Starting Points: protests

Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts

Jan 9, 2010

New Afghan Cabinet Picks Still Generate Resistance

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai made a second effort to fill his cabinet on Saturday, nominating 16 new ministers a week after Parliament had rejected most of his first choices.

But several Parliament members said they were as unimpressed by the new slate, which included many political unknowns, as they were with the first one. Their displeasure could prolong the stalemate that has left Afghanistan without a fully functional government since the widely criticized presidential election last summer.

Also on Saturday, Afghan officials signed an agreement that will allow the American military to begin the process of transferring responsibility for the notorious prison at Bagram Air Base to Afghan control.

When Parliament rejected 17 of Mr. Karzai’s first batch of 24 nominees, the move was hailed by some analysts as a sign of the legislature’s newfound independence.

The legislators asked that Mr. Karzai choose more technocrats who had expertise in the work of the ministries they were nominated to lead.

The new slate includes a number of highly educated nominees and three women, an increase over the first list and a point praised by several Parliament members. But they said the new list still depended too heavily on political ties to Mr. Karzai and not enough on competence.

“This is the same as the previous list,” said Mir Ahmed Joyenda, an independent Parliament member from Kabul, whose views echoed those of several Parliament members interviewed. “It is like a limited company and those people who have supported Mr. Karzai, they each have a share.

“They introduced new names, maybe they have higher education, but are not known to the people and do not have expertise in their ministries,” he said.

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Another Parliament member, Daoud Sultanzoi from Ghazni, a predominantly Pashtun area, also cited a lack of substantive expertise. “In Afghanistan we need more than political confidants in these jobs, we need people who can build those ministries.”

He cited Mr. Karzai’s nominee for transportation minister, who he said was a hydroelectric engineer. “This is a ministry where we cannot afford to lose time,” he said. “We’re losing a lot of revenue in that ministry, aviation is a shambles, road transport is a shambles, so we need someone who can do that job, who knows about those specific areas.”

In contrast, the main Uzbek party, Junbish-e-Milli, which is allied with the former commander Abdul Rashid Dostum, said it was satisfied with the new list and hoped that it would be approved.

“All the tribes living in Afghanistan can see their presence in this list,” said Sayed Noorullah Sadat, a leader of Mr. Dostum’s party.

“We are happy with the ethnic distribution of posts; however, we were happy with the previous cabinet as well, but unfortunately they couldn’t get the vote of confidence,” he said.

Two Hazara members of Parliament agreed that the ethnic mix was representative, but that many of the nominees were unknown. “Still they are better than the old portraits who now hold the posts,” said Abbas Nooyan from Kabul.

The agreement on Bagram, signed by the Afghan ministries of Defense and Justice, clears the way for the American military to begin a program of training and preparation for the Afghans to take charge of the prison, which houses more than 700 detainees captured by the American military.

Initially, the Defense Ministry will run the center, but it will eventually be handed over to the Justice Ministry, which oversees jails and prisons, said Col. Stephen Clutter, the spokesman for American detainee operations in Afghanistan.

The prison was notorious for its conditions in the early years of the war, with hundreds of detainees held in cages and subjected to abuse and harsh conditions. A new prison was opened two months ago, improving conditions, although detainees there still have no right to a lawyer and can be held indefinitely without charge.

Three NATO service members were killed in the last two days, according to a NATO spokesman. One, who had been wounded by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, died Saturday. The other two died Friday, one when he was struck by a bomb in southern Afghanistan and the other from injuries from a vehicle accident.

In Herat, insurgents attacked a building on Saturday that was recently acquired by the United States government as a consular office. They fired at least one rocket that damaged the third floor.

A major raid by NATO troops in a rural district of Kandahar Province captured more than three tons of illegal drugs in a truck, including more than 5,300 pounds of processed opium, more than 1,000 pounds of wet opium paste and about 50 pounds of heroin, according to a NATO spokesman in Kabul.

Dec 28, 2009

Iraqi Shiites protest Maliki's government

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By Qais Mizher
Monday, December 28, 2009; A09

KARBALA, IRAQ -- A group of 5,000 Iraqi Shiite demonstrators in the city of Karbala turned the religious observance of Ashura into a political protest against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday, expressing wide-ranging criticisms as the country prepares for a critical national election in early March.

The protesters gathered outside the Imam Hussein shrine to greet the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who had descended on the city. "We don't vote for people who steal public money," the protesters shouted.

