be just

Demanding justice for Yousef, a quiet boy killed by Israeli settlers

2012-01-28T13:00:00.000-06:00

Demanding justice for Yousef, a quiet boy killed by Israeli settlersOn 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, went with his father Fakhri to their farmland on the outskirts of the West Bank village Beit Ommar, where they prepared the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, two groups of Israelis from the illegal settlements Bat Ayn and Kiryat Arba were taking a “hike” in the privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land belonging to the residents of Beit Ommar (“Palestinian killed in clashes with settlers near Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2011).

Call for the World Social Forum Free Palestine, Nov. 2012 in Brazil

2012-01-25T13:27:00.000-06:00

Call for the World Social Forum Free Palestine, Nov. 2012 in Brazil
Occupied Palestine is part of every free heartbeat in this world and her cause continues to inspire solidarity across the globe. The World Social Forum Free Palestine is an expression of the human instinct to unite for justice and freedom and an echo of the World Social Forum’s opposition to neo-liberal hegemony, colonialism, and racism through struggles for social, political and economic alternatives to promote justice, equality, and the sovereignty of peoples.

The WSF Free Palestine will be a global encounter of broad-based popular and civil society mobilizations from around the world. It aims to:

1. Show the strength of solidarity with the calls of the Palestinian people and the diversity of initiatives and actions aimed at promoting justice and peace in the region.

2. Create effective actions to ensure Palestinian self-determination, the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the fulfillment of human rights and international law, by:

a)      Ending Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

b)     Ensuring the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

c)      Implementing, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

3. Be a space for discussion, exchange of ideas, strategizing, and planning in order to improve the structure of solidarity.

Exactly sixty-five years after Brazil presided over the UN General Assembly session that agreed upon the partition of Palestine, Brazil will host a different type of global forum: an historic opportunity for people from all over the world to stand up where governments have failed. The world’s people will come together to discuss new visions and effective actions to contribute to justice and peace in the region.

We call on all organizations, movements, networks, and unions across the globe to join the WSF Free Palestine in November 2012 in Porto Alegre. We ask you to join the International Committee for the WSF Free Palestine, we will establish as soon as possible. Participation in this forum will structurally strengthen solidarity with Palestine, promote action to implement Palestinian’s legitimate rights, and hold Israel and its allies accountable to international law.

Together we can raise global solidarity with Palestine to a new level.

Palestinian Preparatory Committee for the WSF Free Palestine 2012

Secretariat members:

·         PNGO – Palestinian NGO Network

·         Stop the Wall – Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign,

·         OPGAI – Occupied Palestinian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative

·         Alternatives represented by:

Alternative Information Center,

Teacher Creativity Center

·         Ittijah

·         General Union of Palestinian women

Coordination office:

PNGO – Palestinian NGO Network

Tel: +970 2 2975320/1
Fax: +970 2 2950704
E mail: samahd@pngo.net

NYPD Admits Using Anti-Muslim Film for Training Nearly 1,500 Officers -- News from Antiwar.com

2012-01-25T09:08:00.000-06:00

NYPD Admits Using Anti-Muslim Film for Training Nearly 1,500 Officers -- News from Antiwar.com
NYPD Admits Using Anti-Muslim Film for Training Nearly 1,500 Officers
Film Accuses All Muslims of Plotting to Overthrow US
by Jason Ditz, January 24, 2012
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Last year, the New York Police Dept. was caught in an ugly scandal when the Village Voice reported it showed a 72-minute film titled The Third Jihad to police as a “terrorist training” video. Officials at the time downplayed the number of officers who saw it, and claimed it was quickly pulled when it was deemed “inappropriate.”

The video condemns Muslims in general and moderate American Muslims in particular, claiming that all non-violent Muslims are part of a secret conspiracy to overthrow the US government and impose Sharia law in its place.

FOIA requests have finally gotten through the red tape, however, and it is now revealed that movie was not an isolated mishap at NYPD, but rather was required viewing for months on end, shown to a minimum of 1,489 officers.

The human rights group that filed the request says the “response was to deny it and to fight our request for information.” The revelation of its use is particularly noteworthy given the number of NYPD scandals related to the surveillance and persecution of the city’s Muslim residents.

Haditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’ -- News from Antiwar.com

2012-01-25T00:26:00.000-06:00

Haditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’ -- News from Antiwar.comHaditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’
Staff Sergeant Faces Pay Cut Over Butchering of Civilians
by Jason Ditz, January 24, 2012
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In the mother of all plea bargains, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who was charged with leading the US Marines’ massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha, plead guilty to a single count of “dereliction of duty.”

His “sentence,” such as it is, will amount to a demotion to the rank of private and a pay cut related to his loss of rank. He will serve no jail time.

The announcement has angered a number of Iraqis, particularly the relatives of the slain, who say the verdict is an insult. Khalid Salman, a lawyer for the relatives of the victims, and a cousin of one of the slain, condemned the decision. “This is not a traffic felony,” he said.

Even skeptical Iraqis weren’t prepared for this total dismissal. Saleem al-Jubouri, the head of the Iraqi parliament’s human rights committee, had already issued a condemnation on the assumption that Wuterich would face a three-month jail sentence, the maximum for the soldier’s plea bargain.

Jack Murtha and the Ghosts of Haditha by Kelley B. Vlahos -- Antiwar.com

2012-01-24T12:30:00.000-06:00

Jack Murtha and the Ghosts of Haditha by Kelley B. Vlahos -- Antiwar.com

Jack Murtha and the Ghosts of Haditha
by Kelley B. Vlahos, January 24, 2012
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Nearly two years ago on Feb. 8, 2010, Rep. Jack Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who was also a Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran, died of complications from gall bladder surgery.

In what is probably a first in modern Congressional history, his untimely death was greeted ghoulishly in certain unseemly sectors with cheers and jeers.

Rep. Jack Murtha
“Sufficient time has passed since John Murtha’s death to reckon with his true record,” carped right-wing maven Michelle Malkin four days after the 77-year-old died in a hospital just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia.

“No tears for the wreckage, poison, and damage to the public trust he left behind… John ‘Jack’ Murtha was an unrepentant smear merchant and corruptocrat to the bitter end.”

And for what did Murtha deserve such a vicious postmortem? Four years earlier, he had the audacity to draw attention to a single event on November 19, 2005 in Haditha, Iraq, where 12 Marines of Kilo Company in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, killed 24 unarmed civilians, half of them women and children and elderly cowering in darkened bedrooms of two residential homes.

Today, Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 31, is currently facing a court martial at Camp Pendleton for his role in the Haditha killings. He is indicted on charges of manslaughter in connection with 19 of the 24 deaths, including five unarmed Iraqi students who had been riding in a taxi when the initial IED blast had triggered the incident. He is also charged with dereliction of duty for ordering his men to “clear” the homes that turned out to be filled with non-combatants. According to reports, an expected plea deal fell through on Friday and the trial, in front of jury of combat veterans, continues this week.

He is the only Marine left, so far, facing charges. UPDATE: According to reports last night, Sgt. Wuterich has struck a deal with military prosecutors in which he will plead guilty to dereliction of duty. All charges will be dropped. He is expected to face no more than three months in jail.

The Pentagon had been quietly investigating the horrific incident after Tim McGirk of Time magazine handed military officials photographic evidence and eyewitness testimony in January 2005 that contradicted the military’s original report that 15 civilians that day had died due to an IED explosion.

Time had already published its first explosive article on what looked to be a massive cover-up and possibly “the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians” since the war began, when Murtha held a May 17, 2005 news conference in which he most memorably charged that “there was no firefight, there was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”

In the years leading to his death, the 77-year-old had been smeared and vilified for those words. The Marine Corps community closed ranks, as the right-wing mobosphere went into high gear, shrieking that Murtha betrayed the Marine Corps, his country, had even aided America’s enemies. He was accused of hanging the men before their day in court, and “trumping up charges” against our military heroes for “short-term political gain.”

“He’s one of the most vile, despicable excuses for a human being I’ve ever seen, ranking only a few paces ahead of Judas Iscariot of thirty pieces of silver fame,” wrote Gary Gross, contributor to the Murtha Must Go website, in June 2008.

It is not the aim of this writer to defend the late congressman’s record in Pennsylvania, nor try to minimize his flaws and transgressions in other areas — he loved shoveling the pork into his district, especially into defense contracting businesses that directly benefited himself and his family, for example. By any other measure, he was one of hundreds of politicians on Capitol Hill today who have contributed to an overall atmosphere of institutionalized cronyism and hubris, the massive “feeding at the trough” that has eroded public confidence and paralyzed the federal budget process.

