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Francis Khoo Kah Siang passed away on November 20, 2011. 

In addition to the countless reasons Francis will be sorely missed by his friends and loved ones, he will be missed because he leaves a void for many of us who were and remain inspired by his work for Palestinian rights. Francis Khoo is an icon of countless others, who like himself, are neither Arab nor Muslim, neither from the Middle East nor culturally or politically connected to Palestine by birth, but who support the Palestinian cause.

Many of us, but especially Westerners and Americans it seems, learn essentially nothing about the Nakba in school. Yet many, often quite by chance and for one reason or another, have come into contact with the Question of Palestine and, learning about the great injustice that has befallen the Palestinian people, could not remain indifferent or idle. Francis was one of these.

To my personal regret, I did not know Francis Khoo well personally for a long period although we knew of each other. But by the time we finally met, which was just fourteen months before his sudden and untimely death last month, I knew what kind of a person he was and something about his lifelong quest for justice.

Over the past half-decade I learned something about his remarkably work through my friend, his wife, the gifted orthopedic surgeon and well known humanitarian, Dr. Swee Chai Ang, who for three decades has embraced and supported Palestinian refugees both with lifesaving medical care under heavy and indiscriminate bombardment inside Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp and Gaza Hospital in Beirut, and with her indefatigable work for the refugees return to Palestine. The latter included lectures and appearances around the World, sometimes in the company of Francis, her beloved husband, advocate, counselor and partner.

It was in September of 2010 that I met Francis in person when he came to Beirut for the 28th annual commemoration of the September 1982 Sabra-Shatila Massacre and he attended a reception at the office of the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign and participated in a heavy schedule of activities during his visit. It was evident that he was a fascinating life-loving person with whom it would be a great pleasure to spend time and to work with which I had hoped to do.

All the while he was in Lebanon he was on peritoneal dialysis for kidney failure which he administered himself three to four times a day.

According to his niece Melissa, Francis would often use his walking stick as a hanging post for his dialysis fluids including at the Hezbollah museum at Melita in South Lebanon.

He recalled with fondness how the Hezbollah melita museum guard who was obviously unfamiliar with this version of makeshift dialysis tried to help him. On the bus south, to visit Palestinian refugee camps, Francis entertained the passengers with songs, including Beladi (‘my land’) the beautiful Arabic anthem of the Palestinian revolution, followed by a soliloquy on the origin of the song and his interpretation.

Few of the passengers on the bus had much idea about Francis’ background. Francis Khoo Kah Siang was born into a closely knit, devoutly Catholic Singapore Peranakan family. As a lad he sang in the Singing Khoos with his brothers and at an early age developed a passion to work for the rights of the oppressed. Once admitted to the Singapore Bar, Frances began working on sensitive civil rights cases that many other lawyers preferred to avoid.

Francis had earlier developed a reputation as a defender of the downtrodden and while as an undergraduate at University, or later as Vice President of the Student Law Society, he opposed the introduction of the Suitability Certificate, fought the abolition of the jury system in Singapore and condemned the indiscriminate criminal 1972 Christmas Day bombing of Hanoi ordered by President Nixon.

Before long Francis found himself being accused of violating Singapore’s Internal Security Act, which particularly during the 1977-1987 period was used to arrest hundreds of Singaporeans who were held without trial. A fortnight following their January 1977 marriage, the international security police came for him. His young wife Dr. Swee Chai Ang, was also sought by authorities who came for her and threatened to handcuff her while she was in the operating theatre performing surgery. Eventually, and following continuous interrogation, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement, Dr. Swee was released as part of a government scheme to try to lure back to Singapore Francis, who by then had escaped and left for England and he began his 34 years of exile from his country. Swee joined her loved one and they developed their remarkable careers in London.

Francis’ niece recently wrote that, “They could kick Francis out of Singapore, but they could not kick the Singaporean out of Francis,” as he followed events in his country, frequently wore his Peranakanskirt-the Sarong, and wrote about his homeland including the well-known song, “And Bungaraya Blooms All Day.” Francis had hoped that 2011 would be the Singaporean Spring.

Some friends saw a parallel between Francis’ wish to return to his homeland and his decades of advocacy of the Palestinians Right of Return.

Francis Khoo, was a gifted humanist. He had many God given and self-discipline acquired talents that included using his legal education and life experience to challenge injustices and using his energy and organizational abilities to defend the oppressed.

Just three examples, out of many, include his important work in support of the 1984 UK striking miners and working as Director of War on Want, established by the late British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

Francis also co-founded with his wife Swee, and their and my friends, Pamela and Major Derek Cooper who spent the summer of 1982 with Janet Lee Stevens with me in West Beirut, Medical Aid for Palestinians. Francis served as MAP’s Vice Chairman from 1984 to 2007, while also donating his time and abilities to numerous other charitable works.

Francis’ passions included writing, especially articles, poetry and songs, photography, and drawing. He possessed a particularly unique skill, as explained by his niece Melissa, currently doing her residency in surgery and using the medical term ‘eidetic memory’ in describing her uncle’s photographic memory, that gave Francis the ability to recall images, sounds or objects as well as dates with remarkable precision.

Francis Khoo lived a full and valuable life and left this world a better place because of his lifelong labors for justice. Those of us who were honored to know Francis Khoo Kah Siang and who share his commitment for the liberation of Palestine and the full return of her six million refugees will pay him tribute by continuing his work for peace and justice.

This includes advocating in Lebanon and internationally for the end of the politically motivated excuses from Lebanese politicians and religious leaders, across a wide spectrum, who continue to counsel a go slow approach, after 63 years, for the implementation of even the most elementary, morally and legally mandated civil right to work and to own a home for Lebanon’s quarter million Palestinian Refugees.

By Franklin Lamb

3 December 2011

Countercurrents.org

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He is reachable co fplamb@gmail.com He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon. Dr. Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC

Dear Friends,

Ten years after the US led NATO invasion and war against Afghanistan, the Afghan people are trapped in a downward spiral of violence.   The US and British Generals for war, are upbeat and optimistic but the facts of suffering, injury, displacements  and deaths of  Afghan civilians,  including many women and children,  reminds us of the ongoing daily and unacceptable cost of war.  Add to this also the injury and death of Soldiers from NATO Countries – particularly UK and USA.   Surely the question has to be asked ‘at what point is enough killing enough? And when will  people everywhere unite and  act to ‘stop this military madness and insanity?’.

 Precisely because the war in Afghanistan is going so badly, and is

in truth unwinnable, NATO and US military are using even

more illegal and cruel forms of violence in their increasingly desperate

attempt to stop the dissidents, and build-up their own US power base in Afghanistan.  These immoral and illegal actions include drones, bombing raids,

destruction of ‘suspect’ building, when often whole families have been killed.  Whole villages have been destroyed by NATO forces which in turn results in recruitment to the Taliban. (Drone strikes in 2008/10  have killed 14 Taliban leaders and over 700 civilians).  The USA military have a massive targeted assassination program.  The US Air Force personnel at Creech, Nevada, pilot surveillance and combat drones, unmanned aerial vehicles with which they are instructed to carry out extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan and Iraq.  These drones include the ‘Predator’ and the ‘Reaper’.  The Obama administration favours a combination of drone attacks and Joint Special operations aid to persue its stated goal of eliminating whatever Al Qaeda presence exists in these countries.  Such extrajudicial killings, sanctioned by President Obama, are in clear violation of International Law.    The Afghan people are caught in an increasing circle of violence between NATO forces, tribal militias, Taliban, drug and crime warlords.