The anti-government overtones surrounding the religious holiday, banned under Saddam Hussein's regime, were a marked change from recent years.

After the U.S. invasion, the day had been embraced by the country's Shiite majority as a moment to express solidarity in their newfound political power and long-frustrated religious freedom.

This year, Ashura fell at the beginning of the campaign season for the March 7 national election, which is to decide the face of the Iraqi government during and after the U.S. withdrawal. Tens of thousands of Iraqi security forces were deployed on the streets to prevent possible violence that would further weaken the credibility of Maliki's government, which has been severely tested by a string of deadly bombings.

On Saturday in Baghdad, Shiite leader Amar al-Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, offered thinly veiled criticisms of the government during a speech commemorating Ashura, comparing what he claimed were the struggles of Imam Hussein's fight against corruption to the present day.

Ashura is the day of mourning for Imam Hussein, the Shiite saint whose death in the 7th century sealed the rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims over the succession of the prophet Muhammad.

"We can see that history is repeating itself. We can see the political money, temptations and seductions," Hakim said at the Kihlani mosque in central Baghdad. "Iraqi people don't want the promises to disappear after the elections. People will not obey any extortions."

The political potential of Ashura was exactly why Saddam Hussein had so feared it, according to Shakir al-Najjar, a 70-year-old poet who helped organize the protests in Karbala.

"We had believed that Maliki's government and most of the politicians were a part of us, and we used to support them, especially after they executed Saddam," he said. "But finally we discovered that they don't represent us, so we decided to protest against them for the first time on Ashura this year."

In Baghdad on Sunday, tens of thousands of pilgrims marched toward the al-Kadihmiyia mosque, braving the threat of bombings and violence, and shedding their own blood with cuts on their foreheads to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein.

"The politicians want to associate themselves with such a great leader as Imam Hussein," said 29-year-old shopkeeper Bajir Hassan.

Red Crescent tents were set up to deal with pilgrims who had passed out from loss of blood and dehydration.

Although Shiite pilgrims had been the target of multiple attacks over the past week, there was only one major bombing on Sunday, in Kirkuk, killing four pilgrims and injuring 18, according to police officials.

Mizher is a special correspondent. Special correspondent Michael Hastings contributed to this report.

Dec 22, 2009

Cleric’s Funeral Becomes Protest of Iran Leaders

Image by Gary Burge via Flickr

By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The funeral of a prominent dissident cleric in the holy Iranian city of Qum turned into a huge and furious antigovernment rally on Monday, raising the possibility that the cleric’s death could serve as a catalyst for an opposition movement that has been locked in a stalemate with the authorities.

As mourners carried the body of the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, tens of thousands of his supporters surged through the streets of Qum, chanting denunciations of the leadership in Tehran that would have been unthinkable only months ago: “Our shame, our shame, our idiot leader!” and “Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!”

Although the police mostly stayed clear during the funeral procession, some skirmishes broke out between protesters and members of the hard-line Basij militia. As the mourners dispersed, security forces flooded the streets, blocking all roads around the ayatollah’s house, and some militia members tore down posters of him, witnesses said.

The funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri, who died in his sleep on Sunday at the age of 87, appears to have put Iran’s rulers in a difficult position. They had to pay public respect to a senior religious scholar who helped build Iran’s theocracy and was once the heir apparent to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Yet they are also keenly aware that his mourning rites could set off further protests, especially as Iranians commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, on the Ashura holiday this Sunday.

More broadly, the continuing protests underscore a deadlock between the opposition and the government, which wants to avoid the cycle of martyrdom and mourning for dead protesters that helped create Iran’s revolution, analysts say.

“The demonstrators can’t dislodge the government, and so far they have not been able to build a broader national movement,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But the government is also stuck: they don’t want to shoot people or move to a broader crackdown, so they’re left hoping this all fizzles out.”

If the protests become larger or more violent in the next week, he added, the government may well take a more aggressive and riskier approach, arresting opposition leaders like Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

Both Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi were in Qum for the funeral, and as Mr. Moussavi was returning to Tehran a group of Basij members on motorbikes repeatedly cut off his car and then attacked it, according to the Rahe Sabz Web site. The attackers smashed one of the car’s rear windows, injuring one of Mr. Moussavi’s bodyguards and provoking a fight with other guards. Mr. Moussavi was not hurt, the Web site said.

The government made some conciliatory gestures Monday, including a respectful statement of condolence from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that was read aloud at the funeral. The statement hailed him as a “well-versed jurist and a prominent master” and said “many disciples have benefited greatly from him,” according to state-run Press TV.

