[Onthebarricades] Miscellaneous news stories, Aug-Dec 2008

[global resistance roundup]

* AUSTRALIA: Darwin could soon have ghettos, says Aboriginal specialist
* WEST PAPUA: Tensions between "tradition" and "modernity"
* NIGERIA: 400 killed in massive pogroms
* ISRAEL: Police injure each other in protest training
* DR CONGO: Economics at core of ongoing warfare
* BULGARIA: Politician denies protest involvement
* UK: Archaeology of protest sites
* UK: Charity accuses Primark of sweatshop wages
* UKRAINE: Expert claims country headed for social unrest
* US: Vietnam-era protesters look back
* US: Racial abuse at gay rights protest
* DR CONGO: EU role in mining project raises concerns
* TAIWAN: New protest wave mobilises a new generation
* ITALY: Ex-president advocates provocateurs, police violence
* LATIN AMERICA: Land rights inflames indigenous protest
* PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Two in three women abused
* PERU: The politics of social protest
* TIBET: Leaders contemplate "great change" after March protests
* KOREA: Blind masseurs background
* GERMANY: Why no-one protested the country's biggest mosque
* PHILIPPINES: A wakeup call to protest corruption
* INDONESIA: Most child molesters are teachers
* EAST TIMOR: Squatting makes it hard to return internal refugees
* EAST TIMOR: How local justice systems operate beyond state power
* CUBA: Punk rock protest from Cuba's underground
* NICARAGUA: Heartbeat of protest
* KOREA: Dumb rightist newspaper wants draconian attack on "illegal" 
protests
* UK: Protests can beat the big guys
* US: Remembering Chicago 1968
* KENYA: Parents to foot bill for school uprisings
* INDONESIA: Travellers hit the road for Eid






http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2359008.htm?section=australia

Darwin 'could be home to Port Moresby-style ghettos'
Posted Tue Sep 9, 2008 7:04am AEST
Updated Tue Sep 9, 2008 2:10pm AEST

Port Moresby: a warning for Darwin (www.wikipedia.org: Mschlauch, file 
photo)
• Map: Darwin 0800
Researchers are warning Darwin's demographics could soon resemble those 
of Papua New Guinea's troubled capital Port Moresby.
Professor Jon Altman from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy 
Research says Port Moresby has a dual society, with many of the poor 
living in ghettos or camps.
He says Indigenous people from remote areas are living in suburban parks 
while they access the services in Darwin they cannot get in their own 
communities.
He says without massive spending and considerable planning that 
population will grow and like Port Moresby, Darwin could soon be 
surrounded by ghettos.
"To put it simplistically, fundamentally [there are] urban whites and 
rural and remote blacks... the urban people are rich and the rural 
people are poor," he said.
Professor Altman says the Northern Territory has a rapidly growing 
Indigenous population, but the health and education outcomes for 
Aboriginal people are steadily worsening.
"What we could really see evolving here if you like is a real duality in 
the Northern Territory economy and society," he said.
"We could see growing urban drift and we could see the development of 
urban ghettos, of people moving into townships, as you see in Port Moresby.
"Clearly the new ALP Government needs to address this."
Charles Darwin University's Professor Rolf Gerritsen says there should 
be more options for people living in remote communities, and that 
current government policy is contradictory.
"They essentially are trying to implement I suppose you'd call a 
'Pearsonite' agenda which is that Aboriginal people need to start 
behaving like white people and that means they have to get jobs ... 
Well, where is the only place you can get a job in the Northern 
Territory? It happens to be the largest centres."
Northern Territory Indigenous Affairs Minister Marion Scrymgour has 
denied the claims, saying the situation is under control.
"We're doing everything we possibly can to deal with that issue," she said.








http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/17/2448491.htm?section=world

Tensions rise as traditions die in highlands of Indonesian Papua
Posted Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:01am AEDT

At the 'car wash'...modernity and traditional culture collide in the 
Baliem Valley. (AFP: Aubrey Belford)
The "car wash" in the remote Baliem Valley of Indonesia's Papua region 
is not as innocent as it seems at first glance, and just decades ago 
anything like it would have been inconceivable.
A fertile basin gouged out of jagged mountains, the valley has been in 
contact with the outside world only since the end of World War II. 
Everything, from clothing to metal, money and medicine is new here.
At the "car wash" on a quiet intersection in Wamena town, homeless men 
and boys from the villages squat by the roadside in the midday sun, 
drinking and waiting for cars and motorcycles to roll up.
Washing the cars brings in some money, but the real money comes from sex 
with the drivers. Seeing a camera, the workers point and laugh at 
friends lying drunk and unconscious on the ground.
In few places do modernity and tradition collide as dramatically as in 
the Baliem Valley. Many older men go naked except for the koteka, a long 
gourd covering the penis, and a feather or bark fibre headdress.
Christian missionaries have made headway, but gourds are still accepted 
attire in churches surrounded by domed grass huts and intricate gardens 
for growing yams.
But change is rapid and ubiquitous, and largely directed from Indonesia, 
which gained sovereignty over Papua in a 1969 UN-backed vote by tribal 
elders which has been criticised as a sham.
The rough terrain means there is no feasible way in except by air. 
Everything, including construction materials and fuel, is flown in by 
propeller planes.
The planes also bring in settlers from other parts of Indonesia, who own 
most of the shops and businesses here despite being overwhelmingly 
outnumbered by indigenous Papuans.
"We can see that our traditions are disappearing bit by bit because of 
development," said Paulus Asipalek, 40, a local human rights activist 
who recalls a childhood when tribal wars over stolen wives or pigs were 
a regular danger.
"The old people remember how to make the gardens, bark fibre bags and 
houses," he said.
"When they die it means our kids in school are going to lose this."
As traditions die, tensions brew between indigenous Papuans, Indonesian 
police and troops and settlers.
Human rights abuses by police and the roughly 15,000 troops sent to 
fight a low-level separatist insurgency are a complaint throughout 
Papua, where many still yearn for independence and see the Indonesians 
as occupiers.
Indonesian government sensitivity over separatism means Papua is usually 
closed to foreign journalists. AFP was allowed to enter accompanied by 
an agent from state intelligence, which vetted what the agency could report.
In this highlands region there is palpable rage over the shooting death 
of 45-year-old tribesman Opinus Tabuni allegedly at the hands of police 
or military - it remains unclear - at a ceremony for the United Nations 
International Day of the World's Indigenous People in August.
Tabuni was killed after police fired "warning shots" as a crowd of 
hundreds wearing traditional clothes raised the banned "Morning Star" 
separatist flag, witnesses said.
Displaying such "separatist symbols" is a crime punishable by up to life 
in prison in Indonesia. Some 40 Papuans are currently in prison in 
Indonesia for allegedly waving the outlawed flag.
"People are looking for the right moment to have their revenge" for 
Tabuni's death, said one witness who declined to be named.
There is little accountability from Indonesian police and troops, who 
largely come from outside the region and see the ethnic Melanesian 
Papuans as primitive, human rights activist Theo Hesegem said.
"There's definitely racism, there's discrimination. The police will 
defend themselves, they'll defend migrants but Papuans can not get 
justice," he said.
These days sporadic cases of torture and abuse are more common than the 
shootings and military crackdowns during the time of former dictator 
Suharto, Mr Hesegem said, but memories of bloodshed linger.
In Kurulu village outside Wamena, where most live in grass huts and 
children run with bellies distended by malnutrition, 45-year-old Judas 
Dabi recalled the years he spent hiding in the jungle during bloody 
fighting between separatists and the Indonesian military in the late 1970s.
"We're still scared, scared of being shot, scared of dying," he said.
"We're still scared. But it's safe here."
- AFP








http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/5/400_killed_in_nigeria_in_violent

400 Killed in Nigeria in Violent Clashes Over Disputed Election Results

In Nigeria, 400 people were killed last week in violent clashes over 
disputed election results in the central Nigerian city of Jos. Christian 
and Muslim protesters took to the streets Friday, killing people and 
burning down homes, mosques and churches over what they said were rigged 
election results. At least 7,000 people were forced to flee their homes. 
We speak with Nigerian human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore. [includes 
rush transcript]

Guest:
Omoyele Sowore, Nigerian human right activist, was arrested and tortured 
by the Nigerian military government. He runs the Nigeria news website 
SaharaReporters.com
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us 
provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV 
broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...
________________________________________
Related Links
• Sahara Reporters
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Nigeria, where up to 400 people were believed 
killed last week in violent clashes over disputed election results in 
the central Nigerian city of Jos. Christian and Muslim protesters took 
to the streets Friday, killing people, burning down homes, mosques, 
churches, over what they said were rigged election results. At least 
7,000 people were forced to flee their homes.
Authorities imposed a curfew over Jos, and security forces were 
reportedly given “shoot-on-sight” orders.
For more insight, a few days ago I spoke to Nigerian activist and 
journalist Omoyele Sowore. Sowore has been arrested and tortured by the 
Nigerian military, now here in the United States runs the website 
saharareporters.com.
OMOYELE SOWORE: What has happened in Nigeria is that since 1999, when we 
had this return of democracy, so to speak, there has been consistent 
violation of democratic tenets and principles, especially election 
rigging. And the Nigerian people have not had a chance to choose their 
leaders and also have not had a chance to express their anger whenever 
the few cabal who run the country, members of the ruling elite, decide 
to turn elections against the choices of the people. So you now have a 
country that is filled up of—like I say, that’s doused in gas. And any 
time there is a little violation of these democratic tenets and basic 
civil rights of the people, it escalates in ways that nobody can 
imagine, very fast, very quickly and, you know, very seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: And what exactly happened?
OMOYELE SOWORE: This time around, there was an election that took place, 
a local government election, of all elections took, and somebody who was 
supposed to win by a 58,000 margin was denied victory. And the reaction 
was instantaneous.
Don’t forget that even the current president had the same experience, 
the rigged election. The elections in 2007 were so bad that on Sahara 
Reporters we got election results twenty-four hours before the elections 
took place. That is the kind of things that you saw led to what happened 
in Jos. But I’m quite disappointed that it got a kind of miserable 
coverage it got in the mainstream media in this country, when Mumbai, 
where less people died, got, you know.
AMY GOODMAN: Right. Well, it was much more conveyed as a confrontation, 
a religious confrontation between Christians and Muslims.
OMOYELE SOWORE: That is where I was expressing disappointment. It’s that 
nobody has really spoken to the root of the problem. That is the fact 
that Nigerians want real democracy and have been denied this 
consistently since 1999, in recent times, of course, their entire life. 
And the sectarian part of it was the interpretation given to the crisis 
by the people in government, not what happened on the ground. So what my 
analogy is that, like I said, if a house is doused with gas and any part 
of it catches fire, the part with most gas will of course burn faster 
and more seriously and perhaps more fatal.
AMY GOODMAN: Are the Muslim and Christian communities at odds with each 
other?
OMOYELE SOWORE: I don’t believe so, because the reason is that the 
crisis has now been extinguished. If it is true that it’s the Muslim 
versus Christian and that they want us to believe, the crisis could not 
have been contained, because we’re talking about 50-50 almost, roughly, 
the population of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. What I’m saying, 
and what we should not lose sight of, is the problem is justice in 
Nigeria and poor leadership. We shouldn’t lose sight of this.
AMY GOODMAN: It was the Muslim party, the predominantly Muslim party, 
that got denied the election, and the—?
OMOYELE SOWORE: The truth is that there’s no political party in Nigeria 
that’s predominately Christian or Muslim. You know, the parties in 
Nigeria, the major parties, are predominately greedy and greedy people.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the violence will continue now?
OMOYELE SOWORE: For as long as there’s injustice in Nigeria of any 
democratic type, you cannot predict what will happen in our country. 
That much I can tell you. If there’s justice, of course, there will be 
peace. There’s no question about it. It’s as simple as that.
AMY GOODMAN: Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian activist, and he runs the 
website saharareporters.com.







http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7790217.stm

Thursday, 18 December 2008
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version

Israeli police injure each other

Israeli police deny reports that some officers suffered broken bones
About 50 Israeli police officers have been injured by fellow officers 
during a training exercise in riot control.
The police suffered the minor injuries in a drill in which officers 
played militant Jewish settlers and Palestinians throwing stones.
The officers used tennis balls rather than real stones. Reports that 
some suffered broken bones were denied.
Seven-thousand police were involved in the exercise, which took place at 
an army base in southern Israel.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, described it as "a 
huge police training exercise to prepare for riot control and to deal 
with different scenarios".
Mr Rosenfeld said that the injuries were sustained during scuffling, and 
were mostly bruising. No-one had needed hospital treatment, he said.
A further five policemen were injured in a traffic accident en route to 
the training exercise, when a police van overturned, he added.







http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_5468.shtml

Economics at core of Congo clash
By Charles M. Mushizi
Updated Dec 22, 2008 - 10:49:00 AM
What's your opinion on this article?
Printable page


KINSHASA (IPS/GIN) - Few Congolese believe Laurent Nkunda is the man 
with whom to negotiate peace in North Kivu. The crux of the matter is 
economics and geopolitics—both greatly influenced by Western interests.


________________________________________
The presence of Hutu combatants in North Kivu, sought for their alleged 
participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, remains an excuse for 
President Kagam� to intervene in the Congo �to protect Rwanda�s 
Congolese borders.�
________________________________________
And yet because of the security issues in North Kivu, there seems no way 
around Gen. Nkunda, leader of National Congress for the People’s 
Defense, if peace is to return to the eastern part of the Democratic 
Republic of Congo.
Ahead of a cabinet reshuffle in Kinshasa in October, then-Minister of 
National Defense Tshikez Diemu dismissed Gen. Nkunda’s declaration of a 
unilateral ceasefire and call for political negotiations as “childish 
babbling.” Mr. Tshikez did not make it into the new government.
Since then the National Congress has advanced steadily in North Kivu, 
displacing tens of thousands more civilians.
A Congolese deputy, a member of the Alliance for a Presidential Majority 
(known by its French acroynm, AMP), argued that despite the political 
significance of a meeting between Presidents Kabila and Paul Kagame of 
Rwanda at the Nov. 7 summit in Nairobi to discuss the Kivu crisis, “the 
core issue of the Nairobi meeting was economics.”
The rebel leader serves “as a kind of blackmail or constraint against 
Kinshasa for failing to protect the interests of Western investors in 
the DRC, especially in mining,” said the deputy, speaking on condition 
of anonymity.
In 2006, the DRC received substantial technical, logistic and financial 
aid from the West to organize elections after the civil war (1998-2002) 
which caused over four million deaths in this Central African country.
But a few months after his election, Joseph Kabila’s government signed a 
slew of mining contracts with Chinese conglomerates, handing over a wide 
swath of mining rights in the DRC, including sites that have yet to be 
evaluated. The contracts were valued at nearly $10 billion over 
approximately 30 years.
A number of mining contracts were signed earlier with Western investors 
during Congo’s transitional government (2003-2006). However, these 
contracts have since been submitted for re-evaluation and renegotiation 
to “balance the parties’ interests” since the investors received the 
lion’s share of the profits, according to Victor Kasongo Shomari, deputy 
minister for mining.
The presence of Hutu combatants in North Kivu, sought for their alleged 
participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, remains an excuse for 
President Kagamé to intervene in the Congo “to protect Rwanda’s 
Congolese borders.”
Regional peace depends also on Kinshasa’s political sincerity, a 
committed diplomatic effort on their part and the DRC armed forces’ 
credibility, according to analysts.
The leaders of the Cadre de concertation des notabilités des Kivu 
(CCNK), a group of top politicians, economists and other members of 
civil society, suspect that officials in Kinshasa have deliberately 
muddied the waters on security and military matters, specifically in 
terms of the arming of the rebels and providing political reinforcement.
In September, two members of parliament from the governing AMP joined 
the rebellion, granting it a certain level of political legitimacy. 
Their suspicions are strengthened by the fact that a former high-ranking 
member of the Rally for Congolese Democracy-Goma, Déo Rugwiza, is in 
charge of managing the DRC’s borders; Mr. Rugwiza was close to Gen. 
Nkunda when the Rally for Congolese Democracy-Goma was still an armed 
force during the previous civil war.
Echoing the sentiments of a number of parliamentarians, the CCNK has 
said that negotiations between Kinshasa and the rebellion now would be 
“ill-timed.”
On the military level, the DRC’s army is neither adequately equipped nor 
combat ready. Soldiers haven’t been properly paid for several months and 
their families are living in near-poverty. The immediate consequences of 
the lack of morale has been seen in troops fleeing the enemy and 
pillaging civilian goods.
According to analysts, DRC army’s ability to regain combat strength 
depends on the current leadership of the Congolese army. Gabriel Amisis, 
the chief of the army ground troops, commonly known as Tango Fort, is 
another former high-level officer of Rally for Congolese Democracy-Goma. 
He too fought alongside Gen. Nkunda in the rebellion against the 
Laurent-Désiré Kabila regime and then that of Kabila the son until the 
inter-Congolese dialogue in 2003 which resulted in the creation of a 
transition government.
Tango Fort, who is the key voice on matters of armament and troops, is 
accused of being unable to fight his former brother-in-arms Gen. Nkunda. 
But in addition, authorities have no control over the wholesale 
embezzlement of military salaries.







http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=99999

GERB Leader Borisov: It Would Be Bad for Govt If I Led Protests
Politics | December 21, 2008, Sunday

Almost 2 500 Bulgarian policemen protested Sunday showing their old 
uniforms and torn boots, and demanding better working conditions. Photo 
by Nadya Kotseva (Sofia Photo Agency)
The informal leader of the GERB party and Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov 
responded almost immediately to the allegations that he was behind the 
policemen's protests by declaring the government's situation would 
become really bad if he started to organize and lead social protests.

