Medea Benjamin's Blog, page 12

Should Syria’s Future Be Decided by Men With Guns?

Medea Benjamin

Just days before the Syria peace talks known as Geneva II are scheduled to begin on January 22, 2014, in Montreux, Switzerland, Syria’s main political opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), has agreed to attend. They will be joined by various officials of the Syrian government, UN officials and representatives from 35 countries. Swiss President Didier Burkhalter will deliver the opening remarks, followed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Then, Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry will address the assembly on behalf of the forum’s initiators. But one voice will be notably underrepresented—that of Syrian women, especially the non-violent, pro-democracy activists who represent civil society. “When we talk about women at the table, the men see them as the tablecloth,” said Hibaaq Osman, an NGO leader who has been working with Syrian women and pushing for their inclusion. “The future of Syria should not exclusively be decided by those who carry guns.”

Syrian women have suffered immensely throughout the conflict. The estimated 100,000 killed so far includes not just men, but thousands of women and children. Women activists have been detained as part of government crackdowns on the rebel opposition and have been raped and tortured in detention. An investigation by the Women’s Media Center tracked reports of rape and deliberate, politically-motivated attacks on women. When a soldier in the Free Syrian Army was captured by government forces, women from his family were brought to the prison and raped in front of him. In another sickening story, three sisters recounted how a group of Syrian army soldiers broke into their house in Homs, tied up their father and brother, raped the three women in front of them, and then opened their legs and burned their vaginas with cigarettes, saying “You want freedom? This is your freedom.” There have also been reports of women and children being used as human shields or hostages by armed groups.

In areas controlled by the fundamentalist rebel groups, extremists have imposed oppressive rules on women and girls, reversing freedoms of movement, expression and other rights women had previously exercised. In some cases, women and girls have been prevented from working, going to school or just leaving their homes without a male guardian, even to flee violence. Human Rights Watch has reported that some extremist Islamist groups in northern Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Nusra Front, and the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), are imposing strict and discriminatory rules on women and girls, such as requiring them to wear headscarves and full-length robes, limiting their ability to carry out essential daily activities, to move freely in public or to attend school.

The humanitarian crisis is acute. Some 4 million Syrians have been internally displaced. Food and access to it is so restricted in some of the military-contested areas that children are dying from starvation. “There are children who are eating roots and leaves off the trees,” said Kefah Ali Deeb of the National Coordination Committee for the Forces of Democratic Change. “Believe me; this is not my imagination. There is more suffering than you could imagine.”

Syrians desperate to escape the war have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, sometimes arriving by the thousands in a single day. Some three million Syrians are now refugees, over 80% of them women and children. Large numbers of women whose husbands have been killed or are off fighting have suddenly become heads of their households, but bereft of resources to care for their children. Relief agencies and host countries are overwhelmed by the numbers and the need. And although the refugees living abroad are spared the immediate impact of the fighting, many are unfortunately still subjected to violence, sexual assault, and abysmal living conditions.

According to a U.N. Women study, child marriages and domestic violence are on the rise among refugee families. As refugees grow more destitute, parents are more inclined to pull their daughters out of schools or marry them off at younger ages in exchange for dowries. Early marriage is seen as a way to ensure that daughters are cared for and fed, and to generate scarce income for the family. But girls sold into marriage are extremely vulnerable to abuse, lose opportunities for education and risk serious health hazards of early pregnancy.

Some refugee women have been forced into prostitution by their families, under the cover of short-term marriage arrangements. Women and girls sold into marriage are sometimes abandoned or sold again to brothels or traffickers, where their abuse and exploitation only worsens.

Syrian women, many of whom were involved in the initial pro-democracy, nonviolent uprising against Bashar al-Assad, have been risking their lives to address the humanitarian crisis—distributing humanitarian aid, monitoring human rights and providing emergency help. Syrian women have brokered local ceasefires to enable aid to get through. While the fighting has raged around them, women have continued to organize, build civil society groups and train themselves to play a role in designing a unified, democratic Syria.

These women have repeatedly called on the international community to include their voices in peace efforts. From January 11-13, 2014, 47 Syrian women gathered under the auspices of UN Women to hash out their positions. “We cannot remain silent regarding events unfolding in Syria, such as daily death, massive destruction, starvation, displacement of hundreds of thousands of Syrian families in Syria and abroad, the spread of terror and violence, ongoing detentions, acts of kidnapping, destruction of infrastructure and the spread of diseases, particularly among children,” said Syrian activist Kefah Ali Deeb at a UN press conference.

The women called for the effective participation of women in all negotiating teams and committees in a proportion of no less than 30%. They called for senior gender experts to be fully integrated into the UN mediation team. “We want there be a meaningful participation of women in the entire political process, including in the formation of the transitional governing body, the constitutional drafting committee, the drafting of the election law, mechanisms of transitional justice, the local administration and local committees for civil peace,” said Syrian activist Delsha Ayoat a UN press conference.

