights organization, says that at least 54 countries co-operated with the global kidnap, detention and torture operation that was mounted after 9/11, many of them in Europe.

So widespread and extensive was the participation of governments across the world that it is now clear the CIA could not have operated its program without their support, according to the OSJI.

“There is no doubt that high-ranking Bush administration officials bear responsibility for authorizing human rights violations associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition, and the impunity that they have enjoyed to date remains a matter of significant concern,” the report says. “But responsibility for these violations does not end with the United States . Secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations, designed to be conducted outside the United States under cover of secrecy, could not have been implemented without the active participation of foreign governments. These governments too must be held accountable.”

The states identified by the OSJI include those such as Pakistan , Afghanistan , Egypt and Jordan where the existence of secret prisons and the use of torture has been well documented for many years. But the OSJI’s rendition list also includes states such as Ireland , Iceland and Cyprus , which are accused of granting covert support for the program by permitting the use of airspace and airports by aircraft involved in rendition flights.

Canada not only permitted the use of its airspace but provided information that led to one of its own nationals being taken to Syria where he was held for a year and tortured, the report says.

Iran and Syria are identified by the OSJI as having participated in the rendition program. Syria is said to have been one of the “most common destinations for rendered suspects”, while Iran is said to have participated in the CIA’s program by handing over 15 individuals to Kabul shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan , in the full knowledge that they would fall under US control.

Other countries are conspicuous by their absence from the rendition list: Sweden and Finland are present, but there is no evidence of Norwegian involvement. Similarly, while many Middle Eastern countries did become involved in the rendition program, Israel did not, according to the OSJI research.

Many of the countries on the list are European. Germany , Spain , Portugal and Austria are among them, but France , the Netherlands and Hungary are not. Georgia stands accused of involvement in rendition, but Russia does not.

Some countries, such as Poland , Lithuania and Romania , hosted secret prisons on their territory.

The OSJI reports that the UK supported CIA rendition operations, interrogated people being secretly detained, allowed the use of British airports and airspace, arranged for one man, Sami al-Saadi, to be rendered to Libya with his entire family, where he was subsequently tortured, and provided intelligence that allowed a second similar operation to take place.

Publication of the report appears to have been timed to coincide with the confirmation hearing on Thursday of John Brennan, Barack Obama’s choice to head the CIA. Brennan is widely expected to be questioned about his association with the so-called enhanced interrogation policies adopted by Bush.

The OSJI report, Globalizing Torture , says the full scope of non-US government involvement may still remain unknown.

“Despite the efforts of the United States and its partner governments to withhold the truth about past and ongoing abuses, information relating to these abuses will continue to find its way into the public domain,” the report says.

“At the same time, while US courts have closed their doors to victims of secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations, legal challenges to foreign government participation in these operations are being heard in courts around the world.”

The OSJI is calling on the US government to repudiate the rendition program, close all its remaining secret prisons, mount a criminal investigation into human rights abuses – including those apparently endorsed by government lawyers – and create an independent and non-partisan commission to investigate and publicly report on the role that officials played in such abuses.

The organization is also calling on non-US governments to end their involvement in rendition operations, mount effective investigations – including criminal investigations – to hold those responsible to account, and institute safeguards to ensure that future counter-terrorism operations do not violate human rights standards.

Source:

[1] Open Society Foundations, Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), February 2013, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition”,

http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/globalizing-torture-cia-secret-detention-and-extraordinary-rendition

[2] guardian.co.uk, Feb 5, 2013 , “CIA rendition: more than a quarter of countries ‘offered covert support’”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/cia-rendition-countries-covert-support

By Countercurrents.org

06 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Citing US press reports a BBC report (headline: “CIA operating drone base in Saudi Arabia, US media reveal”*) on February 6, 2013 said:

The US Central Intelligence Agency has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years.

The facility was established to hunt for members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.

A drone flown from there was used in September 2011 to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was alleged to be AQAP’s external operations chief.

US media have known of its existence since then, but have not reported it.

