Americas

400+ Arrested Outside US Capitol and White House

4/12/2016

Photo via Vice News

Via Lauren McCauly at Common Dreams, April 12th 2016 - Vowing that this is "just the beginning," more than 400 people were arrested on Monday for holding a massive sit-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., protesting the influence of Big Money on the political system.
The civil disobedience campaign known as Democracy Spring is in the midst of an unprecedented mobilization featuring marches, sit-ins, teach-ins, and rallies in the nation's capital, all aimed to pressure lawmakers to take a stand against the corrupt campaign finance system.
"Yesterday can be the beginning of the end of this corruption and inequality in our democracy," Kai Newkirk, campaign director for Democracy Spring, told Democracy Now! on Tuesday.
"We sent a message to Congress that we will not accept inaction to save our democracy. And we sent a message to everyone from for political office that you have to make a decision," added Newkirk, who was among those arrested.
"If you choose to defend the status quo of corruption, we believe there's going to be growing nonviolent resistance in the streets, at the Capitol, at your fundraisers, and in the polls, to say that we will not take it anymore. We demand an equal voice in our democracy and we are going to be back at the Capitol today, tomorrow, and the next day."
On Tuesday, organizers are holding a civil disobedience training session before they, once again, march from Union Station to the Capitol steps for another round of nonviolent sit-ins. The group will be joined by dozens of elder activists who say they want to leave future generations a working democracy.
The coalition, which includes members of over 100 pro-democracy, civil rights, environmental, and peace organizations, says that more than 3,700 people have pledged to risk arrest, which would make Democracy Spring "the largest American civil disobedience action in a generation."
Newkirk said that it took hours to process the nearly 500 arrests and that there will be even more people joining the sit-ins Tuesday. Activists were charged with "crowding, obstructing, and incommoding," according to a statement released by the U.S. Capitol Police.
Among those arrested on Monday were progressive leaders including Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, author and food justice activist Frances Moore Lappé, co-founder of CODEPINK Jodie Evans, and Umi Selah, human rights activist and founder of the Dream Defenders... Full Article Available via Common Dreams

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Torture Psychologists Sued by ACLU on Behalf of Torture Survivors