But the statement also described Ayatollah Montazeri’s break with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 as a mistake. That line provoked jeers and shouts of “Death to the dictator!” — shouts that were audible in video posted on the Internet. In one clip, protesters could be seen shaking their fists and chanting, “We don’t want rationed condolences!”

“Words cannot describe the glory of the funeral,” said Ahmad Montazeri, the ayatollah’s son, in a telephone interview on Monday night. But he added that 200 to 300 Basij members had partly disrupted the ceremony, and that by evening Basij members and security forces had filled the streets and occupied the grand mosque of Qum, preventing the family from holding a planned mourning ceremony there.

The government jammed phones and Internet service through much of the day, and the BBC’s Persian service, a crucial source of information for many Iranians, suspended broadcasts, saying the government had been jamming it since Ayatollah Montazeri’s death on Sunday.

There were also protests in Najafabad, Ayatollah Montazeri’s birthplace. Videos posted on the Internet showed large crowds of people chanting “Dictator, dictator, Montazeri is alive!” and “Oh, Montazeri, your path will be followed even if the dictator shoots us all!” Banners in the bright green color of the opposition movement were visible.

The protests in Najafabad, which began Sunday, were apparently set off in part by disrespectful reports about Ayatollah Montazeri’s death on right-wing news sites, including Fars News, which initially referred to him without the title “ayatollah.”

Iran’s hard-liners have long spoken dismissively of Ayatollah Montazeri, who was under house arrest from 1997 to 2003 for his antigovernment critiques. In the months since June’s disputed presidential election, he had unleashed a series of extraordinary denunciations of the government crackdown on protesters, declaring that the government was neither democratic nor Islamic and that Ayatollah Khamenei was unfit to be the supreme leader. He also dismissed the results of the election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won officially by a landslide, as fraudulent, echoing the claims of opposition leaders.

Ayatollah Montazeri’s criticisms carried a special weight because of his status as Iran’s most senior cleric. And despite the fact that many younger opposition supporters are generally hostile to clerics, his advocacy was meaningful to them.

“It was important that the most senior cleric, politically and religiously, came out and supported the people,” said Mohsen Kadivar, a former student of Ayatollah Montazeri who is now a visiting scholar at York University in Toronto.

Ayatollah Montazeri’s defense of Iran’s opposition also helped to unite its religious and secular wings, some analysts say. And he may turn out to be more influential in death than he was in life.

“His death has become a pretext for the movement to expand,” said Fatimeh Haghighhatjoo, a former member of Iran’s Parliament who is now a visiting scholar at Boston University. “He was the only cleric who gave up power and supported human rights, the characteristic that earned him respect from various political factions.”

Robert F. Worth reported from Beirut, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto.

Oct 13, 2009

Iranian Journalists Flee, Fearing Retribution for Covering Protests - NYTimes.com

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By NAZILA FATHI

TORONTO — For two months Ehsan Maleki traveled around Iran with a backpack containing his cameras, a few pieces of clothing and his laptop computer, taking pictures of the reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi during the presidential campaign. He did not know that his backpack and his cameras would soon become his only possessions, or that he would be forced to crawl out of the country hiding in a herd of sheep.

Mr. Maleki, 29, is one of dozens of reporters, photographers and bloggers who have either fled Iran or are trying to flee in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that promotes press freedom and monitors the safety of journalists, said the number of journalists leaving Iran was the largest since the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The wave of departures reflects the journalists’ anxiety over the retribution many of them have faced for reporting on the government’s violent suppression of the post-election protests. As bloody clashes unfolded in the streets of Tehran, the government went to great lengths to restrict the flow of information to the outside world. Foreign journalists were banned, and local reporters and photographers were warned to stay at home.

A number of Iranian journalists defied those orders, disseminating information in phone interviews, on Internet sites and through pictures sent to photo agencies. Now, they say, they are paying the price.

Many journalists in Tehran, including a Newsweek reporter, Maziar Bahari, who is also an independent filmmaker, were among the hundreds of Iranians arrested and jailed. Some are defendants in the mass trials the government is conducting. The wife of one journalist, Ahmad Zeidabadi, said he had been tortured while in prison.

The editors of some opposition blogs, which reported the killings and the mass burial of protesters, have gone into hiding, and their whereabouts are not clear. The homes of some journalists, like Mr. Maleki, have been ransacked.