Citing senior government officials the report said they were concerned that disclosure would undermine operations against AQAP, as well as potentially damage counter-terrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

The report said:

The location of the secret drone base was not revealed in the US reports.

However, construction was ordered after a December 2009 cruise missile strike in Yemen, according to the New York Times.

It was the first strike ordered by the Obama administration, and ended in disaster, with dozens of civilians, including women and children, killed.

US officials told the newspaper that the first time the CIA used the secret facility was to kill Awlaki.

Since then, the CIA has been “given the mission of hunting and killing ‘high-value targets’ in Yemen” – the leaders of AQAP who government lawyers had determined posed a direct threat to the US – the officials added.

Three other Americans, including Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, have also been killed in US strikes in Yemen, which can reportedly be carried out without the permission of the country’s government.

Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen, an expert on Gulf politics at the London School of Economics, told the BBC that Saudi anxieties about the growing threat of AQAP would have been behind the government’s decision to allow the US to fly drones from inside the kingdom.

“The Saudis see AQAP as a very real threat to their domestic security,” he said. “They are worried about attacks on their energy infrastructure and on the royal family, so it fit their strategy to allow the drone attacks.”

The existence of the base was likely a “sensitive issue” for both Washington and Riyadh, Mr. Coates-Ulrichsen added.

A source close to the Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.

The Washington Post reported that President Barak Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, played a key role in negotiations with the government in Riyadh over building the drone base.

Saudi Arabia is home to some of Islam’s holiest sites and the deployment of US forces there was seen as a historic betrayal by many Islamists, notably the late leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden.

It was one of the main reasons given by the Saudi-born militant to justify violence against the US and its allies.

Leaked memo

The revelation of the drone base came shortly after the leaking of a US justice department memo detailing the Obama administration’s case for killing Americans abroad who are accused of being a “senior, operational leader” of al-Qaeda or its allies.

Lethal force is lawful if they are deemed to pose an “imminent threat” and their capture is not feasible, the memo says. The threat does not have to be based on intelligence about a specific attack, since such actions are being “continually” planned by al-Qaeda, it adds.

NBC News said it was given to members of the US Senate intelligence and judiciary committees as a summary of a classified memo on the targeted killings of US citizens prepared by the justice department.

The latter memo was written before the drone strike that killed Awlaki.

Under President Obama, the US has expanded its use of drones to kill hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. It says it is acting in self-defense in accordance with international law.

Critics argue the drone strikes amount to execution without trial and cause many civilian casualties.

Senators are expected to ask Mr Brennan about drone strikes, the memo and the killing of Awlaki on Thursday when he faces a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become the new CIA director.

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21350437

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

6 February 2013

@ http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com

The Israeli “investigation” of its own crimes exonerated itself, again.  In the first part of the so called Turkel report, in January 2011 the Israeli appointed commission (not independent but known apologists for the Israeli government) “found” that its attack on the Mavi Marmara and the Gaza freedom flotilla (Turkish and international-flagged civilian ships in International waters), was “kosher” by International law.  International legal experts, UN investigators, human rights organizations, the Turkish government, and most of the world governments and world public disagreed.  In fact, if the US has not blocked action by NATO (because decisions must have agreement of all NATO members), this is an actual attack on a NATO country.  But today (February 6, 2013 more than two years later) came the second even more shocking (though not unexpected) part of the Turkel report.  This is the most convoluted whitewash sophistry in jargon that one can see.  This part was supposed to look at the actions of the Israeli commandos as they pirated (and yes that is the proper term PIRACY) the ships but also in actions in the West Bank. Turkel concluded that Israel’s oversight and investigations procedures of war crimes in this incident and in actions in the West Bank “in general meet the requirements set by International law.”!  Ironically in another part of the report it says that Israel unlike other Western Countries had no definition or delineation of what constitutes war crimes! The commission thus could not really evaluate something they had no definition of and if they wanted the definitions that most countries ply it is available in International law (e.g. the Geneva conventions which were not brought up in this context by Turkel).  Israel is obliged to follow International law including refraining from war crimes.  I do not need to go through the rest of the lengthy report since it is mostly dealing with “operational improvements” in the actions of the Israeli forces and the Israeli government.  It actually regresses by making a recommendation to the government that such events as attack on Palestinians or Internationals should not be investigated by Israeli police or Israeli civilian legal system but by the “Israeli military advocate general”.   This is the same advocate general who received 240 well documented cases of abuse by the Israeli forces in 2012 but not a single case was brought to indictment/trials of the perpetrators (this is from Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that looked into this).  And this was a relatively quiet year. In 2003 and 2004 there were hundreds of executions and other war crimes by the Israeli military.