 The USA’s invasion of the sovereign state of Afghanistan is supported militarily by UK with token forces from a few other NATO states, as most countries initially

involved have pulled out.   Billions continue to be spent on the Afghan war (£15bn for 20ll-15 by UK) and the USA’s 400 bases across Afghanistan, cost $7.5 billion).

 The UK Government has said that British combat troops will be out of Afghanistan by

2015 but the continual build-up of USA military present in Afghanistan and South East Asia (716 USA bases worldwide) gives an indication that their presence will be long-term.   As the gravity of power moves from West to Asia-Pacific region it behoves the Western military/political powers, instead of arrogantly trying to

Control these countries militarily for their own  purposes,   to acknowledge the right of these countries, including Afghanistan, to self-determination.

 Afghanistan is already, after ten years of war, a country in deep poverty and sorrow.

It is immoral and unethical to ask the Afghan people to accept to live 4 more years with a war being played out in their streets and villages, and having yet more of their lives, their homes and their livelihoods destroyed.   It is time now for the Taliban and all groups using violence to end the violence and for the US-NATO to withdraw militarily and use its financial resources to recompense the Afghan people for the destruction of their country.

We can all join in solidarity to support the peaceful, nonviolent Afghan civil communities, working from the bottom up,  rebuilding their communities and their country.   We are seeing this in such  courageous movements like the Afghan Youth for peace in Kabul.   We  can also encourage Political leaders to end the violence and support the Afghan people in a negotiated peace settlement through all inclusive, unconditional dialogue and negotiation with Representatives of all sections of the society, including women, Community groups, Taliban, and other tribal and religious leaders.   Now is the time to listen to the voices of the Afghan people who are calling for an end to all violence, their Right to Self-determination, and a solution based on International Law and Human Rights.

 ABOLISH NATO, MILITARISM AND WAR

 In this its 62^nd year NATO continues to expand its military operations – including

the current war in Afghanistan and recent military attacks on Libya.  We should not

be surprised by NATO’s attack on Libya, as the programme for wars was revealed to

us all by General Clarke.  US General Lesley Clarke, NATO’s commander during bombing of Serbia, revealed on US TV seven years ago that the Pentagon had drawn

up a ‘hit list’ in 200l of seven States they wanted to ‘take-out’ within five years –

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.

In a world where there is a new consciousness of our inter-dependence and

Inter-connectedness as the human family, NATO  is a cold-war relic, and an obstacle

to real development and peace.  NATO should be disbanded and its resources put into

Human security, i.e., removing poverty, environment, violations of human rights and

International Law, education, health care, nonviolent civilian security, etc.

Increasingly we are aware that violence, armed struggles, militarism, and war do not solve problems.   I therefore believe we must abolish militarism and war, use peaceful settlement of disputes, and make this method a principle of International relations.

In the Nobel Peace Laureates Charter for a World without Violence, Chapter 13 states, ‘we have a right not to be killed and a responsibility not to kill others’.   Adopting such a principle wherever we live, would help bring about a new Culture of Peace and Nonkilling for the Human Family and be more in keeping with the magnificence of the Human Spirit.  We can build such a world, and working together, each one of us can make a difference.

Thank you.

Peace,

Mairead Maguire

www.peacepeople.com (4.ll.20ll)

US Marine Ross Caputi reflects on Fallujah in Iraq, where he was deployed in the 2004 attack that killed thousands, displaced hundreds of thousands more and poisoned the city with chemical weapons

It has been seven years since the 2nd siege of Fallujah — the American assault that left the city in ruins, killed thousands of civilians, and displaced hundreds-of-thousands more — the assault that poisoned a generation, plaguing the people who live there with cancers and their children with birth defects.

It has been seven years and the lies that justified the assault still perpetuate false beliefs about what we did.

The American veterans who fought there still do not understand who they fought against, or what they were fighting for.

I know, because I am one of those American veterans. In the eyes of many of the people I “served” with, the people of Fallujah remain dehumanized and their resistance fighters are still believed to be terrorists. But unlike most of my counterparts, I understand that I was the aggressor, and that the resistance fighters in Fallujah were defending their city.

It is also the seventh anniversary of the deaths of two close friends of mine, Travis Desiato and Bradly Faircloth, who were killed in the siege. Their deaths were not heroic or glorious. Their deaths were tragic, but not unjust.

How can I begrudge the resistance in Fallujah for killing my friends, when I know that I would have done the same thing if I were in their place? How can I blame them when we were the aggressors?

It could have been me instead of Travis or Brad. I carried a radio on my back that dropped the bombs that killed civilians and reduced Fallujah to rubble. If I were a Fallujan, I would have killed anyone like me. I would have had no choice. The fate of my city and my family would have depended on it. I would have killed the foreign invaders.

Travis and Brad are both victims and perpetrators. They were killed and they killed others because of a political agenda in which they were just pawns. They were the iron fist of American empire, and an expendable loss in the eyes of their leaders.

I do not see any contradiction in feeling sympathy for the dead American Marines and soldiers and at the same time feeling sympathy for the Fallujans who fell to their guns. The contradiction lies in believing that we were liberators, when in fact we oppressed the freedoms and wishes of Fallujahs. The contradiction lies in believing that we were heroes, when the definition of “hero” bares no relation to our actions in Fallujah.

What we did to Fallujah cannot be undone, and I see no point in attacking the people in my former unit. What I want to attack are the lies and false beliefs. I want to destroy the prejudices that prevented us from putting ourselves in the other’s shoes and asking ourselves what we would have done if a foreign army invaded our country and laid siege to our city.

I understand the psychology that causes the aggressors to blame their victims. I understand the justifications and defense mechanisms. I understand the emotional urge to want to hate the people who killed someone dear to you. But to describe the psychology that preserves such false beliefs is not to ignore the objective moral truth that no attacker can ever justly blame their victims for defending themselves.

The same distorted morality has been used to justify attacks against the Native Americans, the Vietnamese, El Salvadorans, and the Afghans. It is the same story over and over again. These peoples have been dehumanized, their God-given right to self-defense has been delegitimized, their resistance has been reframed as terrorism, and American soldiers have been sent to kill them.

History has preserved these lies, normalized them, and socialized them into our culture; so much so that legitimate resistance against American aggression is incomprehensible to most, and to even raise this question is seen as un-American.

History has defined the American veteran as a hero, and in doing so it has automatically defined anyone who fights against him as the bad-guy. It has reversed the roles of aggressor and defender, moralized the immoral, and it has shaped our societies present understanding of war.