That said, Murtha was a tough advocate for veterans and had come out early and strong against the war in Iraq, a war that the majority of veterans today say was a mistake. He maintained from the beginning that he raised the specter of Haditha because he felt Washington had unnecessarily created the conditions that led to the killings in the first place, and that a cover-up was engaged in order to hide the devastating truth.

In other words, there had been a massive breakdown in leadership and discipline, and rather than risking embarrassment and facing the problem head-on, the military put in place a phony story until it was forced to investigate, he claimed. While calling for the Marines involved to be punished, Murtha saw this as an opportunity for Washington to rethink how it was overextending its volunteer force in a war that had clearly not been waged in the national interest.

“The big thing is the stress on these troops. They send these troops back over and over again. These troops are in combat every day …they send them in with inadequate forces. There’s no weapons of mass destruction, and in the end, they send them in with inadequate equipment,” Murtha told Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball the day of his 2006 news conference.

“So this is absolutely outrageous, and then the troops, you know—I don’t excuse them, but I understand why it happens, because the pressure is tremendous… and the responsibility goes right to the top. This is something that shouldn’t have happened.”

Murtha’s sin was that he didn’t use the tremendous pressure the Marines were under as an excuse to downplay their possible war crimes, like the right-wing war hawks often do (see: “Urinationgate”), but quite the opposite. He saw it as a pernicious side effect of a failed preemptive war strategy that threw Marines and soldiers into a dangerous urban environment and then expected them to kill and liberate at the same time.

“I don’t take a back seat to anybody for my service to the country, but there is no question in my mind they went way too far,” Murtha said in an interview shortly before he died. “I’ll tell you one goddamn thing, you can’t just kill people and not have an effect on the rest of the country. That had an affect on Iraq just like Abu Ghraib did.”

“It was terrible what happened to John Murtha, who should have been commended for speaking out in such a brave way,” said Nick Broomfield, an English documentary filmmaker who directed Battle for Haditha, which utilized scores of interviews with Marines and Iraqis to piece together a dramatization of the events that took place that day.

Dead civilians in Haditha
The movie had been torn apart by the audience upon its first screening in Los Angeles, Broomfield recalled, but as more facts in the case have been revealed and the war in Iraq now technically “ended,” people are more inclined to listen rather than take a shot at him for making the film in the first place.

“I think John Murtha was absolutely correct in his description that this was a cold-blooded massacre,” Broomfield told Antiwar. “He was torn to pieces in a completely unjustifiable way, but he made these statements based on fact.”

Hal Donahue, an Air Force veteran and liberal activist, told Antiwar that Murtha was a “profile in courage,” who “kind of felt vindicated” by the time he died two years ago. But Donahue predicts Wuterich “will get off” like the rest of the Marines who had been previously indicted for Haditha within the military system.

“(Haditha) became a political football,” he said, “that’s why it’s dragged on so long.”

A Man Vindicated?

For years, Murtha’s critics have insisted that he rushed to judgment before the military was able to complete its investigation, and convicted the Marines in the court of public opinion before they could face real justice. They said his use of “cold blooded” was irresponsible. They even accuse him of being duped by an elaborate al Qaeda PR scheme to make the US look bad.

They point to the six Marines whose charges in military court associated with the killing and the cover-up were dismissed or dropped (one more, 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, who was charged with making false statements and ordering the destruction of photographs taken from the scene, was acquitted), as “exoneration” and further proof that Murtha was horribly wrong.

“Smear merchant John Murtha went to his grave without apologizing — encased in federal immunity protection,” Malkin wrote, referring to one Marine’s unsuccessful attempt to sue Murtha for slander.

“One by one over the last six years, the Marines were exonerated.”

That’s not exactly true, Michelle. The criminal charges may not have held up, but a closer look reveals that yes, the Marines did kill unarmed women and children in daylight and “in cold blood,” if one goes by the definition that the Marines felt they were following orders and the victims were shot — several, as it were, in close range in their pajamas and in their beds — deliberately and without regard.

Did they overreact? There is plenty of evidence offered by various eyewitnesses that indicates this was very much a possibility, as the men had just witnessed a brutal IED attack on their company and had come under fire from unknown sources in the middle of the street.

An investigation conducted in 2006 by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) begins with what happened after a roadside IED ripped apart a Humvee in their convoy, killing a beloved comrade, Lance Cpl. Miquel “TJ” Terraza, on the morning of November 19, 2005. The NCIS report found that Sgt. Wuterich then shot five unarmed Iraqis who were in a taxi near the scene of the explosion.