The Turkel report assigned no responsibility and was clearly intended as a PR campaign to show that no International and truly independent investigation is needed since the occupation army and the colonial state do a “good job” investigating themselves though they can improve “operationally” in this good performance!  Even the Israeli investigation of the massacre of hundreds of civilians at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 (a massacre performed by Lebanese phalange paid mercenaries of the Israeli army with lighting and protection by Israeli forces) was a bit more nuanced.  That 1982 investigation at least assigned some responsibility to then defense minister Ariel Sharon who left political life briefly but returned to become prime minister instead of being sent to the Hague for war crimes.   And of course independent UN investigations are not allowed or if they happen are dismissed out of hand.  Even the killings of US citizens are not investigated independently (for example see the murder of Rachel Corrie).

I think this “Turkel report” should be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I think Turkey (a member of the International Criminal Court and a member of NATO) and Palestine (which can now apply for membership) should take Israel to the ICC.  I think Palestinian and Turkish officials meeting with President Obama next months should say to him: enough is enough.  It pained me to see Salam Fayyad meeting with Israeli Knesset members and pleading with them to release the Palestinian tax money that Israel stole.  After 20 years of “Oslo”, will they learn that pleading and begging colonizers/occupiers for our rights does not work?

If you want to waste a lot of time reading gibberish, here is the website of the Israeli commission that exonerated the Israeli actions: see http://www.turkel-committee.com  but for for real reports on what happened on the Mavi Marmara and the pirated ships people can read the reports below:

Two UN reports contradict the Israeli report.  See for example

http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/middle_east/Gaza_Flotilla_Panel_Report.pdf

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/15session/A.HRC.15.21_en.PDF

All human rights organizations who looked into this even wanted stronger actions (and of course these were not on the agenda of Mr. Turkel).  See for example Amnesty which first described the initial Israeli report of January 2011 as a whitewash

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=israeli-report-on-mavi-marmara-raid-a-whitewash-amnesty-claims-2011-01-29

and came up with a  strong report of its own

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/ngos/AI-4_Israel_HRC105.pdf

The Turkish government detailed report (though I coulf not find a direct link to the text, there are many new reports on the internet about it).

But if Israel is about transparency, why not release the hundreds of camera/video cameras that it confiscated from the hundreds of passengers on board?  Why not even mention them in the Turkel report (which did use the selective videos by Israeli military commandoes).  The few smuggled videos are rather damning and indeed show war crimes.

Here is a segment of execution by Israeli soldiers of a peace activist on board the Mavi Marmara http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi6c10ntFZk

And here is a far longer smuggled video that shown many other atrocities issues

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/10/exclusive_journalist_smuggles_out_video_of

And of course Mr. Turkel and company did not care about the testimony of hundreds of survivors.  Here is just one chilling testimony: http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/middle-east/kidnapped-israel-forsaken-britain

And the Turkel report does not allude to these Photos that show Mavi Marmara passengers protecting, aiding Israeli soldiers http://aliabunimah.posterous.com/blog-post-israel-hasbara-fails-again-pics-sho

Gideon Levy wrote an article that says “Israel does as it pleases: Until now it’s worked. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Sudan and, of course, the Palestinians wiped the saliva, said it was rain and restrained themselves, because they are weak and Israel is strong.” http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-does-as-it-pleases.premium-1.501032

Well I say again this “Turkel report” could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back if Turkey (a member of the International Criminal Court and a member of NATO) and Palestine (which can now apply for membership) can get their act together. I do hope we will not have to wait for the next war crime to act.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org

By Countercurrents.org

06 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Tunisia is raging in protest after a progressive leader has been shot dead. Demonstrating people have set on fire and ransacked Islamist party’s offices.

