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A senior Iranian commander says the Islamic Republic is among the few countries that possess the technological know-how of the unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with scanning and reconnaissance systems.

Deputy Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Hossein Salami said on Saturday that the US spy drone, recently downed by the Iranian military forces while violating Iran’s airspace, showed the US modern intelligence technology and the fact that the Islamic Republic could decode the drone’s data and figure out the technology applied to it, IRNA reported.

Salami went on to say that the enemies of the Islamic Republic did not have a true understanding of Iran’s capabilities.

The US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft was brought down with minimal damage by the Iranian Army’s electronic warfare unit on Sunday, December 4, 2011, when flying over the northeastern Iran city of Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) away from the Afghan border.

On December 6, two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the drone had been part of a CIA reconnaissance mission, involving the United State intelligence community stationed in Afghanistan.

Iran has announced that it intends to carry out reverse engineering on the aircraft, which is similar in design to a US Air Force B-2 stealth bomber.

The RQ-170 is an unmanned stealth aircraft designed and developed by the Lockheed Martin Company.

The drone is one of the US most advanced surveillance aircraft, whose loss is considered a major embarrassment for Washington.

By AS/HN/MA

11 December 2011

@ Press TV

I.P.O. statement at United Nations meeting

A special meeting was held today at the United Nations Office at Vienna in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Manuel Santiago Fernandez Rondon, representing the Chairman of the Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Mr. Sandeep Chawla, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, delivered the statement of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Further statements were made, among others, by H.E. Dr. Zuheir El Wazer, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations (Vienna); H.E. Mr. Khaled Abdelrahman Shamaa, Permanent Representative of the Arab Republic of Egypt, on behalf of the Chairman of the Non-aligned Movement; H.E. Mr. Mikhail Wehbe, Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States; and Mr. Murat Smagulov, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan, on behalf of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The President of the International Progress Organization, Dr. Hans Koechler, delivered the following statement on behalf of civil society:

What is commonly referred to as “the Middle East peace process” has in actual fact become a history of broken promises and imposed solutions. 20 years of negotiations on a settlement of the territorial dispute in Palestine have brought profound disillusionment on all sides, with the Palestinian people paying the price for the games of regional and international power politics. The United Nations Organization that – more than six decades ago – provided the blueprint for the creation of two states in historical Palestine, has nevertheless been unable to guarantee the legal rights of the Palestinian people. In the face of continued occupation, confiscation and expropriation of their land, the talk of peace has become virtually meaningless. As the occupying power, the State of Israel – during two decades of intermittent negotiations – has continued to build, and has systematically expanded Jewish settlements on Arab land, ignoring international public opinion and stubbornly rejecting resolutions of the United Nations and calls from concerned UN member states.

During my first visit to the region in the spring of 1974, on a fact-finding trip for the International Progress Organization, I had been confronted in the Palestinian refugee camps with the reality of forced migration, expulsion and dispossession; I also became aware of the “legacy of disinformation” that characterized the reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the decades after 1948 and that, for many years, prevented international civil society (particularly in the Western world) from taking a more active stand.

Much has changed in the meantime, and the world public is now more conscious of the suffering of the Palestinian people – notwithstanding the political stalemate within the United Nations and in the negotiations between the two conflicting parties.

A new actor has emerged in the year 2011: Arab civil society. We are indeed witnessing a tectonic shift in the regional political landscape. Although the eventual outcome of these momentous developments cannot seriously be predicted at this stage, it can be safely said today that the events triggered by the “Arab Spring” amount to the most serious challenge of the regional status quo since the end of the bipolar order of the Cold War. In the new spirit of self-confidence which people have displayed vis-à-vis the traditional order, Arab citizens, including the Palestinians, are not anymore prepared to accept regional solutions that are imposed upon them from outside.

In the course of 2011, two new developments have in fact determined the Palestinian issue: Apart from the changing political constellation in the region, with a new role played by an emerging civil society, it is the membership bid of the State of Palestine that has initiated a new phase at the United Nations – in the face of the collapse of negotiations that were conducted under the euphemistic formula of an ever more elusive “peace process.” The vote in the General Conference of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has documented the political reality at the global level, namely strong and broad support among the international community for an independent Palestinian state. This decision has demonstrated what could be achieved at the United Nations Organization without the obstructive effect of the (undemocratic) veto in the Security Council, which the most powerful member state threatens to use should a majority of Council members vote in favor of recommending the admission of Palestine to the General Assembly (Art. 4[2] UN Charter).