Eyewitnesses, including an Iraqi soldier with the convoy said, “they (Iraqi men) didn’t even try to run away … we were afraid from Marines and we saw them behaving like crazy. They were yelling and screaming.”

Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, whose testimony has now become key in the prosecution’s case against Wuterich, told investigators that afterwards, he did a “dead check” on the dead men by shooting them again at close range, and then urinated on one of them. He told investigators that the men had not been trying to flee but Wuterich asked him to lie about it — an assertion that Wuterich’s lawyer adamantly denies.

Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the last Marine to be tried for Haditha, goes to court
His decision to testify against his former sergeant has isolated him from the rest of the Marine Corps community. According to an extensive interview with Chicago Magazine in July 2008, Dela Cruz said he felt sickened when he found out the Iraqi men he shot and urinated on were unarmed students. He was not in the homes where the civilians were killed — but recalls what happened when he went into the rooms to the remove the bodies. “The first body I saw was an old lady,” he told the magazine.

“Her mouth was wide open and her hands were up.” In a statement to investigators in 2006 he said, “I remember I was in shock from seeing all the dead people in this house,” including “dead children at the foot of the bed” and “smelling burnt flesh.”

“They either believe me or not. But I saw the truth. I saw it,” he told the magazine.

One would think — at least in the public court of opinion — that “exoneration” would mean that it was proved the Marines killed all those people because there was an actual threat, that they had been fired upon by insurgents, perhaps hiding among the children in their bedrooms. We know now by their own acknowledgement and evidence on the scene, that wasn’t the case.

So far, no one who has testified in Wuterich’s case claim they encountered insurgent activity in the two homes where the civilians were killed — but they went in blazing anyway.

What they are fighting out in court now is who gave the orders, whether they were “lawful” orders, and whether the Marines who shot up the civilians were acting within the “permissible” limits of what they understood the rules of engagement (ROE) to be. Wuterich has contended that he was indeed following his training according to an unedited 60 Minutes interview recently played for the court.

“I was extremely upset about that,” he said about the dead children. “I go over it and over it in my head — where did we go wrong?” There was no other way to handle the situation, he said, admitting that he told his squad to “shoot first and ask questions later.” But when pressed, Sgt. Humberto Mendoza, who also has immunity, told the court that his training never told him he should consider everyone in a house a threat if his commanding officer declared it “hostile” the way Wuterich allegedly did that day.

Nevertheless, former staff Sgt. Stephen Tatum, whose charges of murdering three unarmed Iraqis were dropped, testified on Jan 11 that Wuterich had declared the homes “hostile,” and according to his own reading of the ROE, that precluded the squad from having to identify their targets before shooting and blindly lobbing grenades into the rooms.

“I did not feel I had to [positively identify] individuals” as threats, Tatum said. He also testified that he was shooting at “silhouettes,” some shapes large, others small, but that he did not feel anything he did that day was wrong. Yet in copies of interviews for the 2006 NCIS report available on Broomfield’s website, Tatum admits to seeing children “kneeling down” in the room and Wuterich “firing at them.”

“I was trained to shoot two shots to the head and two shots to the chest and I followed my training,” he said in an amended statement (.pdf), signed by Tatum and dated April 3, 2006.

“I regret children had to die that day but I also know I did what I had to do.”

The killing is clear but what about the rampaging? Wuterich claims he was cool-headed that day — just following his training and orders to go after the insurgents shooting at them in the area. The prosecution tells another story, saying “he made a series of fatal assumptions and he lost control of himself,” prosecutor Maj. Nicholas Gannon told the jury.

“I interviewed a number of Marines that day from Kilo Company who confirmed the craziness — they did not regard it as crazy, but it was,” Broomfield told Antiwar.

What comes out of all of this is that the landscape of Iraq in 2005 — pockmarked by IED blasts, firefights, 500-pound bombs landing on houses, sniper fire, dead children and the smell of death — made for quite an untidy context for which to sort out things like ROEs. And when things went haywire like they did in Haditha, the chain of command seemed pretty negligent in setting it straight.

In another vindication of Murtha’s claims, Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell’s 104-page report on Haditha released in 2007, found that the Marines did not “did not follow proper house and room techniques,” that Wuterich’s squad passed along a false story about what happened there, that the company commander provided insufficient information up the chain. He also charged senior officials with ignoring the signs of a problem and deeming the incident as insignificant.

“Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get ‘the job done’ no matter what it takes.”

****************

In a story that has received little press, The New York Times reported in December that one of its journalists had found hundreds of documents related to the Bargewell report, tossed away in an Iraqi junkyard. The U.S. military says much of it is classified and was supposed to be destroyed. Maybe because of what’s in the transcripts — 400 pages of potentially damning interviews with Marines about that day in Haditha (read some of them, here).

Iraqi civilians were being killed all the time. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar, in his own testimony, described it as “a cost of doing business.”

The stress of combat left some soldiers paralyzed, the testimony shows. Troops, traumatized by the rising violence and feeling constantly under siege, grew increasingly twitchy, killing more and more civilians in accidental encounters. Others became so desensitized and inured to the killing that they fired on Iraqi civilians deliberately while their fellow soldiers snapped pictures … the bodies piled up …

“Jack Murtha should be vindicated,” said Donahue. “I think history has, or will.”

Twitter Vlahos @KelleyBVlahos

US marine pleads guilty to Haditha killings - Americas - Al Jazeera English

2012-01-23T19:16:00.000-06:00

US marine pleads guilty to Haditha killings - Americas - Al Jazeera EnglishA US Marine sergeant accused of leading a massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha pleaded guilty on Monday to negligence, ending the final prosecution stemming from a 2005 incident.

Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 31, the commander of a group of Marines whose other members have been exonerated, entered his plea as part of a deal with military prosecutors in which more serious charges of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault were dismissed.

Wuterich was initially charged with murder.

A sentencing hearing will be held Tuesday, said a spokesman for Camp Pendleton, south of Los Angeles.

(JUBA) – The government of the Republic of South Sudan has decided to shut down all its oil production throughout the country

2012-01-20T13:20:00.001-06:00

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January 20, 2012 (JUBA) – The government of the Republic of South Sudan has decided to shut down all its oil production throughout the country in response to the action by Khartoum which confiscated the oil as it flows through North Sudan pipelines.

A Southern Sudanese soldier (R) stands next to crude oil reservoir tanks while a foreign Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (NPOC) oil worker walks by at a field processing facility in Unity State on November 10, 2010. (Getty)
The resolution was passed today in the Council of Ministers meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir Mayardit. The minister of Petroleum and Mining, Stephen Dhiew, was directed by the Council to immediately workout the technicalities of shutting down the oil operations.

South Sudan said it has already lost hundreds of millions of dollars as Khartoum took over 3 million barrels of oil that passed through the pipeline to Port Sudan. Khartoum claimed that it confiscated the oil because of unpaid fees.

However, Juba denied the claim as baseless, saying it has been paying all the fees since independence as verified by the international oil companies operating in South Sudan and therefore it was an act of aggression by the later to loot the property of an independent nation.

Officials say the process of completely shutting down all the oil wells may take a week and no single barrel will be produced.

The government of South Sudan has already notified the oil companies about the decision to shut down the oil operations in the country.

Meanwhile South Sudan will look for alternative routes of pipelines to other neighboring countries and refineries unless Khartoum will reach a future agreement with South Sudan.

Oil constitutes 98% of revenues in South Sudan, but officials say it is better keep it under the ground for sometimes instead of letting it be robbed by Khartoum.

It is not clear how Khartoum will react to this serious development but the move will adversely affect the economies of both countries due to their near-total dependence on oil.

The minister of information and official spokesperson of the government, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, told journalists after the cabinet meeting that the behavior of Khartoum led to the South to completely shut down oil production. He also said the environmental impact as a result of the shutdown would be taken care of by the ministry of petroleum in the South.

(ST)

Rights group: Ethiopia forcibly resettled 70,000

2012-01-18T14:04:00.000-06:00

By LUC VAN KEMENADE, Associated Press – Tue Jan 17, 9:59 am ET
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Ethiopia has forcibly moved tens of thousands of semi-nomadic people in the country's west to barren villages and threatened, assaulted and arrested those who resisted, an international rights group said in a report Tuesday.
The Human Rights Watch report said that Ethiopia last year resettled about 70,000 people in its western Gambella region after the first of a three-year "villagization" program.
The rights group said it suspects people have been moved to lease out farmland to investors, and not just to lift them out of poverty. It said that security forces "repeatedly threatened, assaulted, and arrested villagers" who resisted relocation. The watchdog also reported rape, killing of cattle and burning of houses among rights violations.
Instead of the promised improved life with "access to basic socio-economic infrastructures," locals found new villages that lacked food, farmland, schools and health clinics, the New York-based watchdog said.
Human Rights Watch said its report is based on 100 interviews in 2011 with residents in Gambella and in a refugee camp in Kenya. The report also relied on visits to 16 affected villages.
The organization called upon the Ethiopian government to suspend its program until all promised facilities have been provided for.
Ethiopia's minister of federal affairs, Shiferaw Teklemariam, denounced the allegations in a letter to Human Rights Watch as "downright fabrications" of a "politically motivated" organization. He wrote that Human Rights Watch "willfully ignores the fact that more than 50,000 people are utilizing services from the newly built" villages.
He said the Gambella resettlement is a success and that "villagers for the first time in their history started to produce excess product — maize, sorghum, rice, potatoes, beans, vegetables, fruits, etc. — beyond and above their family consumption."
Shiferaw said resettlement is voluntary. He denied any presence of military troops and claimed that interference of security forces was unnecessary because participants showed a "keen interest."
Ethiopia plans to relocate a total of 45,000 households in Gambella by 2013. According to the Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based policy think tank, Ethiopia's government has earmarked 42 percent of Gambella's land for investment.
The Gambella resettlement plan is part of a larger scheme that aims to relocate a total of 1.5 million people in four regions. Ethiopia has earmarked a total of 3.5 million hectares for leasing nationwide and according to the country's ministry of agriculture website it rented out more than 350,000 hectares to 24 investors in the last two years.
Jan Egeland, Europe director of Human Rights Watch, said that resettlement takes place "in the exact same areas of Ethiopia that the government is leasing to foreign investors for large-scale commercial agricultural operations".
"This raises suspicions about the underlying motives of the program," he said in a statement.
Human Rights Watch cited an official from the U.S. government's aid arm — USAID — as saying the U.S. organization had concerns about underlying motives of the resettlement scheme but wasn't successful in getting the government to respond to allegations of a link between relocation and investment. Ethiopia is one of the top recipients of U.S. aid.
Egeland said that it "seems that donor money is being used, at least indirectly, to fund the villagization program." He said donors should take the responsibility "to ensure that their assistance does not facilitate forced displacement and associated violations".
USAID did an assessment of the Gambella resettlement program in March 2011 and, while the report has not been made public, concluded that relocation was voluntary, Human Rights Watch said.
U.S. Ambassador Donald E. Booth and USAID deputy country director Jason Fraser traveled to Gambella last week but were not immediately available for comment.
Gambella, in west-central Ethiopia, is a traditionally marginalized area of the country that suffers internal conflicts over resources like water and land between indigenous peoples like the pastoral Nuer and agrarian Anuak. It also is affected by its border with South Sudan, as refugees pour across into Gambella when violence erupts in that newly independent nation.
Gambella also saw a large influx of Ethiopians who the former dictatorship forced to relocate after a devastating famine in the 1980s.
Human Rights Watch has accused Ethiopia's military of murder, rape and torture of scores of ethnic Anuak in Gambella in December 2003. The government conducted an investigation but largely absolved the military.
Ethiopia's Walta Information Center has reported that most of the 4.45 million acres (1.8 million hectares) that Ethiopia's government leased to foreign companies last year are in Gambella, and that most of the leased Gambella land has gone to Indian companies.
A World Bank report last year on leasing agricultural land to foreign companies noted that some of Ethiopia's leases last up to 100 years and favor rich foreigners over poor Ethiopians, with large investors receiving land and water free of charge along with tax benefits, while local peasants have to pay land taxes and other fees.
___
Associated Press reporter Michelle Faul in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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Tourists killed in Ethiopia attack - Africa - Al Jazeera English

2012-01-18T00:01:00.000-06:00

Tourists killed in Ethiopia attack - Africa - Al Jazeera EnglishUnknown assailants killed five foreign tourists in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region, state television reported.

The foreigners, whose nationalities were not immediately known, were killed on Monday in the remote region bordering Eritrea, Ethiopian Television (ETV) said on Tuesday, citing the defence ministry.

ETV said two tourists were injured severely and have been brought to a health clinic by defence forces. They are in critical condition, the television said. Another tourist survived the attack unharmed.