I cannot imagine a more necessary step towards justice than to put an end to these lies, and achieve some moral clarity on this issue. I see no issue more important than to clearly understand the difference between aggression and self-defense, and to support legitimate struggles. I cannot hate, blame, begrudge, or resent Fallujans for fighting back against us. I am sincerely sorry for the role I played in the 2nd siege of Fallujah, and I hope that someday not just Fallujans but all Iraqis will win their struggle.

By Ross Caputi

23 December 2011

@ Stop the War Coalition

Ross Caputi is a US Marine who fought in Fallujah.

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Even as the government of President Bashar al-Assad intensifies its crackdown inside Syria, differences over tactics and strategy are generating serious divisions between political and armed opposition factions that are weakening the fight against him, senior activists say.

Soldiers and activists close to the rebel Free Syrian Army, which is orchestrating attacks across the border from inside a refugee camp guarded by the Turkish military, said Thursday that tensions were rising with Syria’s main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, over its insistence that the rebel army limit itself to defensive action. They said the council moved this month to take control of the rebel group’s finances.

“We don’t like their strategy,” said Abdulsatar Maksur, a Syrian who said he was helping to coordinate the Free Syrian Army’s supply network. “They just talk and are interested in politics, while the Assad regime is slaughtering our people.” Repeating a refrain echoed by other army officials interviewed, he added: “We favor more aggressive military action.”

The tensions illustrate what has emerged as one of the key dynamics in the nine-month revolt against Mr. Assad’s government: the failure of Syria’s opposition to offer a concerted front. The exiled opposition is rife with divisions over personalities and principle. The Free Syrian Army, formed by deserters from the Syrian Army, has emerged as a new force, even as some dissidents question how coordinated it really is. The opposition inside Syria has yet to fully embrace the exiles.

Earlier this month, the Syrian National Council, and the rebel Free Syrian Army, which is waging an insurgency against the Syrian government, agreed to coordinate their actions. The move followed concerns by some opposition members that the rebel army was undermining the opposition’s commitment to nonviolence by carrying out high-profile attacks and feeding the narrative of the Assad government that it was being besieged by a foreign plot.

On Thursday, a pipeline carrying oil to a refinery in Homs was blown up, casting a huge pillar of black smoke over the city. The official news agency, Sana, placed blame for the attack on an “armed terrorist group,” the phrase the government uses to describe those behind the uprising. Some activists in Homs suggested that the government was responsible, as part of an effort to besiege the city.

The Syrian crisis has shifted geopolitics in the region, complicating an international response. Turkey, once a close ally, has turned emphatically against the Assad government. But Russia, which has close strategic relations with Syria, and China have blocked all attempts to negotiate a resolution against Syria at the United Nations. Meanwhile, Iran has been forging closer ties with Syria, fueling fears of regional unrest.

Turkish officials say they are hosting the rebel forces for purely humanitarian reasons. “We have no intention of sending arms or fighting groups from Turkey to any other country, including Syria,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said Thursday. “They are in Turkey for their own protection.”

But in recent days clashes at the Turkish-Syrian border between the rebels and the Syrian Army have been intensifying, rebel officials say. The Syrian government said Tuesday that it had prevented 35 gunmen from infiltrating Syrian territory from Turkey. The Free Syrian Army said wounded rebels had been taken across the border for treatment. Turkish officials said there were no military confrontations along the borders with Syria, but residents in the Turkish border village of Guvecci said that in recent days they had heard gunfights through the night.

Syrian activists say the Free Syrian Army is organizing a smuggling network to Syria from inside Turkey to supply soldiers, weapons and medical supplies. On a recent day in Gorentas, a rugged Turkish mountain village near the Syrian border, a group of smugglers was seen packing guns into empty flour sacks before speeding away on motorbikes. Asked where they were going, they replied, “Syria, Syria.”

The Syrian National Council insists that it is the only legitimate representative of the Syrian people, including its armed factions. Its leader, Burhan Ghalioun, met for the first time in early December with the Free Syrian Army chief, Col. Riad al-As’aad, in Hatay, where Colonel As’aad agreed to rein in attacks on Syrian government forces. The Turkish Foreign Ministry, which handles news media requests for meetings with Colonel As’aad, declined to make him available.

During an extensive interview with senior members of the Syrian National Council at its newly opened offices in Istanbul, Samir Nashar, a member of the eight-member executive board, said the Free Syrian Army was emerging as the armed force of the Syrian opposition. But he emphasized that the council’s support for it was limited to providing financing and humanitarian aid, not weapons. “We want them to stay within the limits of protecting civilians, not to attack the regime,” he said. “It is better to coordinate with them than to let them do what they want.”

The Free Syrian Army, which says it has about 10,000 fighters, is too small to fend off the brutal crackdown by the Assad government. Council members said the group was badly equipped, reduced to arming itself mostly with the guns of defectors.

One observer who recently spent two weeks in Syria shadowing the rebels described the army as a ragtag group of soldiers, some as young as 16, who wielded AK-47s and showed up at demonstrations to protect civilians. At least some have positions in caves near the Turkish border and smuggle weapons and supplies under cover of night.

Mr. Nashar said that while Turkey was providing a haven to the Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Council was financed with donations from Syrian supporters and from others in the Arab world. The council operates from a small office in Istanbul. “We don’t have a budget,” he said. “We haven’t even opened a bank account yet in Turkey.”

Senior members of the council said recent sanctions imposed by the Arab League, Turkey and the European Union had proved insufficient in the face of the escalating violence of the Assad government, which the United Nations says has killed at least 4,000 people since protests broke out in March.

A senior defector from the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in an interview that if outside countries armed the opposition rebels, it could inflict serious damage on the Assad government. The official, a former ambassador who fled to Istanbul from Syria last week, said Mr. Assad’s state security apparatus was operating in up to 50 locations in Syria. He argued that surgical strikes, in conjunction with a buffer zone inside Syria put into effect by Turkey, would prove fatal to the government.

Opposition officials said the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Council and the Turkish government had been engaged in talks in recent days over the formation of a buffer zone in the event of a huge number of refugees.

Since May, 20,201 Syrians have entered Turkey and 8,424 remain, according to the Ankara government.

But senior Turkish government officials said Thursday that a Syrian buffer zone was a “last resort” and that there were no imminent preparations for any kind of military action.

Mr. Nashar called for a buffer zone to be enforced by Turkey in coordination with the Arab League and the international community.

He said the zone was necessary to protect civilians and the growing ranks of defectors who were finding it difficult to find refuge in Syria. “Assad is running a killing regime, and the world is not doing enough,” he said.

The recent defector from the Syrian Foreign Ministry warned that the Assad government was deluded.

“The regime is living in a bubble and have no sense of reality,” he said. “Like Qaddafi, they will only realize it when the end comes.”

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, Daniel Etter from Antakya, and Anthony Shadid from Beirut, Lebanon.