10/14/2015

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Lauren McCauly, Common Dreams - Oct. 14, 2015 - The two psychologists credited with creating the brutal, post-9/11 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture regime are being sued by three victims of their program on charges that include "human experimentation" and "war crimes."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday filed the suit against CIA contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, on behalf of torture survivors Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, who died of hypothermia in his cell as result of the torture he endured.
The suit, which is the first to rely on the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, charges Mitchell and Jessen under the Alien Tort Statute for "their commission of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes," all of which violate international law.
The pair, both former U.S. military psychologists, earned more than $80 million for "designing, implementing, and personally administering" the program, which employed "a pseudo-scientific theory of countering resistance that justified the use of torture," that was based on studies in which researchers "taught dogs 'helplessness' by subjecting them to uncontrollable pain," according to the suit.
"These psychologists devised and supervised an experiment to degrade human beings and break their bodies and minds," said Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "It was cruel and unethical, and it violated a prohibition against human experimentation that has been in place since World War II."
In a lengthy report, the ACLU describes each plaintiff's journey.
After being abducted by CIA and Kenyan agents in Somalia, Suleiman Abdullah, a newly wed fisherman from Tanzania, was subjected to "an incessant barrage of torture techniques," including being forced to listen to pounding music, doused with ice-cold water, beaten, hung from a metal rod, chained into stress positions "for days at a time," starved, and sleep deprived. This went on for over a month, and was continually interspersed with "terrifying interrogation sessions in which he was grilled about what he was doing in Somalia and the names of people, all but one of whom he’d never heard of."
Held for over five years without charge and moved numerous times, Abdullah was eventually sent home to Zanzibar "'with a document confirming he posed no threat to the United States." He continues to suffer from flashbacks, physical pain, and has "become a shell of himself."
Mohamed Ben Soud was captured in April 2003 during a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid on his home in Pakistan, where he and his wife moved after fleeing the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Ben Soud said that Mitchell even "supervised the proceedings" at one of his water torture sessions.
Describing Ben Soud's ordeal, the ACLU writes:
The course of Mohamed’s torture adhered closely to the “procedures” the CIA laid out in a 2004 memo to the Justice Department. Even before arriving at COBALT, [a CIA prison in Afghanistan] Mohamed was subjected to “conditioning” procedures designed to cause terror and vulnerability. He was rendered to COBALT hooded, handcuffed, and shackled. When he arrived, an American woman told him he was a prisoner of the CIA, that human rights ended on September 11, and that no laws applied in the prison.
Quickly, his torture escalated. For much of the next year, CIA personnel kept Mohamed naked and chained to the wall in one of three painful stress positions designed to keep him awake. He was held in complete isolation in a dungeon-like cell, starved, with no bed, blanket, or light. A bucket served as his toilet. Ear-splitting music pounded constantly. The stench was unbearable. He was kept naked for weeks. He wasn’t permitted to wash for five months.
According to the report, the torture regime designed and implemented by Mitchell and Jessen "ensnared at least 119 men, and killed at least one—a man named Gul Rahman who died in November 2002 of hypothermia after being tortured and left half naked, chained to the wall of a freezing-cold cell."
Gul’s family has never been formally notified of his death, nor has his body been returned to them for a dignified burial, the ACLU states. Further, no one has been held accountable for his murder. But the report notes, "An unnamed CIA officer who was trained by Jessen and who tortured Rahman up until the day before he was found dead, however, later received a $2,500 bonus for 'consistently superior work.'"
The ACLU charges that the theories devised by Mitchell and Jessen and employed by the CIA, "had never been scientifically tested because such trials would violate human experimentation bans established after Nazi experiments and atrocities during World War II." Yet, they were the basis of "some of the worst systematic brutality ever inflicted on detainees in modern American history."
Despite last year's release of the Senate Torture Report, the government has prosecuted only a handful of low-level soldiers and one CIA contractor for prisoner abuse. Meanwhile, the architects of the CIA’s torture program, which include Mitchell and Jessen, have escaped any form of accountability.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a statement saying they welcomed the federal lawsuit as "a landmark step toward accountability," and urged the U.S. Department to follow suit and criminally "investigate and prosecute all those responsible for torture, including health professionals."
In the wake of the Senate report, the group strongly criticized Mitchell and Jessen for betraying "the most fundamental duty of the healing professions."
In Tuesday's statement, Donna McKay, PHR’s executive director, said: "Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to 'do no harm,' but Mitchell and Jessen’s actions rank among the worst medical crimes in U.S. history."

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President Obama Apologizes for Bombing Nongovernmental Aid Group's Hospital

10/8/2015

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M. R. Bishop, World Report News - 08 October 2015

Yesterday President Barack Obama called Doctors Without Borders to apologize for bombing their hospital in Kunduz, northeast Afghanistan, which according to the medical group is the only hospital of its kind in the region and was responsible for treating thousands of patients in need of trauma and emergency care. The attack killed twelve doctors, ten patients, three children, and left tens of thousands of people who need immediate medical attention without anywhere to go. MSF (Doctors Without Borders) reports that the United States bombed their hospital for 90 minutes in fifteen minute intervals, using precision targeting specifically to destroy the trauma and emergency wards. There was no combat in or around the hospital prior to the bombing and there does not appear to be any reason for the targeting of the hospital. The United States continued to bomb the hospital for thirty minutes even after MSF called in to Coalition forces that a civilian hospital was being targeted. MSF is calling for a formal legal investigation into the incident as a war crime, but the United States is refusing to look into the event any further.