ETV suggested that the attackers were rebels with ties to Ethiopia's archrival Eritrea, which hosts the exiled Oromo Liberation Front, a rebel group listed as a terrorist organisation by the Ethiopian government.

Ethiopia's foreign ministry acknowledged tourists had been attacked in the Afar region but said it didn't have any further details about the attack or the victims' nationalities.

'European' group

In Berlin, a spokesman at the German foreign ministry, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said it has received "reports of an attack on a tour group with Germans in Ethiopia" and that the ministry is trying to determine what had happened.

In Vienna, a spokesman at the Austrian foreign ministry said as many as 22 tourists of several European nationalities may have been attacked, including two Austrians.

At least one German and one Austrian were among those killed, Germany's Bild daily reported on Tuesday, quoting security officials in Berlin.

In 2007, five Europeans - four Britons and a French citizen - were taken hostage and released unharmed, in exchange for a ransom.

Gov. Perry: Urinating on Dead Afghans Not a Crime -- News from Antiwar.com

2012-01-16T11:23:00.000-06:00

Gov. Perry: Urinating on Dead Afghans Not a Crime -- News from Antiwar.comWith Newt Gingrich the first candidate to claim Palestinians are a myth and Rick Santorum the first candidate to promise a more or less instant war on Iran if elected, the ways in which other candidates might single themselves out as uniquely jingoist appeared limited, but Gov. Rick Perry of Texas (who already tried with a promise to reinvade Iraq if elected) has found a way.

Iraq: Arbaeen Attacks Leave 71 Killed, 145 Wounded -- Antiwar.com

2012-01-14T14:12:00.000-06:00

Iraq: Arbaeen Attacks Leave 71 Killed, 145 Wounded -- Antiwar.com
Today is Arbaeen, which marks the end of the 40-day mourning period observed by Shi’ite pilgrims in honor of Hussein bin Ali, the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson. As expected, insurgents staged a major bombing against pilgrims. It alone left about 200 casualties. Overall, at least 71 people were killed and 145 more wounded. It is unknown if any foreigners were among the casualties.

Gitmo Prison Camp Enters Its Second Decade -- News from Antiwar.com

2012-01-12T08:31:00.000-06:00

Gitmo Prison Camp Enters Its Second Decade -- News from Antiwar.comIt was ten years ago today that President Bush converted the Naval base at Guantanamo Bay from a facility aimed primarily at spiting the Cuban government to the most notorious detention center on the planet, using the facility’s unique location as legal cover for open-ended detention of captives without charges or access to any civilian courts.

US military to probe 'marine abuse video' - Americas - Al Jazeera English

2012-01-12T01:12:00.000-06:00

US military to probe 'marine abuse video' - Americas - Al Jazeera EnglishThe US Marine Corps has said it will investigate a video posted on the internet which appears to show US soldiers in Afghanistan urinating on corpses.

In a statement issued on Wednesday after the footage came to light, the corps said the matter would be fully investigated.

"While we have not yet verified the origin or authenticity of this video, the actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the marines in our corps," the statement said.

The video, which was first posted on the Live Leak website, shows four men in military uniforms urinating on three bloodied bodies on the ground, apparently aware that they were being filmed.

One of them jokes: "Have a nice day, buddy." The other makes a lewd joke about a shower.

"Regardless of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is... egregious, disgusting behavior, unacceptable for anyone in uniform," said John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman. "It turned my stomach," he said.

Report: Saudi King Abdullah ordered to assassinate Iraqi VP 'Tariq al-Hashemi'

2012-01-12T00:45:00.000-06:00

Report: Saudi King Abdullah ordered to assassinate Iraqi VP 'Tariq al-Hashemi'(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The Saudi regime is reportedly planning to assassinate fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi over fears that he might disclose Saudi Arabia's role in the bloody events in Iraq.

According to reports coming from Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, where Hashemi has taken refuge, head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz is tasked with killing Hashemi to prevent the disclosure of his cooperation with Riyadh in assassinating Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Iraqi Girl tells of US Attack in Haditha

2012-01-11T11:53:00.000-06:00

Iraqi Girl tells of US Attack in HadithaTen-year-old Iman Walid witnessed the killing of seven members of her family in an attack by American marines last November. The interview with Iman was filmed exclusively for ITV News by Ali Hamdani,our Iraqi video diarist.