By DAN BILEFSKY

8 December 2011

The New York Times

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – African and international faith leaders urged governments attending the final day of climate change negotiations to do what is right and necessary to keep global temperature from rising no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“The two degrees Celsius target is unacceptable because temperatures in much of Africa will be far higher,” said South African Bishop Geoff Davies.

Oil and coal companies along with other major polluting corporations are engaged in “crimes against humanity and the planet” because they continue to pollute the atmosphere when they have ability to do otherwise, said David Le Page of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI).

More than 130 African faith leaders have signed a declaration offering specific recommendations based science, honesty, morality and equity. They called on delegates negotiating a new climate treaty here at the 17th Conference of Parties to live up to the African spirit of “ubuntu” – a way of living focused on people’s allegiances and relations with each other.

The current economic system encourages “people to get as rich as they can and forget about anyone else,” said Davies. “It’s an immoral system.”

“Historic polluters like the United States have to reduce their emissions dramatically” and their position here is “shocking” and “reprehensible”, he said. The children and grandchildren of U.S. congressmen will ask what they were doing to be so selfish and irresponsible, Davies said.

The U.S is the most religious society in the world but their behaviour is “sinful” in their refusal to reduce emissions that causing so much suffering among people, he said.

“When lifestyles of the wealthy hurt the lives of the poor….and future generations it is wrong,” Mardi Tindal, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination.

“Climate change is a moral, ethical and spiritual issue. We need moral leadership not political leadership,” Tindal told IPS.

“South Africa has had courageous, moral leaders like Ghandi and Mandela. If our leadership shows the same moral courage the people will follow them.”

However, political leaders will have to lead by their deeds and personal examples, not words if they hope to bring people with them, she said.

Davies expressed deep disappointment regarding yesterday’s announcement that South Africa government will invest three billion rand to upgrade the Richards Bay Terminal export 81 million tonnes of coal annually by 2016.

Other countries here are expanding their oil production around the world and that is why climate talks will not bring the agreement we need, he said.

“You cannot underestimate the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry. We know they spend millions of dollars lobbying their governments. They are holding the world to ransom and causing the destruction of the environment.”

The good news is that the economically powerful countries like the U.S., Europe, Brazil, India and China could begin to turn this around in a matter of months with major programmes in renewables and energy efficiency. Money should flow to Africa, who is least responsible for climate change, to help them create low-carbon societies Davies said.

If this doesn’t happen “we all will suffer the consequences.” (END)

By Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service

9 December 2011

Source:

http://www.ips.org/TV/cop17/end-carbon-apartheid-say-african-faith-groups

A former truck driver with just a secondary school diploma, Ahmad Abu Baker Sadeq is convinced he has a common touch that appeals directly to the factory workers in Port Said, the heavily industrialised Mediterranean gateway to the Suez Canal.

The independent candidate for parliament tried to woo voters in Egypt’s parliamentary elections with calls for better working conditions in factories, expanded job opportunities and reduced air pollution.

“Everyone should have work,” Mr Sadeq said as he spoke to voters outside a polling station near a detergent factory and bottling plant. “We have a lot of youthful energy that’s wasted.”

His message resonates, but his candidacy will probably fail to galvanise voters. Industrial workers in cities such as Port Said and Suez played a critical role in the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February. Their strikes, especially in and around the Suez Canal, threatened to cripple the economy of Egypt, convincing many that Mr Mubarak’s leadership was unsustainable.

But workers have been unable to build on this political momentum. Instead Islamist parties making vague calls for social justice appear poised to reap the spoils. And that has outraged some labour advocates.

“This is a phrase everyone uses,” said Bakr Hassan Bakr, a lawyer and labour activist in Port Said. “But what does social justice mean to the liberal, the leftist or the Muslim Brotherhood? To the Brotherhood it means charity, giving out bread and rice. Our vision is to create decent work and equal chances for getting reasonable jobs.”

However, Islamist appeals to Egyptians’ cultural identity appear to have won out over more practical issues. Many workers said they would vote “with their hearts” for either the Brotherhood or the Nour Party, which represents a puritanical strain of Islam. Labour advocates fear that the Brotherhood would not expand the rights of workers.

“I will vote for the Nour Party because it uses Islam as its basis,” said Araby Abu Ayad, a 25-year-old electrician working at the Suez Canal. “A Nour victory will give us an Islamic life. I don’t want a higher salary. I am grateful for what I have.”

At Port Said’s polling stations, workers had plenty to complain about. Badry Mohammad Badry, a 42-year-old railway worker, said he had been unable to manoeuvre through the layers of corruption at his state-owned firm to advance his position since 1997. Mr Badry said he did not like the programmes of any of the parties, though there were a few local independent candidates that he supported.

Others complained of stagnant wages, substandard healthcare and poor education for their children. Living conditions in some parts of the city’s industrial outskirts resemble a scene from a dystopian science fiction film. Along Port Said’s Abutti Street, the lower middle classes inhabit rotting apartment blocs surrounding a vast trash-filled lot. Sitting in the centre is a gleaming former state security building protected by barbed wire, on alert for any unrest.

The Brotherhood says it has a plan for improving the economy of the city. It has plucked some of the best ideas from economists for its platform, including partnerships between companies and vocational schools and training for the city’s fishermen.

“We tried these things a lot under the old regime but there was always a higher authority that stopped it,” said Mohammad Khudairi, a Brotherhood spokesman in Port Said.

But labour advocates complain that the Brotherhood’s approach rarely speaks about expanding the rights of workers or redressing the perceived imbalance in the relationship between labour and management.

“Since the January 25 revolution, no one has implemented a law that would allow workers to form their own unions,” said Adel Zacariah, editor of Industrial Word, a labour magazine in Cairo.

The elections will probably do little to change that. Labour advocates complain that they had too few resources to prepare for the poll. “Right now none of the parties represent workers,” said Mr Bakr, the lawyer and rights activist. “And we didn’t have the time to organise for the vote.”

Not all workers voted for Islamists. Mohsen Abdull Ghaid, a crane operator for Maersk, the Danish shipping group, said he voted for the liberal Wafd Party, one of the oldest in Egypt, which traditionally represents the bourgeoisie.

“I want everything to be good – better education, better living standards, democracy, freedom of expression,” he said.

Informed that Wafd was sometimes considered a party for the rich, he shrugged. “I would like to be rich.”

In his capacity as member of the International Coordinating Committee of the World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations,” Professor Hans Köchler, President of the International Progress Organization, earlier this week addressed the 4th Annual Forum of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations in Doha. In his presentation on “Politics and Cultural Diversity: An Integrative Approach,” he suggested a fundamental revision of the narrative on dealing with cultural differences.