The women are desperate to deal with the immediate human catastrophe. “Large numbers of women have been arrested, kidnapped or disappeared. They include our families, our friends, our colleagues,” said Kefah Ali Deeb, activist and member of National Coordination Committee for the Forces of Democratic Change. “We must get the detainees released from prison and break the sieges that are driving stranded populations to starvation.”

But they are also looking down the road, and many have been working on principles for a new constitution. “We have been watching what happened in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya and there are a lot of lessons to prepare ourselves,” said Sabah Alhallak, the women’s coordinator for the Syrian Commission for Family Affairs. They insist that any eventual constitution guarantee women’s equality and penalize all forms of discrimination and violence against women.

While Lakhdar Brahimi has met with the women several times and has encouraged their participation as observers, he has not agreed to grant them an official role. Unfortunately, even at the peace table, the men with guns will continue to have the loudest voices.

In response, the groups CODEPINK, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), MADRE, Karama and the Nobel Women’s Initiative are gathering at the talks under the banner of “Women Lead to Peace” to support Syrian women. The day before the official talks begin, they will hold a Women’s Summit with women from former conflict zones such as Bosnia, Liberia, Guatemala and Ireland speaking about their experiences of transitioning from war to peace. Syrian women and humanitarian aid workers will share their stories and experiences of life in Syria and refugee camps. There will then be a modeling of the negotiations: a look at what the official peace talks could and should look like. On January 22, the women will stage a peace rally outside the official talks. You can sign their petition to the international community and watch the Summit.

The Syrian women and their global allies understand that the Syria crisis is so deep and complex that it will take a long time to end the fighting and even longer to rebuild, but they see no other option. “We are lawyers, engineers and professors; we are housewives, nurses and other medical professionals; we are 50 percent of society and we are determined to stop the war,” said Rafif Jouejati, director of FREE-Syria (the Foundation to Restore Equality and Education in Syria). “If Geneva II fails, then we will keep going to make Geneva III, IV or V work. We will keep pushing the men who are making war until they make peace.”

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of www.codepink.org and www.globalexchange.org, and author of eight books, including Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, By Kathy Kelly

For Whom the Bell Tolls

By Kathy Kelly

January 20, 2014

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.  …  A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. – “A Time to Break Silence (Beyond Vietnam)” Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967

This month, from Atlanta, GA, the King Center announced its “Choose Nonviolence” campaign, a call on people to incorporate the symbolism of bell-ringing into their Martin Luther King Holiday observance, as a means of showing their commitment to Dr. King’s value of nonviolence in resolving terrible issues of inequality, discrimination and poverty here at home.  The call was heard in Kabul, Afghanistan.

On the same day they learned of the King Center’s call, the young members of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, in a home I was sharing with them in Kabul, were grieving the fresh news of seven Afghan children and their mother, killed in the night during a U.S. aerial attack – part of a battle in the Siahgird district of the Parwan province. The outrage, grief, loss and pain felt in Siahgird were echoed, horribly, in other parts of Afghanistan during a very violent week.

 

My young friends, ever inspired by Dr. King’s message, prepared a Dr. King Day observance as they shared bread and tea for breakfast. They talked about the futility of war and the predictable cycles of revenge that are caused every time someone is killed.  Then they made a poster listing each of the killings they had learned of in the previous seven days.

 

They didn’t have a bell, and they didn’t have the money to buy one. So Zekerullah set to work with a bucket, a spoon and a rope, and made something approximating a bell.  In the APV courtyard, an enlarged vinyl poster of Dr. King covers half of one wall, opposite another poster of Gandhi and Khan Abdul Gaffir Khan, the “Muslim Gandhi” who led Pathan tribes in the nonviolent Khudai Khidmatgar colonial independence movement to resist the British Empire. Zekerullah’s makeshift “bell’ was suspended next to King’s poster.  Several dozen friends joined the APVs as we listened to rattles rather than pealing bells. The poster listing the week’s death toll was held aloft and read aloud.

 

They read: “January 15, 2014: 7 children, one woman, Siahgird district of Parwan, killed by the U.S./NATO.  January 15, 2014, 16 Taliban militants, killed by Afghan police, army and intelligence operatives across seven regions, Parwan, Baghlan, Kunduz, Kandahar, Zabul, Logar, and Paktiya.  January 12, 2014: 1 police academy student and one academy staff member, killed by a Taliban suicide bomber in Kabul on the road to Jalalabad.  Jan 9, 2014: 1 four year old boy killed in Helmand, by NATO.  Jan 9, 2014: 7 people, several of them police, killed in Helmand by unknown suicide bombers.  January 7, 2014: 16 militants killed by Afghan security forces in Nangarhar, Logar, Ghanzi, Pakitya, Heart and Nimroz.”

 

We couldn’t know, then, that within two days news would come, with a Taliban announcement claiming responsibility, of 21 people, 13 foreigners and eight Afghans, killed while dining in, or guarding, a Kabul restaurant. The Taliban said that the attack was in retaliation for the seven children killed in the airstrike in Parwan.