An iafrica.co report headlined “Tunisians angry over killing” (Feb 6, 2013, http://news.iafrica.com/worldnews/841124.html) said:

Prominent Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid was shot dead outside his home in Tunis on February 6, 2013, sparking angry protests by his supporters and attacks on offices of the ruling Islamist Ennahda party.

President Moncef Marzouki denounced the killing of Belaid, an outspoken critic of his government, as an “odious assassination”, while Ennahda chief Rached Ghannouchi told AFP the killers wanted a “bloodbath” in Tunisia.

The cold-blooded killing sparked outrage, with some 2000 people gathering outside the interior ministry in Tunis, shouting abuse at Ennahda, which they accuse of being behind the assassination of the 48-year-old leftist leader.

Protesters torched the Ennahda party office in Mezzouna, near the central town of Sidi Bouzid, and ransacked another in the mining town of Gafsa, where they tore up Ennahda flags, AFP journalists and witnesses said.

Some 2000 protesters also took to the streets of Sidi Bouzid itself, birthplace of the 2011 revolution that toppled ex-dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, where they were met by police tear gas, witnesses said.

Marzouki deplored the killing in an impassioned speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg that brought tears to the eyes of politicians.

“This odious assassination of a political leader who I knew well and who was my friend … is a threat, it is a letter sent that will not be received,” the president said, insisting the murder would not tip Tunisia to unrest.

“We refuse this message and we will continue to unmask the enemies of the revolution,” he said, though Tunisia’s path was “paved with hurdles,” including “orchestrated verbal violence, burnt preachers” and the murder of Belaid.

A presidential aide said Marzouki had scrapped plans to head from Strasbourg to Cairo to join a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and instead would fly home immediately to deal with the crisis.

The family of Belaid, who headed the opposition Democratic Patriots party and was a harsh critic of Tunisia’s Islamist-led government, was in no doubt as to who was behind the murder.

“My brother was assassinated. I am desperate and depressed,” said Abdelmajid Belaid.

“I accuse (Ennahda leader) Rached Ghannouchi of assassinating my brother,” he told AFP.

Ghannouchi rejected the accusations and said the killing was linked to the “settling of political scores”.

“(The killers) want a bloodbath but they won’t succeed” in creating one, Ghannouchi told AFP.

“We can only condemn this cowardly act, which is aimed at (undermining) the revolution and the stability of Tunisia,” he added.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali described the murder as “an act of terrorism”.

He said a gunman wearing the traditional hooded long burnous robe shot Belaid with three bullets fired at close range as he left his Tunis home February 6, 2013 morning.

Belaid’s wife gave a similar account of the killing in an interview with the private radio station Mosaique FM.

Jebali told the same radio station everything possible would be done to swiftly arrest the murderer.

“The Tunisian people are not used to such things. This is a serious turn … our duty to all, as a government, as a people, is to be wise and not fall into the criminal trap which seeks to push the country into chaos.”

France’s President Francois Hollande said the murder had robbed Tunisia of “one of its most courageous and free voices.”

The murder of Belaid comes at a time when Tunisia is witnessing a rise in violence fed by political and social discontent two years after the mass uprising that toppled Ben Ali.

Several opposition parties and trade unions have accused pro-Islamist groups of orchestrating clashes or attacks against them.

Belaid’s party forms part of the Popular Front coalition of leftist parties that has emerged in opposition to the Tunisia government

A TUNIS datelined Reuters report by Tarek Amara (“Tunisia protests after government critic shot dead”, Feb 6, 2013, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/06/uk-tunisia-politics-opponent-idUKBRE9150AO20130206?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews) said:

A Tunisian opposition politician was shot dead sending protesters onto the streets of cities nationwide.