Mahmoud Shamsolvaezin, a veteran journalist and media expert in Tehran, estimated that 2,000 Iranian journalists had lost their jobs recently. He said about 400 of them had approached him for reference letters so they could get work abroad. “Journalists are leaving more than other groups because the government has closed newspapers and it has intimidated and terrorized them,” he said in an interview.

The government, which has closed at least six newspapers in the past three months, has accused the media of lying about the protests. Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the media a major weapon, “worse than nuclear weapons,” in the hands of Western countries, according to the Fars news agency. Almost all news agencies in Iran are affiliated with the government and rely on it for financing. The state news agencies IRNA and Fars are run by arms of the government.

Mr. Maleki was covering a demonstration on June 20 when he and dozens of protesters were chased by members of the Basij paramilitary force. They fled to an apartment building, where Mr. Maleki had enough time to hide his camera inside a chimney before members of the militia arrested them. He was jailed with hundreds of others for a day. Without his camera, authorities could not identify him as a photographer, but they recorded his national identity number.

Mr. Maleki never went home. A few days later a neighbor told him that his house had been ransacked and that his computer and personal documents, including his passport, had been taken. “They found out that I was sending pictures to Sipa,” he said, referring to an international photo agency.

He said he slept in a different place every night and continued to take photos of the protests, but finally decided it was too risky to stay. He paid $150 to a smuggler who drove him to Kheneryeh, near the border with Turkey and Iraq. Accompanied by a Kurdish guide, he crawled among a large herd of sheep for half an hour until they crossed the Iranian border and reached a steep cliff.

“It took us seven hours to climb down and reach a road in northern Iraq,” he said in a telephone interview from Iraq. He would not disclose which city he was in for security reasons.

The journalists leaving Iran come from a range of news organizations, not just those sympathetic to the opposition. A Web site supportive of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Parcham.ir, reported last week that two journalists for state-run television had defected to Italy and Britain. At least two photographers who worked for Fars have also left. Among the journalists who have left is this reporter, who covered the election and subsequent protests before leaving Iran in early July because she felt her safety was threatened.

The exact number of journalists who have left is not clear. Some worry that their families could be harassed if the government learns they are gone. Others are reluctant to reveal their locations in neighboring countries like Turkey and Iraq, fearing that government agents might find them and return them to Iran. Reza Moghimi, a photographer who worked for Fars, acknowledged that he became emotionally invested in the protests.

“The protesters were young, just like me,” Mr. Moghimi, 24, said in a telephone interview from Turkey. “It was impossible to be indifferent. I felt it was my duty to take pictures and reflect their voices abroad.”

With the camera given to him by Fars he began taking pictures every day. He said one of his pictures appeared on the cover of Time magazine anonymously, but he never told anyone he had taken it.

Mr. Moghimi said his fear increased after he saw a former colleague, Majid Saeedi, who was jailed for a month. Mr. Moghimi said he looked terrorized.

A few days later the director of Fars delivered a stern warning. “We have learned two of our photographers have been taking pictures secretly and sending them to foreign media,” he said. “We are just waiting for more information and will confront them soon.”

Mr. Moghimi got on the first plane to Turkey the next day and has applied for asylum.

Oct 6, 2009

Honduran Security Forces Accused of Abuse - NYTimes.com

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By ELISABETH MALKIN

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Rosamaria Valeriano Flores was returning home from a visit to a public health clinic and found herself in a crowd of people dispersing from a demonstration in support of the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya. As she crossed the central square of the Honduran capital, a group of soldiers and police officers pushed her to the ground and beat her with their truncheons.

She said the men kicked out most of her top teeth, broke her ribs and split open her head. “A policeman spit in my face and said, ‘You will die,’ ” she said, adding that the attack stopped when a police officer shouted at the men that they would kill her.

Ms. Valeriano, 39, was sitting in the office of a Tegucigalpa human rights group last week, speaking about the assault, which took place on Aug. 12. As she told her story, mumbling to hide her missing teeth, she pointed to a scar on her scalp and to her still-sore left ribs.

Since Mr. Zelaya was removed in a June 28 coup, security forces have tried to halt opposition with beatings and mass arrests, human rights groups say. Eleven people have been killed since the coup, according to the Committee for Families of the Disappeared and Detainees in Honduras, or Cofadeh.

The number of violations and their intensity has increased since Mr. Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras two weeks ago, taking refuge at the Brazilian Embassy, human rights groups say.