However, in view of extremely negative reactions to UNESCO’s bold and principled decision on the part of some of the key players of the so-called “peace process,” first and foremost the United States, a fresh look at their strategy and at the process itself, insofar as it has been shaped by those actors, appears appropriate. It is clear, by now, that the US, because of the domestic political situation, rejects the recognition of Palestinian statehood “outside of an agreement” negotiated between the two parties. Resolution 185 of the United States Senate, adopted on 16 May 2011, threatening “restrictions on aid to the Palestinian Authority,” has again demonstrated this position.

Furthermore: halting payments, which the country is obliged to contribute as a member of UNESCO, because of that organization’s recognition of Palestinian sovereignty, is an act of retaliation for a legitimate political stand of that organization. The withholding of tax and customs revenues, which the occupying power in Palestine collects on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority, would be an even more serious act of revenge or political blackmail that targets the Palestinians’ exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination. The same holds true for the announcement by the occupying power to intensify Jewish settlement activity and issue tenders for about 2,000 housing units on occupied land.

The outright rejection, declared in advance, by the United States of the membership bid in the Security Council has made it obvious to the entire world that the most influential veto-wielding country is not yet prepared to accept a “peace process” in the sense of negotiations between equals, namely between the sovereign states of Palestine and Israel. The lobbying of non-permanent member states not to vote for the admission of the State of Palestine is another sign of that country’s apparent bias and lack of credibility as a “mediator.” What we witness here is indeed a vicious circle of political obstruction: Recognition of Palestinian sovereignty is portrayed as an obstacle to any further negotiations while, in actual fact and in the view of the large majority of UN member states, it is an element of, even a guarantee for, meaningful negotiations.

What is at stake is the very essence, and integrity, of the peace process. How can one negotiate in good faith if one party persistently creates faits accomplis (“facts on the ground” in diplomatic newspeak) that prejudice, even preclude, a negotiated outcome? A two-state solution – which implies the recognition of the sovereignty of both parties – is rendered meaningless if, in the course of the negotiating process, “state 1” confiscates territory of what is to become “state 2.” Negotiations about a permanent status are utterly meaningless in the face of a “settler colonialism” that is diametrically opposed to the sovereign status of the territory in question.

What is also at stake is the credibility of those states that have introduced themselves as chief facilitators, and mediators, in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. How, for instance, can a state be an honest broker if, because of a discriminatory law, its government is obliged to “punish” any organization that dares to admit Palestine as a member state? How can such a country be taken seriously by both parties if the President, as has actually happened, revokes his erstwhile principled rejection of a resumption of negotiations as long as the building of illegal settlements continues? Barack Hussein Obama’s celebrated speech at Cairo University seems to be a distant memory. On 4 June 2009, he evoked “the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own” and said that “[t]he only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.” These “Remarks by the President on a new beginning,” as they were advertised by the White House at the time, appear to be an empty promise in the light of recent developments, which have made the US bias against a sovereign Palestinian state as negotiating partner painfully obvious. This state of affairs has been highlighted in a recent article in Time Magazine (9 November 2011) according to which “Israel’s overwhelming advantage in domestic political support effectively precludes even-handedness.” A mediator, in order to have a chance of success, must be perceived as impartial. Lack of such perception also seems to be the handicap of the Middle East Quartet collectively, which, unfortunately, has not been able to play an effective role so far.

It is said that the establishment of the State of Palestine, to be followed by its international recognition, including admission to the United Nations as a full member, should be the end result of negotiations, and not a condition for their resumption or continuation. This sounds reasonable, at first glance. However, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, followed by its admission to the United Nations, the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland, and the occupation, confiscation and annexation of Palestinian land etc., were not the result of a negotiating process, but of the use of armed force.

In all the years since the occupation and annexation of Palestinian land has taken hold, the world has witnessed a total lack of accountability for violations of international humanitarian law. Not only is the establishment of settlements on occupied land a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, a position which the Security Council stated long ago, namely in resolution 465(1980) of 1 March 1980; the siege imposed on the population of Gaza constitutes a grave violation of fundamental human rights and a most serious breach of Israel’s obligations as occupying power. This blockade should be lifted immediately.