The headquarters of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which rules in a fractious coalition with secularists, was set ablaze after Chokri Belaid, an outspoken critic of the government, was gunned down outside his home in the capital.

Despite calls for calm from the president, 8,000 protesters, massed outside the Interior Ministry, calling for the fall of the government, and thousands more demonstrated in cities including Mahdia, Sousse, Monastir and Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the revolution, where police fired teargas and warning shots.

“This is a black day in the history of modern Tunisia … Today we say to the Islamists, ‘get out’ … enough is enough,” said Souad, a 40-year-old teacher outside the Interior Ministry in Tunis. “Tunisia will sink in the blood if you stay in power.”

The small North African state was the first Arab country to oust its leader and hold free elections as uprisings spread around the region.

But like in Egypt, many who campaigned for freedom from repression under autocratic rulers and better prospects for their future now feel their revolutions have been hijacked by Islamists they accuse of clamping down on personal freedoms, with no sign of new jobs or improvements in infrastructure.

Since the uprising, the government has faced a string of protests over economic hardship and Tunisia’s future path, with many complaining hardline Salafists were taking over the revolution in the former French colony dominated previously by a secular elite under the dictatorship of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Last year, Salafist groups prevented several concerts and plays from taking place in Tunisian cities, saying they violated Islamic principles, worrying the secular-minded among the 11 million Tunisians, who fear freedom of expression is in danger.

Declining trade with the crisis-hit euro zone has also left Tunisians struggling to achieve the better living standards many had hoped for following Ben Ali’s departure. Any further signs of unrest could scare off tourists vital to an industry only just recovering from the revolution.

“More than 4,000 are protesting now, burning tyres and throwing stones at the police,” Mehdi Horchani, a Sidi Bouzid resident, told Reuters. “There is great anger.”

President Moncef Marzouki, who last month warned the tension between secularists and Islamists might lead to “civil war”, cancelled a visit to Egypt scheduled for February 7, 2013 and cut short a trip to France, where he addressed the European Parliament.

“We will continue to fight the enemies of the revolution,” the secularist leader told European Union lawmakers in Strasbourg.

Belaid, who died in hospital, was a leading member of the opposition Popular Front party. A lawyer and human rights activist, he had been a constant critic of the government, accusing it of being a puppet of the rulers in the small but wealthy Gulf state of Qatar, which Tunisia denies.

“Chokri Belaid was killed today by four bullets to the head and chest,” Ziad Lakhader, a leader of the Popular Front, told Reuters. “Doctors told us that he has died. This is a sad day for Tunisia.”

Ennahda Party president Rached Ghannouchi denied any involvement in the killing. Belaid said earlier this week that dozens of people close to the government attacked a meeting of his party.

Riccardo Fabiani, Eurasia analyst on Tunisia, described it as a “major failure for Tunisian politics”.

“The question is now what is Ennahda going to do and what are its allies going to do?” he said. “They could be forced to withdraw from the government which would lead to a major crisis in the transition.”

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

6 February 13

@ readersupportednews.org

NBC’s Michael Isikoff has revealed the text of a white paper composed for Congress by the Department of Justice that sheds light on the legal arguments made by Eric Holder in justifying the killing by drone strike of Americans abroad, who are suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda. That the memo did not even require that the US know of a specific and imminent plot against the US, of which the al-Qaeda member was guilty, for it to kill him from the skies, alarmed all the country’s civil libertarians.

Here are five objections to the vision of the memo, which it seems to me is directly contrary to the spirit and the letter of the US constitution. It is contrary in profound ways to the ideals of the founding generation.

1. In the Western tradition of law, there can be no punishment without the commission of a specific crime defined by statute. The memo does not require that a specific crime have been committed, or that a planned criminal act be a clear and present danger, for an American citizen to be targeted for execution by drone.