 

Week after bloody week, the chart of killings lengthens.  And in Afghanistan, while war rages, a million children are estimated to suffer from acute malnourishment as the country faces a worsening hunger crisis.

 

This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we can and should remember the dream Dr. King announced before the Lincoln Memorial, the dream he did so much to accomplish, remembering his call (as the King Center asks) for nonviolent solutions to desperate concerns of discrimination and inequality within the U.S.  But we shouldn’t let ourselves forget the full extent of Dr. King’s vision, the urgent tasks he urgently set us to fulfill on his behalf, so many of them left unfinished nearly forty-six years after he was taken from us.  One year to the day before his assassination, he said:

… A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.”… The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

 

We must never forget the full range of Dr. King’s vision, nor the full tragedy of the world he sought to heal, nor the revolutionary spirit which he saw as our only hope of achieving his vision – making do with everything we have to try to keep freedom ringing, despite the pervasiveness of the evils that beset us, and a world that needs vigorous effort to save it from addictions to tyranny and violence practiced by reckless elites.

“America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”

 

 

 

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (vcnv.org) and is working alongside other activists to promoteWorldBeyondWar.org   While in Kabul, she was a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (ourjourneytosmile.com) All quotations are taken from Dr. King’s speech given at the Riverside Church on April 4, 1967  

Senator Susan Collins: Give peace a chance!

by Ridgely Fuller, of CODEPINK Maine

(Note: This was first published as a letter to the editor of The Free Press and the Republic Journal.)

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) is cosponsoring legislation (S 1881) that effectively scuttles the November 2013  international agreement among the US, Britain, Russia, France, China, Germany and Iran concerning Iran’s nuclear policy.

Currently, the only nation opposing the international agreement is Israel.

In response to S 1881, a White House spokesperson states “Members of Congress pressing for this bill are effectively choosing to close the door on diplomacy, making it far more likely that we’ll be left only with a military option.”

Mainers emphatically do not want another war as indicated by outpouring of opposing comment directed to Senators Collins and King, and Reps Michaud and Pingree when military action in Syria was contemplated. Our state has suffered more than its share with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To find employment or save for a college dream our youth are often left with choice of leaving our State or enlisting’ in the military.  Thus, proportionately to its population, Maine recruited the most of any state for the war in Iraq and has suffered the most deaths of any state in Afghanistan. Families and our communities are left shattered.

Research overwhelmingly indicates that money spent on military and war generates way fewer local jobs than money spent on local needs including education, health, repairing infrastructure. The ratio of spending to job growth when spending one dollar on the military has been determined to create 6 jobs where as investment of one dollar in civilian economy creates up to 18.

Yet, Susan Collins is a major proponent of the military option. She consistently supports military budgets, and voted throughout the years against any redeployment from Iraq and even against a bill limiting individual deployment to 12 months. Likewise she opposed legislation looking for accountability of military contracts in both wars.

That Senator Collins supports policies so contrary to Maine’s interests becomes understandable when looking at her 3.3 million dollar campaign chest reported as of 2014. She represents the fifth most lavishly gifted senator in Congress from those aligned with the government of Israel. Her major corporate campaign contributors include General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, all major military contractors.

Some might suggest that these contributions are the price of bringing jobs to Maine — yet the price is unreasonable: communities housing General Dynamics’ workers  in Bath and Saco are required to give tax incentives to keep these companies despite losing tax revenue for local needs. General Dynamics whose annual profits range between $2-3 billion. These corporate subsidies are used for modernizing facilities that consequently reduce the number of Maine jobs.

Maybe war pays for Susan Collins but it brings nothing to our State in terms of developing healthy, well-educated prosperous communities able to raise families that can stay together. Our State doesn’t need war.

So, please, Senator Collins: give peace and Maine a chance.

 

 

 

 

Guantanamo: 12 Years Later

By: Daria Lindsey

Last Saturday, CODEPINK together with other Human Rights Organizations such as Witness Against Torture and Amnesty International gathered in front of the White House to mark the shameful 12th year of operation of the Guantanamo Bay Prison facility in Cuba. Although President Obama signed an executive order to close the prison facility in January, 2009, the facility remains in operation, currently holding 155 detainees with 76 of them cleared for release. Protesters joined together with signs displaying messages such as “United States Close Guantanamo Bay” (written in Arabic), “End Indefinite Detention: Charge or Release!”, “Investigate & Prosecute U.S Torture”, and many more with the goal of giving voice to the prisoners who have had their voices silenced, delivering the overall message to President Obama to close Guantanamo Bay. The protest started at the White House and proceeded with a march to the National Museum of American History.

The protest had a great turnout, with an estimated 100 – 150 people attending at our D.C location alone. Despite the weather, the atmosphere was amazing as people were friendly, compassionate, and all shared this unified sense of dedication to the cause of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, among other human rights violations. After the march protesters proceeded inside of the museum to gather in front of  “The Price of Freedom” exhibition where protesters recited in unison that even when the facility is closed, it will go down in our history, we will not forget. After this exhibition was shut down, protesters moved to the lobby to continue.