As long as the question of recognition of Palestinian statehood before the International Criminal Court (ICC) is still pending* and Palestine has not (yet) been able to accede to the Rome Statute of the ICC, there also exists a vacuum in terms of international criminal law since Israel is not a State Party of the court and the Security Council, because of the pro-Israeli position of at least one veto-wielding member, will not refer the situation in Gaza (where international crimes appear having been committed) to the ICC on the basis of Article 13(b) of its Statute. I would like to refer here to the appeal of the Committee under whose auspices we are meeting today, namely that “[t]he Security Council and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention should act urgently and decisively to guarantee the protection of civilians in all situations and ensure accountability for violations of international law,” and I would like to recall the Committee’s stated support “to global campaigns to challenge Israeli impunity and promote the concept of Israeli accountability for its actions towards the Palestinian people.”**

I am afraid that the hopes and expectations that accompanied the Madrid Conference and the Oslo negotiations of the 1990s have given way to profound disillusionment. In the face of the ongoing serious violations of international humanitarian law in occupied Palestine, and in view of the effective collapse of a “peace process” that has only brought upon the Palestinian people more misery and the continued expropriation of their ancestral land, it is certainly not too much to expect a little bit of honesty on the part of the major global players. Admittedly, international politics has traditionally been considered an area free of morality, a space almost exclusively shaped by the “national interests” of sovereign states. The world, so the most influential global actors say, has now nevertheless proceeded to a higher state of moral awareness, including the development of a doctrine on the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) – but what about the fundamental and inalienable rights, not to speak of the legitimate national interests, of the Palestinian people?

***

* Re. Declaration recognizing the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, signed at The Hague, The Netherlands, 21 January 2009, for the Government of Palestine by the Minister of Justice Ali Khashan.

** Report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to the General Assembly, General Assembly Doc. A/66/35, 7 November 2011, Paragraphs 79 and 81 respectively.

The leading tagline of the Occupy Wall Street movement reads: “Protest for World Revolution.” This is an ambitious claim, to be sure. And in most respects it seems to ring quite true: the movement has successfully taken root not only in cities and towns throughout the United States but also in major urban centers around the world. On October 15, Occupy Wall Street’s success inspired a broad wave of coordinated occupations across Europe. I was a founding participant in the one that began in London.

But the Occupy movement has been notably absent outside of North America and Europe. Not for want of trying, of course: in southern Africa, where I am originally from, small groups of committed activists tried to instigate occupations in a few key regional cities, but without much success. In South Africa, a society divided by violent inequalities that proceed directly from neoliberal policy, Occupy managed to attract only a few dozen souls – a poor showing for a country known for one of the highest protest rates in the world.

What accounts for the failure of Occupy to capture the imagination of the global South, which comprises precisely the people whose lives have been most brutally affected by the recent global financial crisis? And in what sense can Occupy claim to be a world revolution if it leaves out – and in some cases even alienates – the vast, non-white majority of humanity?

Occupy is “international” at the moment only inasmuch as it exists in many different countries at the same time. But each of the occupations is primarily concerned with particular local or national issues. For instance, Occupy Wall Street is focused on corporate personhood, the Glass-Steagall Act, and collateralized debt obligations, while Occupy London is worried about tuition hikes, preserving the National Health Service, and reversing Thatcher’s 1986 financial deregulation bonanza.

Yes, the occupations communicate, and yes, they stand in solidarity with one another. But they are not united around concerns that are recognizably global in scope.

True, Occupy protestors and their sympathizers have helped sound the alarm on issues of international concern like fossil fuels and climate change, as we saw recently at the COP17 meetings in Durban. But as it presently stands the Occupy agenda is rather provincial – even Eurocentric. Aside from its radical elements, most of the movement’s American and European supporters simply want to reclaim their rights to live decent, dignified, middle-class lives.

Western Affluence and the Global System

There’s nothing wrong with this aspiration, in and of itself. But middle-class affluence in the West depends on a system of extraction that produces and perpetuates tremendous poverty in the global South. This was true under European colonialism, when the gap between the richest and poorest countries increased from 3:1 to 35:1, and it obtains even more so in this era of neoliberal capitalism, during which – according to the Human Development Report – that gap has reached an unprecedented 74:1.

According to World Development Indicators, in 2005 the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population – a proportion that includes almost all of the Occupy protestors – accounted for 76.6 percent of total private consumption. The wealthy nations of Europe and North America have an inordinate degree of control over the world’s resources, which they command through international financial institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization.

Occupy Wall Street correctly criticizes the fact that an increasing proportion of these spoils has gone to the top 1 percent of U.S. society since the mid-1970s. But it is not enough to want to redistribute that wealth back to middle-class Americans. Even if the Occupy movement does manage to fix the financial sector, stabilize the economy, and redress social inequality in the West, the violent, imperialist modes of accumulation will still remain in place.

The process of extraction from global “periphery” to global “core” is what sociologist Emmanuel Wallerstein has called “the world-system.” Since the 1980s, one way of facilitating extraction within the world-system has been through “structural adjustment” loans from Western governments to post-colonial countries. Debts from these loans are leveraged to forcibly liberalize markets, privatize resources, cut social services, and curb labor and environmental regulations to create business opportunities for multinational companies and facilitate the flow of wealth to the West.