The groups describe an atmosphere of growing impunity, one in which security forces act unhindered by legal constraints. Their free hand had been strengthened by an emergency decree allowing the police to detain anyone suspected of posing a threat.

“In the 1980s, there were political assassinations, torture and disappearances,” said Bertha Oliva, Cofadeh’s general coordinator, in an interview last week, recalling the political repression of the country’s so-called dirty war. “They were selective and hidden. But now there is massive repression and defiance of the whole world. They do it in broad daylight, without any scruples, with nothing to stop them.”

Amid the crackdown, a delegation of foreign ministers from the Organization of American States is scheduled to arrive in the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Wednesday in an attempt to restart negotiations between representatives for Mr. Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president.

In advance of the meeting, Mr. Micheletti lifted the decree Monday.

The abuses could have a chilling effect on presidential elections scheduled for Nov. 29. The de facto government and its supporters argue that the elections will close the chapter on the coup and its aftermath, but the United Nations, the United States and other governments have said that they will not recognize the vote if it is conducted under the current conditions.

“Elections are a risk because people won’t vote,” said Javier Acevedo, a lawyer with the Center for Research and the Promotion of Human Rights in Tegucigalpa. “The soldiers and police at the polls will be the same ones as those who have been carrying out the repression.”

Investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights visited in August, and found a pattern of disproportionate force, arbitrary detentions and control of information.

The group asked the de facto government to provide protective measures for dozens of politicians, union leaders, teachers, human rights workers and journalists who say they have been followed and threatened.

The de facto government responded that strong measures were needed against Mr. Zelaya’s supporters, whom they described as vandals, a point backed up by government television advertisements showing burning buses and street barricades. Some of the demonstrations have turned violent as some of Mr. Zelaya’s supporters have smashed storefronts and burned tires at street barricades. The government says that three people have been killed since the coup.

Mr. Micheletti has said the investigators from the Inter-American Commission were biased, noting that its president, Luz Patricia Mejía, is Venezuelan. Much of Honduras’s political and economic elite feared that Mr. Zelaya was trying to copy Venezuela’s brand of socialism as he moved toward an alliance with that nation’s president, Hugo Chávez.

The Honduran government’s human rights institutions have failed to respond to the violations with any vigor, advocates say.

The human rights prosecutor, Sandra Ponce, is on vacation, according to news reports. Ramón Custodio, the government human rights commissioner who fought repression in the 1980s, has generally supported the coup, although he has criticized some actions of the de facto government.

Groups that were vulnerable to human rights abuses before the coup face even more risk now. Since the coup, for example, there have been six murders of gay men or transvestites, according to gay rights groups. Until 2008, the average number of such killings each year was three to six.

The day after Mr. Zelaya returned, the police broke up a demonstration by his supporters outside the Brazilian Embassy with tear gas. As people were fleeing, security forces tear-gassed the Cofadeh office, just blocks away. The action, Ms. Oliva believes, was aimed at preventing Cofadeh lawyers from intervening by taking testimony or seeking the release of people who were detained.

Since Mr. Zelaya’s return, security forces also have been rumbling through poor neighborhoods that are the base of his support. “They are going into neighborhoods in a way to intimidate people,” said Mr. Acevedo, the lawyer. In that time, the center has documented an increasing level of violence. Investigators have seen more than two dozen people with bullet wounds in hospitals, and some detainees have had their hands broken and have been burned with cigarettes, he said.

While the police and soldiers are looking for the activists who have been organizing resistance, the sweep seems to pick up anyone who gets in their way.

Yulian Lobo said her husband was arrested in the neighborhood of Villa Olímpica and accused of having a grenade. “It came out of nowhere,” she said, adding that her husband, a driver, had not been to pro-Zelaya marches.

Lesbia Marisol Flores, 38, is a resistance activist, but when the police beat her up, she was waiting at a bus stop after attending the wake of a 24-year-old woman who died after she was tear-gassed outside the Brazilian Embassy on Sept. 22.

“There were eight policemen and their faces were all covered,” she said, adding that they had selected her at random from the group at the bus stop. “There was no motive. It is their hobby now.”

Elisabeth Malkin reported from Tegucigalpa last week and added updated information from Mexico City.

Sep 26, 2009

VOA - Burma Embassy Protesters Mark 2nd Anniversary of Military Crackdown

By Daniel Schearf
Bangkok
26 September 2009

Demonstrators enact a mock beating during a demonstration outside the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, 26 Sep 2009

Protesters have demonstrated in front of the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok to mark the second anniversary of the military crackdown on Buddhist monk-led calls for democracy.