Borisov denied any connection with the policemen's rally on Sunday 
saying PM Stanishev's allegations that GERB wanted to use the protests 
to bring down the government and assume power were totally unfounded.

"Stanishev really could not imagine what would happen if I attended and 
led some of the recent protests", said the Sofia Mayor, who was the 
Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry in 2001-2005.

In his words, representatives of all recently organized social protests 
(i.e. policemen, grain producers, students) had visited him to ask him 
for support but he had not wanted to get involved because of his 
conviction that the GERB party was going to assume power through 
democratic means after the next parliamentary elections.

Borisov also said the policemen's protests had been motivated by the 
higher status that the recently founded State National Security Agency 
DANS had received compared to that of the Interior Ministry.

"The policemen are not asking for much, they just want their work to be 
regarded as equally important to that of the State National Security 
Agency DANS and the prosecution, because it is no less dangerous, and 
requires no less qualification. These are their problems. And since the 
Prime Minister Stanishev's idea was to set up a "political police", and 
DANS was set up with higher wages and status, we warned the government 
there were going to be protests", Borisov explained.








http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/22/archaeology-london-protest

The past is so last year: new archaeologists dig the present
• Martin Wainwright and Ben Quinn
• The Guardian, Monday 22 December 2008
• Article history
The streets of south London and a famous corner of Berkshire may hold 
little interest for treasure-hunters of the fedora-wearing, 
whip-cracking school, but they are starting to attract a new breed of 
archaeologists who enjoy plunging their trowels into the very recent past.
Homegrown excavators have started to chronicle modern protest structures 
while they are still warm, from eco-warriors' treehouses to crisp 
packets buried at the Greenham Common peace camp.
"The actions and lives of people today are the archaeology of tomorrow," 
says Anna Badcock, one of the advocates of the movement known as 
contemporary archaeology. "Their landscapes and habitations are perhaps 
no less important than what was there before."
Trained on projects such as Bristol University's celebrated excavation 
of their department's 15-year-old Transit van - which yielded three lost 
pencils and confetti from a faculty party - teams are "digging" at 
former parts of the Maze prison in Northern Ireland and the site of the 
1981 Brixton riots. Others have travelled to Malta to record links 
between Valetta's former red light district and British servicemen, 
while the 1984-5 miners' strike is being checked out by "battlefield 
archaeologists".
According to John Schofield, an English Heritage archaeologist who 
"rediscovered" Emerald Camp at Greenham Common, the movement draws its 
inspiration from work done on military sites such as first world war 
trenches. "They laid the trail for what has emerged in the last 10 
years," he said. "Throughout the 20th century we ... seem to have been 
catching up on ourselves. The end of the cold war and the closure of 
coalmines under the Thatcher government forced our hand a bit."
Badcock's main project is a survey of treehouses and aerial walkways 
built by protesters in a successful struggle to protect the Nine Ladies 
Bronze Age stone circle from quarrying. Similar work may be started 
shortly at Thornborough Henges in North Yorkshire, where protests are 
still under way against gravel extraction.
At the Maze, Laura McAtackney of Oxford University found tiny 'comms', 
or paper messages, at former inmates' homes. But some of the H-blocks' 
most famous relics have remained off limits. Escape tunnels dug by 
Republican prisoners have been concreted over. But Government 
archaeologists are thought to have explored them; so their work could in 
time be the subject of a dig.





http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5291519.ece

December 5, 2008
Primark meets protests over 7p-an-hour wages
Rosie Lavan
The clothes that fill Primark's stores are being made by workers who are 
paid as little as 7p an hour, a charity alleged today.
War On Want, the anti-poverty charity, argues that the high street 
fashion chain famed for its cheap prices has ignored the rise in basic 
living costs affecting workers who make its products in Dhaka, the 
capital of Bangladesh.
The report has emerged as Associated British Foods, Primark's parent 
company, holds its annual meeting today. Campaigners staged a protest 
over the wages that it pays its workers outside the chain's store on 
Oxford Street, London.
War On Want's report, Fashion Victims II, returns to a campaign it first 
launched in December 2006 to expose the living conditions of workers for 
Primark as well as leading supermarkets, Asda and Tesco.
Related Links
• Primark shakes off the High Street gloom
• Primark voted least ethical clothing retailer
• Ethical retailing: affordable values, please
It said the situation had worsened over the past two years and the 
companies had failed to make good on promises to deliver improvements.
The charity called on the Government to introduce regulations which 
ensure a living wage for overseas suppliers and allows staff, who claim 
they are being exploited, to seek redress through the UK courts.
Ruth Tanner, campaigns and policy director at War on Want, said: 
"Primark, Asda and Tesco promise a living wage for their garment makers. 
But workers are actually worse off than when we exposed exposed their 
exploitation two years ago."
"The UK Government must bring in effective regulation to stop British 
companies profiting for abuse."
War On Want said soaring inflation and fuel costs in Bangladesh had 
forced a 70 per cent increase in the price of low-quality rice and other 
foods, including oil, pulses, wheat, flour and onions, had become 
between 30 per cent and 60 per cent more expensive.
Employees say each worker needs £44.82 a month to provide food, clean 
water, shelter, clothing education and healthcare for their family. An 
average worker earns 2280 taka (£19.16) a month.
Primark said that it was committed to ethical treatment of workers in 
its supply chain, and argued that the employment it provided was helping 
to empower people — particularly women — in developing countries.
In a statement, the retailer said: "Instead of working in subsistence 
agriculture — the only real alternative — women become wage earners with 
a regular income, often the only one in the household. That fact alone 
has done more to empower women in the developing world than anything 
else, something that is all too frequently ignored by organisations keen 
to promote agendas of their own."
Profits at Primark rose 17 per cent to £233 million in the 12 months to 
September 2008. Scenes of hysteria greeted the opening of its flagship 
Oxford Street store in April 2007.
Mounted police and security staff were deployed to restrain the more 
than 50,000 people who queued and shoved to seek bargains on the first 
day's trading alone.
In October, shoppers voted Primark the least ethical British clothing 
retailer, in a survey conducted for The Times by Populus.
Asda and Tesco also denied the allegations in the report.
Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket and the world's third-largest 
retailer, said: "The allegations are unsubstantiated and, as War On Want 
have again decided not to engage with us, we question whether their 
approach is the best way to tackle the complex issues surrounding the 
Bangladeshi garment industry."
A spokeswoman for Asda said: "It is important for us that we continue to 
offer our customers value product in these tough economic conditions but 
without any compromise to our ethical standards, ensuring George [Asda’s 
clothing brand] customers can shop with a clear conscience."






http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-285107.html

[18.11.2008 13:12]
Things heading towards social riots in Ukraine – expert

Razumkov Center deputy director general Valeriy Chaly does not rule out 
that the misbalance in the social sphere of Ukraine may cause social riots.
According to an UNIAN correspondent, he said this to a press conference 
in Kyiv.
“The main threat is not even the economic crisis but the huge disbalance 
between the poorest and the richest ones. In Ukraine, there are 5% of 
the richest and 5% of the poorest, by different data, the gap between 
them makes from 38 to 70 times. It is the most critical showing in 
Europe. Considering looming social problems, unemployment, fall of 
population’s incomes, reduction of buying power and the social level as 
a whole, it may cause a social tension, if not riots”, the expert said.
According to him, “it will happen very soon, because, objectively, it’s 
impossible to find a way out of the economic crisis without curtailing 
workplaces and reducing social payments”.
“We should speak frankly about that. The biggest threat is the people’s 
attitude to the situation. Steep hopes resulted, in fact, in an apathy 
as the first consequence. We should be ready to rallies, social-economic 
demands from trade unions and illegal actions of separate people”, 
V.Chaly stressed.





http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081102/NEWS09/811020237

Article published November 02, 2008
FROM REBELLION TO RESPECTABILITY
Vietnam-era protesters forge ahead, leave turbulent past in perspective

Roseann Canfora, who teaches at Kent State University, took part in the 
protests that led to the 1970 shootings there. ‘Do I regret who I was 
then? Not in any way, shape, or form,’ she says.
( SPECIAL TO THE BLADE/DAVID FOSTER )
Zoom | Photo Reprints

By CHAUNCEY ALCORN
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Former student activist Roseann Canfora remembers ducking behind a car 
to avoid being shot May 4, 1970, when students who were protesting the 
Vietnam War on the campus of Kent State University were killed by 
members of the Ohio National Guard.

Ms. Canfora was a sophomore and a member of Students for a Democratic 
Society at the time of the Kent State shootings, which marked the climax 
of the anti-Vietnam War movement in this country.

She also remembers breaking windows and spray-painting anti-war slogans 
at police and military buildings on and near campus during the weekend 
leading up to the shooting, but looking back, she said she does not 
regret her actions.

“I admit to throwing rocks through a draft board window,” she said. “I 
remember thinking, ‘I’m willing to go to jail if it draws attention to 
the fact I don’t want my brothers going to war. I don’t want my friends 
going to die for an unjust cause.’”

But more than 38 years later, Ms. Canfora, now 58, has led a respected 
teaching career, currently working as a journalism professor at Kent 
State while also teaching at Aurora High School in Aurora, Ohio.
Ms. Canfora is not a neighbor and does not know Democratic presidential 
nominee Barack Obama. That’s probably a good thing for her. If she did, 
her name could be bandied about on national news shows and used by the 
campaign of Republican presidential nominee John McCain as an example of 
the radical company Mr. Obama keeps.

For months, GOP political ads have attacked Mr. Obama for knowing 
Chicagoan Bill Ayers, a 1970s anti-war radical who is now a college 
professor who lives in Mr. Obama’s neighborhood. Sarah Palin, Mr. 
McCain’s vice presidential running mate, again raised Mr. Ayers’ name at 
a campaign rally Wednesday at Bowling Green State University, 
questioning what she has said are Mr. Obama’s ties to “terrorists.”

But Ms. Canfora and other former war protesters say their radical days 
years ago have not stopped them from being mainstream citizens today.

“I went on to get three degrees at Kent State and a master’s degree in 
journalism,” she said. “It makes me angry to hear the connections they 
try to make with Barack Obama and somebody years ago who from what I 
understand is a productive member of society.”

She said her experiences during the anti-war movement helped shape who 
she is today.

“Do I regret who I was then? Not in any way, shape, or form,” she said. 
“Looking back at all of those times where I faced losing my freedom, my 
reputation, that is a very important part of my resume of who I am 
today. I feel proud to have been part of a generation of activists that 
fought for an end to an unjust war. To negate that part of my life is to 
negate who I am today.”

Ms. Canfora sad she vividly remembers the May 4 shootings at Kent State. 
She said bullets whizzed by that day, and after it was all over, four 
students were dead. Many more were wounded, including her brother, Allan 
Canfora, who eventually recovered.

An ‘intense’ time
Bill Fall, who was president of student government in 1970 at the 
University of Toledo when the Kent State shootings occurred, was not a 
radical in any way.

The former Reserve Officer Training Corps member who believed in 
supporting the troops said the political atmosphere at the university 
was not as explosive as it was on other campuses, although several 
students were arrested in anti-war protests.

“It was very intense, both in context of the Kent State shootings and 
frankly a whole series of highly intense actions ... The Black Student 
Union blockaded University Hall one day and occupied the president’s 
office at one point. There was a lot of heavy-duty expressions going on.”

Mr. Fall, now 60, is chief executive officer of the William Fall Group, 
a Toledo-based real estate appraisal company, and a University of Toledo 
board of trustees member.

He said his experiences in student leadership helped make him the man he 
is today. He also said many student activists from that period have gone 
on to live successful lives as well.

He said he resents personal political attacks from Obama and McCain 
supporters in this year’s election.

“I felt my role was one of being a mediator and staying the course and 
allowing for the stating of opinions,” he said. “It’s made me much more 
open-minded, much more open to diversity than I would’ve been without 
that event in the 1960s.”

A difficult journey
Former Kent State student activist Ken Hammond, who is a professor of 
east Asian history at New Mexico State University, was a witness to the 
May 4, 1970, shootings.

He and Ms. Canfora were among 25 Kent State protesters indicted in 
October, 1970, on rioting charges related to the shooting.

But shortly after being shot at by National Guardsmen, Mr. Hammond said 
he fled the campus and eventually the state, fearing someone in the 
federal government would target him and other activists.

Unlike Ms. Canfora, Mr. Hammond did not immediately return to Ohio to 
face charges after his indictment. Fortunately for him, almost all 
charges against the 25 people — later called the Kent 25 — were dropped 
about a year later.

After the charges were dropped, Mr. Hammond did not return to Kent State 
to finish his degree, and his life became a roller coaster ride of highs 
and lows.

“I got married to my first wife, Anna Marie, in December of 1978,” he 
said. “We were married about a year and a half ... I was in an 
automobile accident in 1980. I lost my right leg. My wife was killed. It 
was a real yucky event.”

After the accident, Mr. Hammond won nearly $1 million in a lawsuit 
against the company that made his vehicle. Kent State later awarded him 
his degree, and his unique life experiences helped him gain admission to 
Harvard University, where he received a master’s degree and later a 
doctorate focusing his studies on east Asia. “I got a PhD in east Asian 
languages,” he said. “I started at Harvard in 1987 and I finished in 1994.”

While enrolled at Harvard, he spent time traveling to Beijing, where he 
met and later married his second wife, Elvira.

In 1994, he was offered a teaching position at New Mexico State 
University, and he and his wife settled in Las Cruces, N.M., where they 
raised three children.

Some would say Mr. Hammond’s views are as radical now as they have ever 
been.

“I don’t think most of us who went through that now want to say we were 
just young and foolish,” he said. “We certainly were young and foolish, 
but I don’t think that changes what we did and what we should’ve done.”

Jeffrey Brown, head of the department of history at New Mexico State 
University. said that, despite his past, Mr. Hammond is a well-respected 
professor at the university and considered an expert on issues related 
to China.

A different view
Former Toledo Mayor Doug DeGood was no student activist when he attended 
the University of Toledo, but he did sign a student petition to end the 
war that was published in the university’s student newspaper on Feb. 2, 
1968.

“I was inclined toward the traditional democratic process to ending the 
war as opposed to those kinds of external activities that occurred in 
the 1960s and 1970s,” he said. “[Protesting] didn’t strike me as 
pragmatically effective .
I thought it was substantially less effective than changing the 
representatives in Congress.”

Mr. DeGood served three terms as mayor of Toledo from 1977 to 1983, back 
when mayoral terms lasted two years.

In 1998, he and his wife, Karen, moved to Atlanta, where he does 
administrative consulting work for local government.

“I’m just kind of semi-retired,” he said.

Easing the pain
Former Kent State student activist Carol Mirman said the conservative 
culture in states such as Ohio prevents some people from understanding 
how people such as herself could go on to live successful lives.

Ms. Mirman, also a protester at the time of the shootings, is one of the 
most famous of the Kent 25. She was photographed in the Pulitzer Prize 
winning picture of Kent student Jeremy Miller’s slain body, which she 
remembers seeing in front of her in a pool of blood after she ran from 
the gunfire.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said. “It was shock 
essentially. I touched him. I realized he couldn’t live with all that 
blood running out of his head. I had a feeling I didn’t want him to be 
alone.”

Ms. Mirman was an art student at Kent State when the shooting occurred. 
After she was indicted, she did not return to the university for two 
years but eventually finished her degree and moved to San Francisco, 
California.

It was there that she used her artistic talents to draw protest posters 
for radical groups such as the Black Panthers, speaking out against not 
only the Vietnam War but also the oppression of women and minorities.

Twenty-five years later, she returned to Ohio to study art therapy and 
now, at 60, she’s an art therapist for the Cleveland area’s Hospice and 
Palliative Care Partners of Ohio, an agency of the Visiting Nurse 
Association.

Ms. Mirman, who never married or had children, said she uses art therapy 
to help elderly and terminally ill patients and their loved ones cope 
with impending death.

She said it is no coincidence she chose this as a profession.

Her experience years ago at Kent State inflicted extreme emotional 
trauma, and she said art helped her cope.

“The ways that always worked for me as an artist was to use art. It 
really helped a lot,” she said. “It’s really about pain reduction, pain 
on the emotional and spiritual level.”

Ms. Mirman said she believes she has lived a successful life since her 
days at Kent State but doesn’t consider her life to be mainstream by 
Ohio standards because she never married or raised children.

She, like most former activists, has no regrets about her views, many of 
which she still maintains today.

“Why would I regret demonstrating for what I believe in,” she said. “I 
stand up. When I am so moved I will stand, period.”

Ms. Canfora said she would not have chosen to blow up property the way 
Mr. Ayers did to express her views or end the war, but even today she 
does not necessarily disagree with his actions and does not think 
knowing him should be politically damaging.

Prior to attending college, she said she was apathetic about the war 
until many of her friends were drafted and forced to serve in a conflict 
with which they disagreed.

“It was the letters I was getting from my friends in Vietnam, hearing my 
brothers talk about having to go and fight,” she said. “It was a turning 
point for me, seeing the images on television that Walter Cronkite was 
showing of what we were really doing over there.

“Because somebody likes Bill Ayers reaches a greater level of 
frustration than those who throw rocks through a draft board window, 
that should never have branded an entire generation of conscientious 
anti-war activists who wanted to save their friends,” she said.