Fact Sheet from MSF:

October 07, 2015From 2:08 a.m. until 3:15 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was hit by a series of aerial bombing raids at approximately 15-minute intervals. The main hospital building, which housed the intensive care unit, emergency rooms, and physiotherapy ward, was hit with precision, repeatedly, during each aerial raid, while surrounding buildings were left mostly untouched.

Update, October 7, 2015"We received President Obama's apology today for the attack against our trauma hospital in Afghanistan. However, we reiterate our ask that the US government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened."

—Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF International President

The total number of people killed in the attack is 22, including 12 MSF staff members and 10 patients. Thirty-seven people were injured, including 19 members of the MSF team.
From September 28, when major fighting broke out in Kunduz city, until the time of the attack, MSF teams in Kunduz had treated 394 wounded people in the hospital.
When the aerial attack occurred, there were 105 patients in the hospital and more than 80 MSF international and Afghan staff present.
Our staff reported no armed combatants or fighting in the compoundprior to the airstrike.
MSF’s facility in Kunduz was a fully functioning hospital that was full of patients and MSF staff.
The attacks took place despite the fact that MSF had provided the GPS coordinates of the trauma hospital to Coalition and Afghan military and civilian officials as recently as Tuesday, 29 September. The attack continued for more than 30 minutes after we first informed US and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington that it was a hospital being hit.
In the aftermath of the attack, the MSF team desperately tried to move wounded and ill patients out of harm’s way, and tried to save the lives of wounded colleagues and patients after setting up a makeshift operating theatre in an undamaged room.
MSF’s hospital was the only facility of its kind in northeastern Afghanistan, providing free high level life- and limb-saving trauma care. In 2014, more than 22,000 patients received care at the hospital and more than 5900 surgeries were performed.

Slideshow: MSF's Work in Kunduz

The MSF hospital in Kunduz has been partially destroyed and is no longer operational. This leaves thousands of people without access to emergency medical care when they need it most.
We demand an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC.org) to establish the facts of this event. The IHFFC is not a UN body; it was created in 1991 by Additional Protocol 1, article 90 of the Geneva Conventions that govern the rules of war. The IHFFC is set up for precisely this purpose: to independently investigate violations of humanitarian law, such as attacks on hospitals, which are protected in conflict zones.
MSF started working in Afghanistan in 1980. In Kunduz, as in the rest of Afghanistan, Afghan and international staff work together to ensure the best quality of treatment. MSF supports the Ministry of Public Health in Ahmad Shah Baba hospital in eastern Kabul; Dasht-e-Barchi maternity center in western Kabul; and Boost hospital in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province. In Khost, in the east of the country, MSF operates a maternity hospital.
As in all its projects, MSF doctors treat people according to their medical needs and do not make distinctions based on a patient’s ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliation.
MSF relies only on private funding, and does not accept money from any government, for its work in Afghanistan.

Via MSF -
Emergency surgery and medical activities continued in one of the remaining parts of MSF's hospital in Kunduz in the immediate aftermath of the bombing yesterday morning. “Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body," says Christopher Stokes, General Director, Médecins Sans Frontières. "Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient. Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the MSF hospital compound prior to the US airstrike on Saturday morning. The hospital was full of MSF staff, patients and their caretakers.

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The Terms of Colombia's Peace Agreement

10/7/2015

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PEACE IN COLOMBIA
The Framework Peace Agreement

By Catalina Rojas with The Peace and Collaborative Development Network

I was born during the war and I thought, I really thought that my work for peace and gender equality was important in that it was contributing to generate conditions so that my son or his descendants would enjoy a durable peace. Most of us believed we worked for the future and would never see anything close to peace in our lifetime. And why? Colombia´s conflict (at least this conflict) dates back from the late 1950s and beginning of the 1960s with the formation of the left-wing insurgencies and its one of the longest most protracted armed confrontation in the American continent and even globally. With countless failed negotiations attempts during past administrations (the most recent in 2002); the biggest humanitarian emergency in the Western Hemisphere and second only after Siria (almost 5.7 million internally displaced victims)[1] it is no surprise that this past negotiation cycle was seen with caution optimism, at best.

