Maryam Hassan, founder of JFAC stated “we call upon the UN to instigate a full investigation into the disappearance of Suleman Siddiqui, the youngest child of Aafia Siddiqui. Suleman was last seen when only six months old, when apprehended along with his mother and siblings in Karachi in March 2003. Whilst his elder siblings were eventually recovered, after seven years Suleman’s fate remains unknown, with horrific rumours in circulation that he may have been killed in US custody.”

What we can say with certainty is that Suleman has been unjustifiably and forcibly separated from his family and denied any normal semblance of childhood. Since infancy he has been deprived of his basic rights, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; amazingly ratified by all governments save the U.S.A. His disappearance is in violation of International Law and has been the cause of acute suffering to his family.

We therefore urge the governments of the US, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to immediately disclose any information in its possession regarding the whereabouts and welfare of Suleman Siddiqui. Many months ago President Karzai pledged the return of Aafia Siddiqui’s children. Today, we ask President Karzai to fulfil that promise: If Suleman is alive he must be released and returned to Dr. Siddiqui’s family in Pakistan immediately. If not, as reports disturbingly suggest, there must be a prompt and independent investigation into his death and those responsible held to account.”

Aafia Siddiqui maintains that she was abducted by the Pakistani and US agents along with her three children in 2003 and taken to Afghanistan where she was detained by American forces at a secret prison at Bagram airbase for over five years. Aafia Siddiqui claims she was abused and tortured throughout her detention. Aafia Siddiqui was convicted in the US in February of this year in what was a grave miscarriage of justice for allegedly firing on US soldiers while in custody.

Aafia Siddiqui’s son Ahmed was released in September 2008 from Afghan custody, and her daughter Maryam mysteriously reappeared in Pakistan in April 2010 following years in Us custody in Afghanistan. Further details of the strange and shocking case of case of Aafia Siddiqui and her children, here

]]> http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/06/01/where-is-suleman-siddiqui/feed/ http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/05/31/more-israeli-piracy-and-war-crimes/ http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/05/31/more-israeli-piracy-and-war-crimes/#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 11:24:22 +0000 nigel http://www.paxmundi.info/?p=576 Last night, Armed Israeli Pirates attacked and boarded the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara , the lead ship in a convoy of six vessels carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza while they were still in international waters, 75 miles off the coast of Israel, in direct violation of international law.

The Israeli Pirates began shooting at the unarmed civilian passengers who were asleep on the deck, they continued firing long after the captain had hoisted a white flag indicating that the ships crew and passengers were not offering any resistance to Israel’s high seas piracy.

Al Jazeera reporter Jamal Elshayyal who was on board the Mavi Marmara sent this report before communications were cut by the israeli military, watch the video here

The convoy of six ships left international waters off the coast of Cyprus on yesterday and was expected to arrive in Gaza later on today.

The Israel military had said it would stop the boats, calling the Free Gaza humanitarian aid campaign a “provocation intended to delegitimise Israel”.

Since 2007 the state of Israel with the aid of the Government of Egypt has imposed a total blockade on the borders of the Palestinian tterritory of of Gaza which is causing immense suffering and hardship.

While the Israel says it allows about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week because of the Israeli imposed delays in transit much of these goods are spoiled and rotted by the time they reach Gaza and even UN says this is less than a quarter of what is needed.

As usual the Rogue terrorist Israeli state Armed forces blame their victims stating that when their soldiers boarded they were met with resistance, one of whom grabbed a soldier’s gun, Israeli military spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Leibovich stated ironically “The people on the boats were very, very violent toward the soldiers.”

Many of of the civilians on board the boats were Turkish citizens and the Government of Turkey has said it “strongly condemn these inhumane practices of Israel, the Israeli ambassador was been summoned to the Turkish foreign ministry and in Istanbul overnight protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate, in a similar move the Greek Government met last night in emergency session to respond to the incidents and the Israeli Ambassador was summoned to explain his Governments actions

The coalition of Free Gaza Movement, European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, IHH Insan Yardim Vak the Perdana Global Peace Organisation , Ship to Gaza Greece, Ship to Gaza Sweden, and the International Committee to Lift the Siege on Gaza appeal to the international community to demand that Israel stop their brutal attack on civilians delivering vitally needed aid to the imprisoned Palestinians of Gaza and permit the ships to continue on their way.

I am hoping that in the future the organisers will make hard copies of audio and video recordings of all sessions available on the internet, ideally with English translations in Ogg theora file format and released under a creative commons licence on Wikipedia’s new open media website.

I am a regular listener to the ‘Democracy Now’ war and peace report, usually at breakfast time, I listen to the dulcit tones of ‘Democracy Now’ host the delightful Amy Goodman with my coffee and toast.

All last week ‘Democracy Now’ reported live on location directly from World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth, the daily reports featured so many interesting interviews and discussions during the summit.

Hugo Chavez, President of the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic, was straight to the point when he addressed the summit, stating “We will not submit to the hegemony of the imperial Yankees. You can even write it down. If the hegemony of capitalism continues on this planet, human life will one day come to an end. For those of you who believe that’s an exaggeration, one must remember this: the planet lived for millions of years without the human species.”

