SEPTEMBER 2005

British troops arrested in Basra by Iraqi police:

Two British soldiers have been arrested in the southern Iraq city of Basra, sparking clashes outside a police station where they are being held.

The men, said to have been "under cover", reportedly exchanged fire with police after failing to stop at a checkpoint. Two British tanks, sent to the police station where the soldiers are being held, were set alight in clashes. Three UK servicemen were injured during the day, but the MoD would not say if they were caught in the firebombing.

Civilians 'killed'

TV pictures show soldiers in combat gear, jumping from one of the flaming tanks and making their escape. Local council spokesman Nadhim al Jabari said two civilians were killed in the clashes. Up to 15 civilians were also reported injured in the demonstrations. Tensions have been running high in the city since the arrest of a senior figure in the Shia Mehdi Army by UK troops.

ssaala@aol.com wrote:

THE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION 11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298 Silver Spring, MD. 20902   11 Sha'ban 1426 (Sept. 15, 2005)  

Remembering Steve Biko (1946-1977)

Steve Biko was one of the shining lights of the Antiapartheid Movement in South Africa. It is said he was influenced by many revolutionaries such as  (Kenya's) Jomo Kenyatta, (Ghana's) Kwame Nkrumah, (Algeria's) Frantz Fanon, and (America's) Malcolm X - and like them, he believed in the right of his people to freedom and self-determination. He was one of the principle founders of the Black Consciousness/Liberation Movement in South Africa.

This courageous revolutionary was brutally murdered by white, racist authorities in South Africa on (or about) September 12, 1977. He was only 30 years old at the time he was martyred. And though they killed his body, his spirit lived on in the struggle of his people. As a wise man once said: "The blood of a martyr is not an ordinary blood; its transfuses itself into the life of a people and energizes them.""The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" - Steve Biko

    SABRA & SHATILA (1982)

September also marks the heart-rendering anniversary of the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila Refugee Camps. The massacres took place between September 16-18, 1982. These massacres are considered one of the bloodiest single atrocities committed against the Palestinian people in modern history. It was the Palestinian 9/11.    According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, more than 2,750 Palestinian men, women and children were massacred in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut (Lebanon) while the city was occupied by the Israeli army.

The principal war criminal bearing legal responsibility for these massacres was Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli "Minister of Defense." Even Israel's own Kahan Commission could not hide the fact that Ariel Sharon was "personally responsible" for these massacres.
Instead of imprisonment for crimes against humanity, however, Mr. Sharon was awarded years later with the prime minister's post in Occupied Palestine (Israel).    Later today (Thursday, September 15th) he is expected to address the U.N. General Assembly's sixtieth regular session - this comes, ironically, just before the twenty-third anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres.

For those of you who reside in the New York City area, be advised that there will be a demonstration later today to protest the visit of Sharon. His visit (which will no doubt be attended by hypocritical accolades for Israel's APPEARANCE of having relinquished control of Gaza), is a vivid reminder to the world of just how low the United Nations has sunk!
The demonstration is reportedly scheduled for:
Thursday, September 15th
3:00-6:00 PM
Dag Hammerskjold Plaza
47th St. and 2nd Ave (across from the UN), NYC     A nation of people born from injustice Causing great sorrow in all civilized among us You claim your only concern to be your security But your true intent is plain enough for everyone to see   There are Jews among you Who detest what you do But their voices are muffled And they seem to be few   You're proud, and you're arrogant Malicious and clever You seem to think world sympathy Is going to shield you forever   But the bed is too short And the covers too narrow You can't see the handwriting Because your scope (vision) is too narrow   Aggressive you've been since the day you were born From the anguish and misery of lives you have torn Israel O Israel, where will you be When the pages have dried on your history?     (Composed in September 1982, by this writer) All Rights reserved   El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan

---

Simon Wiesenthal: "The Conscience of the Holocaust, Dies in Vienna" at 96

Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi Hunter has died in Vienna at the age of 96, the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today (September 20^th).

"Simon Wiesenthal was the conscience of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the International Human Rights NGO named in Mr. Wiesenthal’s honor, adding, "When the Holocaust ended in 1945 and the whole world went home to forget, he alone remained behind to remember. He did not forget. He became the permanent representative of the victims, determined to bring the perpetrators of the history’s greatest crime to justice. There was no press conference and no president or Prime Minister or world leader announced his appointment. He just took the job. It was a job no one else wanted.

The task was overwhelming. The cause had few friends. The Allies were already focused on the Cold War, the survivors were rebuilding their shattered lives and Simon Wiesenthal was all alone, combining the role of both prosecutor and detective at the same time."

Overcoming the world’s indifference and apathy, Simon Wiesenthal helped bring over 1,100 Nazi War Criminals before the Bar of Justice.

There will be a news conference at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Tuesday, September 20^th at 10 am.

PIANO RECITAL  IN FRONT OF THE BULLDOZERS - BIL'IN, 16/9 AT NOON


"I am devoted to all people who experience injustice. That is why I will come from Holland to play the piano in front of the army  bulldozers in Bil'in" says the pianist Jacob Allegro, Dutch  Holocaust survivor and a supporter of the Israeli Gush Shalom movement.

Allegro will participate on September 16 in the weekly  protest against the "Separation Wall" which cuts off more than half  the lands of Bil'in Village, so as to facilitate growth of the  Modi'in Illit (Kiryat Sefer) settlement. The piano of the Israeli  actor Yossi Polak and his wife Tami already arrived in Bil'in. The  village's Popular Committee Against The Wall intends to mount it on a  small truck which will take it at noon on the 16th to the site where  army bulldozers tear down the Bil'in olive groves, and it will serve  as a stage from which Allegro will play pieces by Chopin, Schubert and Beethoven.

"Perhaps the army, which has become more and  more aggressive to non-violent protests at Bil'in, will show some  respect towards a protest concert" says Beate Zilversmidt, Gush  Shalom activist who is originally from Holland and had known Allegro for many years.

Jakob Allegro is one of those whose first language is music. He was born in Amsterdam under Nazi occupation in January 1943, to a family from the city's old Portuguese Jewish Community. In  February of the same year the Nazi-collaborating police raided the house and his parents were deported to Auschwitz. Just before that, however, the parents had managed to smuggle their new-born baby out of the house and into the  hands of  the Dutch Resistance, which hid him until the end of the war and saved his life.

He studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In his twenties he immigrated to Israel and  started his musical career as a horn player in the Israeli Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (now Jerusalem Broadcasting Authority Orchestra). After several years he went back to Holland, feeling unease with the way the Israeli society  was developing in a direction of increasing nationalism and intolerance.

In the 1970s he graduated as concert-pianist, and performed in the Amsterdam Concert Gebouw and in different halls throughout Holland. Through the years he got invitations to  Austria, France, Spain and Germany where he regularly performs in the Zwickau Schumann House. During his present visit he offers his music as an act of solidarity with all who suffer and are in need of peace and justice.

The Coalition Against The wall, which organizes the weekly protests  at Bil'in and other villages, includes The Popular Committees Against  the Wall and the Settlements, Gush Shalom, Ta'ayush, The Women's  Coalition for Peace, ICAHD (Committee Against House Demolitions) and  Anarchists Against the Wall.

Jakob Allegro can be reached in Holland at: phone/fax +31-20-6837006
email: jallegrowegloop@yahoo.com.

During his stay in Israel and Palestine (Sept. 16 to 22) he can be
contacted via Beate Zilversmidt 03-5590321, 054-2098882, or via Adam  Keller
03-5565804, 0506-709603.

Documentary film-maker Nir Kenan, who is in the process of making a  film
about  Allegro and his family, would make sections of  that film available
to interested media (contact 054-4225837,  n.keinan@bezeqint.net).

For info on anti-Wall demonstrations at Bil'in and elsewhere, call  Yonathan
Pollak 064-6327736, Einat Pdhorni 052-3554815.



Capturing the Moving Mind:
Management and Movement in the Age of Permanently Temporary War

An ephemera conference on the Trans-Siberian train (Moscow-Novosibirsk-Beijing),
11-20 September 2005

Researchers, activists and media-artists meet on the Trans-Siberian train from Moscow to Beijing September 11th -20th 2005.

The conference "Capturing the Moving Minds" gathers a pack of people ... artists, economists, researchers, philosophers, activists ... who are interested in the new logic of the economy, the new form of war against terrorism and in the new cooperative modes of creation and resistance, together in a space moving in time. Spatially moving bodies and bodies moving in time (through the different time zones) creates an event, a meeting that not really 'is' but 'is going on'.

Is this project about economics, is it political activity or a work of art? This "boundlessness" or "indeterminacy", which always characterizes the creation of new, is where the energy of the project is coming: The enterprise expresses and exposes itself the "knowledge economy" in which it exists. It is something the orthodox conceptions about work, action, economy and art are unable to grasp. In this organizational experiment everybody is "alone together" like a pack of wolves around a fire having neighbours to the left and to the right but nobody behind their backs exposed to the desert.