What resonated with me the most was that the weather did not discourage people from coming out, what an experience it was to watch advocates for the closing of Guantanamo Bay stand under an umbrella, soaking wet from the downpour of rain, continue to give speeches on behalf of the prisoners without the slightest hint of discouragement. Everyone who surrounded me maintained an upbeat attitude. This being one of my first protests, I look forward to attending many more.

Check out some of the pictures from the CODEPINK action on our Flickr Page!

Check out this video, too!

Daria Lindsey is an intern in the CODEPINK D.C office. 

 

بيان صادر عن شاكر عامر بمناسبة الذكرى الثانية عشر لمعتقل غوانتانامو (١١ يناير ٢٠١٤).

بيان صادر عن شاكر عامر بمناسبة الذكرى الثانية عشر لمعتقل غوانتانامو (١١ يناير ٢٠١٤).

 

اليوم هو الذكرى الثانية عشرة لإنشاء معتقل خليج غوانتنامو. كان وما يزال وصمة عار لسمعة أمريكا وسيضل كذلك إلى حين إغلاقه والتعلم من تجاربه التي من الممكن أن تساعد على تفادي تكراره في العقود القادمة.

سأكمل قريبا ١٢ عاما في معتقل غوانتنامو. وصلت في اليوم الذي ولد فيه إبني الأصغر فراس )١٤ فبراير ٢٠٠٢). منذ ذلك الحين، كنت قد قضيت نحو شهرين في الأسر الأمريكي وخضغت خلالها لسوء معاملة فظيع. تلك هي اثنا عشر عاما فقدتها إلى الأبد.

ما افتقدته على وجه الخصوص هو واجبي في إشباع حاجة أطفالي إلى الحب. السنوات الأولى من عمر أي طفل هي أفضل(فرصة للوالدين ليظهروا معنى الحب الحقيقي لأطفالهم، قبل أن تأخذهم الحياة في مجرياتها. فقداني لفرصتي وواجبي هو أعظم أسفي.

مع ذلك يجب علينا النظر إلى الأمام وليس إلى الوراء. رغم أن العملاء البريطانيين دعموا الأمريكيين في إيذائي فإني لا أتمنى لهم أي سوء. ولا أرغب حتى في مشاهدتهم يعاقبون. كل ما أريده هو الرجوع إلى بيتي وعائلتي حتى يتسنى لي تعويضهم عن كل ما لم  أستطع تزويدهم به على مدار تلك الأعوام.

أنا مضرب عن الطعام مرة أخرى. يريد الجيش الأمريكي قمع حقيقة ما يحدث في غوانتانامو ولكن الحقيقة دائما تظهر. هناك معتقلون آخرون يعانون أكثر مني. يتم تحويل جميع المضربين عن الطعام في المعتقل رقم ستة إلى معسكر إيكو خمسة، وهو أسوء علاج يمكن للجيش أن يقدمه هنا. معسكر إيكو خمسة هو سجن الكاتراز الخاص بمعتقل غوانتانامو.، جميع الزنزانات مصنوعة من الحديد والمعدن مما يجلب القشعريرة للعظام كما لو كنت تحاول النوم في وحدة تبريد مثلجة. والآن يقومون بمعاقبتنا عن طريق التغذية القصرية وخفض درجة حرارة أجسامنا، كل هذا بسبب دعوتنا لأجل العدالة.

مع ذلك سوف يتم استعادة العدالة – يجب أن تتم استعادة العدالة.

يجب أن أقول شيئا واحدا للناس عن ١١ يناير: أكبر مخاوفي أن يقوم أي شخص بفعل صبياني في ذكرى إفتتاح غوانتانامو. عندما يقوم أي شخص بعمل خاطى فالخارج فنحن من بداخل المعتقل من يقوم بدفع الثمن. عندما حدثت تلك الواقعة في اليمن قد قام الأمريكيين بمنع اليمنيين من الرجوع إلى بلدانهم مع أن المعتقليين اليمنيين لم يكن لهم أي صلة بما حدث. أنا ممتن لجميع من يدعمنا، ولكن إذا أراد أي شخص أن يقوم بالإحتجاج نيابة عنا ضد وصمة العار السوداء، غوانتانامو فأرجو أن تقوموا بذلك بحسن نية وروح دعابة و الأهم من ذلك عدم ممارسة العنف.

Statement issued by Shaker Aamer on the occasion of the 12th Anniversary of Guantánamo Bay (January 11, 2014)

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the establishment of Guantánamo Bay. It has been a blot on the reputation of America, and will remain that until, first, it is closed, and second, lessons are learned from it that can help prevent any repetition in the decades to come.

It will soon be 12 years that I have been in Guantánamo. I arrived on the day my youngest child Faris was born (February 14th, 2002). Even then, I had already spent some two months in US captivity, undergoing terrible mistreatment. Those are twelve years that are lost to me forever.