Western corporations realize huge profits by taking advantage of these policies. They externalize the costs of production to the global South where they can get away without paying for the labor they exploit, the resources they extract, and the pollution they leave behind.

Forced liberalization has plunged poor countries into economic collapse, slashing average per capita income growth in half after 1980 and leading in some cases to negative rates. Economists estimate that poor countries have lost $480 billion per year as a result of structural adjustment, while multinational corporations have stolen as much as $1.17 trillion (from Africa alone!) through loopholes created by market deregulation since 1970. The upshot of this has been rising inequality, deepening poverty, and worsening health, mortality, and literacy rates in much of the global South.

Finding the Right Targets

Western affluence and the consumer lifestyles of the “99 percent” in the United States and Europe depend on the plunder of other places and other peoples. This is one of the reasons that people in the global South tend to feel alienated by Occupy. First of all, they don’t see why they should support a movement of Westerners who want to regain levels of affluence that depend at least in part on the extraction of their countries’ labor and resources. What’s more, the locus of the economic decisions that affect them is not ultimately their national governments, but the institutions in Washington, DC and Geneva that determine economic policy from afar; it doesn’t make much sense to occupy locally when the power lies elsewhere.

Occupy’s vision for world revolution will only catch on in the global South once the movement extends its purview to encompass these concerns and begins to challenge inequality between nations as much as within them.

We cannot rely on “development” to accomplish this. Not only does development serve as a façade for the global extension of neoliberalism, it also rests on a purely absurd premise. The notion that everyone in the world should enjoy the equivalent of Western middle-class living standards ignores the fact that the planet simply does not contain enough resources for each person to consume as much as, say, the average American. Instead of “developing” the global South, we need to un-develop the West; we need to subvert and dismantle the flows of tribute that underpin Western affluence.

Occupy must realize that even huge wins at home will not necessarily translate into changes in the world-system or even changes in the U.S. role in it. Given that neoliberal capitalism is organized on a global scale, any real change will require a movement that is global in scope. Never has there been a better time to challenge the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF’s policies on trade, debt, austerity, structural adjustment, resource extraction, and sweatshops.

Targeting these institutions is crucial because they determine Western access to labor and resources in the global South. The United States controls the levers of this system, since voting power in the World Bank and the IMF is apportioned according to each nation’s level of financial ownership. With about 17 percent of the shares, the United States has enough to singlehandedly block major decisions, which require 85 percent of the vote.

At the WTO, market size determines bargaining power – so rich countries almost always get their way. On top of this, rich countries control key decisions by using exclusive “green room” meetings to circumvent the consensus process. If poor countries choose to disobey trade rules that hurt them, rich countries can retaliate by using the WTO’s courts to impose crushing sanctions.

Change in the world-system can only happen once these institutions are democratized and de-corporatized. This will require building alliances with the global justice movement and anti-globalization campaigns in postcolonial countries that have been working on these issues for decades (such as La Via Campesina, an organization of 200 million peasants worldwide). Neoliberalism was crushing people there long before it hit white, Euro-American youth.

Alliances with the Global South

Another reason that Occupy has not caught on outside the West is that the leaderless, consensus-based horizontalism that has made the movement so popular in North America and Europe doesn’t work as well where most people can’t network through the Internet. Instead of fetishizing this tactic for its own sake, we need to be pragmatic about reaching out to established parties, unions, and other institutions – even if hierarchical – that actually have the ability to organize the rallies that an international movement needs. We reject traditional tactics at our own peril.

It’s easy enough to explain why the global South hasn’t joined Occupy. But why should we care? First, because the extractive processes that underpin Euro-American affluence cannot be fully understood from within the “core.” Our goals need to be informed by conversations and alliances with activists in the global South. Second, because challenging these powerful and deeply entrenched interests will require serious pressure from all corners of the world-system. If we want to bring about “World Revolution,” we have to be able to mobilize the world.

Occupy might do well to glean a few lessons from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Like the world-system in microcosm, apartheid capitalism allowed a white minority to accumulate massive wealth by extracting cheap labor and resources from a non-white majority. A number of white people rejected this system and became key activists in the anti-apartheid movement. But their efforts would have come to naught without their African counterparts, who mobilized mass resistance by going door-to-door in the townships, building the capacity for the strikes and boycotts that brought the apartheid state to its knees.

A truly global movement is not out of reach. Indeed, it has never been more possible than it is today. This is our opportunity to occupy the world. We dare not miss it.

By Jason Hickel

21 December 2011

CommonDreams.org

Dr. Jason Hickel teaches at the London School of Economics‘ Department of Anthropology.