There are 50 participants on the train involving well known media-artists, frontline contemporary thinkers and political activists. The project has been invited to participate in the International ARS2006 biennial at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki and to arrange an exhibition at the Villa Croce Museo d'arte contemporanea di Genova during summer 2006.

Mobicasting brings the event directly to all: The Trans-siberian conference is documented and broadcasted through an audiovisual mobicasting platform to the internet. The documentarists, photographers, artists and researchers produce discussions, ideas, interviews, texts and films along the route. The documentation will be projected in Kiasma during the journey and it will also be available on several international www-channels. The mobicasting webpages http://www.kiasma.fi/transsiberia <http://www.kiasma.fi/transsiberia>  will be opened on September 7th. There will also be a moving radio station on the train; See http://trans-siberianradio.org <http://trans-siberianradio.org>

Further info on the conference and the participants: http://www.ephemeraweb.org/conference <http://www.ephemeraweb.org/conference>

Further info on the mobicasting platform: m-cult <http://www.m-cult.org/index_en.html> , Netta Norro +358 40-5618004

The event is organised by ephemera, Tutkijaliitto, Kiasma, Frame, m-cult, Helsinki School of Economics and the Chydenius Institute.


::posted on ::fibreculture:: mailinglist for australasian
::critical internet theory, culture and research
:: subscribe info and archive: http://www.fibreculture.org
Hey, and what about this below? Let's do it here !

Pilfered from The Age
http://theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/01/1125302672215.html

Movement on the software liberation front

By Sam Varghese
September 1, 2005 - 1:55PM

Fifteen cities and towns across Australia will stage events and give away free software to mark Software Freedom Day on September 10, the vice-president of the local coordinating body, Linux Australia, said.

Pia Waugh said today about 100 people would be involved nationwide and they expected to be able to reach about 4000 members of the public. This is the first time Australia is marking the day.

The first Software Freedom Day was held last year and events were organised in nine countries.

This year, activities will be held in Melbourne; Sydney and Coffs Harbour; Adelaide; Brisbane, Townsville, Bundaberg and Nhulunbuy; Canberra; Darwin; Perth; Hobart, Penguin and Queenstown.

Waugh said giveaways would include CDs from SoftwareFreedomDay.org, the organisation which co-ordinates the event globally.

Canonical, a company run by South African Mark Shuttleworth which makes the Ubuntu Linux distribution, will provide CDs which contain a live version of Ubuntu.

Another CD, called the OpenCD, containing a large amount of free and open-source software for a number of platforms will also be distributed.

In Melbourne, the day will be celebrated from 11am to 5pm at ComputerBank Victoria (483 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, near Dryburgh Street) with demonstrations of free and open-source software.

There will be a special area for youngsters where they can play games and use educational software suitable for 6 to 12-year-olds.

In Sydney, there will be events at Pitt Street, followed by an installfest at the University of Technology. Events are also scheduled at Fort Street High School. Macquarie University is planning a seminar earlier in the week to show students the opportunities available through open-source software.

The Brisbane event is likely to be an open-air market, while in Canberra, volunteers will distribute CDs to government offices and schools.

::posted on ::fibreculture:: mailinglist for australasian

International Solidarity Movement Report from Palestine:.Please distribute widely
MILITARY RAID ON BIL'IN FAILS TO STOP DEMONSTRATION
September 2nd, 2005 By ISM volunteers

Israeli occupation soldiers launched an attack Friday afternoon in the West Bank village of Bil'in in an attempt to stop the regularly scheduled peaceful demonstration against the annexation wall being built on seized land. But in spite of a flurry of tear gas, rubber bullets, sound grenades and the sound of live ammunition, soldiers were unable deter villagers
from drawing more attention to the illegality of the land confiscation taking place there.
The excessive violence soldiers employed drew an immediate response from Israeli organizations, the media and at least one Knesset member who contacted military officials in protest. Soldiers briefly arrested a leader of peaceful resistance in Bil'in, but released him after being hounded by people wielding video cameras.

REPORT
"This was the most violent response to a protest that I've seen in my time here," said Lee, an ISM activist. "The Israelis used tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets, and live ammunition. After the demonstration, children went around the village, picking up handfulls of rubber bullets and gunshells."