Explaining his notion of the “dialectics of cultural self-comprehension,” he said that the assertion of cultural identity can only be understood, and is only possible, on the basis of mutuality. As recent developments in Europe have demonstrated, the traditional, often patronizing, approach has utterly failed. He emphasized that a culture can only realize itself and reach a state of maturity if it is able to relate to other cultures and life-worlds. The strength of a cultural or national community depends on its ability to define itself vis-à-vis “the other” and to interact with other communities in a complex, multidimensional manner, something which includes the capacity to see itself through the eyes of the other. Without such interaction, a community will lack the skills it needs to compete and be successful in today’s global environment. On the basis this approach, he demonstrated how a link between cultural diversity and development could be established, one of the priorities of the Doha Forum. Köchler further suggested an integrative approach towards intercultural dialogue, which must cover the entire spectrum of the life of a community, and not only issues of “high culture.” Dialogue without addressing questions of social justice is purely artificial; dialogue without peace is a contradiction in itself. Civilizations cannot be “allied” if the exponents of one civilization wage war against the exponents of another civilization. There must be no wars “with civilizational undertones,” he said.

Köchler further expressed the view that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) should be reinstated in its original role as agency that promotes peace through cultural cooperation, and that the repressive measures taken by certain member states in connection with the admission of the State of Palestine to that organization totally contradict the ideals of dialogue or an “alliance” between civilizations. It is to be recalled that, almost 40 years ago, Dr. Hans  Köchler, in a letter dated 26 September 1972 and addressed to the Division of Philosophy of UNESCO, had suggested the holding of an international conference on the dialogue of civilizations (“au sujet des problèmes résultant du dialogue entre les différentes civilisations”). Subsequently, in July 1974, the International Progress Organization had organized, in co-operation with UNESCO, the first international conference on “The Cultural Self-comprehension of Nations.”

On the basis of a comprehensive approach, he outlined a series of practical measures in the fields of politics, diplomacy, education, sports, tourism, and the new social media. He reiterated the International Progress Organization’s earlier appeal for the adaptation of school text books so as to eliminate cultural stereotyping from national curricula, and he particularly called for the phasing out of the practice of racial, religious, and ethnic profiling by immigration authorities. He said that the rationale behind all suggested measures is that, in an era of global interdependence and the simultaneity of different life-worlds, dealing with differences has itself become a culture technique, indeed a strategy of survival for each and every nation.

The special session entitled “A New Agenda for Living Together – Changing the Narrative on Dealing with Differences” was moderated by Fethi Mansouri, Director of the Center for Citizenship and Globalization at Deakin University, Australia, and included, among others, presentations by Tariq Ramadan, Professor at Oxford University, UK, Piotr Switalski, Head of the Directorate of Policy Planning at the Council of Europe, and Akiva Eldar, Chief Political Columnist and Editorial Writer for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

In another session, on Muslim-Western relations ten years after September 11, Professor Köchler raised the issue of the NATO intervention in Libya. Addressing himself to Rashad Hussein, Special Envoy of US President Barack Obama to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), he asked how the US Secretary of State’s triumphalist allusion to Caesar’s famous dictum veni, vidi, vici can be reconciled with the purported noble humanitarian motives of the states intervening in Libya.

In a special plenary session on the theme “UN Alliance of Civilizations: A New Paradigm to Manage Intercultural Relations,” with Beshir Atalay, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, and Kevin Rudd, Foreign Minister of Australia, as keynote speakers, Professor Köchler posed the question as to the rationale of an “alliance” of civilizations in comparison to “dialogue” among civilizations, and asked the two speakers, how, in their view, the principles and ideals of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations can be reconciled with the military interventions of some of the Alliance’s supporting states (“Group of Friends”) in Muslim countries.

On the sidelines of the Doha Forum, Professor  Köchler discussed with the President of the Republic of Macedonia, Gjorge Ivanov, the implications of cultural diversity on contemporary society and the development of the concept of the nation-state. He gave an interview for TV2 of Danish Television on the challenges of multiculturalism in Europe and met, among others, with the Coordinator of the Intersectoral Platform for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence at UNESCO, Katérina Stenou; the Communications Advisor to Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser of Qatar, Dr. Abdul Rahman Azzam; the Syrian-Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo, His Grace Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim; and the former United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith (USA).

Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development and member of the High Level Group of the UN Alliance of Civilizations; the High Representative of the Alliance, former Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio; the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon; the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova; the President of Germany, Christian Wulff; Prince Hassan of Jordan; the President of Mongolia, Tsakhia Elbegdorj; Andrés Pastrana, former President of Colombia; and the Foreign Minister of Portugal, Paulo Portas, were among the keynote speakers of the Doha Forum. The Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, one of the architects of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, addressed the opening session via a recorded video message from Istanbul.

The President of Austria, Dr. Heinz Fischer, who attended the opening session, announced that the next Forum of the UN  Alliance of Civilizations will be hosted by the Republic of Austria in Vienna.

By Hans Köchler 

Doha / Vienna, 14 December 2011

Source: I.P.O Information Service; http://www.i-p-o.org/IPO-nr-UN-AoC_Doha-14Dec2011.htm

LONDON — The Obama administration has a doctrine. It’s called the doctrine of silence. A radical shift from President Bush’s war on terror, it has never been set out to the American people. There has seldom been so big a change in approach to U.S. strategic policy with so little explanation.

I approve of the shift even as it makes me uneasy. One day, I suspect, there may be payback for this policy and this silence. President Obama has gone undercover.

You have to figure that one day somebody sitting in Tehran or Islamabad or Sana is going to wake up and say: “Hey, this guy Obama, he went to war in our country but just forgot to mention the fact. Should we perhaps go to war in his?”

In Iran, a big explosion at a military base near Tehran recently killed Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a central figure in the country’s long-range missile program. Nuclear scientists have perished in the streets of Tehran. The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc with the Iranian nuclear facilities.

It would take tremendous naïveté to believe these events are not the result of a covert American-Israeli drive to sabotage Iran’s efforts to develop a military nuclear capacity. An intense, well-funded cyberwar against Tehran is ongoing.

Simmering Pakistani anger over a wave of drone attacks authorized by Obama has erupted into outright rage with the death of at least 25 Pakistani soldiers in a NATO attack on two military outposts near the Afghan border.

The Pakistani government has ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to end drone operations it runs from a base in western Pakistan within 15 days. Drone attacks have become the coin of Obama’s realm. They have killed twice as many suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda members as were ever imprisoned in Guantánamo.

One such drone attack, of course, killed an American citizen, the Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen a few weeks ago.

The U.S. government says precious little about these new ways of fighting enemies. But the strategic volte-face is clear: America has decided that conventional wars of uncertain outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan that may, according to a Brown University study, end up costing at least $3.7 trillion are a bad way to fight terrorists and that far cheaper, more precise tools for eliminating enemies are preferable — even if the legality of those killings is debatable.

The American case for legality rests on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force act, which allows the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against persons, organization or nations linked to the 9/11 attack, and on various interpretations of the right to self-defense under international law.

But killing an American citizen raises particular constitutional concerns; just how legal the drone attacks are remains a vexed question. And Iran had no part in 9/11.

In general, it’s hard to resist the impression of a tilt toward the extrajudicial in U.S. foreign policy — a kind of “Likudization” of the approach to dealing with enemies. Israel has never hesitated to kill foes with blood on their hands wherever they are.