Ricardo Patiño, the foreign minister of Ecuador told the summit that the US had cut two-and-a-half million dollars to Ecuador because Ecuador like Bolivia did not sign onto the Copenhagen Accord. He said he would give two-and-a-half million dollars to the United States if they signed onto the Kyoto Protocol.

Capitalism was one of the most widely used word at the conference, mentioned over two dozen times by President Evo Morales in his many speeches mother earth—or Pachamama, as she is known in ‘Abya Yala.’

“Planeta o muerte!” chanted Morales, when he addressed the inauguration ceremony. “We can follow only one of two roads: That of Pachamama, and the other, the road of capitalism.”

Among the Quechua and Aymara indigenous peoples, Pachamama is a concept much richer than our Western definition of nature. She’s a deity that cares for the soil and everything that grows on it or lives in it.

Pachamama is the Mother of the Earth, or Mother of the Universe, it is the traditional belief of people of the Andes, worship of Pachamama survives strongly and now under the Bolivian Constitution worship of Pachamam is legally recognized as equal to Christian belief

Pachamama which is the symbol of fertility and reciprocity, those who care for her get to harvest her fruits; those who don’t, face disease and natural disasters.

During Amy Goodmanś interview with Evo Morales, President of the Plurinational state of Bolivia, Amy asked Evo “Do you see a change between President Bush and President Obama?” and Evo sharply replied “If something is changed, it’s just the color of the president that’s changed.”

Talking bitterly about President Obama to Amy Goodman Evo Morales said “I Can’t Believe a Black President Can Hold So Much Vengeance Against an Indian President”

Later during an interview with Maude Barlow who heads the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy group and founder of the Blue Planet Project, Amy said “The British environment secretary Greg Clark called President Morales’s form of activism “watermelon environmentalism.”

In fact along with most of the international media Amy misreportedthe current status of Greg lake, he is currently the Centre Right, Conservative, opposition party Shadow Environment Secretary who is actually aspiring to be the Environment Secretary if his party is victorious in the current British Parliamentary elections on Thursday 6^th May

Muade Barlow’s response to Amy Goodmans question was that she understood that “watermelon environmentalism.” meant Green on the outside and red on the inside” and that it was “insulting.”

In fact the phrase “watermelon environmentalism.” is not original, it has been well used by right wing Republican critics in the United Staes by about Democratic environmentalists and politicians

“watermelon environmentalism.” was one of the phrases used by Republicans about Barack Obama’s special adviser for green jobs Van Jones whom the Republicans forced to resign following a negative press campaign.

The phrase was originally coined by right wing economist Walter E. Williams who once called “watermelon environmentalism.” The green movement, Williams argued, was socialism in disguise: green on the outside, red on the inside.

The “watermelon” phrase was used by Glenn Beck on his Fox News show when he sarcastically asked Phil Kerpen, the director of policy for Americans for Prosperity, who replied “I love watermelon,” “I think this is a watermelon bill,” said Beck, “I think you’re exactly right,” said Kerpen. “This bill is green on the outside, the thinnest green on the outside. And inside, it’s deep communist red.”

In the United States due to their history of cold war propaganda scare stories, it maybe considered insulting to suggest that a politician is a socialist or even a communist, but in the wider world, particularly in much of Latin America now it is not an insult but a compliment to be called a socialist or a communist.

The interesting thing from the British perspective was that Greg lake was widely misreported by the international press as the British Environment Minister, a mistake which was repeated by Democracy Now.

what I found particularly difficult to understand was what had motivated Greg lake the Conservative Partyś environment spokesperson during an election campaign, to make these negtative comments about a foreign head of state who has been proactive on the issue of climate change by organising an international conference on the issue.

I can only surmise that these comments by Greg lake about Evo Morales were made with the express intention of gaining kudos from from the US Obama administration in order to strengthen the Conservative Party’s atlanticist credentials

I am quite sure that Evo Morales, will be able to laugh about these ridiculous comments which can be taken as a back handed compliment, for Evo, for whom Socialism is the alternative to the Capitalism system which is destroying our planet.

]]> http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/05/02/planet-or-death-vs-watermelon-environmentalism/feed/ http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/04/11/ahmad-maryam-and-suleman-bagrams-child-prisoners/ http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/04/11/ahmad-maryam-and-suleman-bagrams-child-prisoners/#comments Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:16:39 +0000 nigel http://www.paxmundi.info/?p=574 President Obama urgently needs to respond to recent developments in Pakistan relating to the missing children of jailed Pakistani national, Dr. Aafia Siddiqi, specifically, we need to know what US records reveal about the whereabouts of Dr. Aafia Siddiqi and her children between 2003 and 2008?

A week ago unidentified men on Sunday brought a 12-year-old girl to the home Dr. Fauzia Siddiqi in Karachi claiming that she is Maryam Khan the daughter of Dr. Aafia Siddiqi.

Aafia Siddiqui’s lawyers maintain that she was abducted by the Pakistani and US agents along with her three children in 2003 and rendered to Afghanistan where she was detained by American forces for over five years. Siddiqui claims she was abused, raped and tortured throughout her detention.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on yesterday that a DNA test has now positively proved that Maryam Khan Dr. Fauzia Siddiqi in Karachi is the biological daughter of Aafia Siddiqui’s former husband, Dr Amjad Khan.