2. To any extent that the president’s powers under the memo are alleged to derive from the 2001 Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, i.e. from the legislature, they are a form of bill of attainder (the History Learning Site explains what that is here):

“A bill, act or writ of attainder was a piece of legislation that declared a person or persons guilty of a crime. A bill of attainder allowed for the guilty party to be punished without a trial. A bill of attainder was part of English common law. Whereas Habeus Corpus guaranteed a fair trial by jury, a bill of attainder bypassed this. The word ‘attainder’ meant tainted. A bill of attainder was mostly used for treason . . . and such a move suspended a person’s civil rights and guaranteed that the person would be found guilty of the crimes stated in the bill as long as the Royal Assent was gained. For serious crimes such as treason, the result was invariably execution.”

What, you might ask, is wrong with that? Only that it is unconstitutional. Tech Law Journal explains:

“The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.” . . .

“These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment.” William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.

The form of the AUMF, in singling out all members of al-Qaeda wherever they are and regardless of nationality or of actual criminal action, as objects of legitimate lethal force, is that of a bill of attainder. Congress cannot declare war on small organizations – war is declared on states. Such a bill of attainder is inherently unconstitutional.

3. The memo’s vision violates the principle of the separation of powers. It makes the president judge, jury and executioner. Everything is done within the executive branch, with no judicial oversight whatsoever. The powers the memo grants the president are the same enjoyed by the absolute monarchs of the early modern period, against whom Montesquieu penned his Spirit of the Laws, which inspired most subsequent democracies, including the American. Montesquieu said:

“Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.

There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.

Most kingdoms in Europe enjoy a moderate government because the prince who is invested with the two first powers leaves the third to his subjects. In Turkey, where these three powers are united in the Sultan’s person, the subjects groan under the most dreadful oppression.

Ironically, given contemporary American Islamophobia, the Obama administration has made itself resemble not the Sun-King, Louis XIV, who at least did have a court system not completely under his thumb, but rather, as Montesquieu saw it, the Ottoman sultans, who he claimed combined in themselves executive, legislative and judicial power. (Actually the Muslim qadis or court judges who ruled according to Islamic law or sharia were also not completely subjugated to the monarch, so even the Ottomans were better than the drone memo).

3. The memo resurrects the medieval notion of “outlawry” – that an individual can be put outside the protection of the law by the sovereign for vague crimes such as “rebellion,” and merely by royal decree. A person declared an outlaw by the king was deprived of all rights and legal protections, and anyone could do anything to him that they wished, with no repercussions. (The slang use of “outlaw” to mean simply “habitual criminal” is an echo of this ancient practice, which was abolished in the UK and the US).

I wrote on another occasion that the problem with branding someone an “outlaw” by virtue of being a traitor or a terrorist is that this whole idea was abolished by the US constitution. Its framers insisted that you couldn’t just hang someone out to dry by decree. Rather, a person who was alleged to have committed a crime such as treason or terrorism had to be captured, brought to court, tried, and sentenced in accordance with a specific statute, and then punished by the state. If someone is arrested, they have the right to demand to be produced in court before a judge, a right known as habeas corpus (“bringing the body,” i.e. bringing the physical person in front of a judge).

The relevant text is the Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

4. The memo asks us to trust the executive to establish beyond the shadow of a doubt the guilt of an individual in a distant land, to whom access is so limited that the US cannot hope to capture him or have local authorities capture him. But Andy Worthington has established that very large numbers of the prisoners the US sent to Guantanamo were innocent of the charges against them. If the executive arm of the government can imprison people mistakenly, it can blow them away by drone mistakenly. A US government official once told me the story of an Iraqi Shiite who had fled persecution under Saddam through Iran all the way to Afghanistan. In 2001, locals eager to make a buck turned him in as “Taliban” to the US military, which apparently did not realize that Iraqi Shiites would never ever support a hyper-Sunni movement like that. So the Iraqi Shiite was sent to Guantanamo and it could even be that Taliban themselves were paid by the US for turning him in. The official may have been speaking of Jowad Jabar. These American officials are way too ignorant to be given the power to simply execute human beings from the sky on the basis of their so-called ‘intelligence.’