What I have missed most has been the opportunity to do my part to fill up my four children’s reservoir of love. The early years of a child’s life is a parent’s best chance to show them what love is, before they become more distant with approaching adulthood. Losing this, my opportunity and obligation, is my greatest regret.

However, we must look forward, rather than backwards. Even though British agents supported the Americans in my abuse, I wish them no ill. I do not even want to see them punished. I want only to come home to my family so that I can try to make up to them what I have been unable to provide for all these years.

I am on hunger strike once more. The US military wants to repress the truth about Guantánamo, but the truth will always come out. Others suffer even more than I do. All hunger strikers in Camp VI are now being brought over for a dose of the worst medicine the military can provide here – Camp V Echo, the Alcatraz of Guantánamo Bay. The cells are all steel, and the metal chills the bones as if you are trying to sleep in a refrigeration unit. They now punish us with force feeding, and they punish us with hypothermia, all because we call for justice.

Yet justice will be restored – justice must be restored.

I must say one thing to people out there about January 11: My biggest fear is that someone will do something stupid on the anniversary. When anyone does something wrong on the outside, we on the inside have to pay the price for it. When there was that incident in Yemen, the Americans banned the Yemenis from going home – even though it had nothing to do with the Yemenis here in Guantánamo Bay. I am grateful to those who support us. But if anyone wants to demonstrate on our behalf against the black stain that is Guantánamo, please do it in good faith and good humour, and above all practice no violence.

Statement issued by Shaker Aamer on the occasion of the 12th Anniversary of Guantánamo Bay (January 11, 2014)

To be read at actions around the country on January 11th:

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the establishment of Guantánamo Bay. It has been a blot on the reputation of America, and will remain that until, first, it is closed, and second, lessons are learned from it that can help prevent any repetition in the decades to come.

It will soon be 12 years that I have been in Guantánamo. I arrived on the day my youngest child Faris was born (February 14th, 2002). Even then, I had already spent some two months in US captivity, undergoing terrible mistreatment. Those are twelve years that are lost to me forever.

What I have missed most has been the opportunity to do my part to fill up my four children’s reservoir of love. The early years of a child’s life is a parent’s best chance to show them what love is, before they become more distant with approaching adulthood. Losing this, my opportunity and obligation, is my greatest regret.

However, we must look forward, rather than backwards. Even though British agents supported the Americans in my abuse, I wish them no ill. I do not even want to see them punished. I want only to come home to my family so that I can try to make up to them what I have been unable to provide for all these years.

I am on hunger strike once more. The US military wants to repress the truth about Guantánamo, but the truth will always come out. Others suffer even more than I do. All hunger strikers in Camp VI are now being brought over for a dose of the worst medicine the military can provide here – Camp V Echo, the Alcatraz of Guantánamo Bay. The cells are all steel, and the metal chills the bones as if you are trying to sleep in a refrigeration unit. They now punish us with force feeding, and they punish us with hypothermia, all because we call for justice.

Yet justice will be restored – justice must be restored.

I must say one thing to people out there about January 11: My biggest fear is that someone will do something stupid on the anniversary. When anyone does something wrong on the outside, we on the inside have to pay the price for it. When there was that incident in Yemen, the Americans banned the Yemenis from going home – even though it had nothing to do with the Yemenis here in Guantánamo Bay. I am grateful to those who support us. But if anyone wants to demonstrate on our behalf against the black stain that is Guantánamo, please do it in good faith and good humour, and above all practice no violence.

 

Get out Shaker’s message by sharing the full text of his statement now. 

Unsafe, Inhumane, Illegal, and Opaque: 12 Years of Guantanamo Bay

By Cayman Macdonald

 

January 11, 2014 marks the shameful twelfth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay, which lives up to zero of the four adjectives the military uses to describe the base – “safe, humane, legal, and transparent.” Things may appear to be improving with some recent releases and 76 men approved for transport. However, the recent decision of military officials at Guantanamo to restrict information flow coupled with a recent article written by a current prisoner Shaker Aamer suggests otherwise. This Saturday across the globe, people will gather to protest the detention of these men and give them a voice even as the government attempts to silence them.

 

“Transparent” is now out the window as of December. Not only are guards not allowed to release their names to reporters, but military officials have stopped releasing the daily hunger strike tally. The hunger strike that started in February of last year garnered massive daily media coverage and rekindled national outrage against the injustices committed at the facilities. At its peak in the summer, there were 106 men participating; in response, the men were being forcibly fed via metal-tipped tubes shoved up their nostrils.

 

However, in December, the military officials at Guantanamo took even this form of protest away from them. As of December 2, 2013, the hunger strike tally for the day was at 15. That was the last day the numbers were released. According to John Filostrat, a spokesman for the Joint Task Force, releasing the information “detracts from more important issues,” including “the welfare of detainees.”

 

Does this not seem ironic? The purpose of the hunger strike, according to the lawyers of the detainees, was to protest their conditions in the camp – to draw attention to the issue of their threatened welfare. By withholding this information, the officials have taken away their only voice, their only hope of changing their dire situations.