Contact Chauncey Alcorn at:calcorn at theblade.com or 419-724-6168.






http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8077

The N-bomb is dropped on black passersby at Prop 8 protests
by: Pam Spaulding
Fri Nov 07, 2008 at 16:15:00 PM EST

UPDATE: the openly gay president of People for the American Way, Kathryn 
Kolbert, has released a statement. It's below the fold.
You could see this coming, and this is what I'm talking about when you 
ignore the elephant in the room. Rod McCullom of Rod 2.0 blogs reports 
on the escalation of the "blame the blacks" meme that has been swirling 
about the blogosphere and the MSM.
A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected 
to taunts, threats and racist abuse at last night's marriage equality 
rally in Los Angeles.
Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the 
massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least 
twice.
It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing 
Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. 
If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. 
Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the 
temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a 
young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to 
West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.
Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his 
boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8 signs and 
still subjected to racial abuse.
Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, "Black people did this, 
I hope you people are happy!" A young lesbian couple with mohawks and 
Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were "very disappointed 
with black people" and "how could we" after the Obama victory. This was 
stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO 
ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it 
didn't matter because "most black people hated gays" and he was "wrong" 
to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever 
heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.
The backlash is upon us, and it's going to get uglier unless our 
organizations step forward and say something. The desire to scapegoat 
blacks for Prop 8's defeat has exposed the now not-so-latent racism in 
our movement.
I have already blogged a lot about why the lack of effective 
communication (and I'm not even talking about outreach on gay issues to 
socially conservative blacks) between white people in general and people 
of color. That dearth of understanding and mutual respect for 
difference, and lack of desire to seek common ground through personal 
relationships ultimately leads to what we are seeing here.
More below the fold.
Pam Spaulding :: The N-bomb is dropped on black passersby at Prop 8 
protests On the matter of the blame game, Alex Blaze has an excellent 
post over at Bilerico that tries to poke at the anger directed at the 
black community (as you read above, it didn't matter if you were black 
and gay -- it was hurled at him because he represented The Other 
regardless of his allegiance to the gay community).
But I'm wondering why these folks are so caught up in the black voters, 
who obviously can't ever be persuaded on this issue because... well, 
because. There are so many other groups in the exit polling that voted 
for Prop 8 overwhelmingly (as in, more than 60%):
Some of these groups supported Prop 8 far more than African Americans 
did, which makes me wonder why we're focused so much on race instead of 
any of these factors. In terms of predictive value, religion, political 
ideology, and being married with children tell us much more about how 
someone voted on Prop 8 than race does.
 From which we can infer three things. First, breaking the statistics 
just along racial lines is an overly simplistic way to look at the 
results. Black people, like white people, are not a monolithic group, 
and LGBT people can make inroads by reaching out to African Americans if 
we try. Flapping our mouths about how we're not PC, how all blacks are 
homophobic, and how there's no use in reaching out to African Americans 
doesn't endear people to us, and there is work to be done here that 
hasn't been done.
Second, religion is the overwhelming factor in Prop 8's win, in terms of 
organizing, funding, and voting. Since it's not going anywhere, we have 
to take a more serious approach to religious voters. And, yes, their 
leaders make bank off homophobia, but we're going to have to be more 
creative. No writing off fundies as idiots allowed - they get votes too.
It saddens me that there is so much work to do to heal these wounds on 
both sides. As I've said, being a triple minority is a challenge because 
we are often rendered invisible by each tribe we belong to when our 
existence becomes inconvenient or challenges their biases.
You cannot continue to ignore this elephant in the room. What is painful 
is seeing the how easily I am marginalized in any of the identities I 
inhabit. There is nothing to gain in slicing our movement up in this 
manner because we're all hurting. Reading through the comments of my 
posts (here and here) about the outcome of Prop 8, it's pretty clear 
some of you either conveniently forgot my commitment to LGBT rights as a 
matter of self-interest or have never read my vast archive of criticism 
of homophobia in the black community. The knee-jerk response in the wake 
of the painful passage of the initiative was that fast and that irrational.
You know what? This reminds me of the Freeper reaction to Condi Rice 
making mildly positive comments about Barack Obama's speech on race -- 
all of a sudden she became a wild-eyed Trojan Horse Black Radical in 
their eyes, when nothing of the sort occurred. Apparently she needed to 
completely divorce herself of her blackness for the comfort of the 
denizens of the swamp, even though nothing had changed about her views 
on policy.
Discussing the whys and hows of human nature when it comes to these 
biases shouldn't be such a difficult matter, but it is. I don't have a 
problem opening the door, but I can't walk through it alone. We all need 
to play a part, and share in the responsibility to achieve equality for 
all. Civil rights is not a zero-sum game; there is enough shared blame 
for the debacle that is Prop 8, and it cannot be undone. We have the 
choice to educate or alienate going forward.
My friend Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out shares the view that this toxic 
blame game needs to stop and we need move on. So far TWO is the only 
advocacy organization to step up to the plate.
Truth Wins Out today expressed its grave disappointment in those in the 
LGBT community who have emulated our bigoted opponents by scapegoating 
minorities. It has been reported that African Americans have been 
verbally abused and have had racial epithets hurled at them during 
Anti-Proposition 8 rallies.
"It is reprehensible to look for scapegoats and target innocent people 
with vile racial epithets," said TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen. 
"We call on all GLBT people behave intelligently and act responsibly, so 
we can figure out - together - the best way for our movement to proceed 
and achieve equality."
UPDATE: People For the American Way's president, Kathryn Kolbert, has 
released a statement about the situation. It's lengthy and worth the 
read, as it is both informative and personal as she calls for a broad 
debate around race, civil rights and the LGBT movement.
The past 72 hours have brought an extraordinary range of emotions - 
great joy at the election of Barack Obama and defeat of John McCain, and 
sadness and anger at the passage of anti-gay initiatives in Florida, 
Arizona, Arkansas, and California. That sadness has turned to outrage at 
the speed with which some white gay activists began blaming African 
Americans - sometimes in appallingly racist ways - for the defeat of 
Proposition 8. This is inexcusable.
As a mother who has raised two children in a 30-year relationship with 
another woman, I fully understand the depth of hurt and anger at voters' 
rejection of our families' equality. But responding to that hurt by 
lashing out at African Americans is deeply wrong and offensive - not to 
mention destructive to the goal of advancing equality.
Before we give Religious Right leaders more reasons to rejoice by 
deepening the divisions they have worked so hard to create between 
African Americans and the broader progressive community, let's be clear 
about who is responsible for gay couples in California losing the right 
to get married, and let's think strategically about a way forward that 
broadens and strengthens support for equality.
I particularly appreciate the time Kathryn spends putting the focus on 
the real enemy -- the religious right, the professional "Christian 
industrial complex" and its quite blatant courting and cultivation of 
the existing homophobia in the black church.
The Religious Right has invested in systematic outreach to the most 
conservative elements of the Black Church, creating and promoting 
national spokespeople like Bishop Harry Jackson, and spreading the big 
lie that gays are out to destroy religious freedom and prevent pastors 
from preaching about homosexuality from the pulpit.
In addition, Religious Right leaders have exploited the discomfort among 
many African Americans with white gays who seem more ready to embrace 
the language and symbols of the civil rights movement than to be strong 
allies in the continuing battle for equal opportunity. At a series of 
Religious Right events, demagogic African American pastors have accused 
the gay rights movement of "hijacking" and "raping" the civil rights 
movement.
The effort to stir anti-gay emotions among African Americans by 
suggesting that gays are trying to "hijack" the civil rights movement is 
not new. During a Cincinnati referendum in 1993, anti-gay groups 
produced a videotape targeted to African American audiences; the tape 
featured Trent Lott, Ed Meese and other right-wing luminaries warning 
that protecting the civil rights of lesbians and gay men would come at 
the expense of civil rights gains made by the African American 
community. It was an astonishing act of hypocrisy for Lott and Meese to 
show concern for those civil rights gains, given their career-long 
hostility to civil rights principles and enforcement, but the strategy 
worked that year. Eleven years later, however, African American 
religious leaders and voters helped pass an initiative striking the 
anti-gay provision from the city charter. (The story of that successful 
fairness campaign is told in an award-winning mini-documentary - A 
Blinding Flash of the Obvious - that is part of a Focus on Fairness 
toolkit produced by People For the American Way Foundation.)
In California this year, national and local white anti-gay religious 
leaders worked hard to create alliances with African American clergy; 
Harry Jackson was busy in both California and Florida stirring 
opposition to marriage equality. None of the Right's outreach to African 
Americans on gay rights issues in recent years has been a secret. 
Neither has polling that showed some deterioration in African American 
support for full equality. But there hasn't been the same investment in 
systematic outreach from the gay rights community.
I welcome this frankness. We have to move beyond fear and blame. Please 
read the rest.
Anyone looking to address those exit polls everyone is citing, this 
diary puts it in perspective with actual statistics: Facts Belie the 
Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8.





http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44467

ECONOMY: EU Involvement in DRC Mining Project Draws Protest
By Michael Deibert

LONDON, Oct 28 (IPS) - The involvement of the European Union in a mining 
project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has drawn a chorus of 
protest from local and international human rights advocates. They say 
the project is rife with problems relating to transparency and 
accountability.

Located some 175 km north-west of the DRC city of Lubumbashi in Katanga 
province, the Tenke Fungurume vein is thought to be one of the largest 
unexploited seams of copper and cobalt in the world.

It has proven alluring to mining companies in recent years as the DRC 
attempts to extract itself from a civil war during which some six 
million people have died.

Mining of this resource has fallen to Tenke Fungurume Mining SARL (TFM), 
a joint concern combining Gécamines, Congo’s state mining concern, with 
Lundin, a Swedish mining company, and the U.S.-based mining concern 
Phelps Dodge.

The latter merged with gold-and-copper giant Freeport-McMoran in 2007 
and has since become Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.

After construction on the Tenke mining facility commenced in 2007, the 
European Investment Bank (EIB), the investment arm of the European 
Union, agreed that same year to help finance the project with a loan of 
100 million euros.

It regarded the project as ‘‘highly significant from an economic and 
developmental point of view’’ and that ‘‘environmental and social issues 
(connected with the project) have been subjected to careful in-depth 
analysis…’’

However, the EIB’s move has been criticised both by international 
bodies, such as the Paris-based Les Amis de la Terre (Friends of the 
Earth), as well as local organisations in the DRC, such as Action Contre 
l’Impunité pour les Droits Humains (Action against impunity towards 
human rights).

‘‘The EIB seems totally unaware of what was going on during the signing 
of the (Tenke) contract and their assessment seems purely financial,’’ 
says Anne-Sophie Simpere, a campaigner for the reform of international 
financial institutions working with Les Amis de la Terre.

‘‘We feel that they shouldn't finance that kind of extractive industry 
project in Africa until they have experienced staff to assess it.’’ 
Objections to the project have ranged from what groups say was an 
inadequate consultative process (the use of French language documents to 
explain the Tenke endeavour to a largely-illiterate, Swahili-speaking 
population) to the displacement of local residents from towns such as 
Mulumbu to make way for mining activities before replacement housing had 
been built for them, rendering them essentially homeless.

Perhaps even more controversial, in June 2005 the Lutundula Commission 
concluded that Lundin Holdings made its first payment towards the Tenke 
concession - totalling nearly 50 million dollars - in 1997. This was a 
year after it had gained the concession in what was viewed as a largely 
non-competitive bidding process.

The Lutundula commission consists of Congolese parliamentarians charged 
with investigating business contracts signed during DRC’s civil war.

The deposit, the commission discovered, was paid into the account of 
Rwanda-based Comiex Limited, a company partly owned by Laurent-Désiré 
Kabila, the Congolese rebel leader who had just seized power in the DRC 
after ousting long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

Kabila was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards in 2001 and his 
son, Joseph Kabila, the DRC’s current president, assumed the office that 
he holds today.

Recently, the Congolese government completed a further year-long review 
of 61 mining contracts in the country, the results of which have not yet 
been officially announced. Lubin and Freeport-McMoran are among those 
whose contracts are being reassessed.

Requests for comment by Lundin Holdings went unanswered. The EIB, for 
its part, takes a more circumspect view of the situation, and points to 
the fact that the disbursement of the loan has been put on hold pending 
the outcome of the mining review.

‘‘The EIB is aware that a review of the mining projects in the DRC has 
been published, and an independent commission established to renegotiate 
the mining contracts,’’ says Una Clifford, a press officer with the EIB.

‘‘The EIB's discussions with the project sponsor have been suspended 
pending clarity on the final outcome of the work undertaken by the 
independent commission.

''The EIB has conditionally approved a loan of 100 million euros for 
Tenke (but) this loan will not be signed until the bank receives the 
final go-ahead from the DRC government.’’

The Tenke controversy is illustrative of the discomforting ways that 
commerce and political patronage frequently intersect in foreign 
companies' involvement in the DRC.

South Africa’s AngloGold Ashanti mining company has come under fire for 
links with and payments made to the Front Nationaliste et 
Intégrationniste (FNI), one of several ethnically-based militias that 
helped turn the eastern Congolese region of Ituri into a killing field 
earlier this decade in a conflict that claimed at least 60,000 lives.

One former leader of the FNI, Mathieu Ngudjolo, is currently awaiting 
trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes 
and crimes against humanity. Another, Floribert Njabu, is currently in 
detention in the DRC's capital of Kinshasa.

For its part, the Australian company Anvil Mining, the leading copper 
producer in the DRC, has been accused by human rights organisations and 
investigators for the United Nations peacekeeping mission of having 
provided logistical support to the Congolese army during their siege of 
the town of Kilwa. At least 73 people were killed in that town, which is 
in Katanga province. (END/2008)







http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/11/18/2003428955

Bridging a generation gap through new protest
By Wu Yi-cheng 吳易澄

Tuesday, Nov 18, 2008, Page 8
More than 20 years after the lifting of martial law, we find ourselves 
in an era exploding with information and ruled by the logic of business.
The younger generation has never experienced a war, but may have 
experienced the tail end of authoritarian rule. When they were little, 
they might have heard their parents say: “If you don’t behave, I’ll call 
the police and have you arrested.”

They now chat on the Internet, absorb knowledge from online forums and 
flirt with the opposite sex using text messages. The younger generation 
has also been given a nasty label by arrogant adults — the “strawberry 
generation” — because of their alleged inability to deal with pressure.

Perhaps no one has considered that behind the “geek” label and the 
indifference lies a silent protest against a society with too many 
opinions; the unwillingness to endure hardship could also be a rebellion 
against the paternal attitudes of society as a whole.

Nobody expected that during the visit of Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲 
林) the government would resort to heavy-handed police tactics to 
disperse demonstrators and then refuse to take responsibility for police 
excesses. This vindicates our concern: The specter of authoritarian rule 
has come back to life.

On Nov. 9, student demonstrators at the gate to Liberty Square in front 
of the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall initiated the “Wild 
Strawberries Movement,” a name that was arrived at through a democratic 
voting process on the medium they know best: the Internet.

As the movement formed, CTI-TV broadcast exclusive footage of families 
of police officers writing a letter to Democratic Progressive Party 
Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), calling on her to ask the students to 
go home.

I don’t know if CTI was playing dumb, if it had failed to investigate 
the matter or if it was a simple case of audience manipulation, but the 
station viewed the students as a motley group of rebels that would dance 
to the tune of a particular political party. Even now they think the 
strawberry generation is so vulnerable that it is easily divided.

Just as the term taike (台客) was transformed from meaning “tacky” or 
“Taiwanese redneck” to become an alternative identity to the mainstream, 
the emergence of the strawberry generation also seems to be a humorous 
and self-deprecating way for youngsters to stage a “passive aggressive” 
protest.

The student movement seems to be focusing on the ill-designed Assembly 
and Parade Law (集會遊行法), but in fact it is also a criticism of those 
in power, including the government — which thinks it has authority on 
all matters; those who worry that youngsters do not care about social 
issues; and particularly those politicians and media outlets that smear 
and denigrate student protesters.

The seemingly vulnerable strawberry generation has emerged with a sense 
of humility. On the night the Wild Strawberries movement was named, Wu 
Rwei-ren (吳叡人), a participant in the 1990s Wild Lily student 
movement, said the demonstrators who had gathered together from all over 
Taiwan — without knowing one another but still excitedly claiming that 
“we are one” — were a manifestation of a book he translated, Benedict 
Anderson’s Imagined Communities.

With enthusiastic support from the public, the students are bringing 
about reconciliation and coexistence between generations. Supporters and 
demonstrators have come to realize the arrival of a new age. As 
supporters bring warm clothes and ginger duck soup to the demonstrators 
in this winter of human rights, students are braving the rain and the 
wind and silently accepting the support, saying: “Yes, leave it to us.”

Wu Yi-cheng is a doctor and an editor of the online magazine Au Mag.

TRANSLATED BY TED YANG







http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=26071

Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of 
Protesters”
Cossiga says Italian government should “do what I did” under Operation 
GLADIO - infiltrate protest groups with agent provocateurs
Paul Joseph Watson

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the 
Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students 
and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent 
provocateurs to start riots and then have the police "beat the shit out 
of the protesters".

Cossiga, former Italian President, Prime Minister, Minister of the 
Interior, and one of the founders of the Operation GLADIO covert 
intelligence unit, encouraged Silvio Berlusconi and current Minister of 
the Interior Robert Maroni to "do what I did when I was Minister of the 
Interior," namely infiltrate what so far have been relatively peaceful 
demonstrations, radicalize them, start riots, then engender public 
support for a heavy-handed police response.

Cossiga's full statement translated reads as follows.
"Maroni should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. 
University students? Let them do what they want. Withdraw the police 
from streets and universities, infiltrate the movement with provoking 
agents ready for anything ["agenti provocatori" is the Italian term] and 
let them devastate shops, put fire to the cars and put cities to the 
sword for ten days.

Then, strengthen by people's support, the sound of the sirens from 
ambulances will have to overwhelm that from the police and carabinieri 
[italian military police]. Law enforcement officers should pitilessly 
beat the shit out of protesters and send them all to the hospital. They 
should not arrest them since the courts would free them immediately, but 
they should beat them savagely, and they should beat savagely as well 
those teachers that incites them: not old professors, just the young 
school teachers."
Cossiga is essentially describing the problem-reaction-solution 
dialectic that he exploited when he was in government. Under the banner 
of Operation GLADIO, which was unveiled after parliamentary 
investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, NATO sponsored secret 
armies committed acts of violence and terrorism and blamed the attacks 
on left-wing political movements, allowing far-right governments to 
seize power in numerous European countries.