Talking to reporters after meeting Dr Aafia’s sister Dr Fauzia, Rehman Malik said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani who is already on a US visit will hold negotiations for the repatriation Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan. Aafia Siddiqui was convicted by a US court in February of firing on US soldiers while in their custody in Afghanistan.

A report by Pakistan’s National Forensic Science Agency’s states that “The DNA profile obtained from blood samples of Maryam Khan alias Fatima, Ahmad Muhammad, her brother, share the STR Genetic Markers with the DNA profile obtained from blood sample of Dr Amjad Khan. Based on the DNA analysis, Dr Amjad cannot be excluded as the biological father of Maryam alias Fatima.”

Senator Talha Mehmood Chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Standing Committee on Interior informed press yesterday that Maryam who calls herself ‘Fatima’ and speaks only English and Farsi was recovered from the Bagram airbase where she was found with an American only as ‘John’,

Senator Talha Mahmood said that Maryam, four years old at the time of her abduction, was held in a ‘cold, dark room’ in Bagram for the past seven years, he called upon Pakistan’s Prime Minister Gilani to take up Dr Aafia’s issue when he meets the US President Obama to secure her release and bring back to Pakistan.

Maryam Hassan founder of the Justice for Aafia Coalition recently commented “After years of repeated denials, claiming ignorance of the whereabouts of Aafia Siddiqui and her children, the US Government’s lies are finally unravelling, yet many troubling questions remain unanswered.

Whilst overjoyed that Maryam has finally been released and reunited with Aafia’s family – and we pray that their independent verification of her identity confirms that of the government’s - we must still ask what has become of Aafia’s youngest child, Suleman, only six months old at the time of his abduction? For years there have been distressing rumours that Suleman had been killed in US custody and reports that Aafia was shown photos of the baby lying in a pool of blood. His welfare needs to be immediately disclosed.

That the media and international bodies can remain deafeningly silent when confronted with the case of a four year old child separated from her parents and held in inhumane conditions for seven years at the detention facility in Bagram, notorious for the torture and murder of detainees, is both outrageous and appalling. Seven years too many have passed and an independent inquiry into the circumstances of their disappearance, detention and alleged torture is long overdue and now a matter of urgency. Those responsible must be held to account.”

Information about the case of Aafia Siddiqui and her children available here.

The Popular Committee, the villagers and its international and Israeli supporters challenge this decision by fiercely exercising its right to demonstrate in spite of the Israeli Occupation Army’s regulations.

The demonstration on Friday commemorated Land Day, which took place on March 30th. It is an annual day for Palestinians to remember the six Palestinians that were killed in 1976 during protest against Israel’s announcement to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for “security and settlement purposes”.

One of the speakers stressed the need to preserve the Palestinian land through cultivation, in hope to prevent it from being stolen by the Israeli State. Events of the past two months have shown Israel’s intention judaize Jerusalem and other holy Christian and Muslim sites.

The march raised Palestinian flags and echoed chants calling for national unity in the face of Israeli Apartheid schemes. Upon arrival at the Wall, the demonstrators were met with tear gas, concussion grenades and rubber bullets, causing dozens to suffer tear gas inhalation.

Read more about the resistance struggle in Bil’in here.

Here in the USA, millions of people are continuously losing their jobs and not finding new ones, millions more are losing their homes, still more millions are in prison for nothing more than self-medicating with drugs that arbitrarily happen to be illegal and will be discriminated against as felons for years to come. Tens of thousands are being shot to death every year, there are massacres happening somewhere in the country every other week or so, our Democrat-controlled government has just passed a health care “reform” that is being praised by the corporations who bought the government in the first place, we continue to spend as much on the military as the entire rest of the world combined, and our military is actively employed killing people in at least four different countries while threatening to expand that number. The oil industry is making good on their investments in the Congress and expanding off-shore drilling for the first time in twenty years, while the nuclear industry is getting a great bang for their Democratic buck and now has the chance to build new nuclear reactors for the first time in the US in three decades.

Those of us who have woken up from our Obama-induced trance state or never got hypnotized in the first place (because we’re too busy being bombed by drones, for example) are feeling frustrated. Some of us, certainly, are venting that frustration in various constructive ways, but by and large that old “silent majority” is being pretty silent. As I travel around the country doing concerts people earnestly, often a bit desperately, wonder aloud to me, what’s it going to take to get people really riled up and ready to do something about this situation? How much greater must the divide between the rich and poor grow? How many more ecological disasters? How much more climate change? How many more dead Muslims? Etc. People start feeling bad about their fellow Americans – are they just sheep after all?

Backing up a moment, the fact that people are asking the question “where are my fellow outraged citizens” tells me that one important thing is already understood, at least by most people who come to my shows – that mass movements of outraged citizens (and other people) is what’s needed in order for real change to have a chance to occur. So then the question is, what are the conditions that need to exist for this movement to coalesce? If the situation is so bad for so many why is so little happening in reaction?