Iranian Nuclear Scientist Killed in Bombing

2012-01-11T09:59:00.000-06:00

Iranian Nuclear Scientist Killed in Bombing

Palestinian drivers challenge Israeli-only roads in the West Bank

2012-01-11T09:49:00.000-06:00

YouTube: Israeli Occupation forces arrested Khaled Atallah Al-Tamimi (Nabi Saleh), Azmi Shyoukhi (Hebron), the young Omar Saleh Al-Tamimi (Nabi Saleh) and a Palestinian girl by the name of Anwar. Further the Israeli intelligence services demanded confiscated the id and car of Mahmoud Zwahre. When he managed to evade arrest, Israeli army called him telling him he would be put on wanted list if he does not turn himself in for arrest within 30mins. Mahmoud is now also arrested, 10mins ago, he was at the DCO in Jericho, to be taken to Ma'ale Adumim. In addition, the IOF apparently held the identity card of Naim Marar intending to force him to turn himself in to the occupation authorities. In addition, since last night, ITF imposed a tight security cordon on the village of Nabi Saleh... Many people joined to show their rights to pass the road freely at Jericho checkpoint today, israeli soldiers were not accept to go trough the road .

Notes From a Guantánamo Survivor

2012-01-11T09:26:00.000-06:00

When we landed, the American officers unshackled me before they handed me over to a delegation of German officials. The American officer offered to re-shackle my wrists with a fresh, plastic pair. But the commanding German officer strongly refused: “He has committed no crime; here, he is a free man.”

I was not a strong secondary school student in Bremen, but I remember learning that after World War II, the Americans insisted on a trial for war criminals at Nuremberg, and that event helped turn Germany into a democratic country. Strange, I thought, as I stood on the tarmac watching the Germans teach the Americans a basic lesson about the rule of law.

Former “Dumbest Member of Congress” Scorches Romney : Information Clearing House

2012-01-07T21:24:00.000-06:00

Former “Dumbest Member of Congress” Scorches Romney : Information Clearing HouseJanuary 04, 2011 "Counterpunch" - - A Catholic former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania once rated the dumbest man in the US Congress crested Tuesday night in Iowa’s see-saw battle among candidates for the Republican nomination and ran a virtual tie with Mormon millionaire Mitt Romney. Well after chilly midnight on caucus night in the Midwestern state, Iowa’s Republican Party declared Romney the winner by 8 votes, a count that Santorum will inevitably question and perhaps contest. Each hovered just below 30,000 votes, with libertarian Republican Ron Paul of Texas running third with a respectable 26,000-plus votes.

Debunking the Terrorism Narrative : Information Clearing House

2012-01-06T02:03:00.000-06:00

Debunking the Terrorism Narrative : Information Clearing HouseThe war with Al-Qaeda is over. Western leaders must level with their citizens: Al-Qaeda poses only a security irritant, not a serious threat. Terrorism cannot be eradicated with drone attacks or even massive military interventions, all of which are, in any case, costly. Rather than battling against a mythic foe, the U.S. and Western powers should expedite the withdrawal of soldiers from Muslim territories where their presence is a painful reminder of the European colonial legacy of domination and subjugation.

Further, the U.S. and others offer assistance in rebuilding Yemen and Pakistan's institutions and empowering them to address those serious localized threats, yet resist the temptation of turning the struggle into a war between Al-Qaeda and the West. Taking up the anti-Western mantle is the only option for the survival of localized Al-Qaeda groups, and it behooves the United States and its allies not to give them a chance.

When Can the President Assassinate Americans? : Information Clearing House

2012-01-04T13:17:00.000-06:00

When Can the President Assassinate Americans? : Information Clearing House
January 03, 2011 "American Conservative" -- The New York Times puts this question to the GOP contenders. Sophistry ensues. “Under what circumstances, if any, would the Constitution permit the president to authorize the targeted killing of a United States citizen who has not been sentenced to death by a court,” the paper asks. Gingrich, Huntsman, Perry, and Romney take the same line: “Under wartime circumstances” says Newt; “If such an individual is engaged on a battlefield,” says Huntsman; “Due process permits the use of deadly force against all enemy combatants, including citizens,” Romney avers; and “The President would be so authorized … where a citizen has joined or is associated with a nation or group engaged in hostilities against the United States” according to Perry. Only Ron Paul describes the conditions in which extrajudicial targeted killing of Americans is permitted as “none.”