At 12:15 p.m., soldiers marched into the center of the village in riot gear and helmets. They knew that the nonviolent demonstration began at 1 p.m., and they appeared determined to aggravate the villagers and the internationals. They stomped about, standing in doorways, then moved down the street toward the ISM apartment. At first, little boys danced and sang in front of them, jumping up and down as the soldiers hung around under the trees looking frustrated.

One small boy had a toy machine gun that made noise. According to the Palestinians who witnessed the exchange, a soldier told the father he couldn't go home if the boy had the toy gun. The father said, "But it's his." "If I see him on the street with that gun, I'll shoot him," was the soldier's response.

A half hour before the demonstration was set to begin, the soldiers started throwing sound bombs at us, then tear gas in front of the ISM apartment. Tears streamed down our faces as we grabbed the onions and limes that had been given to us to counter the effects of the gas. A tear gas canister was fired into the nearby mosque as well, where many villagers were finishing afternoon prayers.

We were waiting for the Israeli peace activists to come, before starting the march to the demonstration site. And, sure enough, a few kids began to throw stones in response to the tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets, then, finally live ammunition.
An activist was standing next to people blocking army jeeps from entering the village. Soldiers came running toward the group, one fired his M-16 into the air and was shouting in Hebrew. "I stood in front of him and said 'please don't shoot,
these are peaceful demonstrators, why are you shooting at them," the activist from the U.S. said. In response, he placed the gun six inches away from the activist's face and fired one round of live ammunition.

The scene quickly deteriorated into the soldiers roughing up peace activists and shooting at boys who were throwing stones to protect their village from the incursion.

"They were shooting down the street at the shabab (kids who throw stones in response to soldier incursions), said an ISM-London activist named Catja. "A jeep drove at running speed toward us. Because I was dead center to the bonnet of the jeep, no matter what direction I went I would be knocked
down, so I jumped on the jeep and the man standing next to me did the same. The jeep proceeded to drive very fast, about 200 meters down the street, swerving around. Then they slammed the brakes and the soldier came out of the passenger seat and hit me round the head. I was later told that he was the commander."

Israeli peace activists arrived just before 1 p.m. and we decided to march to the demonstration site anyhow, even if we couldn't perform the non-violent activity we had planned. As we walked to the site, the soldiers began to shoot teargas and sound bombs at us once more, then started to shove us when we didn't move fast enough. They were pushing older women, shoving activists into each other and into other soldiers, and screaming at us in Hebrew.

Soldiers briefly attempted to arrest a leading coordinator of peaceful resistance in Bil'in, Mohammed Al Khateb, during the chaos. As he walked by them, two soldiers rushed out of line and grabbed him. They hit him over the head, threw him
on the ground, then took him away. One Israeli activist said a soldier told him, "We don't want these demonstrations any more in Bil'in."

By the end of the afternoon, two people had been injured, six Israelis detained with two arrested for "assaulting an officer", and Mohammed also was detained. As of this writing, all have been released except for two Israelis.

"The commander had come to me and said 'I don't want to see another protest in this village,' " Al Khateb said. "I told him, 'you have the power the occupation, but we'll continue demonstrating even if we're forced to do them in our own homes, we'll keep going." Later, the army commander had told Al Khateb that he was forbidden from ever again demonstrating with internationals or Israelis. "He said if we want to demonstrate, we must do it alone." This action by the Israeli military is a deliberate attempt to discourage nonviolent resistance. They respond with ever-increasing violence, today using everything in their arsenal against us.

The use of excessive violence illustrates the oppression Palestinians face even when they attempt to peacefully protest against the theft of land and the illegal occupation under which they're forced to live. Unable to justify these acts against the Palestinian people, the Israeli government continues to clamp down on any sort of outcry that seeks to draw attention to it.

The military commander's demand for Israelis and foreign peace activists to stay away also is telling. It indicates that the brutality that soldiers would prefer to use against Palestinians is lessened by an international presence. To this end, ISM will continue to offer its support to any Palestinians who suffer under the occupation, including the people of Bil'in. "We face them with backpacks, sandals and signs,"
ISM activist Great Berlin was quoted as saying in the New York Times today from Bil'in. "They face us in full riot gear."


UPDATES KATRINA DISASTER PAGE(see nav. column)AS THE USA'S BUREAUCRATIC INCOMPETENCE CAREERS OUT OF CONTROL THROUGH INNOCENT PEOPLE'S LIVES. 200 YARDS OF DYKES BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND THE SEA WIPED AWAY LIKE A CHILD'S SANDCASTLE...........JUST SUCH INCOMPETENCE HAS BEEN OBSERVED IN IRAQ EVERY DAY OF THE WAR.+ Shocking refusal of international help from Bush, see Katrina report from nav column.

Targeting Publishers by Zionists Proliferates

The Parisian publisher Al Qalam ('The Quill' in Arabic) has been taken to court on a complaint by LICRA on a charge of anti-Semitism, for having published Israel Shamir’s book L'autre visage d'Israel (The Other Face of Israel, known in English as Galilee Flowers), a translation of essays in defence of equality and democracy for Jews and non-Jews in Palestine/Israel. The court case will take place at Nanterre Court, near Paris, on September 6th, at 13.30.

The judicial harassment of publishers who have enough courage to publish authors critical of the State of Israel has thus attained a new level, following the case against La Fabrique for having published L'industrie de l'Holocauste (The Holocaust Industry) by Norman Finkelstein (the case was won against Avocats sans frontières, represented by W Golnadel, who has launched an appeal). This latest charge is based on a list of sentences taken out of context, in the usual inquisitorial fashion, with the aim of creating an image of the author as a dangerously extremist individual. Al Qalam's catalogue is focussed on the culture of the Arab-Muslim world. This prosecution is a part of the process of de-legitimising Arab-Muslim thought, as a part of the hysteria orchestrated by the US and Israel, for their expansionist, hegemonic plans.

We are appealing to publishers and readers to demonstrate their devotion to freedom of thought and expression by supporting Al Qalam Publishers. Otherwise, the publishers of Molière, Baudelaire, Céline, or Voltaire may be next in the line. Unless, in the colonial mood, only the heirs of colonisation should be prevented from participating in the influence of francophone culture?

The targeted author, Israel Shamir, is an Israeli writer, originally from Russia, whose works had been translated into all the languages of Europe, and who is not the subject of prosecution, neither in his own country, nor in France.

Those who practice judicial harassment under the pretext of combating anti-Semitism, hope that the sort of social corporatism inspired by the Israeli model will gain ground in France, unravel the fabric of republicanism, and involve us in a pseudo-war between civilisations which would only be a new stage in the war between the haves and the have-nots. Nobody is obliged to support the plan for a democratic society, respectful of the beliefs of all its members, as Israel Shamir is arguing for the territory of historic Palestine (i.e. British Mandated Palestine). However, the principle of a democratic society, respectful of the beliefs of all its members, is where the great strength of secular, republican France has lain to date. We deem that the defence of the publishers, Al Qalam, comes under the protection of thought of all. We are thus appealing for support to its courageous editor, Mr Cherifi, at the Librairie du Monde Arabe, 220 rue Saint Jacques, Paris. We will not let him be ruined by an inquisitorial trial, which would then be followed by redoubled attempts at stifling everyone's freedom of thought. plumenclume@yahoo.com

HUNDREDS of SHIA PILGRIMS TO KADHIMIYA MOSQUE DIE ON BRIDGE OVER TIGRIS
31st August 2005
As about one million Shias were making pilgrimage across the Tigris to the Kadhimiya Mosque (where earlier four mortar rounds had been fired), a surge of rumours about suicide bombers panicked the pilgrims and the "iron" railings of the bridge gaveway. It is reported that hundreds have died in the river and the wounded, over 250 rescued, are on the pavements and floors of the hospitals.

The BBC reports that mortar rounds were fired into the crowd before the panic killing 16 people. As Wednesday next is the last day Iraqis can register to vote in October on the Constitution, it is suspected that the chaos will interfere with thousands of registrations.As the Shias concerned in this pilgrimage crossed a bridge linking the Sunni Adhamiya area with the Shia Kadhimya mosque, and this Shia holy festival is an annual commemoration of the death of Musa as-Kadhim,7th Imam, successor in a direct line from the Prophet Muhammed, this apalling catastrophe cannot be to the benefit of either.Therefore we have to ask ourselves whom shall benefit.... and we surely realise the answer to that.

As such an attack was also carried out in 2004, we may also enquire why the US Military had no programme for security of the pilgrims in evidence. The government has declared three days of mourning.

UPDATE : Most of the victims were women and children, a ministry source added.The death toll has risen rapidly during the morning as numbers of those crushed or drowned have come through.Earlier at least seven people were killed in three separate mortar attacks on the crowd as thousands of people marched to the mosque. Panic quickly spread throughout the narrow streets around the mosque, sending pilgrims running in different directions. Sky TV producer Mazin Awad, who was covering the ceremony, said: "The situation is still confusing. There is panic and people are running in all directions. Some people heard explosions in different areas very close to the mosque."