 

The detainees have more than enough to protest. Many former and current detainees have claimed they have undergone torture. In 2009, Susan J. Crawford, former Convening Authority of the Guantanamo Military Commissions, admitted to the use of torture within the camp. Not only is this a violation of our laws, but also it is a clear violation of international law. It shows that “safe” and “legal” are just blatant lies.

 

“Humane”  doesn’t quite fit as a descriptor of Guantanamo either; Shaker Aamer shows in his recent article in The Guardian that Guantanamo goes so far as to strip the detainees of their humanity. They are referred to as “packages,” or “at best… numbers.”

 

“It is much easier to deny human rights to those who are not deemed to be ‘human’,” writes Aamer. In almost every historic campaign with brutal injustices against certain groups of people, that is exactly what happens; the injustices are minimized or justified because those suffering are slandered and treated as subhuman. Aamer also claims, “they stage everything that visitors see, and they brag about how well this place is run.” He says that Guantanamo is an example of the hypocrisy of the United States that is driving people to extremism. He questions how the US can claim to help set up government and laws in other countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan “when the US tramples on the law at home.”

 

And what is the justification between the countless injustices and the hypocrisy of the United States? Everything is done in the name of “national security.” But how could a series of lies make anyone feel secure? If we are aware that our government is lying to us, what else and how far are the lies going? And how can these actions truly be in the name of “national security” when, as Aamer points out, our actions and violations have angered and pushed people to extremism?

 

If the military is going to lie and silence the detainees, it is up to us to loudly denounce their unfair treatment and detainment. Criminals or not, no human deserves to go through what they have been subjugated to; our laws and international laws that we helped to construct also verify this. It is not in times of triumph but in times of fear that true character is revealed. Will we hide behind the excuse of “national security” to exploit basic human rights and break laws, or will we stand up and demand we stick to the values and laws our country is supposed to stand for?

 

Thousands of protesters will take to the streets this Saturday to show their courage and give voice to the men whom Guantanamo has tried to silence. They will speak truth in defiance of the countless lies, including the blatant lies about Guantanamo being “safe, humane, legal, and transparent.” It is time to send the message loud and clear: close Guantanamo Bay!

 

Sources:The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/05/guantanamo-national-security-human-rights-us-military-constitution


Miami Herald: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/04/3852565/transparent-detention-at-guantanamo.html

12 Years a Slave vs. 12 Years a Prisoner… in Guantanamo

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/20-5

Published on Friday, December 20, 2013 by Common Dreams

12 Years a Slave vs. 12 Years a Prisoner… in Guantanamo

by Ann Wright

I hope the first African-American United State President has seen the movie “12 Years A Slave.” It’s the story of Solomon Northup, a born-free, educated African-American carpenter and musician who lived in Saratoga, New York. In 1841, during a

trip to Washington, DC, Northup was kidnapped by slave traders. He was sold into the slave pens in the nation’s capitol, imprisoned in chains, beaten, and transported by paddle wheel steamer by slave traders to the American south. There he was sold to slave owners and began working as a slave on an American Southern plantation. He was savagely beaten and humiliated on the plantation and remained there for 12 years, unable to escape, except by suicide.

Finally, he was able to tell his story to a traveling Canadian builder who was hired to construct a building on the plantation. The Canadian, who was against slavery, at great personal risk, sent a letter to Northup’s friends and business acquaintances in New York describing Northup’s imprisonment as a slave. One of Northup’s friends traveled from New York to the southern plantation with the papers that showed that Northup was a free man, not a slave, and with the help of the local sheriff, was able, after 12 years, to bring Northup back to New York where he became an abolitionist and helped those attempting to escape slavery. He sued the Washington, DC slave pen owners, but as a black was not permitted to testify in the Washington, DC courts and his attempt to sue in New York those who sold him to the slave pens was not successful.

I hope the movie reminds President Obama of the past 12 years of another American injustice—that toward prisoners in Guantanamo. Most Guantanamo prisoners were kidnapped for a bounty, beaten, tortured, some water boarded, sexually humiliated and transported from all over the world by extraordinary rendition to a prison in Cuba from which escape was impossible except by suicide.

For years, the names of prisoners were unknown to the world, but finally a Navy lawyer, Matthew Diaz, believed all prisoners should be able to have legal defense, at great personal risk, disclosed the names thereby allowing lawyers from around the world to volunteer to be the defense attorneys for the prisoners. Diaz lawyer was court-martialed, sentenced to six months in prison and given a dishonorable discharge.

After 12 years, of the 779 prisoners kidnapped and subjected to extraordinary rendition by the United States government, 693, or 89%, have been freed because there was no evidence against them. 79 more prisoners have been cleared for release years ago but are still being held.

12 years later, 158 prisoners are still imprisoned in Guantanamo: 7 have been convicted by a US military commission of criminal acts against the United States, 6 are facing trial by US military commission and 46 have been designated for indefinite detention, without charge or trial. After no releases of cleared prisoners for several years, 8 were released in the past three months-4 to Algeria, 2 to Saudi Arabia and 2 to Sudan.