 

 

Hamas ordered the departure of nearly all its staff at its Damascus headquarters by next week following pressure from Turkey and Qatar, two regional allies trying to isolate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad amid an eight-month crackdown on antiregime protests, according to a Hamas official.

The Islamic militant group’s parting of ways with Mr. Assad marks the latest blow to his regime. Damascus has hosted Hamas since the Palestinian group was forced out of Jordan in the late 1990s.

Leaving Syria also distances Hamas from Iran, an ally of President Assad that has provided the Palestinian militants with money, training and military hardware. Over recent months, Tehran has urged Hamas not to relocate, the official said.

Hamas will establish new headquarters in Cairo and Qatar to replace its operations in Syria, the official added. At the same time, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is scheduled to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan to discuss upgrading its presence in the kingdom.

The shift from Syria to Egypt is expected to moderate Hamas’s behavior while reducing Tehran’s ability to threaten clashes with Israel, said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran expert based in Israel, who called the move “a major strategic setback” for Iran.

Hamas officials have for months sought to portray the organization as neutral in the Syrian conflict. But recent progress in Hamas’s rapprochement with Egypt and Jordan has emboldened the militants to accelerate their departure after months of quiet preparations—an operation dubbed by members as “soft exit.”

The Hamas security official said that 90% of the staff will be dispersed to cities around the region, leaving behind a nominal presence in Damascus.

Over recent months, Hamas has been divesting itself of Syrian assets, including business investments, real estate and bank deposits, the Hamas official said.

After the Arab League decision to impose sanctions on Damascus last month, Hamas leaders were admonished by Ankara and Doha.

“Qatar and Turkey urged us to leave Syria immediately,” said a senior Hamas security official who has relocated to Gaza from Damascus. “They said, ‘Have you no shame? It’s enough. You have to get out.’ “

Meanwhile, dozens of bodies were dumped in the streets of Homs, Syria, at the heart of the uprising, in a sign that sectarian bloodshed is escalating.

Up to 50 people were killed on Monday, but details came to light Tuesday on reports of retaliatory attacks pitting the Alawite sect against Sunnis.

The discovery in Homs came as the U.S. stepped up pressure Tuesday on the Assad regime to end its crackdown on the anti-government protests. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met in Geneva with Syrian opposition figures, and Washington said it was sending its ambassador back to Damascus.

Mark Toner, U.S. State Department spokesman, said U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford was returning to Syria to “continue the work he was doing previously—namely, delivering the United States’ message to the people of Syria, providing reliable reporting on the situation on the ground, and engaging with the full spectrum of Syrian society on how to end the bloodshed and achieve a peaceful political transition,” Mr. Toner said.

Turkish criticism of its Syrian neighbor’s conduct has been increasingly harsh, with Prime Minister Recep Erdogan calling for Mr. Assad to step down. Qatar, meanwhile, has led efforts by the Arab League to punish Syria. While Turkey has lobbied for an end to Israel’s blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, Qatar has provided financial support.

Hamas officials were unavailable for official comment. One Hamas official, Salah al-Arouri, quoted in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, denied reports there of a decision to leave Damascus and called group ties with the government “excellent.”

Arab observers have linked Hamas’s consent to an October prisoner swap with Israel and to a November summit meeting with rival, President Mahmoud Abbas, with a desire to improve its credentials with Egypt’s government in anticipation of a departure from Syria.

Hamas is considered by analysts to be more welcome in Cairo after the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and in anticipation of a Parliament dominated by parties of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition to the external pressure, Hamas’s presence in Damascus put the organization at odds with its own grass roots in the Palestinian territories, well as with Islamist affiliates within Syria, where the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is leading one of the main groups opposing the regime.

Moreover, Hamas-affiliated clerics regularly deliver sermons in Gaza mosques blaming the Syrian government for the death toll of 4,000 in the uprising and predicting the eventual collapse of the regime.

When newly released Hamas prisoners arrived in Damascus in November after being deported from the Palestinian territories as part of a swap with Israel, they thanked the Syrian people rather than mentioning the government. The omission was telling, said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al Azhar University in Gaza City,

“That is a sign [Hamas] is unhappy,” he said. “It seems to me that Hamas is in a very bad position by keeping its headquarters in Damascus.”

Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has made repeated trips to Cairo, and a deputy, Moussa Abu Marzook, is expected to head up the operation there, said Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist who passed messages with Hamas during the negotiations leading to the prisoner swap of Gilad Shalit.

By JOSHUA MITNICK

7 DECEMBER 2011

@ The Wall Street Journal

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.”