This is, of course, one of those perennial questions that everyone who yearns for a sane society is trying to answer. If there were a clear recipe, if it were like baking a loaf of bread or something that would be nice, but it’s somewhat more complicated. If there’s one thing I think many people need to understand – and there are probably many things, but if there’s one thing that seems most relevant in what I get out of these conversations I’m having with people all over the place, it is this: sustained mass movements rarely happen unless many of the participants believe they might win.

It seems especially worth noting given that in hindsight everything is a bit less volatile – what’s happened has happened. When you’re there, making history, everything is much less predictable. The rebels in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 knew they were merely choosing the time and place of their deaths, and they referred to each other as “the walking dead.” They are the exception, however, not the rule – most rebellions take place in an atmosphere not just of need but of hope. The tens of thousands who went to Spain in the 1930’s were not just planning to become martyrs. They were risking their lives, yes, but they thought that if enough of them joined in, and perhaps if France or Britain helped out a little (they didn’t), they could defeat fascism in Spain. As for the thousands of brigadistaswho came from Germany and Italy, why did they not launch a rebellion against fascism in Germany or Italy in 1936 rather than going to Spain to fight German and Italian troops there? Because they thought in Spain they might win, and they had already lost the fight in their home countries for the time being, most of their comrades by then already dead or in prison camps.

You can’t organize workers to go out on strike if they think they’ll inevitably lose their jobs and get blacklisted – people are generally willing to strike if they think there’s at least a decent chance that some of their grievances will be redressed. During the first two decades of the twentieth century there were millions of people involved with a militant labor movement that was ultimately crushed with the Palmer Raids and other events following World War I. During the 1930’s another massive wave of labor organizing, this time resulting in lasting reforms to the capitalist system. Why no huge strike wave in the 1920’s? Were conditions so good for workers then? No, there were other factors at play – among them the sense that victory was (or wasn’t) possible.

The many thousands of people who were participating in the movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989 were not planning on being massacred, they were planning on bringing lasting change in China. The millions who poured into the streets of Caracas after the coup against Chavez in Venezuela in 2002 were not planning on being massacred, either. They were planning on bringing about the return of their president this way – and they were successful. A year later millions of people pouring into the streets of every city and many small towns in the US and around the world hoped through these demonstrations they could affect Bush’s foreign policy. If they had known for sure before the fact how little impact this would have on the US government most of them would probably have stayed at home.

Of course there are innumerable other factors involved with movement-building – especially successful movement-building — aside from the existence of conditions people want to change and people having a feeling of optimism about changing those conditions. I’ll outline my take on some of those factors, for what it’s worth.

It seems to me the first thing people need is a sense of who is out there. A heck of a lot of people in this country live in suburbs where they don’t know their neighbors and their main contact with the world is what they see on TV, what they see out the window of their cars, and what they experience at either of their two jobs. These people and people around the country need to know that most of their fellow citizens are also unhappy with the status quo – according to mainstream poll after poll it is clear that most people think things like health care, housing and education should be government priorities rather than oil drilling and empire-building. Most people think action should be taken urgently to deal with climate change.

First and foremost it is a battle for the hearts and minds of the people. The ruling elite knows it, that’s why they’ve bought up most of the airwaves and won’t even let Al-Jazeera on cable here. Successful social movements have met this challenge in the past by creating their own media, running their own educational institutions, summer camps, theaters, etc. At the heart of successful social movements is a vibrant culture of resistance, complete with a more sensible historical narrative, a vision of a better society, and lots and lots of songs. There is a clear sense of a larger community of like-minded people and a sense of being part of a long and often successful history of social movements that have come before us.

The movements that tend to succeed are also broad-based, inclusive, and more or less democratically organized. There are commonly-held ideas about tactics and strategies. Tactics tend to be militant and may often be illegal, but are designed to build your support rather than to alienate your supporters.

Naturally, the ruling elite, their lackeys in Congress and the White House, bought and sold by the Fortune 500, will try to convince us that raising money for political campaigns and then voting in rigged elections is the way forward. (Either that or smashing the windows of your local Starbucks.) They won’t tell you that democracy doesn’t happen that way. Naturally, the ruling elite will have their own, much better-funded and far more ubiquitous institutions of learning, their media, their outlets of propaganda in Hollywood or Nashville.

But when people ask me whether I am hopeful in these dark times, my answer, unequivocally, is yes. Perhaps partially because I take a long view of history. But also because I am privy to a secret that is known well to the powers-that-be: for all the wealth and power of the corporate clique who are ruining the world for their private gain, they still require the consent of the governed. They will throw us crumbs while they rip us off and they will try to give us a false sense of security as we race headlong towards the proverbial wall. But, to use a dangerous word, there are basic truths on our side, and as someone said, ten minutes of truth can counteract 24 hours of lies.

We live in a corporate-run empire, not a democratic republic, and there is a mysterious thing that can happen when enough people who are being adversely affected by this fact understand it and realize that they’re not alone. I was interviewing veteran organizer Leslie Cagan for my internet radio show the other day, asking her about the police infiltrators constantly trying to create divisions within activist groups. “They’re just people,” she said. And just like us, they can make mistakes, and regularly do.