"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent 
people, unknown people far removed from any political game," right-wing 
terrorist and GLADIO agent Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called 
"strategy of tension" in sworn testimony.

"The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, 
the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. 
This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the 
bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict 
itself or declare itself responsible for what happened."

GLADIO-orchestrated false flag terror attacks, such as the Bologna train 
bombing in 1980 which killed 85 people, were revealed during the Italian 
parliamentary investigation as having been overseen by elements of the 
U.S. intelligence apparatus. At the very least, U.S. intelligence sat on 
prior knowledge of bombings and allowed them to go ahead.

Cossiga's call to infiltrate protest groups and provocateur violence, 
giving the police public backing to "beat the shit" out of them, is a 
false flag tactic that has been employed numerous times during major 
protest events around the world.

Indeed, the scenario Cossiga is describing is exactly what happened at 
the violent 2001 Genoa G8 summit, during which Italian police planted 
bombs in headquarters being used by protest groups as an excuse to 
conduct raids and "beat the shit" out of peaceful demonstrators.

A similar tactic was also attempted during last year's SPP summit 
protest in Quebec Canada. Canadian police were caught dressed up as 
rock-wielding anarchists intent on causing riots. Peaceful protesters 
identified the agent provocateurs and the police later had to admit the 
fact despite going to the lengths of publicly staging the arrests of 
their own officers.

Last year, Cossiga drew on his first-hand personal experience in 
conducting false flag terror operations to declare that 9/11 was an 
inside job and that this fact was "common knowledge" amongst global 
intelligence agencies.







http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44705

LATIN AMERICA: Elusive Right to Land Inflames Indigenous Protests
By Milagros Salazar*

Women planting potatoes in the Peruvian Andes.

Credit:Milagros Salazar/IPS


LIMA, Nov 14 (Tierramérica) - In the past two decades Latin America has 
made advances in signing international and national instruments that 
recognise and protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The problem is 
that these laws are not always heeded by governments, and the lack of 
enforcement has fuelled protests.

For native peoples, the land is associated with vital sustenance, but 
also with the way they perceive the world, and is linked to the culture 
and legacy from their ancestors - and what they will leave to their own 
descendants.

Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have ratified International Labour 
Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, adopted in 1989 to ensure the 
territorial, social, cultural and economic rights of indigenous and 
tribal peoples.

All, except for Colombia, voted in 2007 for the United Nations 
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

"In theory there is an important recognition, but in practice it doesn't 
exist," Colombian Senator Jesús Enrique Piñacué, of the Indigenous 
Social Alliance, told Tierramérica.

A major problem is that the government does not bring policies and 
measures that could affect their communities to the indigenous groups 
for consultation, such as the government's approval of private 
investment in their territories. Prior consultation with native 
communities is required by Article 6 of Convention 169, says Piñacué.

Starting Oct. 12, Colombian indigenous groups held an unprecedented 
mobilisation in open defiance of policies of right-wing President Álvaro 
Uribe and in demand for recognition of their collective rights.

In that country of 44 million people, of which 1.6 million are 
indigenous, one indigenous person is killed in the decades-long civil 
war every 53 hours on average, and since 2002 at least 54,000 have been 
displaced from their ancestral lands, according to the National 
Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.

Colombia's 1991 constitution recognises native populations as autonomous 
and with the right to collective ownership of their lands, and the right 
to maintain their own languages, beliefs and justice systems.

Colombia did not vote in favour of the U.N. Declaration, citing national 
security concerns, because the document recommends against conducting 
military actions in indigenous territories, and states that if such 
activities are to take place, the native community should be consulted.

In Peru’s Amazon jungle region, local indigenous communities staged 
massive protests in August to demand the reversal of several decrees 
that promote private investment in their territories.

Congress agreed to repeal two of the most controversial decrees that had 
been approved in the context of the free trade agreement with the United 
States.

But the government insists that ILO Convention 169, ratified by Peru in 
1994, does not give the communities the right to veto activities that 
are conducted on their land, and has merely held informational workshops 
as "consultations" with the people about mining and petroleum 
concessions that have already been granted to corporations.

"Many officials don't even know the content of the agreements, and 
others misinterpret it," Graham Gordon, of the non-governmental Peace 
and Hope Association, which participated in drafting the civil society 
report on compliance with Convention 169, told Tierramérica.

Peru was one of the main proponents of the U.N. Declaration, but the 
government now emphasises its "non-binding" character.

Article 42 of the Declaration maintains that the United Nations and the 
states party "promote respect for and full application of the provisions 
of this Declaration and follow up the effectiveness of this Declaration" 
- which is not a binding legal provision.

The Peruvian constitution of 1993 recognises the cultural diversity and 
political participation of peoples as groups, but it refers to native 
and rural communities who occupy 55 percent of the farmland, and not 
ethnic indigenous peoples as such.

Ecuador, meanwhile, has made great strides in the area of indigenous 
rights. After the June 1990 Inti Raymi uprising led by the Ecuadorean 
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE), the indigenous 
movement became a key actor on the national stage.

The lawmakers elected to Congress in representation of the Pachakutik 
Plurinational Unity Movement/New Country spearheaded the ratification of 
Convention 169 in 1997 and, the following year, the constitutional 
recognition of prior consultation of indigenous communities before the 
start of mining and oil projects on their lands.

This year, with the new constitution approved on Sept. 28, Ecuador 
declared itself a plurinational and intercultural nation - not just 
multiethnic. Thirty-five percent of the population is indigenous, 
according to native groups.

However, indigenous leader Luis Macas, former CONAIE president, 
explained to Tierramérica that the new constitution should have 
established not just the requirement of prior consultation, but prior 
consent by local native populations, because only then would the 
government be obligated to respect their demands.

Indigenous groups have announced an uprising if large-scale mining 
operations begin on their lands, but President Rafael Correa insists 
that the investment initiatives will provide funding for social 
development projects in their communities.

In 1990, Mexico became one of the first countries to ratify Convention 
169, but its measures have failed to reflect and recognise the enormous, 
long-standing problems that native peoples face, Nahua Indian Matías 
Trejo, a sociologist at the Autonomous National University of Mexico, 
told Tierramérica.

Under pressure from the barely-armed Zapatista indigenous guerrilla 
movement in southern Mexico, the 2001 constitution recognised the 
pluricultural nature of the country, home to indigenous peoples who 
conserve their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.

But it is still the government that determines what to do with the 
territories of the 62 distinct indigenous ethnic groups in Mexico, where 
indigenous people are variously estimated to make up between 12 and 30 
percent of the country’s 104 million people (the smaller estimate is 
based on the number of people who actually speak an indigenous language).

Unlike other countries in the Americas, in Mexico there are no signs of 
massive indigenous mobilisations.

Forty percent of indigenous Mexicans age 15 or older have not completed 
primary school, and 18 percent of these have had no formal schooling at 
all.

More than 40 percent of their homes have dirt floors and are not built 
to withstand catastrophes like earthquakes or floods.

In Peru, the poorest district in the country is Balsapuerto, in the 
Amazon rainforest. More than 90 percent of the native peoples living 
there lack basic services like water and sanitation.

(*With reporting by Helda Martínez from Bogotá, Kintto Lucas from Quito 
and Diego Cevallos from Mexico City. This story was originally published 
by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. 
Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the 
backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations 
Environment Programme and the World Bank.) (END/2008)






http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/asiapacific/081126-papuanewguinea-women-redirected

Two in three Papuan women abused
Davion C. Ford
26-11-2008
Listen to the interview with Sarah Martin of Doctors Without Borders
Women in Papua New Guinea are being abused, raped, tortured and murdered 
with alarming frequency. That is the conclusion of a new report by the 
Australian government's aid programme , AusAID.
The report reveals that two out of three women in Papua New Guinea are 
victims of domestic violence at some time in their lives.
Cultural problem
Culture and economics appear to be the key reasons why so many women are 
attacked in Papua New Guinea. Most of the inhabitants of the country 
still live traditional lifestyles of subsistence-based farming, and - 
according to AusAID - some common customary practices expose women to 
violence. These practices also consign women to a low status in society, 
says Sarah Martin of Doctors Without Borders:
"The women have a very low position there. They have very few rights. 
They have quite a low status within their own family. And often times 
they are treated as if they were belongings, something that the man or 
the family owns."
A lack of economic power compounds the plight of women in Papua New 
Guinea, making it impossible for many to protect themselves from violence.
Treating the victims
Doctors Without Borders runs a women's clinic in the Papuan city of Lae. 
Sarah Martin says that the clinic treats many abused women:
"In Lae, we treat up to 150 women a week who come into our clinic, who 
have been the victim of domestic violence... or who have been the victim 
of sexual violence. We have treated over a thousand people in the first 
six months that we were open."

View of the capital, Port Moresby
The AusAID report outlines a number of steps that should be taken to 
reduce violence against women in Papua New Guinea. To begin, women 
should be provided with increased access to justice by them being 
informed of their rights and laws being passed to discourage would-be 
abusers.

Women must also be provided with increased access to support services, 
including safe-havens and long-term support groups. Finally, the 
government of Papua New Guinea needs to prevent violence against women 
by working to change community attitudes and by improving women's status 
in society.

Sarah Martin is optimistic, albeit cautiously so:
"We see small changes everyday. It is not something that will go away 
overnight..."









http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/peru-the-politics-of-social-protest

Peru: the politics of social protest
John Crabtree
A centralised state, a blocked polity, ineffective parties, endemic 
poverty, regional discontent, official corruption, rising inflation - 
Peru needs more then a change in government personnel, says John Crabtree.
21 - 10 - 2008

President Alan García of Peru has marked the midway point of his 
five-year term in office by revamping his cabinet, partly in response to 
widespread social protests and bribery revelations. The most prominent 
move has been to appoint a prominent left-winger as prime minister. This 
attempt to widen the government's political base will need to be 
combined with a more coherent political and social strategy if the state 
is to address the deeper problems that face Peru - in conditions where 
the economic boom of the mid-2000s begins to fade.
Among openDemocracy's articles on conflicts and politics in Peru:

Ricardo Uceda, "Fantasy Island" (20 September 2005)

Ricardo Uceda, "Peru's election: a second leap into the void" (9 January 
2006)

Lisa Laplante, "The cloud of fear: Peru's anti-terror lesson" (7 March 2006)

Justin Vogler, "Ollanta Humala: a Peruvian gamble" (7 April 2006)

Gaby Oré Aguilar, "Peru vs Fujimori: justice in the time of reason" (10 
July 2008)García's selection of Yehude Simón as prime minister on 14 
October 2008 was the most visible sign of his intention to breathe new 
life into a faltering administration. Insofar as the success of the 
reshuffle depends on this one figure it carries risks, for Simón is a 
controversial figure. He spent six years in jail during the Peru's 
decade of rule by the authoritarian Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), 
ostensibly on account of his role as publicist for the proscribed 
(Castroite) Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA) - a charge he 
has consistently denied.
Since 2002, Simón has been the regional president of Lambayeque in 
northern Peru, where he has gained a reputation both as a catalyst for 
business investment and at the same time a guarantor of an honest and 
socially sensitive administration. This is a combination that Alan 
García would earnestly like to emulate during the remains of his period 
in office. It is also a mix that, historically, has proved remarkably 
elusive in Peru; and it will be surprising if García can break the trend.
No left turn
Yehude Simón's appointment has been seen as a leftward turn, though the 
cabinet reshuffle that took place a few days later suggests that it does 
not constitute any sharp change of direction in the García 
administration. Many key ministers were reappointed, most notably Luis 
Valdivieso, the orthodox-minded finance minister who previously worked 
for many years behind the scenes at the International Monetary Fund 
(IMF). Antero Flores Aráoz, formerly a leader of the rightwing Partido 
Popular Cristiano (PPC), was also ratified as defence minister, an 
important post given the political sensitivities surrounding 
human-rights violations in the 1980s and 1990s by members of the armed 
forces (see Gaby Oré Aguilar, "Peru vs Fujimori: justice in the time of 
reason", 10 July 2008).
Simón's supporters were awarded only two "social" ministries (health and 
women's affairs). The main losers from the reshuffle were people from 
García's own Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) party, 
which now occupies only three ministries. Two key APRA figures are gone: 
the previously serving prime minister Jorge Del Castillo, cited in a 
scandal concerning the irregular awarding of contracts to oil companies 
in the Amazon jungle; and interior minister Luis Alva Castro, prime 
minister during García's first administration (1985-90), now replaced by 
a retired police general.
A losing run
Alan García hopes that the reshuffle will help him consolidate his 
position in the centre-ground of politics, thus enabling him to win back 
lost political support. The current opinion-polls make grim reading for 
the president: at least one suggests that as few as 15% of voters 
consider him to be doing a good job, down from around 60% in 2006. 
García knows from bitter experience from his first term of office how 
ebbing popularity can erode legitimacy, and he is anxious to avoid 
repeating past mistakes.
The immediate cause of the decline in support for the government is the 
rise in inflation, especially of imported food products. The 
inflation-rate is still far lower than during the hyperinflation that 
raged in the late 1980s, but it is still eroding the living standards of 
the poor (most of whose purchases are spent on food). The recent 
depreciation of Peru's currency (the nuevo sol) reflects international 
market uncertainties and the decline of commodity export prices may make 
it harder to keep the lid on inflation. How the government deals with 
this issue will be a key factor in its efforts to recover lost support.
John Crabtree is a research associate at Oxford University's Centre for 
Latin American Studies. He is the author of Peru under Garcia: 
Opportunity Lost (Macmillan, 1992) and Patterns of Protest: Politics and 
Social Movements in Bolivia (Latin America Bureau, 2005). He is the 
editor of Making Institutions Work in Peru: Democracy, Development and 
Inequality since 1980 (Institute for the Study of the Americas, London 
University / Brookings Institution, 2006) and co-editor of Unresolved 
Tensions: Bolivia Past and Present (Pittsburgh University Press, (2008)
Among John Crabtree's articles in openDemocracy:

"Bolivia: a tale of two (or rather three) cities" (18 September 2007)

"Alberto Fujimori's return: a political timebomb" (28 September 2007)

"Bolivia's controversial constitution" (10 December 2007)

"Santa Cruz's referendum, Bolivia's choice" (30 April 2008)

"Bolivia's democratic tides" (1 July 2008)

"Alan García and Peru: a tale of two eras" (29 July 2008)

"Bolivia's political ferment: revolution and recall" (13 August 2008) 
The other half
The disillusion with García and his policies, particularly among the 
poor who make up a majority of the voting population, stems from his 
failure to ensure that the benefits of growth are equitably distributed 
among all sectors of the population. Most people believe that the 
wealthiest sectors of society (particularly in the capital, Lima) have 
been the main beneficiaries of growth, while the poor (notably in the 
interior of the country) have received little or nothing. Yet benefits 
there are: Peru in the 2000s has been buoyed by an international boom in 
minerals prices, and has been among Latin America's fastest growing 
economies. The growth of GDP in 2008 is estimated to be 8%-9% - though 
the 2009 rate will be much lower.
Both the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections revealed a clear 
geographical cleavage in patterns of political allegiance. Alan García's 
main support was located in urban areas, particularly along the 
country's relatively more prosperous coastal strip. His populist 
adversary, Ollanta Humala - who scored a higher percentage in the first 
round of voting - received most of his support in the interior, 
particularly in the Andean highlands and the Amazon jungle. García won 
that race in statistical terms, but to consolidate his success 
politically would require delivering tangible benefits to those who did 
not vote for him as well as those who did. This he has so far been 
unable to do.
The institutional deficit
Successive governments in Peru have faced a similar difficulty: how to 
create channels for better distribution of resources, particularly in 
times of export boom and fiscal surplus. The presence of state 
institutions is at best precarious in those large parts of the country 
where poverty and social deprivation are most acute. Even where they do 
exist, they have a reputation for working in a corrupt and clientilist 
way, whereby local economic and political elites procure whatever 
benefits are available. The APRA party, in particular, has a reputation 
for working in this way.
This lack of efficient institutions at the local level has in recent 
years proved to be one of the main obstacles to attempts to devolve the 
powers of Peru's historically centralised administration. Alan García - 
like his immediate predecessor Alejandro Toledo (2001-06) - has failed 
to honour promises to decentralise capacities to local government. The 
finance ministry, in particular, has obstructed any relinquishing of its 
control over public investment at the local level; its argument - quite 
plausible - is that there are no proper mechanisms for ensuring that tax 
revenues are distributed in a transparent or accountable manner.
These limitations of the state at the local level is related to the 
weakness of representative institutions in Peru, particularly political 
parties. Peru's parties, which too traditionally have operated along 
highly clientilist lines, underwent a severe crisis in the 1990s - when 
the authoritarian Alberto Fujimori government made them the scapegoats 
for the economic and political hiatus of the late 1980s, and 
successfully expelled them to the margins of the political system. They 
have since recovered some of their standing, but most parties today 
remain or have become simply the electoral vehicles for prominent 
political personalities. They lack any real grounding in society. and 
fail to act as democratic conduits for popular and democratic pressure 
from below.
A culture of protest
A number of social pressures have been building up in Peru both before 
and since the 2006 election, that are manifested in a revived culture of 
protest. This takes a variety of forms, of which three are worth 
mentioning.
First, the trade unions - which were weakened by the economic collapse 
of the 1980s and the economic liberalisation in the 1990s - have more 
recently again become more assertive over wages and working conditions. 
Mining unions have taken the lead, their leverage enhanced by the rise 
in minerals prices and a boom in production; but white-collar workers 
too (notably health workers and teachers) have become more militant.
Second, across Peru's highlands, peasant communities have clashed with 
mining companies in defence of their land, water sources and traditional 
way of life. Those who produce coca (the leaf that is the raw material 
for cocaine) are constantly at loggerheads with the government over 
United States-backed plans to eradicate their crops.
Third, regional movements have also been active in campaigning for 
greater autonomy, particularly in the form of fiscal decentralisation. 
They want a larger share of the taxation which mining companies and 
other extractive industries pay the state (though they also sometimes 
clash between themselves over boundaries and the division of the spoils 
from natural resources). In the Amazonian region, regional authorities 
have sought to rally opinion in defence of the fiscal privileges they 
have traditionally enjoyed. There too, indigenous groups have been 
provoked into confrontation by government policies, such as the attempt 
to encourage businesses investment in their traditional habitats.
These various social movements are fragmented, yet they increasingly act 
in coordination so as to maximise the pressure they can bring to bear. 
Protest in Peru comes in waves; García's reshuffle of his cabinet was in 
part forced by the way a number of different campaigns came together at 
the beginning of October 2008.
The ombudsman's office in Peru has consistently noted that the lack of 
channels for political communication is such that social mobilisation 
can quickly turn violent.
The violent margin
Indeed, the history of political violence in Peru is a shadow behind the 
type of social polarisation now emerging. The memories are still fresh 
of the war in the 1980s-90s between the Maoist guerrillas of the Sendero 
Luminoso (Shining Path) movement and the Peruvian state - a conflict in 
which an estimated 57,000 people were killed (mainly innocent highland 
peasants caught in the crossfire). Sendero was defeated militarily in 
the early 1990s, and its leader Abimael Guzmán remains in prison; but 
the social conditions which gave rise to it live on largely unaltered in 
the poorest and least developed parts of the country.
The remnants of Sendero live on, using the proceeds of drug-trafficking 
to perpetrate armed attacks in those remote coca-growing valleys where 
the army has failed to root them out. The biggest such attack of recent 
years - a roadside-bomb followed by machine-gun strafing of army trucks 
in Huancavelica (east of Lima) on 9 October, killed nineteen soldiers. 
The incident was followed by an ambush in Vizcatan, southeast Peru, on 
14 October which killed two more soldiers.
In this overall context, Alan García and his government face formidable 
difficulties in winning over the support of the disenchanted who voted 
for Ollanta Humala in 2006. They may again seek to express their sense 
of anger and frustration by giving their vote to Humala (or some other 
emergent "anti-system" candidate) in the presidential election in 2011.
Yehude Simón's job will be to improve on the social policies needed to 
tackle poverty, and so to increase the numbers of those who feel they 
have a stake in the system. Until now, the government in Lima has failed 
to engage with those who challenge it. Its response to social protest 
has been erratic and ineffectual, seeking to extinguish the flames but 
without tackling the causes of combustion. If this challenge is not met 
- in circumstances where international financial troubles will increase 
the pressures in Peru - the next protest wave could be even more 
powerful than the last.