5. The memo, as Glenn Greenwald points out, ratifies the Bush/Cheney theory that the whole world is a battlefield on which the US is continually at war. Treating the few hundred al-Qaeda, spread around the world in 60 small cells, as an enemy army, making them analogous to German troops in WW II, is insane on the face of it. Our current secretary of state, John Kerry, largely rejected the notion. Al-Qaeda consists of criminals, not soldiers, and they pose a police counter-terrorism problem, not a battlefield problem. The notion that the whole world is a battlefield violates basic legal conceptions of international law such as national sovereignty.

By Shepherd Bliss

06 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Groups of dancers in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as elsewhere around the planet, have been rehearsing and engaging in public Flash Mobs. They show up, unannounced, start the music on a portable system, and begin dancing. They are building toward a February 14, Valentine’s Day, One Billion Rising action, scheduled for over 190 countries.

“Eve Ensler, the author of the play ‘The Vagina Monologues,’” explained Valerie Richman of Petaluma, “read a United Nations’ statistic that one of three women would be the victim of violence. So she got the idea of a billion women and those who love them standing up to strike, rise, and dance to end violence. A song was written, ‘Breaking the Chain,’ along with choreography by Debbie Allen.”

One billion women are raped, beaten or sexually abused during their lifetimes. This huge global gathering gives artistic expression to anger and grief to transform them into unifying, uplifting, and healing public events in order to “Break the Chain” of violence against women and girls.

“Strike | Dance | Rise!” is a planetary invitation. It will climax on the 15th anniversary of the annual V-Day that Ensler and others have organized in many different languages around the globe. “The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Valentine’s Day, Victory over Violence, and Vaginas,” explained Petaluma organizer Trisha Almond.

“Dancing is an expression of the power we don’t always feel we have,” explained Diana Ellis of Petaluma. She supports “a vision of how men and women can work together in simple artistic ways to fight violence against the one billion. The problem of solving sexual violence can feel hopeless. But a billion minus one, minus one, minus one …. eventually equals zero.”

“I believe that men’s voices, feelings, experiences, suggestions and actions must be included in the dialogue about stopping violence against women,” added Richman. “It is a HUMAN issue!”

Some 400 dancers converged on downtown San Francisco on January 26. “One Billion Rising.org is a dancing revolution against the world-wide violence against women and girls on a daily basis,” reported Suzette Burrous, a mid-wife who participated in that event. “I joined this movement because I strongly support the work of VDay.org. Having performed in the ‘The Vagina Monologues’ seven times in the past, I was excited to be part of another global movement to protect and enhance the lives of women of the world.”

La Tierra community’s warm barn in the Sebastopol countryside in Sonoma County heated up on January 24. It became a hot site for an exciting dance rehearsal. Sebastopol’s lead dancer AnnMarie Ginella—a widow in her 50s with four sons—clad in a colorful One Billion Rising shirt against a black background, had expected four people to attend the rehearsal. Over a dozen came, including three men and an animated five-year-old girl with her mother and grandparents, who evoked smiles as the child watched carefully and learned the steps. By the February 3 public rehearsal in Sebastopol’s plaza some 35 dancers joined and were witnessed by many at the small town’s weekly farmers’ market.

Dominican University in San Rafael will be the site of Marin County’s February 14 action. Sister Patricia Dougherty, OP, Ph.D., chair of Dominican’s history department, sent out an invitation to faculty and staff to join the social justice effort. It will begin, appropriately enough, with a dance prayer performed by international women in the morning, directed by dance teacher Taira Restar.

“Noise at Noon” will climax the day with a march protesting violence against women and girls. It will go from the campus to downtown San Rafael. Participants are invited to “bring posters, noise makers, and high energy to protest local and global violence toward women and girls.” An afternoon teach-in described as “Breaking the Chain,” the name of the song to which participants dance, will conclude the day.