Two years ago, current President Juan Manuel Santos and the main leader of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) Rodrigo Londoño, aka Timochenko initiated a negotiation in La Havana, Cuba with two countries acting as guarantors: Cuba, Norway and Chile and Venezuela as witnesses or acompañantes. Unlike other attempts, the conversations were direct and the participation of outside actors was and is highly regulated. A very important principle characterized this negotiation: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Thus far, most of the critical points have reached agreement (this is no small feat). At the end of 2014, the two delegations had reached partial agreements on three points — rural reform, political participation, and illicit crops and the drug trade. The issue of justice and accountability for crimes committed proved to be the biggest stumbling block in this negotiation.

The topics agreed upon included:

1. Land Reform - Formalization of land ownership for the poor, infrastructure and development improvement, technical assistance, food security, housing and eradication of poverty.

2. Political Participation – Rights to access political process and direct participation.

3. Illegal Drugs – Crop substitution, programs for addicts and prevention programs.

5. Rights of victims – Human rights, compensation and revealing of the truth.

The fourth point, Justice, was a "knot" in the negotiation. This roadblock lasted 14 months to be resolved; a team of Colombian and global experts in issues of transitional justice called the New York Group and survived many closed attempts of ending the negotiations (with the assassination of both FARC members and military members earlier in 2015).

Understandably, Colombians were growing skeptical and tired of the negotiations. The peace spoilers spoke proudly about the futility of the process while the common citizens just grew tired of the process. But last week, last week was historic.

I have been living outside of Colombia for 16 years so I am used to never been there for national or personal landmarks. This is the life of the migrant. But last week I happened to be there as I arrived on September 23 for a brief visit to my loving mum. I can surely say that almost all of us followed the news as they announced the visit of President Santos to Havana to announce and explain to Colombia and the world the agreement that FARC and the Government of Colombia (GoC) on issues of justice and victim reparation.

What does this mean? Given that this is the MOST complicated item of the bundle, this means that it is very likely that Colombia will sign a peace agreement with FARC.

What else was announced? In addition to the Justice agreement Santos and Timochenko announced that the negotiations will last up to 6 months after which a window of 60 days post-signing for FARC to initiate cantonment and the DDR process (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration process).

What is the Justice agreement about? Experts have cited as one of the most innovative Transitional Justice agreements ever put in place in the context of the peace agreement. Basically, Colombia will implement a Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Espacial para la Paz) that guarantees that there will not be impunity regarding the worst crimes committed under the armed conflict including forced displacement, sexual violence, kidnapping, murder, disappearance and torture.

The two sides agreed to create special tribunals, which will include international judges, to prosecute and judge crimes related to the conflict committed by both members of the Farc and state agents, as well as non-combatants. Those who immediately confess to the crimes will face confinement – though not jail – of between five and eight years. Those who confess once a trial has started, will be eligible for reduced sentences to be served in jail. And those convicted, without having confessed, face up to 20 years in prison. The Guardian[2]

What's next?

Once there is a consensus on all the points, the parties will discuss the implementation, after which a national referendum will give Colombia's citizens the opportunity to accept or reject the agreement.

What is still missing?

For those of us who thought we were NEVER going to see this in our lifetime, it was natural to feel extreme high levels of euphoria. However, we know, precisely because we have worked, studied and analyzed other countries that this is merely the beginning and that we SHOULD really revisit cases like South Africa, El Salvador and Guatemala because in spite of the "success" with their peace agreement, the post-conflict situation is everything but. In my opinion, what most agreements focus on is the political division and in the case of Colombia the justice and accountability issues proved central. However, why is it that most peace agreements do not deal with socio-economic aspects? Without removing the conditions that fueled the country's conflict we are bound to repeat it.

This is why, in spite of the immense indescribable joy I feel for this huge historic landmark, I hope this agreement and its implementation will seriously work on mechanism to remove structural causes of economic exclusion to be able to enjoy sustainable peace.