http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-10/2008-10-07-voa19.cfm?CFID=91563970&CFTOKEN=96408680&jsessionid=8830aac0661aa9a2315e723a1d6a7c757034

Tibetan Leaders Contemplate 'Great Change' Following March Protests
By Steve Herman
Dharamsala
07 October 2008
Tibetan Exile report - Download (WM)
Tibetan Exile report - Watch (WM)
Tibet's parliament in exile has scheduled an emergency meeting in 
mid-November. Spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, requested the 
legislators adopt a resolution on the future of the Tibetan movement 
following the political unrest in their homeland this year. VOA 
Correspondent Steve Herman traveled to Dharamsala in northern India, the 
home of the Dalai Lama and Tibet's government in exile. He reports on 
what Tibetans leaders there are contemplating about the upcoming 
extraordinary legislative conference.

Tibetan monks in exile
Nestled below a clouded Himalayan range in northern India, Tibetan monks 
in exile recite sacred Buddhist scriptures.

These days the monks here in the Dalai Lama's personal monastery, the 
Namgyal, are also contemplating the fate of Tibet.

The country's parliament in exile has approved the Dalai Lama's request 
for an emergency session in November to debate the future direction.

This follows the Tibetan protests and Chinese crackdown in March. For 
the 130,000 Tibetan exiles, the question is whether to continue with 
their spiritual leader's "middle way" approach towards China - neither 
accepting Tibet's present status under Beijing nor seeking independence 
from Chinese rule. Some now question the middle path after the exile 
government counted 200 dead from the crackdown and an undetermined 
number of monks and lay people missing.

The Fifth Samdhong Rinpoche is the Kalon Tripa or prime minister of 
Tibet's government in exile. The incarnate lama tells VOA News this 
year's events have created a seismic shift.


The Fifth Samdhong Rinpoche is the Kalon Tripa
"Since March 2008, there have been a lot of protests and, then, 
international sympathy," the Kalon Tripa said. "A great change has been 
taking place during these days. And we shall have to review the 
situation and how we shall have to channelize our future course of action."

Input will come not only from Tibet's parliament-in-exile, but also from 
intellectuals and non-governmental organizations in the exile community 
- mostly living in India.

The Kalon Tripa has long advocated the kind of nonviolent resistance 
popularized by the Indian nationalist leader, Mahatma Gandhi, believing 
those in Tibet should assert their rights under Chinese law to stymie 
Beijing.

Younger Tibetans have also expressed frustration with the status quo.


Tsewang Ringzin
The stated goal of the Tibetan Youth Congress is complete independence 
for Tibet. The organization's president, Tsewang Ringzin, tells VOA News 
the November special meeting will give Tibetan youth an opportunity to 
make their voices heard by their elders. "And as long as people do that 
and as long as whoever attends the meeting, if they come to represent 
the true aspirations of the Tibetan people, I think we will have 
results," Ringzin said.

One alternative that gets no public support among the monks and lay 
people in Dharamsala is violent struggle against China. The head of the 
Tibetan Youth Congress, which China classifies as a terrorist 
organization, agrees armed resistance is unacceptable.

"There is no question about it. The little support that we have 
internationally is due to the fact that our struggle is a non-violent 
struggle," Ringzin said. "Regardless of how you look at it, violence is 
not an option at all for our struggle."

Meanwhile, Tibet's government-in-exile wants China to account for the 
Tibetans missing following the March uprising. The prime minister of the 
Central Tibetan Administration says the number of Tibetans casualties 
this year remains unclear.

"A large number of Tibetans are still missing. A large number of monks 
and nuns who were taken away from Lhasa are still imprisoned in various 
untold places," the Kalon Tripa said. "We are hearing the unconfirmed 
news now they are beginning to release [them] but not allowing [them] to 
go back to the Lhasa monasteries."

China has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting violence to 
disrupt this year's Beijing Olympic Games.

An eighth round of dialog between his exile government and the Chinese 
government had been scheduled for October, but the Kalon Tripa says it 
is questionable whether the talks will be held. "After July contact, 
there has not been any interaction with them, directly or indirectly," 
he said.

Tibetan leaders say the Chinese made unacceptable demands on the Dalai 
Lama at the last round of talks. If the planned talks this month yields 
no progress, they say, the discussions, which began six years ago, 
likely will not continue.

For now, all the monks of the Namgyal Monastery can do is pray for 
better times in their homeland hoping in the meantime it will not all go 
up in smoke.







http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/blind-masseurs-protest-at-sighted-competition-954596.html

Blind masseurs protest at sighted competition
South Korea's 7,000-strong sightless army takes to street to protect 
their livelihoods
By David McNeill in Tokyo
Wednesday, 8 October 2008

Unheralded and largely out of sight, a small army of blind masseurs has 
been kneading South Korea's tired muscles for nearly half a century. 
Now, demands that the masseurs share their profession with the non-blind 
have forced them out of the massage parlours and onto the streets into 
dramatic, sometimes suicidal, protests.
In an incident last month, a group of blind masseurs burned cars and 
threatened to jump into Seoul's Han river unless the government reversed 
a decision allowing the sighted to practice. The police arrested 26.
Blind demonstrators have leapt from bridges and buildings and two have 
died since a court declared two years ago that a directive allowing them 
to exclusively work as masseurs "excessively discriminated" against the 
sighted. The Korean constitutional court will rule on the dispute again 
this month, but whatever the verdict, not everyone will be happy.
It was the Japanese colonialists who introduced to Korea the idea of 
reserving the role of masseurs for the blind in 1913. The US military 
government later abolished the protection but it was reinstated in a 
government directive in 1963. But sighted masseurs say the 7,100-strong 
blind army can no longer keep pace with demand in South Korea, where at 
least 120,000 and possibly half a million masseurs operate illegally, 
and have mounted a legal challenge to make their pounding of the flesh 
legal.
Non-licensed therapists face fines of up to $4,500 (£2,560), although 
many have worked in official positions; South Korea's former president 
is believed to have employed one, and they were even used to minister to 
tired footballers during the 2002 World Cup.
Park Yoon Soo, the leader of the group spearheading the challenge told 
the New York Times: "It breaks my heart when I think that what I do 
every day, what I consider my calling is a crime. We are not trying to 
steal jobs from the blind, we just want to share the market. Blind 
people should be helped into other jobs, not given exclusive rights to 
just one."
In 2006, the Constitutional Court responded to a series of legal 
challenges by ruling that blind masseurs could not have a monopoly, 
sparking weeks of fierce demonstrations. The government caved in and 
wrote the protection for the blind back into law. That decision was the 
cue for more protests, this time by the sighted, one of whom died after 
plunging into the river Han.
The government recently offered an olive branch by allowing a limited 
number of sighted therapists to practice, setting off another series of 
protests by the blind, who demanded the new additions massage only the 
head and hands.
As the government gropes about for a solution, the angry demonstrations 
continue. Han Yong-seok said a ruling against them would steal their 
livelihood. "I simply couldn't get another job," he told the BBC this 
month. "I need to learn this trade so I can continue to bring up my 
family and be part of society."
Opponents of the blind masseur law say it has, in effect, criminalised 
up to half a million people to protect the rights of a few thousand. 
Privately, some in the government are said to agree with them. But 
although they would like to lure the blind out of what some call a 
vocational ghetto, the issue had become so emotionally charged, few are 
willing to predict a peaceful end. "It's a life-or-death situation," for 
us, a visually impaired protester told Korean television after last 
month's riots.







http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,586759,00.html

10/27/2008

MUSLIM INTEGRATION
Why No One Protested against Germany's Biggest Mosque
By Carolin Jenkner in Duisburg
The biggest mosque in Germany opened in the city of Duisburg on Sunday 
and has already become a symbol of successful integration. Unlike other 
mosque projects in Germany, there was virtually no protest from the 
local community.
The tent next to the mosque in the Marxloh district of Duisburg, an 
industrial and mining town in the Ruhr region of Germany, can 
accommodate 3,500 people but it wasn't big enough for the crowd that 
turned out on Sunday.
Thousands of Duisburg citizens had to stand outside to witness this 
historic day on a giant public viewing screen. The biggest mosque in 
Germany has been opened and it includes a meeting center for the whole 
district -- an unprecedented project in Germany.

Politicians, church representatives and the board of the local Islamic 
community agree that the mosque sets a positive example of integration.
The governor of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, 
said: "We need more mosques in this country, not in the back yards, but 
visible and recognizable." And Duisburg mayor Adolf Sauerland says his 
city has coped well with integration.
All the speakers praised what has distinguished the new Duisburg mosque 
from other mosque construction projects in Germany: in Duisburg, there 
was virtually no protest against the construction.
Elaborate Paintings and Gilt Bronze
"The fact that we can all come together to mark the opening is really 
like the small miracle of Marxloh," said Elif Saat, chairwoman of the 
Ditib Turkish-Islamic Union's education and meeting center in Marxloh.
In contrast with recent mosque building projects in Cologneand Berlin, 
there were no local campaigns against the Duisburg mosque.
Far-right parties failed to seize on the mosque to whip up anti-Islamic 
sentiment. There was one single demonstration by the far-right National 
Democratic Party. But the number of counter-demonstrations was far higher.
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And the occasional grumbling that could be heard here and there from 
non-Muslims seems gradually to be giving way to civic pride in the 
prestigious building.
The dome is 23 meters (75 feet) high and the interior of the mosque, 
which can accommodate up to 1,200 worshippers, is decorated with 
elaborate paintings and gilt bronze.
The windows are of blue glass, and a gold-colored chandelier with a 
diameter of several meters hangs from the dome. In the prayer room, 
one's feet sink deep into the carpet.
Before, Marxloh's Muslims had to make do with a disused cafeteria as a 
place of worship. In its place there now stands a dignified, bright 
house of God.
The €7 million building has a meeting center in its basement that caters 
for all the people of the district of Marxloh. The state of North 
Rhine-Westphalia invested €3.2 million in the meeting center. The 
remainder of the money for the mosque came exclusively from donations.
No Fear or Prejudice
The building already appears to be benefiting the district. As soon as 
construction work had begun, the newly built residential houses on the 
other side of the street suddenly became easy to sell, and real estate 
prices in the area, which is marked by high unemployment and a high 
share of immigrants, is rising.
Of the 18,000 people living in Marxloh more than 6,000 have an immigrant 
background. More than 20 percent of residents live off welfare payments.
Why did everything pass off so smoothly in Marxloh? Is it because the 
34-meter minaret is only half as high as the spire of the local Catholic 
church? Or because the Islamic community decided from the start to do 
without the muezzin call?
Those could be two symbolic issues that contributed to the success. But 
far more important is the simple fact that the people of Marxloh sat 
down and talked to each other. They talked openly without fear or 
prejudice, and without inhibitions.
It's people like Elif Saat and Zülfiye Kaykin, the manager of the 
meeting center, and press spokesman Mustafa Kücük who initiated the debate.
All three are second-generation immigrants, children of Turkish "guest 
workers" who were invited to Germany in the 1950s, 60s and 70s to 
overcome labor shortages as Germany performed its economic miracle.
Venue for the Locals
They feel German, are ready to shoulder civic responsibility and could 
easily appear in any TV talk show to make their case.
"We spend a lot of time talking to each other, not about each other," 
said Kücük, 39, while giving a tour through the mosque.
During the day he works at steel group Thyssen. In the evenings he works 
for the community. Now he's taken vacation from work and spends 16 hours 
a day showing journalists the miracle of Marxloh. He's always in a 
hurry, and has two mobile phones in the pockets of his gray suit. 
They're constantly ringing.
Kücük and his colleagues had the idea of building a meeting center in 
addition to the mosque, of merging a place of worship with a venue for 
for local people.
"We stand by one another, our generation is ready to take over 
responsibilities," he says. And because his generation believed that a 
building like that needed support from the whole community, it set up a 
panel to allow the whole district to discuss the project.
The panel also included Catholic priest Michael Kemper. His church, St. 
Peter's, is just 300 meters away from the mosque. "I was in favor of 
building the mosque from the start," said Kemper. "After all, it's a 
house of God."
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The priest praised the friendly relations with the Muslim community. 
Many Muslim children visit the Catholic kindergarten, and Catholics and 
Muslims visit each other's festivals.
Guest Workers Have Arrived
"We've got to stick together," says the priest. He said there's a 
feeling of togetherness in the district. "The necessity to always 
communicate lies 1,000 meters below us, in the mines. German and Turkish 
miners worked side by side. They had to be able to understand each 
other, rely on each other. That feeling was passed on to the district."
But Kemper says there was also skepticism in the community. "There's a 
fear of being dominated. But there is growing acceptance in the 
community. And above all, there's gratitude that everything has gone off 
peacefully."
No one in Marxloh wants the kind of conflicts that happened in Cologne.
The chairman of the mosque, Mehmet Özay, emphasized that point at the 
opening ceremony: "I can assure you that this beautiful new mosque is 
quite safe, it is not a symbol of social division in Germany but a 
symbol of the benefits of human, religious, cultural and social 
interaction," he said.
The guest workers and their descendants, he said, have now fully arrived 
in Duisburg and Germany.






http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/cag/2008/10/22/oped/manuel.e..valdehuesa.street.talk.html

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Valdehuesa: ‘Sara Protesta’, a wakeup call
By Manuel E. Valdehuesa
Street Talk

LET’S face it, corruption in our society has reached unmanageable 
proportions; and so has the people’s impatience. The protest closure of 
local businesses yesterday dramatized this.

Too long has the bureau of internal revenue here disregarded public 
sensibilities, recklessly ignoring complaints about high-handed 
corruption in its rank and file. Result: too many Cagayanons now view it 
as insensitive to the point of shamelessness. Unless drastic measures 
are taken, the community’s faith and confidence in this bureau will be 
so badly shaken that it will take more than business-as-usual to restore 
it.

What's your take on the Mindanao crisis? Discuss views with other readers

When the most conservative segment of society – business people and 
chambers of commerce – is roused to the point of activism, joined by 
other responsible sectors, one can be sure that something is very wrong.

The BIR must be whipped into line once and for all, the malefactors 
raked over the coals or banished. And it must be done regardless of the 
interests or power of their backers – who are reported to be 
well-connected and entrenched. This is a matter of the highest public 
interest. It is a wakeup call for trustees of the public interest: shape 
up or ship out!

Belittling the public trust has been our society’s great recruiter of 
insurgents. Too many Filipinos are already disgruntled, despairing about 
prospects for reforms. Still, too many public servants help themselves 
to the till, while reactionary forces remain on the ramparts, 
insensitive to public sentiment.

Item: Asked by Station dxCC to comment on the protest action of the 
chambers of commerce, the Provincial Governor skirted the topic and 
expounded instead on the importance of due process, saying that 
“popularity” cannot be a basis for determining the fitness or tenure of 
an official. In so doing, he implied that the BIR official sought to be 
replaced by the business community may be the victim of a popularity test.