This is a development about which no American can feel entirely comfortable.

So why do I approve of all this? Because the alternative — the immense cost in blood and treasure and reputation of the Bush administration’s war on terror — was so appalling. In just the same way, the results of a conventional bombing war against Iran would be appalling, whether undertaken by Israel, the United States or a combination of the two.

Political choices often have to be made between two unappealing options. Obama has done just that. He has gone covert — and made the right call.

So why am I uneasy? Because these legally borderline, undercover options — cyberwar, drone killings, executions and strange explosions at military bases — invite repayment in kind, undermine the American commitment to the rule of law, and make allies uneasy.

Obama could have done more in the realm of explanation. Of course he does not want to say much about secret operations. Still, as the U.S. military prepares to depart from Iraq (leaving a handful of embassy guards), and the war in Afghanistan enters its last act, he owes the American people, U.S. allies and the world a speech that sets out why America will not again embark on this kind of inconclusive war and has instead adopted a new doctrine that has replaced fighting terror with killing terrorists. (He might also explain why Guantánamo is still open.)

Just because it’s impossible to talk about some operations undertaken within this doctrine does not mean the entire doctrine can remain cloaked in silence.

Foreign policy has been Obama’s strongest suit. He deserves great credit for killing Osama bin Laden, acting for the liberation of Libya, getting behind the Arab quest for freedom, winding down the war in Iraq, dealing repeated blows to Al Qaeda and restoring America’s battered image.

But the doctrine of silence is a failing with links to his overarching failure on the economy: it betrays a presidential reticence, coolness and aloofness that leave Americans uncomfortable.

By ROGER COHEN

November 28, 2011

@ The New York Times

You can follow Roger Cohen on Twitter at twitter.com/nytimescohen.

Fresh divisions have opened up on the second day of the UN climate talks in Durban as China accused the European Union of “shifting the goalposts” to make unfair demands on developing countries over a new global climate pact.

In the most comprehensive Chinese statement yet on the biggest sticking point of the Durban conference, Beijing’s lead negotiator, Su Wei, said the whole international climate talks system would be “placed in peril” if the conference did not agree on a second phase of the Kyoto protocol climate treaty.

But he said countries should stick to a road map forged in Bali four years ago that meant developing countries did not have to agree to binding commitments to curb their carbon emissions.

The EU, whose 27 countries are now among the few left willing to agree to a second phase of the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the world’s only legally binding climate pact, says it will not sign up for a new round of Kyoto pledges – which developing countries are insisting on – unless all countries eventually agree to similar commitments.

“We think the EU is just shifting the goalposts from one place to another and it’s a departure from what we understand the Bali balanced package to be,” Mr Su said.

A second phase of Kyoto was a part of that Bali package, he said, adding: “Now the EU is talking about new conditions for them to undertake on second [Kyoto] commitment targets, so that’s not fair.”

He said that since the EU was the only major group willing to consider a second phase of Kyoto, China and other large emerging economies were willing to listen to their position, but he made it clear they did not believe this necessary, given the Bali road map was already in place.

“We haven’t reached agreement on the Bali package. How can we just leave that aside and then try to embark on a new mandate?” he said at a media briefing. “That is not a responsible way of conducting international co-operation. It’s also a matter of credibility and trust.”

In a further sign of the antagonistic mood at the summit, Mr Su said the EU’s contentious move to charge international airlines for their carbon emissions from January had become a factor in the discussions in Durban, though he did not elaborate on precisely what this might mean.

And he repeated earlier threats by the large emerging economies of China, Brazil, India and South Africa that the UN-backed carbon offset programme created under the Kyoto protocol – popular with companies in developed countries as it makes it easier for them to meet carbon emissions targets – cannot continue if there is no second phase of the Kyoto pact.

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organisation reported 2011 is set to be the hottest year in which there has been a cooling La Niña pattern and the 10th warmest since records started more than 16 decades ago.

At the same time, the UN announced that Qatar had beaten South Korea and would host the next round of climate talks at the end of next year.

29 November 2011

By Pilita Clark in Durban

@ Financial Times

This is the dark time, my love,

All round the land brown beetles crawl about

The shining sun is hidden in the sky

Red flowers bend their heads in awful sorrow

This is the dark time, my love,

It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears.

It is the festival of guns, the carnival of misery

Everywhere, the faces of men are strained and anxious

Who comes walking in the dark night time?

Whose boot of steel tramps down the slender grass

It is the man of death, my love, the stranger invader

Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream.

Martin Carter

All of the good that Muammar Qaddafi did for his people, and the immeasurable contribution he made to the oppressed peoples of the world is catalogued everywhere for those who have eyes to see. NATO’s war crimes are also catalogued – they went viral, so even in the absence of a court where NATO and their mercenaries can be tried, millions of people worldwide watched, at their computers and TV screens, the horrific war crimes  that unfolded in Sirte and elsewhere in Libya. The verdicts are in. The question is what can be done about it?

The world was quite literally watching and still can watch, anytime they care to google the litany of obscene crimes committed, when a coalition of the most powerful nations on this earth, backed up by the vast majority of Arab and African misleaders, deployed the most sophisticated arsenal of weaponry in the history of the world against a small bastion of African resistance. In the now famous cities of Sirte and Bani Walid, Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi led his people in a courageous battle which lasted for months. The battles of Sirte and Bani Walid have surely earned their place in the annals of African history.

At his side were his son, Mutassim Qaddafi and Libya’s Minister of Defense, and one of the leaders of the 1969 Al Fateh revolution, Major General Abu-Bakr Yunis Jaber.  Decades ago, he and the young Muammar were in the same class at the Military Academy in Benghazi and were co founders of the Free Officers’ Movement which overthrew King Idris.

Both men, spiritual heirs of Omar Al Mukhtar’s armed resistance against the Italian invaders in 1911, were in their 70s. Having to witness such a savage attack on them and not being able to do anything to defend them against NATO’s jackals, was traumatizing.

The core group of revolutionaries, who led the Al Fateh revolution in 1969 in their twenties, all now in their late 60s and 70s, chose to stay at their posts and fight alongside the people, despite having received many offers for safe passage out of Libya.

A Picture Tells a 1000 Words

This picture of Sirte, after NATO’s bombardment, is worth more than a thousand words when it comes to understanding what actually took place in this once beautiful and prosperous African city. And all in the name of ‘protecting civilians’ – clearly with the exception of civilians loyal to Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution. We salute all of those who fought to defend Al Fateh and the Pan African project in Sirte, Bani Walid and throughout Libya. They are the real Jihadists – the true Pan-African Army.

Julius Malema, ANC Youth Leader, in reference to the North Atlantic Tribes, asked the question – why are these people so bloodthirsty? He pointed out that they did not seem to understand anything other than war.

It is no surprise that Julius Malema has been banned by Jacob Zuma’s ANC. Zuma is one of those African misleaders who signed Qaddafi’s death warrant, when South Africa, along with Nigeria and French controlled Gabon, all temporary members of the so-called Security Council at the time, agreed to the implementation of a ‘No Fly Zone’, which unleashed the demons of war.