I hope President Obama remembers that one-half of those remaining in Guantanamo—79 prisoners—have been cleared for release—and that he will issue an order for them to be released and that he also will finally order the infamous Guantanamo Prison to be closed… 12 years later.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.  She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia.  In December, 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  She is the co-author of the book “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”  (www.voicesofconscience.com)

Locked in Winter

 

By Kathy Kelly, January 6, 2014

Kabul–The fire in the Chaman e Babrak camp began in Nadiai’s home shortly after noon.  She had rushed her son, who had a severe chest infection, to the hospital. She did not know that a gas bottle, used for warmth, was leaking; when the gas connected with a wood burning stove, flames engulfed the mud hut in which they lived and extended to adjacent homes, swiftly rendering nine extended families homeless and destitute in the midst of already astounding poverty. By the time seven fire trucks had arrived in response to the fire at the refugee camp, the houses were already burned to the ground.

No one was killed. When I visited the camp, three days after the disaster, that was a common refrain of relief. Nadiai’s home was on the edge of the camp, close to the entrance road. Had the fire broken out in the middle of the camp, or at night when the homes were filled with sleeping people, the disaster could have been far worse.

Even so, Zakia, age 54, said this is the worst catastrophe she has seen in her life, and already their situation was desperate. Zakia had slapped her own face over and over again to calm and focus herself as she searched for several missing children while the fire initially raged. Now, three days later, her cheeks are quite bruised, but she is relieved that the children were found.

Standing amid piles of ashes near what once was her home, a young mother smiled as she introduced her three little children, Shuba, age 3 ½, and Medinah and Monawra, twin girls, age 1 ½.   They were trapped in one of the homes, but their uncle rescued them.

Now the nine families have squeezed in with their neighbors. “We are left with only the clothes on our body,” said Maragul. She added that all of the victims feel very grateful to their neighbors. “We cook together,” she said, “and they offer us shelter at night.” Three or four families will sleep together in one room. Asked if their neighbors were all from the same clan, Maragul, Nadiai and Zakia immediately began naming the different ethnic groups that are among their neighbors. Some are Turkman, some Uzbek, some from Herat or Kabul, others are Pashtun, and some are Kuchi. The women said that they begin to feel like brothers and sisters, living together in these adverse circumstances.

The Chaman e Babrak refugee camp spills over the grounds of a large field formerly used for sporting events. With 720 families crowded into the camp, it is second in density and size only to the Charahi Qambar refugee camp, on the outskirts of Kabul, which is twice as large and more than twice as full as the Chaman e Babrak camp.

Years ago, before the Taliban originally captured Kabul, some of the families in this camp had rented homes in the area. They had fled to Pakistan to escape the fighting, hoping to find a future with security and work. After the U.S. invasion, with President Karzai’s accession to power, they’d been urged to return, told that it was safe to go back. But upon their return they’d learned their old homes and land now belonged to victorious warlords, and they learned again that safety is painfully elusive in conditions of poverty and the social disintegration that follows years, and in their case decades, of war.

Asked about prospects for their husbands to find work, the women shook their heads. Nadiai said that her husband has occasional work as a porter, carrying materials in a wheelbarrow from one site to another. Sometimes construction projects will hire him, but in the winter months construction projects are closed and already scarce work vanishes altogether. And war, in a sense, brings its own winter along with it: Next to the camp is a construction project that has been dormant since 2008. It had been intended to become an apartment building.

There was never any plan announced to house these families, even before the fire. And since the fire, there has been no offer of aid aside from those seven fire trucks, rushing in to contain an immediate threat not only to the camp but of course to neighboring businesses, several wedding halls and a plastic surgery hospital, up against which, in a city no stranger to glaring contrasts of wealth, the camp finds itself pressed. I came to the camp with young activists of the Afghan Peace Volunteers there to distribute heavy coverlets, (duvets), manufactured with foreign donations by local seamstresses, precisely for distribution free of charge to Kabul’s neediest people in the winter months. The UK sister organization to my own group, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, will distribute food packages in the camp during the coming week.

We’ll never know who the fire might have killed, because when the old or the young die from the pressures of poverty, of homelessness, of war, we can’t know which disaster tipped the balance.  We won’t know which catastrophe, specifically, will have taken any lives lost here to this dreadful winter.  Many will be consumed by the slow conflagration of widespread poverty, corruption, inequality and neglect.

As many as 35,000 displaced persons are now living in the slum areas in Kabul alone.  “Conflict affects more Afghans now than at any point in the last decade,” according to Amnesty International’s 2012 report, Fleeing War, Finding Misery. “The conflict has intensified in many areas, and fighting has spread to parts of the country previously deemed relatively peaceful. The surge in hostilities has many obvious consequences, among them that families and even entire communities flee their homes in search of greater security. Four hundred people a day are displaced in Afghanistan, on average, bringing the total displaced population to 500,000 by January 2012.”