Perhaps he’s unaware of the particulars of the citizens’ plaints. But in 
blithely branding their action as one so precipitate, based on mere 
unpopularity, he forgets an important tenet of democracy, which is 
CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. When the governed has reached high dudgeon 
about public trust being betrayed – and move to assert their right to 
good governance, the Governor better listen or be swept away by the tide 
of indignation. For it is an awakened sovereignty whose fury knows no 
bounds. Edsa taught us this lesson.

Public servants need to be reminded that when the system entrusted to 
them rakes up so much dirt, then it’s time for a cleanup of the House of 
Democracy by the sovereign citizens. Time for sorting out its 
malcontents and discard or replace them.

In a normal democratic setting, this clean-up ritual is done during 
elections. Elections enable the community to choose whom they trust 
enough to wield power and hold the keys to the public treasury, at least 
theoretically. But elections pertain to elected officials. Those who man 
the appointive bureaucracy are something else. They’re supposed to be 
selected from the ranks of pre-qualified, well-qualified and 
well-trained professionals with integrity. And herein lies the problem 
with respect to the embattled BIR director.

Not only his selection but his actions are perceived as tainted with 
vested interest and abuse of discretion. And despite the public outcry, 
which is not the first time against him, the system not only fails to 
respond, he himself displays what people take to be arrogance or even 
defiance. So what else can citizens do but resort to extra-legal means? 
Hence, the business closure yesterday.

Now all eyes are on higher authority. Will the appointing power be 
sensitive to VOX POPULI? Will the embattled director bow to the 
principle of consent-of-the-governed and, in a rare gesture of 
delicadeza, yield his post in order to end the deadlock?

What does Deputy Ombudsman for Mindanao Atty. Rodolfo Elman have to say 
about this, motu propio?








---------------------------------------------------

Child Protection Commission: Most child molesters
are teachers

Jakarta Post - October 24, 2008

Jakarta -- Most child molestation cases are
committed by teachers, a study by the National
Commission for Child Protection (KPIA) recently
revealed.

"What's worst is that most of these teachers commit
sexual transgressions," KPIA chairwoman Masnah Sari
told a media gathering on Friday.

According to Masnah, KPIA's data collection
revealed that a great proportion of these victims
are females. "This means that female students are
more vulnerable to sexual harrasment," she said, as
quoted by Antara news agency.

Based on the reports received by KPIA in 2007, out
of a total of 555 registered cases, 18 percent of
them were committed by people in their close social
circles.

"Worst still, as many as 11.8 percent of these
reports involved teachers and their students," Sari
said, adding that 86 cases have so far been
reported this year -- 39 percent of which were
committed by teachers.

---------------------------------------------------








---------------------------------------------------

IDP returns slowed by squatters occupying homes

IRIN - September 22, 2008

Dili -- Efforts to return the remaining internally
displaced people (IDPs) to their homes are being
hampered by squatters.

Some 100,000 people were displaced throughout
Timor-Leste in 2006 after an implosion of the
national police and defence forces and fighting
between eastern and western factions of the country
over the distribution of power and economic
benefits.

However, as of this month, 90 percent of 6,500 IDP
families have been able to return to their original
homes, the Ministry of Social Solidarity said.

Teams comprising government, UN and other agencies
are working with communities to mediate between the
returning IDPs and the people occupying their
houses.

"Many secondary occupants have their own needs,
they may well be housing insecure themselves," UN
Development Programme (UNDP) social reintegration
specialist Ben Larke told IRIN.

In many cases the squatters have agreed to vacate
houses when approached by the returning families.

But some claim a stake, saying they spent their own
money repairing or improving the houses, or feel
their presence prevented further attacks and
destruction. "So in some cases, they are asking for
compensation," Larke said.

A common and effective solution has been for the
returnees to pay some of their government
relocation compensation funds to the occupants as
recompense.

Verification problems

Most of the 6,500 families have received relocation
or recovery packages and 22 camps have been closed
since March.

While most families have cooperated with the return
programmes, there has been some resistance and
threats to government staff during camp closures,
according to authorities. Local and UN police now
accompany government staff to diffuse tensions.

Some families are frustrated with the process of
proving to authorities the exact extent of the
damage to their homes, which is critical to
receiving fair compensation, and thus have been
moved to transitional shelters while the extent of
damage and amount of compensation are assessed.

Filomeno, who did not want his last name used, told
IRIN that while he would rather be going home, he
preferred a cement and tin transitional shelter
than remaining in a tent while he verified his
details with the government. "It's the solution,"
he told IRIN.

Underlying issues

Many of the camps that were most politically
volatile and violent, such as the massive one near
the airport, are among those now closed. "I think
things are going better than expected," Liuz
Vieria, country director of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM), told IRIN.

But he warned that the long-term success
reintegrating IDPs to their homes would depend on
communities working collectively to resolve the
underlying issues of the 2006 crisis. "I don't
think anyone is sure of the extent to which we have
gotten to that point," he said.

He said while it would not be an easy task,
examples existed throughout the world and even in
Timor-Leste, where communities recognised the
benefits of solidarity could outweigh those of
continued division and conflict. "I don't think
it's an impossible battle," Vieira said. (sm/bj/mw)

---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------

Water buffalo justice reigns in East Timor

Deutsche Presse Agentur - September 28, 2008

Dili -- Justice in East Timor has traditionally
been measured out in water buffaloes. A goat theft
costs one buffalo and a rape of a woman is worth
two, although it varies from village to village.
While it has never been institutionalized, the
traditional way of meting out justice has remained
an underpinning of village life on the impoverished
half-island, even under 400 years of Portuguese
rule.

After Indonesia's 1975 invasion, courts were
established but not respected because of a corrupt
system and judges. Since 2002 and following two
years of United Nations interim rule, East Timor
has been independent and eager to abandon the
Indonesian system and adopt its own judicial
system.

Legal aid groups said the best hope for East Timor
is a formal judicial system with trained judges and
lawyers. According to the country's constitution,
everyone has the right to a fair trial and an
attorney, and innocence is presumed until proven
otherwise. There is no mention of water buffalo in
the constitution.

But even as the National Parliament moves to
finalize the nation's first penal code this month,
a minor government official is on a crusade to
formalize terra bandu -- traditional law Timorese
have used to preserve natural resources and
regulate other matters of daily life.

Secretary of State for the Environment Abilio Lima
has already persuaded about a third of the nation's
1 million people that everything from cattle
rustling to rape are crimes best resolved outside
courtrooms by water buffalo justice.

Last week, Lima was in Tulatakeo, a village a few
hours south of the capital, Dili, as the government
representative in a ceremony to mark the acceptance
of traditional justice. Now, the village chief has
the authority to treat serious crimes according to
local whim.

"The advantage of terra bandu is that it comes from
the community," Lima said. "Because it comes from
the community, they have a responsibility to it."

According to Lima, the problem with East Timor's
penal code is that it relies on Indonesian laws and
was last updated in 1999, three years before the
country gained independence.

"People who don't like Indonesia don't respect the
laws," Lima said, "so we will use traditional law
until we can agree on a national law."

Many judicial authorities in Dili said they were
shocked at the moves by Lima, who has no legal
authority to impose terra bandu or any system of
justice.

"He's very wrong because he is operating outside
the constitution and outside the judicial system,"
said Fernanda Borges, a member of Parliament who
sits on its judicial oversight committee.

Borges said she would launch a parliamentary
inquiry into the matter. However, some officials in
the Justice Ministry seemed unconcerned with Lima's
actions.

Although not informed about the environmental
secretary's push for terra bandu, the permanent
secretary for the minister of justice said he
supported parts of the plan.

"Rape is a crime you can't resolve through terra
bandu," Crisagno Neto said. "You have to take that
to court."

However, Neto said smaller crimes like minor
domestic violence could be resolved using
traditional justice, a statement that contradicts
East Timor's penal code.

"Domestic violence is a crime at whatever level,"
said Mitch Dufrense, head of the UN Justice Support
Unit in East Timor. "The severity of the specified
level is something for the court to decide."

Yet Neto said the courts in East Timor are not for
everyone. "Terra bandu is easier and faster in
rural areas for people who have no money," Neto
said, "but in cities and in areas where people have
money, they can't use terra bandu. They need to go
to court."

In East Timor, where unemployment hangs around 60
per cent and the average income is about a dollar a
day, the majority of the population lives where
they can farm and hunt for food. Under Neto's
criteria, almost no one should go to court, and, as
it stands today, virtually no one does.

The United Nations estimated that about half of all
women in East Timor would be the victims this year
of gender-based crimes, yet according to the local
UN office, 132 of the estimated 250,000 victims
have come forward to report such offenses to
police. Instead of a courtroom and a judge, these
women could visit the thatched hut of a village
elder.

One such elder is Florindo Mesquita Lorego, a
balding, snowy-bearded village chief in a hamlet
hours away from Dili who, along with a dozen other
village leaders, decides terra bandu cases.

"(Terra bandu) applies to people who are thieves,
horse thieves, cattle rustlers and rapists," Lorego
explained. "People who go into someone's garden
without permission from the owner, that's a crime."

He said rape is not a big problem in his community,
but it happens. "Rape is resolved with two cows,
and you close the woman's wound," Lorego said.

Closing the wound means the perpetrator makes the
problem better, and the problem with rape is damage
to the family name. The two cows, as well as the
occasional goat or pig, are given to the victim's
family. Often one of the animals is killed, cooked
and then the rapist and the men from the victim's
family eat and drink palm wine together.

The woman is not involved, except to report what
happened. The secretary of state for the
environment has put his stamp of approval on such a
system for about half the districts in East Timor
and said he sees his portfolio as reaching far
beyond ecology.

"I think the environment has a relationship with
sexuality," Lima said. "When you talk about
environment, you talk about the human environment,
about the social environment. I focus on the total
comprehensive environment."

---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------

East Timor mulls traditional justice for serious
crimes

Radio Australia - September 26, 2008

For many in East Timor, access to the justice
system is almost impossible. Institutions are weak
and the remoteness of many villages means it can
take days to reach the nearest police station. Now,
one government official is travelling around East
Timor promoting the use of traditional justice for
all crimes, including rape.

Presenter: Stephanie March

Speakers: East Timor MP Fernanda Borges; Albilio de
Jesus, Remexio sub-district police commander;
Tulatakeu village chief Florindo Mesquita Lorego;
State Secretary for the Environment Albilio De
Jesus Lima; Chief of the United Nations
Administration of Justice Support Unit in East
Timor, Mitch Dufrense.

March: Tulatakeu village, is 14km from the nearest
police station. It takes an hour and a half to walk
there, and the road's in poor condition, and is cut
off for several months of the year during the wet
season. Albilio de Jesus is the Remexio sub-
district police commander. He has 11 staff, and one
motorbike, to police a population of 10,000.

Dejesus: According to us, that's not enough. But
while United Nations police are here we coordinate
with them when we go on patrol. We got to maybe one
town or two towns a day. Then we will go to more
towns the next day.

March: For many people in East Timor, access to
formal justice is almost impossible. Institutions
are weak, and it can take hours to reach the
nearest police station and days to the nearest
courthouse. For centuries, communities have relied
on local mechanisms to resolve problems. Community
leaders, from Tulatakeu including village chief
Florindo Mesquita Lorego recently signed a document
formalizing a committee to dish out traditional
justice.

Lorego: It applies to people who are thieves, horse
thieves, cattle rustlers, rapists. People who go
into someone's garden without permission from the
owner, that's also a crime.

March: I asked him what the penalty would be for
someone found guilty of rape.

Lorego: That will depend on what the council
demands, they could demand two cows, maybe three,
and they have to restore the reputation of the
woman's community to other communities.

March: And one East Timorese government official is
traveling around the countryside, promoting the
type of traditional justice adopted in Tulatakeu.
State Secretary for the Environment Albilio De
Jesus Lima recently visited the village to
congratulate them for adopting traditional justice
to include crimes like theft and rape.

East Timor is governed by the Indonesian penal
code, and other laws developed during the period of
United Nations administration following
independence. Mr Lima says people don't trust those
laws, so while the government works to establish an
organic law, it's best to rely on traditional
mechanisms.

Lima: I think the environment portfolio includes
sexuality, you talk about environment, you talk
about human environment, about social environment,
I focus on a total comprehensive environment. I am
a public servant, aren't I?

March: The inclusion of rape in the informal
justice system is alarming for human rights
advocates. Traditional law known as terra bandu is
mainly used to resolve community disputes about
land and resource management, not crimes against
the person. Traditionally in East Timor, often the
crime of rape is not considered a crime against the
person, but against her family. The belief is that
if a woman becomes a victim of sexual assault, the
community will believe her family can't take care
of her.

Chief of the United Nations Administration of
Justice Support Unit in East Timor, Mitch Dufrense
says the biggest concern with traditional justice
is whether or not the process and outcomes meet
basic human rights standards.

Dufrense: The Minister of Justice has already
stated that gender-based violence linked crimes are
to be dealt with in the formal justice system.
Those cases have traditionally been very
challenging in the traditional mechanisms and have
been examples of types of cases that fall below
international standards.

March: MP Fernanda Borges says traditional justice
in East Timor is not set up to support victims of
gender based violence.

Borges: Usually it is the men that are the nucleus
of power in the local community, and women are
underneath that system. It works for other things,
but I think definitely for domestic violence it is
not an appropriate form to engage.

March: State Secretary for the Environment Albilio
de Jesus Lima says he has visited six districts
that are using traditional law, which means up to
one third of East Timor's population could be using
this form of justice. But MP Fernanda Borges says
what he is promoting goes against many of the
international human rights conventions signed by
East Timor

Borges: If the secretary of state is doing that he
is very wrong, because he is operating completely
outside of the constitution and the judical
processes that are established in the country.

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








http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2008/09/07/2003422481

SUNDAY PROFILE: From Cuba’s underground, a punk rocker’s protest 
reverberates
Despite arrests and intimidation, Gorki Aguila and his band continue to 
criticize Cuba’s leaders
By Marc Lacey
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Sunday, Sep 07, 2008, Page 14
“I am against everything that limits my personal liberty.”
— Gorki Luis Aguila Carrasco, lead singer of Porno para Ricardo
VIEW THIS PAGE
Some people march to protest their government. Gorki Luis Aguila 
Carrasco, the lead singer of a Cuban punk rock group called Porno para 
Ricardo (“Porn for Ricardo”), vents his discontent by gyrating at a 
microphone, clutching an electric guitar and spewing out some of the 
most off-color, ear-splitting lyrics around.

Amid the string of expletives that he bellows in his underground 
concerts in and around Havana are bold criticisms of Fidel and Raul 
Castro, the past and present leaders of the island. So outspoken has he 
become that the authorities recently charged him with “social 
dangerousness” and hauled him off to jail.

Turns out, though, he will sing again. After his detention drew 
international outrage, including a condemnation from US President George 
W. Bush’s administration, the Cuban authorities dropped the charge, 
which could have led to four years in prison. Instead they convicted him 
of public disorder and fined him 600 pesos, or US$28 — more than a 
month’s salary in Cuba.

“I feel even more hate for this tyranny,” Gorki, as he is universally 
known, said to reporters after he was freed. He then likened his release 
to walking from a small jail cell into a larger one.

With a mane of curly black hair that is as wild as his persona, Gorki is 
by no means the only outspoken artist in Cuba. Other rebellious singers 
and painters, though, are more discreet when it comes to the upper crust 
of the Cuban leadership. They criticize the system in a way that does 
not get too personal.

Not so Gorki, who rails against Cuban communism, scoffs at the 
revolution and lambastes in no uncertain terms Fidel Castro, who turned 
82 last month, and his younger brother, Raul, 77, the longtime defense 
minister who took over the presidency in February after Fidel fell ill. 
And Gorki does all of it in a near scream.

“The Comandante holds elections, which he’s invented to keep power,” he 
says of Fidel Castro in El Comandante, one of his signature songs. “The 
Comandante wants me to go vote so he can keep (expletive) my life.”

In a shout, he sings: “The Comandante wants me to work and he pays me a 
miserable salary. The Comandante wants me to applaud after he’s spoken 
his delirious (expletive). Don’t eat (expletive), Comandante, for you 
are a tyrant and no one can stand you.”

Gorki has received backing from more traditional critics of the 
government, such as Elizardo Sanchez, who leads an unauthorized human 
rights group that Havana tolerates, and Yoani Sanchez, an outspoken 
blogger who wrote recently of Gorki, “he sings, sways and shouts in his 
bloody rock lyrics what others mutter with fear.”

The Cuban government has remained quiet about Gorki’s recent legal 
troubles. Some supporters have spoken up, though. Walter Lippmann, an 
American who runs an e-mail news service that collects material critical 
of Washington’s embargo on Cuba, recently wrote, “He helps clarify the 
precise meaning of the word ‘punk’ in the term ‘punk rock.’”

Gorki’s recent jail stint was not his first. In 2003 he was convicted on 
a drug charge and spent nearly two years in custody. He condemns that 
arrest as a setup by a young woman who pretended to be a fan but really 
worked for state security. In that case, he emerged from custody even 
angrier than before.

A self-taught musician and the father of a preteen girl, Gorki, 39, once 
told an interviewer that he grew up listening to American and British 
rock, particularly Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and the Clash. “My dad 
never liked rock ’n’ roll,” he said, “and since he knew that this type 
of music brought me problems, he used to advise me to listen to other 
bands.”

His mother, an outspoken critic of the government, and his older sister 
left Cuba years ago for Mexico. Gorki married while he was in jail in 
2003 so that he and his wife could have conjugal visits. They are 
separated now but share time with their 12-year-old daughter, Gabriella. 
“I try to tell her who I am, why I say the things I say,” he said.