About 30 protesters, including Buddhist monks, chant slogans outside the gates of the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok.

The demonstrators wear red bandanas and hold posters calling for democracy and the release of political prisoners.

Several wear T-shirts with photos of detained Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The monks also pray for peace in Burma.

They are marking two years since Burma's military government violently put down a Buddhist monk-led democracy movement, killing at least 31 people.

A few demonstrators are dressed as soldiers and pretend to beat the protesters with rolled up newspapers.

Ashin Teza is with the All Burma Monks Alliance, one of the groups organizing the protest. He says the military crackdown was also an attack on religious freedom.

"The military dictatorship, military regime, slandered veneration and the people's religion rights," said Ashin Teza.

Burma's military government arrested hundreds of people who took part in the 2007 calls for democracy including Buddhist monks.

The movement became known as the "Saffron Revolution" named after the robes worn by the monks.

Human Rights Watch said in a report this week that about 240 Buddhist monks are still imprisoned in Burma while thousands have been forcibly disrobed or are under constant government surveillance.

Burma's military government is suffering economic and diplomatic sanctions from the United States for locking up dissidents and refusing to allow for democracy.

But, this week the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said while keeping sanctions in place Washington would begin engaging with Burma's rulers.

Ashin Teza said the All Burma Monks Alliance did not support the dialogue.

"We don't dare to believe U.N. and United States because now they call to military government to come to their country," he said. "That is not suitable for our country, also our people."

However, the Burmese government in exile and detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi say they support Washington's move to engage the military government.

Aung San Suu Kyi has also written a letter to Burma's top military commander General Than Shwe saying she was prepared to work with him towards ending the economic sanctions.

But, they say the United States must also meet with opposition parties and stay firm on demands that political prisoners be released and democracy returned to Burma.

Sep 21, 2009

The World and Pittsburgh - Nation

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September 16, 2009

Perhaps it's time to update the slogan that evolved from the 1999 Seattle protests against corporate globalization: "Another World Is Possible." One year into a financial crisis that has seen governments--especially that of the United States--emerge as guarantors against risk for investors while remaining lax regulators of speculation and CEO greed, it has become all too evident that "Another World Is Necessary."

That slogan would sum up the urgency of the calls for change that will be sounded during the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, on September 24-25, of leaders of nineteen wealthy nations and the European Union. Presidents and prime ministers will arrive with a sense of that urgency; they know that Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is right when he says the world economy is "far from being out of the woods." But activists are determined to use Pittsburgh's streets, campuses, churches and union halls to demand a paradigm-shifting response to the crisis, one that recognizes that the neoliberal policies that got us into this mess are not going to get us out of it.

A muscular letter to President Obama--signed by more than fifty groups, including the Change to Win labor federation, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, USAction and religious groups--argues that "remedying the current crisis, avoiding future crises and achieving economic justice and stability will require a new approach to domestic and global economic governance." For instance, the letter notes, G-20 moves to establish new financial-sector regulation "must also include revisions to the WTO's 1999 Financial Service Agreement, which exports worldwide the extreme financial service deregulation that is a cause of this crisis." New, more robust approaches are also needed to stimulate economies, promote sustainable development, address poverty and tackle global warming.

The leaders of the world's largest economies have failed to address the pathologies created by deregulation that rewards banksters and burdens consumers; free trade that favors multinational corporations over workers and communities; and gradualist responses to extreme poverty and climate change. Frustration with these failures was summed up by United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard when he declared that "right now [the G-20] stands for chaos, and it stands for economic destruction." Steelworkers, headquartered in Pittsburgh, will host pre-summit forums, rallies and concerts highlighting anger at failed economic policies and (with the Alliance for Climate Protection, activist State Senator Jim Ferlo and possibly Al Gore) the need for government investment in green jobs.

Obama's pre-summit rhetoric was appealing, especially his idea that the Pittsburgh gathering can launch a "global race to the top" to replace the race-to-the-bottom policies that have so widened the gap between rich and poor. But Stiglitz observes that "the administration seems very reluctant to do what is necessary" to regulate "too big to fail" banks and corporations. Indeed, within the G-20, Germany and France have far more aggressively pushed proposals to regulate CEO compensation and require greater corporate responsibility. Differences between European and American business models certainly underpin some of the transatlantic wrangling. Still, it's remarkable that it is French President Nicolas Sarkozy--no lefty--who promises a walkout in Pittsburgh if there is no agreement to curb bankers' bonuses. He says he'll fight to get world leaders to explore alternatives to the "cult of the market," including creating indexes of well-being and of the "quality of public service."

Demands for a leap from the rhetoric of change to the reality are generating street heat, which is being turned up by global justice groups, the United Electrical Workers Union and community organizations ranging from the Thomas Merton Center to 3 Rivers Climate Convergence. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and his aides, in their determination to promote their city as a global economic center, have imposed restrictions on dissent so wide-ranging that peace activist Cecilia Wheeler had to remind an early September city council meeting, "We are not terrorists.... We're the good apples here. We want [global leaders] to see overall that this is a small town with values, that welcomes everyone, that discriminates against no one."

Roughly 4,000 police and new rules to detain protesters have not made dissenters feel welcome. So many requests for permits to march, rally and set up camps in city parks have been stalled or denied that on September 11 the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed suit alleging that city, state and federal authorities had conspired to deny the demonstrators' free-speech rights by keeping them out of earshot of the G-20 summiteers. "All we are asking for is a safe place near the convention center so that the leaders inside can hear the people's voices," says Pete Shell, an antiwar organizer with the Merton Center.

Actually, activists are asking for a lot more. And rightly so. Changes in global governance that shake the grip of bankers and CEOs, even changes in the way leaders think about global governance, don't begin inside the cloistered gatherings of the G-20 or the WTO. They take shape outside, in the streets, where the victims of the race to the bottom have a right and a responsibility to declare that Another World Is Necessary.

About John Nichols

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written The Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.

Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.

Sep 7, 2009

South Africa’s Poor Demand Basic Services - NYTimes.com

By BARRY BEARAK

SIYATHEMBA, South Africa — This country’s rituals of protest most often call for the burning of tires, the barricading of streets and the throwing of rocks. So when the municipal mayor here went to address the crowd after three days of such agitation, the police thought it best to take him into the stadium in a blast-resistant armored vehicle.

Chastened by the continuing turmoil, the mayor, Mabalane Tsotetsi, known as Lefty, penitently explained that all of the protesters’ complaints would be given his full attention. But by then official promises were a deflated currency, and rocks and bottles were again flying as he retreated.

The reasons for this community’s wrath — unleashed first in late July and again briefly a month later — were ruefully familiar to many South Africans. “Water, electricity, unemployment: nothing has gotten better,” said Lifu Nhlapo, 26, a leader of the protests here in Siyathemba, a township 50 miles east of Johannesburg. “We feel an anger, and when we are ignored, what else is there to do but take to the streets?”

Civil unrest among this nation’s poor has recently gotten worldwide attention, and is often portrayed as unhappiness with South Africa’s new president, Jacob Zuma. Actually, these so-called service delivery protests have gone on with regularity for a long time. They vary in intensity — mild, medium and hot — and their frequency seems to rise and fall without a predictable pattern.

Oddly enough, the protests can be seen as a measure of progress as well as frustration. Since the arrival of democracy 15 years ago, the percentages of households with access to piped water, a flush toilet or a connection to the power grid have notably increased. Those people left waiting are often angry, and so far their ire has not usually been directed at the president — who has been able to use the protests to his political advantage — but at municipal officials they consider uncaring, incompetent and corrupt.

“No one wants to be worse off than their neighbor,” said Kevin Allan, managing director of Municipal IQ, a company that monitors the performance of local government. “People get impatient.”

The places most ripe for unrest are neither the poorest communities nor those with the longest backlog in setting up services, he said. Most commonly, the protests are rooted in informal settlements that have sprung up near urban areas, where the poor who do not receive government services rub up against the poor who do.

Whatever the causes for the protests, the governing African National Congress appears to take them quite seriously. Party leaders have been dispatched to hot spots, where they usually end up investigating their fellow party members. Local government, like national government, is largely dominated by the A.N.C.

In Siyathemba, the emissary from on high was Mr. Zuma himself. On the afternoon of Aug. 4, his helicopter set down on a rocky soccer field, with bodyguards and a BMW waiting. He eventually proceeded to the town of Balfour, the seat of municipal government. Mayor Tsotetsi, at home at the time, rushed back to the office to meet his unannounced visitor. Commentators had a good laugh about that, presuming the mayor a goldbrick who likes to knock off early.

“There is no place that will be hidden from me,” Mr. Zuma announced, leaving the impression he was now a sort of caped superhero who would pop up wherever malingerers were not earning their government paychecks.

Though the president also denounced lawbreaking by protesters, his visit seemed an endorsement to those here who had vented their anger. “Zuma agrees with us, that all these mayors and councilors who are not performing have to go,” said Zakhele Maya, 26, another leader of the demonstrations.

Siyathemba has a population of about 6,000 and an unemployment rate of 82 percent, more than triple the nation’s rate, according to official statistics. Most here live in shacks of corrugated metal, the roofs kept in place with strategically placed rocks. Many of the dwellings sag in the middle as if they were melting in the hot sun.

Clusters of shacks here look about the same, but some are settlements that have been “formalized,” which means that the hovels, however dilapidated, have electricity inside and a water tap and flush toilet nearby. Those people living in communities without this imprimatur must light their homes with kerosene or paraffin and wait in lines, pail in hand, at a single communal spigot.

“This is no way to live,” said Mercy Mbiza, 38. “We have to dig a pit for a toilet, and when it’s full, we dig another. They tell us we are on a waiting list to get services. Whether I will die first, I don’t know.”

Rumors — true or not — are dangerous combustibles in places like this. People are suspicious that money meant for them is being stolen or wasted by the big shots in Balfour. Some goings-on simply make no sense.

For instance, Arlene Moloi’s house has four pillars and a roof and only emptiness in between. The municipality paid someone to construct it in 1996, but the builder suddenly disappeared after starting the job.

“The officials tell me they are waiting for the same man to come back and finish,” said Ms. Moloi, a 54-year-old widow. “But it already has been 13 years.”

The Siyathemba protests began with a meeting of disgruntled young people, some of them members of political youth groups, others players on sports teams. They compiled a list of their many grievances. They wanted more water and electricity, yes. But they also wanted better roads, a local hospital and a police station. Beyond that, they wanted jobs.

This list of demands was left at the municipal hall in Balfour. “Some of these things — hospitals, police stations — these are matters to take up at the provincial level,” said the municipality’s spokesman, Mohlalefi Lebotha. “Where is the money for these things, not just to construct them but to sustain them?”

At first, Mr. Tsotetsi did not meet with the disgruntled. Nor did he call a special session of the municipal council as the protesters had demanded.

This slow, even indifferent response seemed to mock the petitioners’ seriousness. After a mass meeting on a Sunday, many protesters took to the streets. The police confronted them, relying on a rather indiscriminate spray of rubber bullets.

The crowd fought back, shouting “azikhwelwa,” meaning that everything must shut down: no one goes to work, no one attends school.

“People knew how to act from the days of the liberation struggle,” said Mr. Maya, the protest leader. “We sang the songs, telling those who are scared to step aside so the brave can move ahead and advance the struggle.

“In South Africa, the struggle is not yet over.”

Aug 17, 2009

China Villagers Storm Lead Plant

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

Hundreds of Chinese villagers have broken into a factory that poisoned more than 600 children, reports say.

Villagers tore down fencing and smashed coal trucks at the lead smelting factory in Shaanxi Province.

Local authorities have admitted that the plant is responsible for poisoning the children. More than 150 were in hospital.

Air, soil and water pollution is common in China, which has seen rapid economic growth over the past few decades.

Toxic metal

The villagers broke into the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company, near the city of Baoji in western Shaanxi on Monday, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

About 100 police officers were sent to the plant to restore order.

The villagers are angry because medical tests revealed that at least 600 children under 14 from two villages near the plant have excessive amounts of lead in their blood.

About a quarter of them were taken to hospital for treatment.

Environmental officials from Baoji city government admitted on Sunday that the plant was "mainly to blame" for the children's lead poisoning, according to Xinhua.

Checks found that water, soil and waste from the factory - a major local employer - all met national environmental standards.

But the lead content in the air around the factory was more than six times the level found a few hundred metres away.

The smelting plant has now been closed down.

Local officials had promised to relocate all residents living within a 500m ( 550 yard ) radius of the factory within three years of its opening, but that plan stalled.

Xinhua said only 156 families had been moved; three times that number are still waiting.

Villages are also worried that the new homes are still not far enough away from the plant to prevent their children from getting sick.

Lead is a toxic metal that can get into the air and water supplies.

It can cause a range of health problems, from learning disabilities to seizures. Children under six are most at risk.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8204689.stm

Published: 2009/08/17 08