The vast expenditures of the U.S. government and its client here simply can’t be designated as contributions toward “security.” These funds have contributed to insecurity and danger while failing to address basic human needs. The realpolitik of an imperial power, as utterly disinterested in security here as it seems to be in its own people’s safety at home, will not notice this camp. As we pull together in our communities to enkindle concern, compassion, and respect for creative nonviolence, we are in deep winter hoping for a spring.  We are right to work and to hope, but faced with the spectacle of winter in Chaman e Babrak I can’t help remembering Barbara Deming’s lines:  “Locked in winter, summer lies; gather your bones together. Rise!”

 

Kathy Kelly ( kathy@vcnv.org ) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence ( www.vcnv.org ).  In Kabul, she is a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (ourjourneytosmile.com)

 

Photo credits:  Abdulai Safarali

Drone strikes in Pakistan: Reapers of their own destruction

By Medea Benjamin

“We will put pressure on America, and our protest will continue if drone attacks are not stopped,” said an angry Imran Khan, leader of Pakistan’s third largest political party, the PTI (the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf). He was speaking on Saturday, November 23, to a crowd of over 10,000 protesters who blocked the highway used by NATO supply trucks taking goods in and out of Afghanistan. The latest protests in Pakistan show that even when the US hits its mark, as in the case of the last two strikes in Pakistan that killed key leaders of two extremist cells, they’re still counterproductive.

Most Pakistanis reject the Taliban and other extremists. But they also reject the American drones that violate their sovereignty and operate with impunity. The Pakistani resistance, along with growing opposition within the United States, has had an impact: the number of Predator and Reaper drones strikes in Pakistan has been steadily declining, from a high of 122 in 2010 to 48 in 2012, and even fewer this year.

But the strikes have not stopped, and each strike now receives greater scrutiny and opposition. This is the case of the two attacks that took place in November.

On November 1 a Hellfire missile from a Predator drone killed Hakimullah Mehsud and at least four others. Mehsud was head of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group responsible for the killing of thousands in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed responsibility for the failed bomb plot at New York’s Times Square in 2010, and was connected with the killing of seven CIA employees in Afghanistan in 2009.

The Pakistani government was incensed by the drone attack. They certainly had no love for Hakimullah Mehsud, but Pakistani negotiators had been carefully working for months to bring the TTP militants to the negotiating table to end more than a decade of violence. In fact, the peace talks were scheduled to begin the very next day, November 2.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan charged that the drone attack that killed Mehsud also blew up the government’s efforts at negotiations, and that peace talks could not move forward until there was an end to drone attacks in Pakistan.

But the CIA, which carries out the strikes in Pakistan, ignored the Pakistani government’s wishes and launched another strike on Thursday, November 21. This time the missiles hit a religious seminary, killing at least six people and wounding eight. Among the dead were militants belonging to the Haqqani network, including senior leader Ahmad Jan. The Haqqani network used to be part of the U.S.-backed forces fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The U.S. accuses the Haqqani network of orchestrating the 2011 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that killed 16 people, and an assault on the Intercontinental Hotel in the Afghan capital the same year that killed more than 20.

The November 23 attack was particularly embarrassing for the Pakistani government because it came just one day after foreign minister Sartaj Aziz told parliament the US had agreed to suspend drone attacks while the Pakistani government was in peace talks with the Taliban.

This strike brought a particularly visceral reaction because unlike the hundreds of other strikes in Pakistan that have taken place in the tribal territories, it occurred in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province which is controlled by the staunchly anti-drone political party, the PTI.

At the Saturday rally, PTI leader Imran Khan threatened to organize a long-term blockade of the NATO supply route. Any prolonged disruption of the key route in the KP province could disrupt the U.S. plans to remove troops, weapons and equipment from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

This is not an empty threat. The Pakistani government shut down supply routes for seven months after an American helicopter attack accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and only reopened them after the U.S. apologized.

Imran Khan also used the rally to attack Prime Minister Sharif’s government for failing to force the Americans to halt drone strikes. Sharif has been outspoken against the strikes, even during the election campaign. After becoming prime minister in June, he publicly ordered the military to end its policy of “condemning drones in public while being complicit in them.” During an October meeting in Washington with President Obama, Sharif reiterated his belief that drone strikes were counterproductive and should end.

But Sharif’s ability to force Washington’s hand is constrained by finances: his government relies on $1.6 billion in US aid and is dependent on US support for the $6.7 billion International Monetary Fund loan package it just signed. The government’s inability to stop the drone attacks makes it look weak and subservient to US interests, undermining Pakistan’s fragile democracy.

The two drone strikes in November show that these attacks don’t just kill and maim individuals. They also blow up peace talks. They weaken democratically elected governments. They sabotage bilateral relations. They sow hatred and resentment.

In response, the world community is rising up with mass demonstrations in Pakistan, solidarity protests in London, and hundreds gathering at the 2013 Drone Summit in Washington DC. The 10-year drone-induced killing spree has unleashed the seeds of its own destruction: a nonviolent resistance movement.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of the human rights group Global Exchange and the peace group CODEPINK. She is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.