Let us not imagine that they did not know what would ensue – the entire world has just witnessed the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a painful blow to many Africans in Africa and throughout the world. We remembered Nelson Mandela’s now famous speech, when on the world stage he called Muammar Qaddafi ‘one of the great freedom fighters of the 20th century’ and he publicly thanked the Brother Leader and the people of Libya for the material and moral support provided to the ANC when, as Mandela put it – their ‘backs were up against the wall’. The half hearted attempts by the AU to take the necessary action to defend Libya was shameful and demoralizing.

There was a time…

Some of it in my lifetime, when we had visionary, principled and courageous African leaders – Shaka Zulu, Queen Nzingha, Cetshwayo, Dedan Kimathi, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Jamal Abdul Nasser, Marien Ngouabi, Ahmed Ben Bella, Samora Machel, Thomas Sankara, Murtala Muhammad, Laurent Kabila to name but a few. Had leaders such as these been in power today, NATO could not have gotten away with invading Libya. The fact is, with few exceptions, the current bunch of African leaders, many of them put in place by the forces of white supremacy were just not up to the job.

Those who are misleading Africa today – ‘who the cap fit let them wear it’ – have paid a dear price. What is coming our way will be punishment for such a colossal betrayal. And sadly, we will all suffer for their sins.

The murder of Muammar Qaddafi plunged us into despair. We mourned his death as sons mourn their father – he called us his sons and we responded as such because we understood his sincerity.

Those who worked with Qaddafi can testify that the Brother Leader’s efforts were motivated by a strong and uncompromising faith in God, his deep love for humanity and a sincere desire to assist all those engaged in the struggle to end injustice and oppression. If anyone epitomized Che’s famous quote, it was our brother: ‘Revolutionaries are first human beings, and at the risk of sounding utterly ridiculous, revolution is based upon supreme feelings of love’

Those among the leadership of Al Fateh who were not murdered, were captured. Dr Ahmed Ibrahim, one of the foremost exponents of the Third Universal Theory, an intellectual warrior and committed Pan-Africanist, was captured while defending Sirte. The uncle of Moussa Ibrahim, who over the past months became known as the spokesperson for the legitimate government of Libya, he is currently being held in Misurata, and his son, Yurub Ibrahim, has also been arrested. The well known Islamic scholar Sheik Khaled Tantoush, has been abducted from his home in Sirte and is also being held in Misurata. These elderly men are being subjected to constant taunting, beatings and torture and their condition is deteriorating rapidly. Global campaigns have been launched to demand the protection under international law and conventions, regarding prisoners of war, for high profile prisoners Saif-al Islam Qaddafi, Abdullah Senussi, Ahmed Ibrahim, Khaled Tantoush and the thousands of prisoners held by the NTC. (see websites Libya SOS, Libya 360 and Mathaba.net for ways you can assist the campaign and video footage of how these elderly prisoners are being treated).

In addition to loyalty to the Leader, and defense of their country against foreign invaders, having black skin and asserting one’s Africanity has become a crime in the new Libya. Ethnic cleansing is continuing unabated. Every day Black Africans from Libya and other parts of Africa are hunted down. Thousands have been brutally tortured and executed. Rape of Black women is a favored weapon of NATO’s Islamists. Many of the female bodies found show signs of rape, beatings and torture. Large numbers of Black Africans make up the ranks of the Green Resistance.

NATO’s Living Hell

One Tripoli resident, who cannot be named, told me:

‘Everyone is terrified of the NTC and their armed gangs. We have seen with our own eyes what they are capable of – they are animals. All around us people are being rounded up and imprisoned. We have no way of knowing how many have been murdered. Anyone who is associated with Qaddafi or suspected of loyalty to him is at risk. Even people who have worked for people who are known supporters of the leader have been rounded up and tortured. I personally know of many persons who were just working for people associated with the leader who have been taken away and never seen again. If you are black you are an immediate suspect – these rebels call black Libyans ‘abd’ means slave and they are rounding them up just because they are black – it is making me sick and ashamed.

What these rebels have done to their own people is disgusting – some of the acts of torture I can’t even speak about. There has been a lot of rape. I wept when I learned of what these animals did to the leader’s female body guards – they are not human and that is why there is so much fear. Any known Qaddafi loyalists who have not been able to get out of Libya have to stay underground. Libyans are afraid to talk to other Libyans – anyone could be an informer. It feels like the last days are upon us – Libya has been turned into a living hell.’

There is now a complete whiteout by the corporate media regarding all news from Libya. And of course, although a genocide is unfolding right before our eyes, there will be

no outcry from the UN, Amnesty International or that euphemistic chorus known as ‘the

international community’, that bleats on ad nauseum about ’democracy, human rights and the rule of law’? No time or motive for outcry – having shared the spoils, they have already moved on to their next victims – Syria and Iran.

Demons Unleashed

To do their dirty work, NATO employed the most barbaric marauders they could find. These Islamist mercenaries are programmed, sadistic fighters – they have been on the battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. They have been hired many times over by NATO, who characteristically plays all sides, and that is why they need to sprinkle stimulant powders on their food – to keep them in killing mode.

Shouting Allahu Akhbar, like robots, they go from town to town, city to city, ransacking, beating, torturing, raping and murdering, and then, in their crazed state, with inflated feelings of omnipotence, they actually take footage of themselves committing heinous war crimes and post them on youtube.

As the people bury their dead, they defiantly whisper, ‘Allah, Muammar, Libya and nothing else’. Amidst the screams that can be heard deep into the night, a shell shocked population tries to understand what happened to them, and struggles to come to terms with the obscene end inflicted on a man they loved. Now they must try to find a way to confront the ‘brave new world’ that has been imposed upon them by this foreign invasion. In an instant, they have been transported back in time to when Europeans last occupied their country.

Green Resistance – It is only a matter of time…

The war in Libya is far from over. The corporate media continues the lie that Libya has been ‘liberated’ and that life there has ‘returned to normal’. In truth, chaos reigns. Rumours about NATO’s plans to carve up the country are rife and Libya remains engulfed in warfare.

People are being systematically hunted down. Truck loads of bodies are being carted away, as the now feuding armed gangs, each with their own command structure, and none adhering to anything the NTC says, introduces the only policy they ever had – exterminate Qaddafi and all those loyal to him. That numbers in the millions and they are stopping at nothing to track them down.

The Green resistance referred to as the Libyan Liberation Army (LLA) or the Libyan Liberation Front (LLF) is regrouping and growing stronger by the day. Street battles are commonplace, explosions can be heard all over Tripoli and in other regions, and NATO’s mercenaries are facing fierce resistance.

Libya’s powerful Warfalla Tribe, comprising more than a million Libyans, have stated that ‘they are thirsting for revenge’, many of them having fought in the battle of Bani Walid.