Want to read more?

If you want a general overview on the Havana negotiations

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19875363

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/world/americas/colombia-close-...

About the Transitional Justice model announced as part of the negotiations

http://theglobalobservatory.org/2015/09/colombia-ending-conflict-on...

If you want to follow a Colombia blog:

https://vbouvier.wordpress.com/tag/virginia-bouvier/

If you are interested in an organization that follows Colombia:

http://www.wola.org/program/colombia

[1] http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/desplazamiento-en-colom...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/farc-peace-talks-colom...

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Study Shows that Liberal Riots Make America Conservative

9/1/2015

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Jonathan Chalt, The New York Magazine - The recent spate of protests against police brutality have changed the way the left thinks about rioting. The old liberal idea, which distinguished between peaceful protests (good) and rioting (bad), has given way to a more radical analysis. “Riots work,” insists George Ciccariello-Maher in Salon. “But despite the obviousness of the point, an entire chorus of media, police, and self-appointed community leaders continue to try to convince us otherwise, hammering into our heads a narrative of a nonviolence that has never worked on its own, based on a mythical understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.” Vox’s German Lopez, while acknowledging the downside of random violence, argues, “Riots can lead to real, substantial change.” In Rolling Stone, Jesse Myerson asserts, “the historical pedigree of property destruction as a tactic of resistance is long and frequently effective.” Darlena Cunha, writing in Time, asks, “Is rioting so wrong?” and proceeds to answer her own question in the negative.

The direct costs of violent protests are fairly self-evident. People who may not have anything to do with the underlying grievances get injured or killed, their livelihoods are impaired, the communities in which the rioting takes place suffer property damage that can linger for decades, and the inevitable police response creates new dangers for innocent bystanders. The pro-rioting (or anti-anti-rioting) argument portrays this as the necessary price of worthwhile social change. Rioting can generate attention among people who might otherwise ignore the underlying conditions that give rise to it.

It is surely the case that some positive social reforms have emerged in response to rioting. Lopez highlights the Kerner Commission and diversity efforts in the Los Angeles Police Department. But the question is not whether rioting ever yields a productive response, but whether it does so in general. Omar Wasow, an assistant professor at the department of politics at Princeton, has published a timely new paper studying this very question. And his answer is clear: Riots on the whole provoke a hostile right-wing response. They generate attention, all right, but the wrong kind.

See the data charts and read the summary here

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Proposed U.S. Discretionary Spending Budget for 2016

8/24/2015

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via Brian Gruber and The Vision Project
As a proportion of the total 1.15 trillion USD Discretionary Budget

From the National Priorities Project:
A useful set of charts from the National Priorities Project. 54% of discretionary spending is military. That doesn’t include numerous spending areas from homeland security to veteran’s benefits which, by some estimates bring total spending close to one trillion dollars. Veteran’s benefits account for $10 billion per year more than all discretionary medicare and health spending. A question that can’t be answered might be what costs would be saved, putting aside unfathomable human pain and suffering, if the wars necessitating the often lifetime treatment were not waged.”

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Arsonists in American South Target Black Churches

6/30/2015

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Story from The Southern Poverty Law Center ("String of Nighttime Fires Hit Predominately Black Churches in Four Southern States" by Bill Morlin on June 26th, 2015)

In what may not be a coincidence, a string of nighttime fires have damaged or destroyed at least six predominately black churches in four southern states in the past week.

Arsonists started at least three of the fires, while other causes are being examined in the other fires, investigators say.

The series of fires – some of them suspicious and possible hate crimes — came in the week following a murderous rampage by a white supremacist who shot and killed nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.

The fires also occurred at a time when there is increasing public pressure to remove the Confederate flag – one of the last hallmarks of white superiority — from government buildings and public places as well as banning assorted Confederate flag merchandise sold in retails stores and online.

Even if the fires are deemed arson, it takes additional proof under reporting standards to conclude the act was a hate crime, investigators say.

“As the nation grapples with the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., one of the oldest Black churches in the South, other Black churches have become recent targets of arson,” writer David A. Love said today at Atlanta BlackStar.

“From slavery and the days of Jim Crow through the civil rights movement and beyond, white supremacists have targeted the Black church because of its importance as a pillar of the Black community, the center for leadership and institution building, education, social and political development and organizing to fight oppression,” Love wrote.

“Strike at the Black church, and you strike at the heart of Black American life,” the writer added.

The most recent fires occurred early today at the Glover Grover Baptist Church, in Warrenville, S.C., and at the Greater Miracle Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Fla.

Federal agents have been brought in to assist local officials in determining the unknown cause of the fire at the Glover Grove Baptist church. In Tallahassee, fire officials say the fire that totally destroyed the Apostolic Holiness Church may have been caused by a tree limb falling on overhead electrical lines.

Glover Grove Baptist Church damaged by fire

While those investigations continue, arson was determined to be the cause of three fires earlier in the week at other predominately black churches in the South.

The first arson fire occurred in the early morning hours of Monday, June 22, at the College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church, home to a predominately black congregation, in Knoxville, Tenn.

“Horror, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on?’” church Pastor Cleveland Hobdy III, told Knoxville television station WATE.

“When I look at this I see, I think of an intention to try to destroy this entire church,” Hobdy said. “It makes it sad. It’s sad either way that someone would put their mind to try to damage a church that’s trying to help people.”

Knoxville Fire Department spokesperson D.J. Corcoran said the arsonist set fires at multiple locations on the church property, including igniting bales of hay left at the church’s door. The church’s van also was burned.

The following day, Tuesday June 23, an arsonist was blamed for a fire in the sanctuary s at God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Ga.

“Right now we are investigating as if it was a set fire,” said Sgt. Ben Gleaton, an arson investigator for the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department, told the Macon Telegraph.

Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations are following leads in that suspect arson.

The church on Cedar Avenue in Macon has been the repeated target of burglars who have stolen sound and air conditioning equipment, the Macon newspaper reported.

The third suspected arson fire occurred in the predawn hours of Wednesday, June 24, at the Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.

That fire, reported at 1 a.m. EDT, caused an estimated $250,000 in damage, destroying an education wing in one of four buildings that make up the Briar Creek Road Baptist Church complex in east Charlotte, authorities said. The church’s sanctuary and gymnasium sustained heavy smoke damage.

Fire at Briar Creek Road Baptist Church

“Our investigators did not find any direct evidence that would lead them to believe at this time that this is a hate crime,” Charlotte Fire Department spokeswoman Cynthia Robbins Shah-Khan told Hatewatch today. “Of course, that is a possibility.”

The church has about 100 members, most of them African Americans, but it also shares space with two churches for immigrants from Nepal, according to media reports.

Also on Wednesday, fire destroyed the Fruitland Presbyterian Church, in Gibson County, Tenn., a landmark structure built in the 1800s.

While the cause of that fire remains under investigation, preliminary reports suggest it may have been caused by a lightning strike, television station WBBJ reported.

The Tennessee State Fire Marshal’s Office and ATF agents continue an investigation to determine the fire’s cause.

“We want to be sure, 100 percent sure, that this was an accidental fire, not on purpose,” Gibson County Fire Chief Bryan Cathey told the television station.

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400+ Arrested Outside US Capitol and White House

Torture Psychologists Sued by ACLU on Behalf of Torture Survivors

President Obama Apologizes for Bombing Nongovernmental Aid Group's Hospital

The Terms of Colombia's Peace Agreement

PEACE IN COLOMBIAThe Framework Peace Agreement

Study Shows that Liberal Riots Make America Conservative

Proposed U.S. Discretionary Spending Budget for 2016

Arsonists in American South Target Black Churches

PEACE IN COLOMBIA
The Framework Peace Agreement