A decade ago, he organized Porno para Ricardo — named for a friend who 
loved pornography but could not get enough of it because of a government 
ban.

At a recent concert Ricardo himself, a 50-ish man who dresses like a 
transient, arrived pushing a bicycle and carrying a half-empty bottle of 
rum. He quickly became the life of the party.

Gorki’s words are not the only rebellious thing about him. He had his 
nose pierced and often wears a T-shirt that calls 1959, the year of the 
Cuban revolution, a “year of error.” He was named after Maxim Gorky, the 
Russian author and founder of literary Socialist Realism.

The band’s raucous rehearsals take place in the small apartment in the 
Playa neighborhood of Havana that Gorki shares with his 75-year-old 
father, Luis. The place is devoid of furniture, and the room in the back 
where the band gathers has egg boxes on the walls to help reduce the noise.

Concerts are held on the sly. Word of the next performance is spread 
through text messages or whispers. A few months back, it was in a remote 
location on the outskirts of the capital.

The group arrived at 5pm to warm up. A few hours later nearly 100 people 
had gathered, most of them young counterculture types who knew the words 
to song after song.

One of the teenagers in the crowd, who wore a Nirvana T-shirt, 
identified himself only as Daniel and said he was an aspiring punk 
rocker himself. Porno para Ricardo is one of the few bands in Cuba that 
has the guts to tell the truth, he said.

The group played for about two hours, taking one short break to allow a 
band member, Herbert Dominguez, to vomit off to the side — the result, 
it appeared, of too much rum.

“I am against everything that limits my personal liberty,” Gorki 
declared in an interview this year. “The level of unpopularity of the 
Castro tyranny is so great. It’s obvious. You breathe it. It’s dense. 
But the people are afraid.”

Gorki does not appear afraid. His recent songs include one called 
Dinosaurs, which refers to the Cuban leadership. Another, El General, 
lambastes Raul Castro as a farce. After his release from prison, he told 
a reporter that he was at work on a follow-up to El Comandante, the song 
about Fidel Castro, which will be called El Comandante II.

Although Gorki is the front man, his fellow band members — Ciro Diaz 
Penedo on guitar, Renay Kayrus on drums and Dominguez on bass — are 
similarly rebellious. As a logo for their group, they use a Soviet 
hammer and sickle transformed into a pornographic image.

While Gorki was in jail, Diaz attended a concert of Pablo Milanes, a 
noted and far more conventional singer-songwriter, to press for his 
bandmate’s release. He and some friends unveiled a banner that said 
“GORKI” and began shouting the singer’s name. A dozen or more men in 
plain clothes moved in quickly, according to witnesses, pummeled Diaz 
and another man and whisked them away to a police station for questioning.

That episode prompted a response from the Bush administration, which has 
made no secret of its disdain for the Castro brothers.

“We condemn the regime’s violent attack on peaceful concert-goers and 
arrest of Mr Aguila,” Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who left Cuba 
as a boy with his family in 1960, said of Gorki. Gutierrez said the 
authorities’ actions violated the UN International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights, which Raul Castro signed just days after replacing 
Fidel in February.

Left unsaid by Gutierrez was whether he had ever listened to Gorki’s music.






http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/nicaragua-a-scene-of-heartbreak

Nicaragua: heartbeat of protest
Sergio Ramírez
The Daniel Ortega regime's asphyxiation of the original Sandinista 
project is exemplified by its appropriation of the music of Nicaragua's 
revolutionary past as well as its politicised control of state 
institutions, says the country's former foreign minister Sergio Ramírez.
(This article was first published on 1 September 2008)
2 - 09 - 2008

A heroine of the popular struggles that led to the overthrow of the 
Somoza family dictatorship in Nicaragua ended a twelve-day hunger-strike 
in Managua on 16 June 2008. The conditions that gave rise to her 
extraordinary act of defiance persist. The eleven weeks that have since 
passed bring the country no closer to their reversal. But her protest 
has given birth to others on a far larger scale, and it will long 
outlast its moment.

Sergio Ramírez is a Nicaraguan writer. He was vice-president of the 
country from 1984-90 during the period of the Frente Sandinista de 
Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government. In 1995 he broke from the FSLN to 
form the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (MRS). His many books 
include El reino animal (Alfaguara, 2006). He was named Chevalier de 
l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993, and was awarded the Medalla 
Presidencial by the Chilean government to mark the centenary of Pablo 
Neruda's birth in 2004. In 2005 he was a member of the jury granting the 
Lettre Ulysses award for the art of reportage. His website is here

Comandante Dora María Téllez installed herself on 4 June in a hut on an 
empty piece of ground at the Ruben Dario roundabout, the most heavily 
trafficked place in Nicaragua's capital city. Dora Maria - famous for 
her part in the commando group that took the national palace on 21 
August 1978 and for having led the insurgent forces which liberated the 
city of León in 1979 - fasted for twelve days in principled support of 
the same things she had earlier fought for with arms: democracy, public 
freedoms, and the rule of law.
There is one ostensible difference: her adversary is no longer Anastasio 
Somoza, buried after his 1980 assassination in a cemetery in Miami, but 
Daniel Ortega, her former comrade, president of the revolutionary 
government until 1990 and winner of a second mandate in 2006 (see 
"Daniel Ortega's second coming", 7 November 2006). A placard installed 
on the hunger-strike roundabout showed a photomontage in which Somoza 
and Ortega held each other's hands above their heads, both smiling; the 
placard's slogan read "Ortega and Somoza are the same thing".
Are there really similarities between Anastasio Somoza, who fled the 
country on 17 July 1979, when the guerrilla forces were already 
approaching Managua, and Daniel Ortega, who is now governing alongside 
his wife, Rosario Murillo? The facts speak for themselves.
Dora María Téllez's hunger-strike was primarily motivated by a 
politicised decision of the supposedly independent - but in fact 
Ortega-dominated - Consejo Electoral Supremo (supreme electoral council) 
to cancel the legality of her party, the Movimiento de Renovación 
Sandinista (Sandinista Renewal Movement / MRS). The MRS was founded in 
1996 by dissidents from the old Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional 
(Sandinista National Liberation Front / FSLN), which governed Nicaragua 
from 1979-90.
The council also applied the same sanction to another Nicaraguan party, 
the Conservative Party. This means that the municipal elections in 
November 2008 will have only two visible contestants: Ortega's own 
Sandinista Front and the Liberal Party (which belongs to the president's 
close ally and political hostage, Arnoldo Alemán; he has been sentenced 
in court to twenty years' imprisonment for money-laundering, and is the 
only convict on the American continent who has an entire country for his 
prison and who in addition leads a political party).
Alemán's deputies in the national assembly vote with Daniel Ortega's; 
together they compose a majority (see "Nicaragua's hijacked democracy", 
18 November 2005). This political favour allows Ortega to dominate a 
host of state institutions: the assembly itself, the supreme court of 
justice and the whole judicial system, the comptroller-general and the 
CSE. His ambition is to exercise the same iron control over the army and 
the national police. He has already demonstrated his intentions in this 
regard by sacking the entire police high-command in an attempt to 
isolate its head, commissioner Aminta Granera, who enjoys the highest 
popularity ratings in the country.
Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo rule generally in secret. Very few 
citizens know anything of the president's whereabouts, even whether he 
is within or outside Nicaragua. The couple occasionally surface to speak 
from platforms profusely decorated with flowers, facing a captive 
audience whom they address in speeches lasting several hours (see Ivan 
Briscoe, "Never let me go: can Ortega reclaim Nicaragua?", 2 November 
2006).
Ortega, in addition, prefers to rule outside institutions when they 
impede him. The credits from the Venezuelan oil account are not entered 
in the national budget as part of the state's resources, but are handled 
privately. Nicaragua's rulers wield a huge petty-cash box of hundreds of 
millions of dollars which is used unaccountably and indiscriminately to 
pay for Ortega's constant international travel, accompanied by a 
numerous retinue; for ferrying demonstrators to his public meetings; for 
decorating the stages from which he makes his interminable speeches; and 
for financing assistance-programmes that range from the construction of 
popular housing to giving pigs and paridas (cows that have recently 
given birth) to peasant families. Investigations by Nicaragua's 
remaining independent press have confirmed that the contractors for the 
houses being built under this scheme are government ministers and allies 
of Ortega.
The arbitrary concept
Nicaragua is among the poorest countries of the continent. The confused 
policies of Daniel Ortega's government since his election in November 
2006 - in contrast to the fiery rhetoric of his speeches - have not 
moved the indexes of unemployment and marginalisation one millimetre; 
while inflation threatens to exceed 20% in 2008, the result above all of 
food-price rises which amount to more than 50% in the first eight months 
of the year. True, this is a worldwide phenomenon which hits the poor 
hardest in many countries; but Nicaragua is a privileged land in 
agricultural terms and could do much more to encourage food-production 
strategies. The plan announced on 26 August 2008 that will use the army 
in cooperation with the Instituto de Desarrollo Rural (Institute of 
Rural Development / IDR) is unlikely to bring the relief the people need.
The result of this neglect and disarray is to deepen Nicaragua's 
economic and social crisis. How does Ortega address this explosive 
situation? In one way only: with speeches that are ever more worn down 
by the leftist orthodoxies of the last century. At the same time he 
restricts both democratic participation and the opening of civic space - 
the precise measures against which Dora María Téllez - at the risk of 
her own life - launched her protest, just as she had in the past with a 
gun in her hand.
The horizon of what Daniel Ortega and his wife are doing from the summit 
of power that they illegally hold extends far beyond the present 
presidential period, which expires in 2012. Their intention is to secure 
indefinite re-election by changing the constitution. To this end they 
need to eliminate the challenge of rival political parties, to exercise 
absolute control of the state institutions, to secure the obedience of 
the judges and the judicial system, and to subordinate the national 
assembly (see "Tearing up the rules", Economist, 14 August 2008). In 
addition, they need to look for the precise moment to deliver the 
decisive blow to the army and the police and bring them, too, under 
control.
The distance travelled from nineteen years ago, moral as well as 
political, is immense. The establishment of the revolutionary government 
in the city of León on 18 July 1979 was made possible by the expulsion 
of the forces of Somoza's national guard by the guerrilla forces 
commanded by the then 22-year-old Dora María. This daring and already 
battle-hardened leader, a natural strategist, had won the loyalty and 
admiration of the young people - many of them just adolescents - around 
her. Her achievement in making León secure enabled the members of the 
governing council of the Sandinistas to land in the city after leaving 
neighbouring Costa Rica. Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo and Tomás Borge 
arrived on the first flight; Doña Violeta de Chamorro, Alfonso Robelo 
and myself on the second.
That petite and worried young woman always laughed at danger; her very 
youth meant that she never hesitated to take life-and-death decisions. 
Now, nineteen years on, she is in confrontation with Daniel Ortega, the 
man whose path to power she prepared. Moreover, she is fighting for the 
same things as before: liberty and democracy (see Néstor Martinez, "Dora 
María, nuestra posible Lula", El nuevo diario, 25 August 2008). In this 
she is joined by other emblematic figures of the revolution, such as the 
singer-songwriter Carlos Mejia Godoy.
Carlos Mejia Godoy's songs had long featured strongly in official 
government propaganda, for they evoke the true life and ideals of a 
revolution of which now only ruins are left. The continued use of his 
music by those at the heights of power as though the revolution he 
celebrated were intact - a sort of perverse simulation game - led him to 
make the brave decision to veto the use of his songs in this way. The 
reward was a storm of insults unleashed against him by the 
government-controlled media.
Carlos, who has been joined by his brother (and fellow 
singer-songwriter) Luis Enrique, explained his position: "In the 
dramatic context in which our people are living, threatened again with a 
family dictatorship, a sordid replica of the Somoza tyranny, I cannot 
allow my songs, which were inspired by the sacrifice and death of 
thousands of Nicaraguan brothers, to serve as the musical background to 
continue from those flower-decked platforms the most shameful 
tragicomedy of recent years." Carlos is clear that it is not a question 
of money, because his music is not for sale: he just wants it not to be 
used.
Ortega has ignored this, and the Mejia Godoys' songs have been declared 
liable to confiscation - as though they were a herd of cattle or a 
factory of dairy products. Comandante Tomás Borge, the former minister 
of the interior, even wrote: "It is my opinion that the legal formality, 
which might give rise to a demand supported by the Spanish society of 
authors, does not oblige us to give up works which, whether you like it 
or not, belong to the blood of the fallen who are so respected by 
hundreds of thousands of FSLN militants."
This arbitrary concept - that a work is not owned by its creator but by 
the people (and political party) who inspired the artist with their 
actions - might seem irrelevant and even inoffensive today; for this is 
a time when so many single and dominating parties which ruled in the 
name of a single system of thought have been toppled from their old 
thrones. But this is not everywhere true; it is not true in Nicaragua.
The impossible task
Rosario Murillo has (according to Time magazine) written that Carlos 
Mejia Godoy is nothing but "the instrument of the divine rhythm that 
reaches his body from a sacred and unknown place". There is no doubt 
about the meaning of her proclamation that "in life there are some 
things that do not personally belong to us, that have no master, that 
are not private property. The dead, for instance. Collective hope, 
collective creativity, collective grief, collective triumph."
The old weight of the collective is indeed on Nicaragua's shoulders. The 
demand made by total power creates a historic immobility that dries and 
shrivels everything under its gaze. This includes even not just the dead 
but the revolution itself, confiscated from its roots and - whatever 
Rosario Murillo says - privatised in favour of one family (see 
"Nicaragua: through the abyss", 3 September 2007).
Today, the roles are reversing in a dramatic manner in Nicaragua. All 
that remains of the revolutionary act - precisely what the Mejia Godoys 
illuminate in their songs - are the decayed sets, the ragged curtains, 
the moth-eaten stages. The dead who went to their deaths for that cause 
might awake today astonished by this new scene of power, which 
represents everything that is opposed to what the songs exalt.
What Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo and their cronies are trying to 
impose on those songs is the old collective stamp, whose inkwell too is 
long dry: "collective hope, collection creativity, collective grief, 
collective triumph" - the whole phantasmagoria flutters in pathetic 
contortions, its figures deprived of substance and of ethical sentiment. 
The heroic epic becomes transformed into a masque of grotesques; if it 
retains any integrity at all it is in the music of Carlos Mejia Godoy 
and Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy.
Señora Murillo openly expresses the idea that the people, seen in 
abstract as a unanimous whole, is embodied in the totalising party: 
"Carlos's songs, in spite of himself, continue to belong to the 
Sandinista Front - the Sandinista Front that made the revolution and 
from that mythic struggle inspired and dictated them, the Sandinista 
Front that will also continue to revolutionise history."
These words offer more than sufficient reason for the arbitrary power to 
confiscate the creative patrimony of some artists in the name of a party 
to whom it gives the impossible role of master of history, and the even 
more impossible one of continuing to revolutionise it.
This article was translated from Spanish by Isabel Hilton






http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200808/200808260024.html

Illegal Protests Must Be Stopped
A court ruled that 50 unionized workers at Hankook Tire affiliate ASA 
who caused a disturbance at the parent company’s office building will 
have to pay W500,000 (US$1=W1,079) per person each time they engage in 
an illegal protest. Demanding Hankook Tire cover the debts that drove 
ASA into bankruptcy, the workers have been holding a sit-in strike 
inside a tent near the tire maker’s office building since the end of 
last year. Earlier, a court ruled that protests in front of Seoul Mayor 
Oh Se-hoon’s official residence by traders at an open-air market that 
had been closed down violated the mayor’s rights and ordered them to pay 
W500,000 a head each time they held another illegal protest. Both 
protests ended after the courts delivered those rulings.
In Seoul alone, 6,000 rallies and protests take place every year. Since 
May, over 100 anti-U.S. beef protests have been held. The Korea 
Development Institute in a report says rallies and protests lead to 
W12.3 trillion in annual losses to Korean society.
The best option would be for law enforcement authorities to clearly 
differentiate between legal and illegal protests, protecting the 
participants of legal protests and blocking illegal ones before they 
start. But that is a tall order at this point. One police officer was 
detained by protesters and forced to undergo a kangaroo trial, while 
riot police are being stripped and beaten by protesters. Some 500 police 
officers have been injured while trying to stop the beef protests from 
getting out of hand.
People taking part in illegal protests are not afraid of being taken 
away by police. Some people were arrested four times during beef 
protests in May and June. After one was released, he was discovered to 
have taken part in the beating of riot police. He was arrested earlier 
this month. There are scores of violent protesters, but without a 
photograph to prove their illegal actions, most of them are set free 
after they write a statement, while the ones who are handed over to 
prosecutors are usually get a stay of prosecution.
If it is impossible to stop illegal protests with criminal indictments, 
civil lawsuits should be used. It can be far more effective to get 
illegal protesters to pay hefty fines. In 2005, New York City ruled that 
the Transport Workers Union, which staged illegal strikes, must 
compensate residents for damages incurred. The court ordered the TWU to 
pay a million dollars each day they strike and the union surrendered 
after just three days.
Police recently sued various civic groups, including the People’s 
Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease that instigated the 
protests for W330 million in damages. Traders in the Gwanghwamun area 
where the mad cow protests took place also filed a W3 billion damage 
suit against the protest leaders. The only way to stop the vicious cycle 
of illegal protest is to let the protesters know that instigating or 
taking part in such protests would lead to unbearable consequences.






http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14641.cfm

Small Protests Can Beat the Big Guys
• By Joanna Blythman
Sunday Herald / UK, via Common Dreams, September 14, 2008
Straight to the Source
Does the name Helen Steel ring a bell? She handed me a leaflet recently 
outlining an inspiring community sustainability initiative that she's 
involved in but I didn't realise who she was until a friend said 
"Remember McLibel? That's Helen." She was one of the two London 
anarchists who stood up in court to McDonald's, the world's mighty 
burger chain, inflicting the biggest moral and public relations defeat 
this global corporation has ever suffered.
Small, discreet, quite unobstrusive behind a heavy fringe, there's no 
self-promotion from Helen. She is just one of those citizens who, in a 
quietly determined way, refuses to bow the knee to powerful interests, 
or give up trying to stop something she sees as morally wrong.
I thought of Helen last week, looking at pictures of six Greenpeace 
climate-change campaigners as they emerged from court, cleared of 
causing criminal damage at the coal-fired Kingsnorth power station. The 
six - Huw Williams, Kevin Drake, Ben Stewart, Tim Hewke, Will Rose and 
Emily Hall - admitted trying to shut down the station by occupying the 
smokestack and painting "Gordon" on its lofty, landmark chimney, but 
defended themselves by saying that they were trying to prevent climate 
change causing greater damage to property around the world. They cited 
alarming facts, such as the small matter that Kingsnorth emits the same 
amount of carbon dioxide as the 30 least polluting countries in the 
world combined. The jury accepted their arguments as British juries 
often do. In recent years, miscellaneous court cases involving GM crops, 
nuclear power, chemical and arms companies have collapsed after 
protesters argued they had followed their consciences and tried to 
prevent a greater crime.
Such verdicts are anathema to corporations and government, but they 
suggest that the public at large has some sneaking admiration for people 
who take direct action, on the face of it cocking a snoot at the law, to 
draw attention to injustice or resist policies and decisions imposed 
from above that are out of kilter with public opinion. Such civil 
disobedience has a noble pedigree, from the CND protesters in the 1960s 
who took to canoes on the Holy Loch to the women's peace camp at 
Greenham Common in the 1980s through to Swampy's road protests of the 
1990s and, more recently, the carnival revellers who occupied the site 
proposed for the third runway at Heathrow.
However much we are in sympathy with the cause, relatively few of us 
feel passionate enough or have the nerve to take on the likes of 
McDonald's or even a relative tiddler like E.on, the owner of 
Kingsnorth. Just supposing you were physically fit enough to scale a 
power station chimney stack, wouldn't you be daunted by the prospect of 
a night in the nick, a trial up against the best barristers that money 
can buy, or the very real threat of losing your job? Most seasoned 
campaigners, trade unionists, professional activists employed by NGOs, 
veterans of conference motions, council votes, demonstrations, 
petitions, rallies, vigils and all, baulk at putting themselves so much 
on the line, no matter how much they believe in the issue at stake.
Even the most engaged, active citizens throw in the towel when they have 
exhausted all lawful, established mechanisms for action. Seasoned 
campaigners become resigned to defeats, but then you get those 
surprising people - the retired Quaker accountant at the back row of the 
meeting, the previously apolitical housewife who has never been involved 
in any campaign to date - who are just so outraged at a decision or 
event, that they are prepared to go much further than the usual 
suspects, even if that means taking wire cutters to an MoD fence, or 
breaking into a nearby incinerator plant.
People like these are essential to the proper functioning of democracy. 
Not everyone is so tenacious. After the watershed of the Iraq war, many 
of us have retreated into defeatism and frustration. We feel alienated 
from the the ritualistic cut and thrust of party politics, let down by 
our elected representatives at all levels, local, national, global, so 
much so that we can't see the point of voting.
Whatever it is that bugs you - the sale of playing fields, dawn raids on 
asylum seekers, school or post office closures - there's that now 
pervasive feeling of done deals behind closed doors, the depressing 
thought that no amount of opposition at a personal or collective level 
is going to make one blind bit of difference to the outcome.
And this is where those prepared to contemplate direct action - the 
Helens, Huws, Kevins, Bens, Tims, Wills and Roses of the world - come 
in. They come up with creative stunts to keep vital issues in the public 
eye.
fuel protestors well and truly piss like groups interest While everyone 
off by blocking roads for hours, these activists keep the public on side 
using short, sweet action that often demonstrates a sense of humour, but 
is nevertheless as finely targeted as a cruise missile. They act as an 
important check on obsequious governments prone to rolling for vested 
interests, be that arms dealers, the global biotech lobby, Big Food or 
Big Pharma. Call them hotheads, if you like, but heavens, how we need them.
©2008 newsquest (sunday herald) limited.







http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93898277&ft=1&f=1014

Echoes of 1968
1968 Chicago Riot Left Mark On Political Protests
by Ina Jaffe
Listen Now [18 sec] add to playlist | download

Michael Buckner
The group that Tom Hayden helped found in the 1960s, Students for a 
Democratic Society, is springing up again on college campuses. Getty Images

Listen: NPR tours Chicago before the 1996 Democratic convention
add
Weekend Edition Saturday, August 23, 2008 • Democrats are gathering for 
their national convention in Denver with their party divided by a 
bruising presidential nomination contest and the country mired in an 
unpopular war.
The situation was similar 40 years ago, when Democrats convened in 
Chicago. But what riveted the nation's attention were the battles in the 
streets between Vietnam War protesters and police. A federal commission 
later called it a police riot, and the mayhem outside the Chicago 
convention continues to influence political protests today.
No one who knew Chicago thought August 1968 would be another Summer of 
Love. The Chicago Seed, an alternative weekly newspaper, wrote: "If 
you're coming to Chicago, be sure to wear some armor in your hair." 
Mayor Richard J. Daley had amassed a force of 12,000 police officers, 
6,000 National Guard members and 6,000 Army troops.
He assured convention delegates that all would be well.
One of the chief organizers of the anti-war demonstrations, Tom Hayden, 
says protest leaders worked for months to get permits from the city to 
march, to rally and to camp in the parks.
"We were used to the idea that authorities would stall on permits, but I 
think some of us thought that the permits would come through at the end, 
so we went forward," he says.
But the permits didn't come. So there was almost nothing protesters 
could do without violating the law. The massive crowd that the 
organizers hoped for didn't materialize.
"When the week started, there were only 600 or 700 people in the park," 
Hayden says. "It grew to about 10,000, nearly all of them from Chicago."
Violence became a daily event, with marches and rallies broken up by 
police with nightsticks and tear gas. It was the same most nights in the 
parks. Protesters would gather, and after the 11 p.m. curfew, the police 
would move in with clubs and gas, chasing them into the streets.
Violence In The Street
On one of those nights, Vivian Stovall and a mixed-race group of friends 
sat down in Grant Park and formed a human chain.
"Next thing we knew, we were being kicked, being pulled apart and some 
very racial statements being made. And then I looked up, and when I 
looked up that's when I got hit. I still have the scar right here," 
Stovall says, pointing to her eyebrow. "I remember feeling that warm wet 
stuff on my face, and I was bleeding."
She was 19 years old in 1968. She'd been driving from Washington, D.C., 
to Louisiana to start the new semester at Grambling State University 
when she and some classmates decided to take a detour to Chicago.
"We were talking while we were on our way there about the assassination 
of Robert Kennedy, the assassination of Martin Luther King [Jr.]. We 
talked about the Vietnam War," Stovall says. "We just felt nobody was 
listening to us at that time anyway, and we wanted to just have our say 
or at least be part of something."
The most infamous battle took place on Aug. 28 outside the Conrad Hilton 
hotel. It wasn't the most violent confrontation that week by most 
accounts, but it's the one that got the most news coverage, because the 
Hilton was where the media were stationed.
As it unfolded, CBS engineer Fred Turner described what he saw from his 
fifth-floor window:
"Now they're moving in, the cops are moving and they are really belting 
these characters. They're grabbing them, sticks are flailing. People are 
laying on the ground. I can see them, colored people. Cops are just 
belting them; cops are just laying it in. There's piles of bodies on the 
street. There's no question about it. You can hear the screams, and 
there's a guy they're just dragging along the street and they don't 
care. I don't think … I don't know if he's alive or dead. Holy Jesus, 
look at him. Five of them are belting him, really, oh, this man will 
never get up."
It's not the sort of experience anyone would want to repeat. But there 
are people who see something in those days worth reviving.
The Spirit Of The '60s
Mark Cohen is the co-founder of the activist group Recreate '68. 
Although he wasn't in Chicago in 1968 — he was in Africa with the Peace 
Corps — Cohen says his organization's name was meant to get attention 
and recall the spirit of the '60s, not the violence. He's been planning 
to protest at this week's Democratic convention since he heard it was 
coming to his hometown of Denver.
"The reason we're protesting is because Mr. Obama's reputation as a 
progressive is not really deserved," Cohen says. "For example, his 
so-called anti-war stance involves a program to remove combat troops 
from Iraq over a period of 16 months. The majority of American people 
want those troops removed immediately. As soon as possible."
He was standing in what will be the official demonstration zone for the 
convention. He and the rest of Recreate '68 will be in parking lot A, 
nearly 300 yards from the convention hall.
"We call it the freedom cage," says Cohen, 62.
The zone will be ringed by two layers of fencing behind a huge white 
tent set up for the media. And for protest marches, the sanctioned route 
will leave marchers more than a quarter of a mile from the convention 
site. Recreate '68 and other groups sued the city of Denver and the 
Secret Service to get closer to the action, but a federal judge upheld 
the city's plans. Katherine Archuleta, Denver's lead planner for the 
convention, said the demonstration zone provides a fair and safe 
platform for activists.
"People can go and come as they like. The other thing that we are doing 
in the demonstration zone is to provide a stage and speakers and 
microphone, so that they can be heard [at] a greater distance," 
Archuleta says. "And that's the city's role — finding a balance between 
safety and security and the rights of those who would come and want to 
raise their voices."
Hayden doesn't see it that way. "I don't mean to exaggerate, but it is 
the end of freedom. This is the freedom to protest as designed for you 
by any authoritarian state under the direction of the police," he says.
Expanding Agenda
Caged or not, when demonstrators raise their voices in Denver, they will 
be talking — or singing or shouting — about more than the war in Iraq. 
The environment will be on the agenda, as well as poverty, health care, 
immigrant rights and more.
Michael Heaney, a political scientist at the University of Florida, says 
that because of 1968, "we've now become a 'movement society.' "
"What 1968 demonstrated was that protest could be an effective tactic 
for bringing about social change," he says. "So important new protest 
tactics were invented: the sit-in, the large demonstration. And people 
learned that this was a way they could effectively influence the 
government."
Heaney's been studying the current anti-war movement and has noticed 
something interesting about who's in it. He says there are essentially 
two groups — one made up of people who were active in the anti-war 
movement 40 years ago, and the other made up of people in their 20s — 
and very little in between.
The convention protests planned in Denver will have a kind of retro 
quality. In addition to Recreate '68, there's another activist group 
called Tent State University, a reference to Kent State in Ohio, where 
four students were killed while protesting the war in Vietnam.
Outsiders Moving In
Meanwhile, the organization that Hayden helped found in the 1960s, 
Students for a Democratic Society, is springing up again on college 
campuses.
Over the past four decades, Hayden has gone from outside agitator to 
Democratic Party insider. He served in the California state Legislature 
for 18 years and has been a delegate to national Democratic conventions 
six times.
Stovall has also become a party activist. She's been to four 
conventions, and she'll be in Denver as a delegate for Barack Obama. 
It's kind of silly, she says, to try to keep protesters away from the 
delegates, many of whom have put in time on picket lines and marches 
just like she has.
"A large percentage of those delegates have people out there who are 
rallying or protesting issues that they care about," Stovall says. "And 
as a matter of fact, as a delegate, I might get out there myself."






http://allafrica.com/stories/200809011201.html

Kenya: Parents to Foot Repair Bills At Riot-Hit Schools
31 August 2008

Nairobi — Parents of schools that were rocked by strikes last term are 
expected to shoulder an extra-burden of paying for damages caused by 
their children.
Over 300 schools were affected by the strikes during which students 
destroyed property worth millions of shillings.
In Murang'a District, students suspected of having masterminded the 
violence have been suspended, while some of the headteachers have been 
transferred.
Muranga North District education officer Kaugi Micheni said that some of 
the cases are being investigated by police, but most of them were 
addressed by the board of governors during the holidays.
"Some of the headteachers who may have caused the riots due to 
administrative issues have been transferred, and we expect some more 
transfers when investigations are over," said Mr Micheni.
Burnt down
At Wahundura Secondary School, where a dormitory valued at Sh800,000 was 
burnt down, each students will pay Sh4,072 for the damages.
The parents met over the weekend and agreed to increase the amount to 
build a modern dormitory at a cost of Sh1 million in place of the one 
burnt down, said the school principal Michael Kinyua.
At a Mananga Secondary parents' meeting, it was agreed that only those 
involved in the destruction would foot the repair bill of Sh113,200, 
said the school head Chege Kariuki.
In Nyeri, parents from Wamagana Girls Secondary School will budget for 
an extra Sh3,000 for the damages caused by their children when they went 
on the rampage last term.
The principal, Beatrice Maina, said the students are expected to pay for 
the damages when they report back to the school this week.
In Meru, the management of Gikumene Girls has asked the more than 600 
students at the school to pay Sh2,500 each.
Form Two and Three students at Abothuguchi are expected to pay Sh3,000 
each before being allowed back in school.
At Timbila Secondary School in Coast, where students burnt down a 
laboratory worth Sh3.7 million, parents will pay Sh9,000 each for 
rebuilding and equipping it.
At Godoma Secondary School, where two dormitories were razed, parents 
will pay Sh6,000 each for the damages.
In Homa Bay and Suba districts, several secondary schools have already 
held board meetings and arrived at a fee that each parent is expected to 
part with before their children are readmitted.
In Suba, the principal of Lambwe Mixed Secondary School, Ben Opar, said 
the students caused damages of over Sh1.5 million. He said each student 
will have to pay over Sh3,500 for repairs.
The chairman of the National Parents Association Nyanza branch Mr 
Jackson Ogweno claimed that some of the costs for repairs have been 
exaggerated.
Reported by Waikwa Maina, John Njagi, Charles Wanyoro, Mwakera Mwajefa, 
Walker Mwandoto, Walter Menya, Cosmas Butunyi and Maurice K'Aluoch
(Daily Nation)







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Born to be wild, Indonesians hit the road for Eid

Agence France Presse - September 29, 2008

Presi Mandari, Jakarta -- With their daughter
perched at the front of the motorbike and their son
squashed between them, Purwanto and his wife set
off from Jakarta for the 15-hour overnight ride
home for their holidays.

It's the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan
and millions of Indonesians pack their children --
and whatever else they can -- onto their
motorcycles and hit the road to spend the Eid al-
Fitr holidays in their home villages.

Long journeys along dangerous roads in stifling
heat and dust are no obstacle in a country where
about 70 million people earn less than two dollars
a day and the price of a bus or train ticket is
just too much to bear.

"It's tiring but cheap," Purwanto told AFP as he
packed his Yamaha 225cc motorbike for the 560-
kilometre (350-mile) trip from the capital Jakarta,
where he works in a paper factory, to his hometown
of Madiun in East Java.

As the sun sinks into the smog over the traffic-
choked city, Purwanto's seven-year-old daughter
dons her oversized helmet and takes up the front
position on the seat between her father's legs.

Wrapped in a jacket to protect her from the wind,
she will bear the brunt of the grit and grime which
the road will throw up as the family drives through
the night to avoid the blazing tropical sun.

"The cost is very high if we take a bus. I have to
buy four tickets that will cost me 800,000 rupiah
(85.60 dollars). With a motorcycle, I only spend
about 90,000 rupiah on fuel," Purwanto explained.

Bus and train fares sometimes double or even triple
ahead of Eid al-Fitr due to demand, and the crowds
are horrendous.

"Another benefit is that we can visit relatives in
the village with the motorcycle. That also saves me
money," added Purwanto, who earns a little more
than three dollars a day in the paper mill.

Millions of people in the world's most populous
Muslim country have taken advantage of cheap credit
in recent years to buy motorcycles for the first
time.

Transport ministry figures show that the number of
Indonesians driving motorcycles home for Eid has
more than tripled over the past five years.

"We recorded 2.1 million motorcycles leaving
Jakarta and its surrounding areas last year and we
predict that will increase to 2.5 million this
year," transport official Ahmad Wahyudi said.

Hundreds of people will never make it home.
According to police figures, three-quarters of the
789 people killed in road accidents in Indonesia
last Eid were riding motorcycles.

National police traffic director Yudi Sushariyanto
said the scooter-style motorcycles favoured by
Indonesian workers were not designed for long
journeys and were no match for the buses and trucks
on the nation's highways.

"It's their right to ride motorcycles, we can't ban
them from doing so. We only give them some
recommendations for safe riding," he said, adding
that driver fatigue on long journeys was a major
cause of fatal accidents.

Father-of-two Firdaus said his wife left him no
choice but to pack his family on his 125cc Honda
scooter for the 12-hour Eid odyssey from south
Jakarta to her home village near Palembang on
Sumatra island -- even when his youngest son was
only three months old.

"We don't have any choice. Everything is expensive
and it's a must for my wife to spend Lebaran (Eid)
with her family," said the 34-year-old Jakarta
native who works with a cleaning service.

"Thank God everything has gone well. My baby was so
quiet during the journey last year, he only cried
when the heat was intolerable. My kids have never
been sick because of the long journey."

 From south Jakarta, Firdaus first drives two-and-a-
half hours to the westernmost part of Java island,
where the family boards a ferry across the Sunda
Strait to the southern part of Sumatra. They then
continue for another seven hours to his wife's
family home.

Purwanto said he understood the risks of the long
road trip, but he felt they were worth taking to
give his children time with their grandparents.

"I never drive at high speed and I'm always extra
careful. I usually stop every three hours for a
break," he said. "I realise that it won't be easy
for my children but we have to go home to see my
parents and relatives. It's only once a year."

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