What I’m trying to say is, sure, always question tactics, strategies and visions. But whatever you do, ye fellow members of the choir, know your history and don’t give up. Know that as you’re apparently spinning your wheels, doing whatever things you do to try to organize, educate, agitate or otherwise work to build the infrastructure of a future democratic society, the darkest hour is often just before the dawn. At any moment, apparently quite suddenly, the spell can be broken, and things can shift. That another such moment is coming is certain. What we and our neighbors will do with it is the question.

David Rovics is a singer/songwriter who blogs here

FARC announced its intention to unilaterally release after Pablo Emilio Moncayo. Subsequently also indicated that another soldier Josué Daniel Calvo would be released and and that they would hand over the remains of Julián Guevara, who died in captivity in January 2006.

On Friday 26 March the armed group in a new communique announced that delivery of the remains of Guevara would not take place during the weekend as scheduled due to the activities of the Colombian army in the area. However, this Tuesday, when Moncayo was received in the forest for the humanitarian mission, it also obtained the coordinates for the FARC to search for the body’s largest.

In a statement, the FARC reported that the delivery will be made personally to the representative of Colombians for Peace, Senator Córdoba and Professor Moncayo, father of former retained Pablo Emilio Moncayo, in addition to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Church and also called on all countries interested in participating in resolving the armed conflict that has continued over 50 years in the Latin American nation of Colombia.

The FARC called on all countries interested in participating in resolving the armed conflict that has over 50 years in the South American nation and also called the Colombians organization for peace to continue joining forces to achieve the exchange POW.

Last Friday, the rebel group had delayed the delivery of the remains of Guevara as agreed from April last year due to military operations that occupy the area where they are.

In a statement sent by the rebel group to the site Anncol (Colombia News Agency) had reaffirmed its decision “irrevocable” after releasing Pablo Emilio Moncayo and Pfc Joshua Calvo, however, delivery of the remains of Guevara will be postponed.

The FARC urged at that time to the administration of President Álvaro Uribe that no further obstacles in the release process initially announced in April last year, when the government brought the conditions that gave the process more dilatory for their achievement .

This is a the FARC statement in full:

1.The FARC-EP to the delight of Colombians, especially for family members have complied with your word in early 2009, unilaterally release the prisoners of war out Pablo Emilio Moncayo and the professional soldier Joshua Daniel Calvo as the delivery of the remains of Captain Guevara, which for now shall not deliver to the mother, Mrs. Empress of Guevara.

2.This fact should have been given ten months ago, but the continued manufacture of artificial pretexts by the Uribe administration, obsessed by a foolish and deadly military rescue prolonged and unjustified so torturous delivery.

3.La delivery is made personally to Senator Córdoba representative of Colombians for Peace and Professor Moncayo who will be accompanied by humanitarian International Committee of Red Cross and the Church.

4.With this unilateral gesture, the FARC-EP believe that the way is cleared for the immediate exchange of prisoners of war as the only viable way so that, without affecting the physical integrity back to the freedom of prisoners who are in the jungle as well as the guerrillas imprisoned in the dungeons of Colombia and the United States.

5.Hacemos call on all countries interested in a political solution to Colombia’s social and armed conflict, as did both men and women for Peace to add up wills and concentric direct their efforts towards achieving the exchange of prisoners of war.

FARC-EP 6.The thank you once again for its repeated logistical support to the Brazilian people and its president Luis Ignacio Lula, without whose help would have been impossible to carry out this humanitarian endeavor, thanks also to the pilots for their expertise and professionalism .

Secretariat of EMC.

Mountains of Colombia

March 30, 2010

teleSUR / dag - IM - MM - FC

Aafia has become a ’cause celebre’ in Pakistan since the travesty of justice during a political show trial in the US where she was charged and convicted of attempting to kill FBI Officers and Us military personnel during a bizarre incident in Ghazni in Afghanistan where Aafia was the only one who got shot.

There have been several mass demonstrations in Pakistans main cities, her case is supported by many public figures and political parties who charge the US with kidnapping Aafia and her three children from Pakistan in 2003 and torturing her in Bagram Prison until 2008 when she mysteriously appeared in Ghazni carrying incriminating evidence along with her son Ahmed.

An interview by Kamran Shahid on Pakistan’s Front Line TV show which was recently shown on 26th March, included a studio interview with Aafia’s sister Fowzia, her mothert Ismat and British Journalist Yvonne Ridley who was the first person to publicise the secret and illegal detention of Aafia by the United States Government agencies.

Siddiqui’s mother and sister described publicly for the first time the various forms of torture she underwent at the hands of US agents. This included being:

Forcefully stripped by six men, and repeatedly sexually abused

Beaten with rifle butts until she bled

Bound to a bed, with her hands and feet tied whilst unspecified forms of torture were administered to the soles of her feet and head

Injected with unknown substances

Dragged by her hair

Having her hairs pulled out one by one

Forced to walk on the Qu’ran which had been desecrated in her cell whilst naked

Maryam Hassan, founder of the Justice for Aafia Coalition commented: “These most recent horrific revelations shine a light for the first time on years of detention shrouded until now in darkness and mystery. Forced nudity, violent sexual abuse, the desecration of the Qu’ran, video-taped torture sessions have become infamous hallmarks of US detention since the start of the War on Terror, from Bagram to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

The Obama administration must immediately disclose any video evidence in its possession relating to Ms Siddiqui’s detention and torture. The American public has a right to know what is being carried out in its name as much as the Pakistani public are deserving of knowing the horrendous abuse one of their citizens has been subjected to. “

The Justice for Aafia Coalition is an umbrella body for a number of organizations, groups, and activists created in February 2010 to campaign for the release and return of Aafia Siddiqui and for the opening of a full investigation into the circumstances of her detention and the whereabouts of her children.

Aafia Siddiqui’s lawyers maintain that she was abducted by the Pakistani and US agents along with her three children in 2003 and rendered to Afghanistan where she was detained by American forces for over five years. Siddiqui claims she was abused, raped and tortured throughout her detention. She was convicted in February 2010 of allegedly firing on US soldiers while in custody in what appears to have been a grave miscarriage of justice. Whilst her son Ahmed was released in September 2008 from Afghan custody, two of her children remain unaccounted for to date. For full details of Aafia Siddiqui’s case, please visit www.justiceforaafia.org

Aafia’s detention in Bagram Prison as prisoner 650 has been well documented and verified by other former detainees from Bagram prison. In 2005 four arab detainees of Bagaram escaped and while on run they gave interview to a tv Channel Al Arabia about their escape and also revealed that there is Pakistani woman detainee  and her screams prompted them to go for a hunger strike for 9 days, to pressurize US soldiers, to end torturing her. Moazem Begg a British former detainee of Guantanamo who was also held in Bagram prison has attested that he regularly heard a woman known as prisoner 650 screaming.

It was after hearing Moazem’s testimony about the woman prisoner 650 screaming in Bagram prison that Yvonne Ridley investigated the matter and discovered that the identity of the mysteriouys prisoner 650 was Aafia who had been kidnapped.

The Front Line TV show also featured investigative film footage from Ghazni which was produced by Yvonne Ridley and a televised interview from Pakistan with Aafia’s eldest son who has since been repatriated to Pakistan, during the interview Ahmed said - @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>”I want to say why have they imprisoned her and why did they imprison me?” Ahmed sent a personal message to his mother saying “I love you and I am waiting for you and you come back soon, if Allah permitslove you and I am waiting for you and you come back soon, if Allah permits.”

The fate of Aafia’s two other children Maryam aged 14 and Suleman aged 8, it is believed that if they are still alive they are in Afghanistan, Rehman Mailk Pakistans’s Interior minister has already made representation to Afghan President Karzai to have Aafia’s two children returned to Pakistan.

Read a transcript of the full interview, translated into English here.

View the video recording of the interview in Urdu here.

]]> http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/03/30/aafia-siddiqui-tortured-in-bagram/feed/ http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/03/21/afghan-war-fuels-opium-boom/ http://www.paxmundi.info/2010/03/21/afghan-war-fuels-opium-boom/#comments Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:04:10 +0000 nigel http://www.paxmundi.info/?p=568 by John Jiggens

It was common during the opening of the Iraq war to see slogans proclaiming “No blood for oil!” The cover story for the war — Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s links with Al Qaeda and his weapons of mass destruction — were obvious mass deceptions, hiding a far less palatable imperial agenda.

The truth was that Iraq was a major producer of oil and, in our age, oil is the most strategic resource of all.

The war’s real agenda was confirmed by moves to privatise Iraq’s state-owned oil company to Western interests in the aftermath of the invasion.

Why then, are there no slogans saying “No blood for opium”?

Afghanistan’s major product is opium and opium production has increased remarkably during the present war. The current NATO military offensive around Marjah in Hemand province, reported to be Afghanistan’s main opium-producing area, is clearly motivated by opium.

Why then won’t people consider that a hidden agenda for the Afghan war has been control of the opium trade?

The weapons of mass deception tell us that the opium belongs to the Taliban and the US is fighting a “war on drugs” as well as terror.

Yet it remains a curious fact that the opium trade has tracked across southern Asia for the past five decades from east to west, following US wars and always under the control of US assets.

In the 1960s, when the US fought a secret war in Laos using the Hmong opium army of Vang Pao as its proxy, south-east Asia produced 70% of the world’s illicit opium.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, opium production in areas of Afghanistan controlled by US-backed drug lords took off until it rivalled Southeast Asian production.

Since 2002, Afghan opium production, encouraged by both the Taliban and US-backed drug lords, has reached 93% of world illicit production, an unparalleled performance.

The 2008 United Nations World Drug Report showed the astonishing increase in Afghan opium production that followed the US invasion. In 2001, Afghanistan’s share of global illicit opium production was 185 metric tons out of the global total of 1630 metric tons.

By 2007, this had skyrocketed to more than 8200 metric tons of the nearly 8870 metric ton global total.

In the 1980s, the US supported Islamic fundamentalists, the Mujahideen, against the Soviets in Afghanistan. To pay for their war, the Mujahideen ordered peasants to grow opium.

Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates, under the protection of Pakistani intelligence, operated hundreds of heroin labs.

As the Golden Crescent in south-west Asia eclipsed the Golden Triangle in south-east Asia as the centre of the heroin trade, it sent rates of addiction spiralling in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the former Soviet Union.

To hide US complicity in the drug trade, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officers were required to look away from the drug-dealing intrigues of US allies — and the support they received from Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) and the services of Pakistani banks.

The CIA’s mission was to destabilise the Soviet Union through the promotion of militant Islam inside the central Asian republics and the drug war was sacrificed to fight the Cold War.

Their mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. Knowing the drug war would hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIA facilitated the operation of anti-Soviet rebels in the provinces of Uzbekistan, Chechnya and Georgia.

Drugs were used to finance terrorism and western intelligence agencies used their control of drugs to influence political factions in central Asia.

The Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, leaving a civil war between the US-funded Mujahideen and the Soviet-supported government that raged until 1992.

In the chaos that followed the Mujahideen victory, Afghanistan lapsed into a period of warlordism in which opium growing thrived.

The Taliban emerged from the chaos, dedicated to removing the warlords and applying a strict interpretation of Sharia law.

They captured Kandahar in 1994 and expanded their control throughout Afghanistan. They captured Kabul in 1996, declaring the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Under the Taliban government, opium production in Afghanistan was curbed. In September 1999, the Taliban authorities issued a decree, requiring all opium-growers in Afghanistan to reduce output by one-third.

A second decree, issued in July 2000, required farmers to completely stop opium cultivation. Taliban leader Mullah Omar called the drug trade “un-Islamic”.

As a result, 2001 was the worst year for global opium production in the period between 1990 and 2007. During the 1990s, global opium production averaged above 4000 tonnes. In 2001, opium production fell to less than half this amount.

Although not admitted by the then-Howard government, which claimed the credit for itself, Australia’s 2001 heroin shortage was due to the Taliban.

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, the armies of the Northern Alliance — led by US Special Forces and supported by daisy cutters, cluster bombs and bunker-busting missiles — shattered the Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

The opium ban was lifted and, with CIA-backed warlords back in control, Afghanistan again became the major producer of opium.

Despite official denials, former US National Security Council official for Afghanistan Hillary Mann Leverett confirmed the US knew that government ministers in Afghanistan, including the minister of defence in 2002, were involved in drug trafficking.

After 2002, Afghan opium production rose to unheard of levels.

Thomas Schweich, who served as US state department co-ordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform for Afghanistan, accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of impeding the war on drugs.

Schweich also accused the Pentagon of obstructing attempts to get military forces to assist and protect opium crop eradication drives.

Schweich wrote in the July 27, 2008 New York Times that “narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government”.

He said Karzai was reluctant to move against big drug lords in his political power base in the south, where most of the country’s opium and heroin is produced.

The most prominent of these suspected drug lords was Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was said to have orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August 2009.

US officials have criticised Ahmed Wali Karzai’s “mafia-like” control of southern Afghanistan.

An October 28, 2009 NYT article reported the Obama administration had vowed to crack down on the drug lords who permeate the highest levels of Karzai’s administration. US pressed Karzai to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, but he refused to do so.

Scheich wrote: “Karzai was playing us like a fiddle.

“The US would spend billions of dollars on infrastructure development; the US and its allies would fight the Taliban; Karzai’s friends could get richer off the drug trade.

“Karzai had Taliban enemies who profited from drugs but he had even more supporters who did.”

But who was playing who like a fiddle? The puppet president or the puppet masters who installed him?

In his 2009 history of the “war on drugs”, The Strength of the Pack, Douglas Valentine showed this never ending war has been a phony contest, an arm wrestle between two arms of the US state, the DEA and the CIA.

While the DEA has vainly attempted to prosecute the war, the CIA has protected its drug-dealing assets.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, European powers (chiefly Britain) and Japan used the opium trade to weaken and subjugate China.

During the 21st century, it seems that the opium weapon is being used against Iran, Russia and the former Soviet republics, which all face spiralling rates of addiction and covert US penetration as the Afghan war fuels central Asia’s heroin plague.

[Dr John Jiggens is a writer and journalist who has published several books including The Incredible Exploding Man; Marijuana Australiana; The Sydney Connection and The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay. Along with Matt Mawson, Anne Jones and Damien Ledwich, he edited The Best of The Cane Toad Times.]

Reproduced from Green Left Weekly

Can you describe what happened at the summit that took place February 21–23 in Cancún, Mexico, with the creation of a new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States?

In Cancún, all of the Latin American nations agreed to build a new organization that would begin a process of integration of Latin America and the Caribbean, without the United States and Canada. This is really a very important achievement because it means that Latin America is no longer the backyard of the United States. You must remember the Monroe Doctrine, which said, “What is good for America is good for Latin America.” So, now we are seeing a change in Latin America, saying “What is good for Latin America is what we Latin Americans think is good.” That is the big message, and the big accomplishment. Now we must see it as a process. It’s not something that’s going to be accomplished in one year. No, it’s going to be a process. It will take time, and there will be a lot of contradictions. It’s not going to be easy. But the first step has been taken.

How do you see this Community existing alongside the other regional bodies, like the Organization of American States (OAS), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA)?

For the OAS, it’s a really great challenge. In the future, this integration of Latin America and the Caribbean will be in place in reality; then, the power of the OAS and the United States in the region will decrease. In the case of UNASUR, it is the other way around. For example, in UNASUR, we already have a treaty that establishes UNASUR, and one of our main goals as UNASUR is to build this process of integration. When we agreed to create the UNASUR, we always said that this was a step in order to accomplish the big process of integration. So, there is no contradiction. There is only a process of how you begin to build it. When it comes to ALBA, it is a process of political alliance. The countries are there not because of geographical circumstances, but because they are anti-neoliberal. That is the main reason. ALBA works inside the OAS. ALBA works inside the UNASUR, with the countries that are part of South America. ALBA will work inside this new broader alliance. What’s good about this broader alliance is that all members of ALBA are part of it.

What has been the vision of the ALBA?

ALBA has changed in the process; that is my personal point of view. At the beginning, it was something against the process of the Free Trade Area of the Americas [FTAA]. At the beginning, it was a way to respond to what the FTAA was. Then the FTAA really died in Mar del Plata, but ALBA continued to exist and grow, because Evo Morales came into the government, and then we have the cases of Ecuador, Nicaragua, Dominica, and so on. Now you have an ALBA point of reference for several issues, not only regional issues that have to do with cooperation or trade, but also global concerns like climate change. So ALBA is an alliance. The name has changed, from “Alternative” to “Alliance.” They have the same initials, but now there has been a change. We realized that now we were developing something different.

What have been the major advances of the ALBA?

The major advance has been to unify, to articulate and to coordinate the policies of progressive, anti-neoliberal governments. Then you have cooperation, solidarity, and fair trade between states.

And how has it affected Bolivia?

In many ways, but the main way is political. To be part of a broader political alliance—in a world that is globalized and dominated by the United States, especially in our region—is to have space around you, political space. And then, of course, Venezuela has participated very strongly when it comes to cooperation and trade in the cases of the importation of diesel or the export of textiles. [Bolivia’s] trade preferences with the United States were lost, and if we hadn’t had another market to sell those textiles, around 10,000 jobs would directly have been lost, and probably 20,000 to 25,000 jobs would have been indirectly lost. The possibility of maintaining that market, but redirecting it to Venezuela, and to grow in textile exports, has allowed us to not only keep those jobs, but to begin to create new jobs and new companies which have more participation by small producers. That is one of the main accomplishments.

Shifting to the crisis in Honduras with the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya, what should the international community do about Honduras now, in terms of recognition of the new government?

The position of Bolivia is that we cannot recognize it, because to recognize it would mean that, in the end, we accept that a coup d’état is something that you can allow – if after that coup d’état the putschists call an election. That is not acceptable. Our position is that we do not recognize the government. They have violated the Democracy Charter of the OAS. That is the charter that the United States promoted, but now they do not want to respect it when it comes to Honduras.

What was the role of the United States in how events unfolded?

The United States has one of its main military bases in Honduras, so it is impossible to have a coup d’état in Honduras without the United States knowing in advance. Second, the United States did not act as it would have acted in other cases. They did not block the government of Micheletti. They were obliged to agree to expel Honduras from the OAS, but in reality, they worked to have a way out so that those who committed the violation were not sanctioned by the international community. And that is what we are seeing now. This sends a really bad message to the opposition to progressive governments in Latin America, because they can say: “Hey, we can do what we did in Honduras. We can lead a coup d’état, and we’ll be criticized; maybe we’ll be isolated in some way. But in the end, look what has happened: You can manage to move on.”

On the domestic front, now that the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) has secured a strong majority in the Legislative Assembly, what will be at the top of its political agenda?

We have a new Constitution, but in order to implement it, we need a lot of new laws—laws that have to do with judicial power, the environment, land, international relations, foreign investment. The second issue is that we need to industrialize the country, which imports most of what it consumes other than food. Third, we need to provide access to all public services to the whole population. It is not enough to say that access to water is a human right. You have to guarantee electricity; you have to guarantee telecommunications; you have to guarantee mobility—things that, now in Bolivia, are not yet solved.

You mentioned industrialization. What are the roles for both the private sector, including international capital and foreign governments, like that of Venezuela, in Bolivia’s industrialization strategies?

First of all, we encourage associations between states that have the purpose of solidarity, and in which that investment does not just exploit raw materials but transforms them and adds value inside the country. In some cases, we can do this in association with other states, but in other cases, we need foreign investment. The issue is the rules under which we are going to allow this foreign investment—how much they are going to leave for the country, how much they are going to have as profit, who is going to own it, the transfer of technology, the transformation of raw materials inside the country. Those are the key issues that Bolivia has synthesized into the words “When it comes to foreign investment, we don’t want bosses; we want partners.” If they can accept that rule, they are welcome. We will no longer accept the relations that we had before.

Lastly, can you describe what you see as the most important forms of popular participation that exist in Bolivia today?

The most important is the participation of social movements. If we weaken the organization of social movements, the process in Bolivia can go backward. The second mechanism is the referendum. This is the first government in the history of Bolivia that has had so many referendums. So, direct referendums are very important. Another is to now have people elect judges of the Supreme Court. And the proposal to have a worldwide referendum on climate change goes even beyond what we had hoped in terms of participation.

Jason Tockman is a Research Associate with NACLA, the North American Congress on Latin America.

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