‘It does not matter how long it takes, we will rise again as sure as the sun rises. It is only a matter of time. It may not be today – we are a patient people. Right now, many of us have to lay low while the leaders regroup and put certain things in place so that we can  take our resistance to the next level, but we know our time will come and we are only waiting for the word to take up our arms.

We have to be organized and this takes time, especially under the present conditions of occupation.  Our people are being tortured and raped and murdered for supporting the leader and defending their revolution. We have had to leave our homes and watch these dogs destroy them and steal everything from us. But our day will come – we can never forget the crimes committed against us by NATO and these murdering thieves who call themselves revolutionaries and Muslims.

What I have seen with my own two eyes is unbelievable – people committing the cruelest acts – crimes against humanity while they cry out Allahu Akhbar. They are like drugged people. We have uncovered mass graves of Qaddafi loyalists – with their hands tied behind their backs – all executed. I want to tell them that every person they tortured, every person murdered, every woman they raped, every home they destroyed and looted and everything they did to our dear leader and his family will be avenged.

This is not the first time this has happened to us Libyans – this is exactly what happened to us when the Italians occupied our land – thanks to the leader we are a very educated people now – we know our history and our heroes. The NTC has already taken the picture of Omar Al Mukhtar off the Libyan dinar but it does not matter – they can destroy every picture of Omar Al Mukhtar and the leader, because the story of his bravery and the bravery of his son Muammar Qaddafi is in our hearts – these men can never die – and this gives us the belief and certainty that we will overcome these thieves again – believe me, it is only a matter of time.’

A Frenzied Phase

The invasion of Libya and the murder of Muammar Qaddafi ushered in what can be described as the empire’s ‘frenzied phase’. Capitalism and imperialism are taking their last hideous gasps, and in this phase we will see their evil laid bare. NATO will continue to become ever more brazen with its ‘shock and horror’ tactics, believing that they are unstoppable and invincible, as once did Rome. In other words, with the imperialists in panic mode, we can expect their behavior to become all the more barbaric, savage and uncivilized, as has been prophesied.

The Twilight Zone – Vampires of Empire

The additional dimension in this new phase is that capitalism, White supremacy’s socio-economic system, has entered a period of unprecedented crisis – it is on its last legs and the system is turning in on itself. The vampires of empire do indeed ‘suck the blood of the sufferer’. They are desperate now and quite literally don’t care if they are seen to be dripping in our blood. Their global economic arrangement is crumbling faster than they can hold their next summit, and we cannot be caught off guard.

We have watched Europe and the US forestall their collapse for a number of years, to the point where they are frantic and fast running out of ideas. As fast as they share the spoils of one war – they need another to quench their insatiable appetite for plunder. Our trouble is, that many of us are too slow to follow the visionary leadership in their midst. Had African leaders shared the vision, united and worked together toward a United States of Africa as Qaddafi pleaded, the world would have been a very different place today. Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution were on the verge of bringing about a total shift in the global balance of power, and giving Africa its rightful place in the world. We have never been so close to reasserting African power. He was truly a Lion of Africa.

A Ruthless Enemy – Know Them

The North Atlantic Tribes are an extremely ruthless enemy.  It is necessary to study and understand their mentality in order to build an effective resistance. Indisputably, there is good and bad in every race. However, also indisputably, the historical and cultural continuum known as Europe has specificities that no other group on the face of this earth has demonstrated. Their will to dominate, consume and destroy is unparalleled.

Marimba Ani, in her seminal work, Yurugu, An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, offers an incisive analysis of the European mindset. In her words:

‘All modes of European behavior and dominant styles of action act to increase and ensure material control…The power ideology that defines the total culture keeps it off- balance. The culture itself – always ‘progressing’, never ‘progressed’ – is unidirectional, one dimensional, fanatical, and atrophied; a culture that must consume others. But ultimately this ideology is incoherent; it literally lacks human meaning. It is the compulsiveness, the drive, the insatiable appetite of the culture that are its distinguishing features…it is as well-constructed as a power machine can be…For success it has sacrificed ‘soul’. What is left is profane. Aesthetically, and in terms of self-image, it identifies as white. Europe is the cultural home of a people who identify as one race; i.e., banding together for survival and destruction of others. They would destroy each other if there were not others to destroy. They fear and hate blackness, which they associate with spiritual power – a power which they can neither possess, create nor control.’

In White Racism: A Psychohistory, Joel Kovel describes this drive to conquer and destroy as a ‘cosmic yearning’, ‘a bottomless longing’.

Samuel Huntington, author of the Clash of Civilizations reminds us of something that we should never forget: ‘The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’

That is the reason why the enemy gets so agitated when we organize armed resistance, because they know how powerful organized violence can be.

The invasion of Libya and the murder of Qaddafi is what happened to a nation and its leader when they give up their program to develop ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and opted for a path of peaceful coexistence. In an interview at the beginning of the war, Saif Qaddafi admitted that Libya had been caught ‘unprepared for war’, having not even upgraded their conventional weaponry. No nation will ever make that fatal mistake again. The North Atlantic Tribes can never be trusted. Deterrents of any kind are better than no deterrents at all.

The North Atlantic Tribes have mastered the art of war and perfected weaponry like no other peoples in history. They are the quintessential warlords.

In order to carry out this regrab, in their desperate and frenzied attempt to hasten their plunder of Africa and the global south’s wealth, it is imperative for the imperialists to get rid of all revolutionary nationalist regimes that might stand in their way, and ensure that compliant regimes are firmly in place. We must prepare ourselves for what is to come. In his last message, the Brother Leader warned us to ‘hold down our corners’ because if they get past Libya they are coming for all of us. The challenge in this phase is to find ways to cope with the Empire’s collapse and to strengthen our resistance in order to confront the frantic and barbaric behavior which will inevitably characterize their demise.

Their House is Burning – Not Ours

At a global economic summit in 2009, former President of Brazil, Lula Da Silva, when commenting on the global economic crisis, stated, ‘This was a crisis that was fostered and boosted by the irrational behavior of people who were white and blue-eyed, who before the crisis looked like they knew everything about economics, but now have demonstrated they know nothing about economics’ He added, ‘The part of humanity that is responsible should be the part that pays for the crisis.’

Too many of us are still, as Malcolm X put it, ‘house negroes’. The house negro lived in the master’s house and when the master’s house was burning, he said ‘we house burning’. If the master was sick, the house negro said ‘we sick’. And then there was the field negro. When he saw the master’s house burning he said ‘Let it burn’.

In Africa, South America, the Caribbean and throughout the global south, we have been in crisis for centuries as a result of the imperialists endless thirst for domination, plunder and war. It is the master’s house that is burning this time. And we say – ‘let it burn’. The demise of this empire is a welcome thing. We don’t need to concern ourselves with bringing Babylon down, for it is surely crumbling – politically, economically, ideologically and morally, due to its own internal contradictions. In the meantime, as Muammar Qaddafi urged, ‘we must build the new as the old crumbles around us’. Only then can we be ready. It is not the end of the world – it is the end of their world.

By Gerald A. Perreira

30 November 2011

Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli.