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THE HANDSTAND |
JULY 2003 |
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 STOP PRESS:
SCIENTIST FOUND DEAD WITH WRIST WOUND, DR. DAVID KELLY The former Labour minister Glenda Jackson said blame lay with Downing Street, who used a battle with the BBC to divert attention from the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. She said Tony Blair's credibility had been "holed below the waterline" and it was time for him to resign. When It Works,
Don’t Mess With It According to the road map, signed by the two parties in the Aqaba summit, the Palestinian government did sign to a commitment which reads “Palestinian security authorities are to confiscate illegal weapons and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure." In the road to fulfill such an obligation, Abu Mazen’s government has a spectacular record of success as scaled against all others who attempted to bring an end to the violent side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The most remarkable achievement on the way was the truce agreement, which was signed and respected by all significant Palestinian resistance groups. The positive impact of the truce agreement could not be denied even by Israeli military generals and security officials. Both have repeatedly reported a dramatic decrease in attack alerts as well as Palestinian military activities. One can't imagine as a result of the truce agreement how many lives have been saved. To scale success, one needs to look at both the security capabilities of the Palestinian government and the success record of the Israeli security establishment in the pre- Road Map period. The Israeli army and security establishment failed dramatically in their efforts to force a reduction in both military attacks and activities. Israeli army generals claim success in reducing the capabilities of resistance groups, in the West Bank in particular, to launch attacks against Israel. Yet, even with the daily army operations and massive arrests, the hardest attacks against the Israeli army and settlers as well as attacks inside Israel originated in the West Bank where the army had direct security control. Army generals and security officials always claimed that without their activities much more would have happened. Those claims, which can be well founded, are marginal if compared to the changes Abu Mazen’s government, through the truce agreement, was able to produce. Even so, Israel, both on the political and security fields is demanding from Abu Mazen miracles that their powerful security and military forces were not able to achieve. Through his visit to the U. K., Israeli PM Sharon spared no opportunity to undermine the PA achievements in the security field and demand for more. “There should be very active struggle - and I would say, I would call it a war - by the new Palestinian government against the terrorist organizations," Sharon said, using some of his toughest language to date on the issue. Sharon and Israeli ministers repeatedly attempted to establish a direct link between what they describe as a lack of enough security work from the side of the PA to President Arafat’s control over most of Palestinian security forces and his claimed attempts to hinder the efforts of Abu Mazen. "[Britain and other European countries] have to make every effort to disconnect themselves from Arafat, who is making every effort to undermine the new government," Sharon said. Sharon’s Foreign Minister Shalom went further to issue an ultimatum saying that Israel and the Palestinians had an informal understanding that the Palestinians would have some three weeks after the cease-fire started to begin dismantling the militant groups, as required by the road map. "Those three weeks end this weekend," Shalom told Israel Radio. "There have been a few signs of activity but there's not the sort of action that's required." He added Demanding a quick and swift crack down and disarmament of Palestinian resistance groups is an attempt to set Abu Mazen into a suicidal track. This might serve the ideologies and political goals of certain Israeli groups, but will certainly not help Israel to become more secure. Abu Mazen’s latest move to reconcile with Arafat reflects his concerns towards the continued and mounting Israeli pressure. Abu Mazen fears that this pressure aims at forcing deep internal Palestinian conflicts and at using him to undermine President Arafat. Abu Mazen’s strategy goes in line with the obligations stated in the road map. To him, all Palestinian resistance groups who accepted the cease-fire and are willing to recognize the existence of one single Palestinian authority are legitimate resistance groups and are natural partners to his attempts to bring about a peaceful solution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict. To him, Few groups and individuals who might insist on continuing with the fight and act as a parallel authority will be subject to disarmament and the dismantlement of their infra- structure. Such an approach is both realistic and possible to implement. All the calls for cracking down Palestinian resistance groups, the backbone of the Palestinian political structure, are suicidal in nature. The “mighty” Israeli army attempted to do so, and one can check their record of achievement. The conclusion is “if it is working, do not mess with it” ..JEREMY HARDY v. THE ISRAELI ARMY National release from Friday.18th JULY 2003 Jeremy Hardy v. The Israeli Army, a feature documentary about the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine as experienced through the eyes of British comedian Jeremy Hardy opens July 18th at the Prince Charles cinema then throughout London and Nationwide. Prince Charles dates: Friday 18th July 3.45pm (director present) Sunday 20th July 6.15pm (Q&A Jeremy Hardy and Leila Sansour) Wednesday 23rd July 6:30pm (director present) for following dates and bookings please call the box office: 02074943654 About the film: This dark comedic documentary narrated by Hardy is a story of an unlikely person put in extraordinary circumstances. Hardy teamed up with producer/director Leila Sansour and other members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in an effort to try his hand at ending occupation of the West Bank. Hardy could only describe the next four days of filming as 'four days in hell.' The footage captures everything from the stand-off at Yasser Arafat’s compound to the siege at the Church of the Nativity. It gives an inside look into the operations and birth of the ISM and the stories that were never reported in last year’s news bulletins. Three previous screenings of the film at the Bloomsbury have attracted more than 1800 people- the phenomenal response from audiences means Jeremy Hardy v. the Israeli Army now stands as one of a handful of documentaries to make it to cinemas around the UK, responding to the growing appetite for political engagement, independent film making and the growing interest in the International Solidarity Movement. London screenings will offer viewers the opportunity to meet the director and other members of the movement. Produced by Asparagus Films in association with Diva Pictures  Happiness I see the universe launching the face of happiness as light covered with pride A smile of a child covers the sky with the anthem of victory The will of the sun shines with adore and reaps with love the sap of seeds It is the universe that spreads the perfume of passion on earth and covers the homes Giving peace a luster of God that shines in the heart with light and fire One eye that sees alone sees nothing, but eyes together will give the meaning Which unites our vision towards life and gives justice the sense of the slogan So that our perspective to happiness springs from children's smiles A generation that comes with light can build but that of darkness destroys So let us build. Let us plant. Let us reap the harvest of the decision That we will make this age the symbol of fraternity and best neighborhood And make the anthem of peace bangs and the sun of love shines in every house SAKHER ABU NIZAR©2003 ..A REVOLUTION IN KINDNESS http://www.anitaroddick.com/weblog/weblogdetail.jsp?title=Human%20Rights&id=551
AnitaRoddick.com After my book, A Revolution in Kindness, was banned from Angola Prison in Lousiana as a "threat to security," I was understandably dumbfounded and outraged. I had mailed the book to Herman Wallace, a prisoner who had contributed an essay to the book about making peace with his fellow inmates. I have sent the following letter to Angola Warden Burl Cain asking for an explanation. I will let you know as soon as (if) I get a response.
Cooped-up locals angry about Bush visit July 08 2003 at 06:00PM By Clar Ni Chonghaile Goree Island, Senegal - US President George Bush made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday. "We are very angry. We didn't even see him," said Fatou N'diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush's tour.  N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station(above), said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6am and told to wait there until Bush had departed, around midday. 'It's slavery all over again' Bush came to Goree to tour the red-brick Slave House, where Africans were kept in shackles before being shipped across a perilous sea to a lifetime of servitude. He then gave an eloquent speech about the horrors of slavery, standing at a podium under a sizzling sun near a red-stone museum, topped by cannon pointing out to the sea. The cooped-up residents were not impressed. "It's slavery all over again," fumed one father-of-four, who did not want to give his name. "It's humiliating. The island was deserted." White House officials said the decision to remove the locals was taken by Senegalese authorities. But there was no doubt who the residents blamed. 'We never want to see him come here again' "We never want to see him come here again," said N'diaye, hiking her loose gown onto her shoulders with a frown. As the sun rose over Goree before Bush's arrival, the only people to be seen on the main beach were US officials and secret service agents. Frogmen swam through the shallows and hoisted themselves up to peer into brightly painted pirogues. Normally, the island teems with tourists, Senegal's ubiquitous traders, hawkers of cheap African art, photographers offering to take pictures and all the expected trappings of a tourist hot-spot in one of the world's poorest countries. On Tuesday, shutters on the yellow and red colonial-style houses remained shut. The cafes were closed and the narrow pier deserted, apart from security agents manning a metal detector, near the sandy beach. A gunship patrolled offshore. "We understand that you have to have security measures, since September 11, but to dump us in another place...? We had to leave at 6am I didn't have time to bathe, and the bread did not arrive," the father-of-four said. "We were shut up like sheep," said 15-year-old Mamadou. Many residents compared Bush's hour-long visit unfavourably to the island tour by former President Bill Clinton in 1998.  "When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced," said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne. As the Bush roadtrip moved on, Goree was returning to normal with children once again diving into the shallows and clambering over the now inoffensive pirogues. Mahmoud Shawar Shot like a dog, The bullet shines Ready for the witness To palm. A soldier took aim Shot out my valves And blue threads And as my red blood Congealed And my friend Threw down his body In the dust of my being Soldier Moved in To shoot the dog Muzzle of the gun With gentle nudge Scored….. There are some Know these chords Of music then Heard in my throat Yes they know Where God shelters In the voice of the living. Friend of mine Carry this music To the mason Where he builds A dome It is best To shelter God From my revenge. WMD WILL BE ON BLAIR'S POLITICAL HEADSTONE By John Pilger© June 3.2003 SUCH a high crime does not, and will not, melt away; the facts cannot be changed. Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq illegally. He mounted an unprovoked attack on a country that offered no threat, and he helped cause the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The judges at the Nuremberg Tribunal following world war two, who inspired much of international law, called this "the gravest of all war crimes".Blair had not the shred of a mandate from the British people to do what he did. On the contrary, on the eve of the attack, the majority of Britons clearly demanded he stop. His response was contemptuous of such an epic show of true democracy. He chose to listen only to the unelected leader of a foreign power, and to his court and his obsession. With his courtiers in and out of the media telling him he was "courageous" and even "moral" when he scored his "historic victory" over a defenceless, stricken and traumatised nation, almost half of them children, his propaganda managers staged a series of unctuous public relations stunts. The first stunt sought to elicit public sympathy with a story about him telling his children that he had "almost lost his job". The second stunt, which had the same objective, was a story about how his privileged childhood had really been "difficult" and "painful". The third and most outrageous stunt saw him in Basra, in southern Iraq last week, lifting an Iraqi child in his arms, in a school that had been renovated for his visit, in a city where education, like water and other basic services, are still a shambles following the British invasion and occupation. When I saw this image of Blair holding a child in Basra, I happened to be in a hotel in Kabul in Afghanistan, the scene of an earlier "historic victory" of Bush and Blair in another stricken land. I found myself saying out loud the words, "ultimate obscenity". It was in Basra that I filmed hundreds of children ill and dying because they had been denied cancer treatment equipment and drugs under an embargo enforced with enthusiasm by Tony Blair. It was the one story Blair's court would almost never tell, because it was true and damning. Up to July last year, $5.4 billion in vital and mostly humanitarian supplies for the ordinary people of Iraq were being obstructed by the United States, backed by Britain. Professor Karol Sikora, head of the World Health Organisation's cancer treatment programme, who had been to the same hospitals in Basra that I saw, told me: "The excuse that certain drugs can be converted into weapons of mass destruction is ludicrous. I saw wards where dying people were even denied pain-killers." That was more than three years ago. Now come forward to a hot May day in 2003, and here is Blair - shirt open, a man of the troops, if not of the people - lifting a child into his arms, for the cameras, and just a few miles from where I watched toddler after toddler suffer for want of treatment that is standard in Britain and which was denied as part of a medieval siege approved by Blair. Remember, the main reason that these life-saving drugs and equipment were blocked, the reason Professor Sikora and countless other experts ridiculed, was that essential drugs and even children's vaccines could be converted to weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of Mass Destruction, or WMD, has become part of the jargon of our time. When he finally goes, Blair ought have WMD chiselled on his political headstone. He has now been caught; for it must be clear to the most devoted courtier that he has lied about the primary reason he gave, repeatedly, for attacking Iraq. THERE is a series of such lies; I have counted at least a dozen significant ones. They range from Blair's "solid evidence" linking Iraq with Al-Qaeda and September 11 (refuted by British intelligence) to claims of Iraq's "growing" nuclear weapons programme (refuted by the International Atomic Energy Agency when documents quoted by Blair were found to be forgeries), to perhaps his most audacious tale - that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "could be activated within 45 minutes". It is now Day 83 in the post-war magical mystery hunt for Iraq's "secret" arsenal. One group of experts, sent by George Bush, have already gone home. This week, British intelligence sources exposed Blair's "45 minutes" claim as the fiction of one defector with scant credibility. A United Nations inspector has ridiculed Blair's latest claim that two canvas-covered lorries represent "proof" of mobile chemical weapons. Incredible, yesterday he promised "a new dossier". It is ironic that the unravelling of Blair has come from the source of almost all his lies, the United States, where senior intelligence officers are now publicly complaining about their "abuse as political propagandists". They point to the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz who, said one of them, fed "the most alarming tidbits to the president ... so instead of giving the president the most considered, carefully examined information available, basically you give him the garbage. And then in a few days when it's clear that maybe it wasn't right, well then, you feed him some hot garbage." That Blair's tale about Saddam Hussein being ready to attack "in 45 minutes" is part of the "hot garbage" is not surprising. What is surprising, or unbelievable, is that Blair did not know it was "hot", just as he must have known that Jack Straw and Colin Powell met in February to express serious doubts about the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction.IT was all a charade. Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, has spoken this truth: the invasion of Iraq was planned long ago, he said, and that the issue of weapons rested largely on "fabricated evidence". Blair has made fools not so much of the British people, most of whom were and are on to him, but of respectable journalists and broadcasters who channelled and amplified his black propaganda as headlines and lead items on BBC news bulletins. They cried wolf for him. They gave him every benefit of the doubt, and so minimised his culpability and allowed him to set much of the news agenda. For months, the charade of weapons of mass destruction overshadowed real issues we had a right to know about and debate - that the United States intended to take control of the Middle East by turning an entire country, Iraq, into its oil-rich base. History is our evidence. Since the 19th century, British governments have done the same, and the Blair government is no different. What is different now is that the truth is winning through. This week, publication of an extraordinary map left little doubt that the British military had plastered much of Iraq with cluster bombs, many of which almost certainly have failed to detonate on impact. They usually wait for children to pick them up, then they explode, as in Kosovo and Afghanistan. They are cowardly weapons; but of course this was one of the most craven of all wars, "fought" against a country with no navy, no air force and rag-tag army. Last month, HMS Turbulent, a nuclear-power submarine, slipped back to Plymouth, flying the Jolly Roger, the pirates' emblem. How appropriate. THIS British warship fired 30 American Tomahawk missiles at Iraq. Each missile cost 700,000 pounds, a total of 21 million pounds in taxpayers' money. That alone would have provided the basic services that the British government has yet to restore to Basra, as it is obliged to do unde international law. What did HMS Turbulent's 30 missiles hit? How many people did they kill and maim? And why have we heard nothing about this? Perhaps the missiles had sensory devices that could distinguish Bush's "evil-doers" and Blair's "wicked men" from toddlers? What is certain is they were not aimed at the Ministry of Oil. This cynical and shaming chapter in Britain's modern story was written in our name, your name. Blair and his collaborators ought not to be allowed to get away with it. John Pilger's updated book, The New Rulers of the World, is published by Vreso.  |
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