A group of six Petaluma dancers spoke to a communication class at Dominican and engaged in a Flash Mob outside the library on February 1, including a mother/daughter team. “The Flash Mobs we’ve been in have been fun,” noted Ronda Black. “You go in and dance without permission. When we went to a mall, a security guard came up and asked ‘Who is your leader?’ We responded that we don’t have a leader.”

“Violence is like climate change,” added Connie Madden. “People do not want to look at it. We need to shine a light on the violence and change what we do. Instead of the growing cultural clashes around the world, we need to find ways to come together as one human race, rather than warring tribes.”

“In Berlin over 5,000 people were involved in a Flash Mob,” noted Richman. She also explained that the group is male positive and includes men, noting that many men are also victims of violence. After the Petaluma group–mature women mainly in their 40s to 60s–demonstrated the dance, the college students jumped up to join them and learn the steps in 12 movements.

“On my knees I pray. I’m not afraid any more. I will walk through that door,” are words that open the dance. Then the dancers erupt in skillfully coordinated, crisp movements.

“We are mothers. We are teachers. We are beautiful creatures,” are other affirming words that are spoken and danced to. “I raise my hands to the sky. I’m no longer afraid” are more proud words that stimulate the dancing, as is “You don’t own me.”

“This is my body. My body is holy. In the middle of this madness, I know there is a better world. Break the rules. It’s time to break the chain,” are other words to which the dancers move.

“We can talk and talk and talk,” noted male dancer Dean LaCoe in the Sebastopol barn. “When you add music and dance, it goes to your heart.” Rehearsals help build community among its participants and are strengthening an international movement.

The Santa Rosa action is being organized “together with our Spanish speaking community,” writes julie rachanna chasen. “Undocumented Spanish speaking women who experience violence and oppression are in a doubly difficult situation in our country, as they face deportation and being separated from their children if they report to the police. We will subsequently dance to “Romper Las Cadenas” as well as “Break the Chains.”

“I am rising because I know, deep in my bones, that the systematic degradation and violation of women that is happening all over the world is linked to every other form of exploitation and oppression,” added chasen. “It’s about power over, be it power over the earth, power over immigrants, gays, power over anyone and anything that seems vulnerable, including other countries, as in war. As women and girls all over the world rise up in song and dance, with self-respect and love in our hearts, we will be part of a shift in consciousness on our planet that will lead us toward a more caring world.”

Watching the dynamic women and their male allies dance, at times I thought about my mother, Alice Miller Bliss. Her life was difficult, raising five children and dealing with a military husband who could be violent. This reporter was not the only person in the barn whose memories were evoked by the dancing. Tears could be seen on some dancers’ faces, perhaps feeling a pain, or perhaps the joy of direct action to deal with pain.

Negative memories of violence can be replaced by positive ones of togetherness, unity, and even love, as the dozen people rehearsing first in the barn and then in public began to coordinate their movements. They replaced some of their pain with the joy of being together in a vital connection against violence and for healing. When they left La Tierra’s barn–by then with its doors pushed open to the cold winter–they were highly animated by their time together creating an uplifting art form combining spoken words, music, and movement.

Feeder events are happening in Petaluma, including an art show extending from February 1 to March 3. Its call for art requested that which “is a positive expression of women; their resiliency, their sensuality; an expression of what the V-Day movement means to them; why they are RISING; or artwork relating to women’s empowerment and prevention of violence against women and girls.”

If February 14 draws anywhere near as many people as its ambitious goal, it would be the largest art event in history, including the already beautiful posters and videos available on numerous online resources. Rather than be “a shot heard around the world,” it would break silences and be a shout heard around the world, hard to ignore.

More information: www.OneBillionRising.org for video. www.HerRising.org for Bay Area Flash Mob details. www.VDay.org for material on the global movement to end violence against women and children. VDayPetaluma.org.

(Shepherd Bliss {3sb@comcast.net} teaches college part-time, has run the organic Kokopelli Farm for the last 20 years, and has contributed to two dozen books.)