Revolution

Starving Haitians riot as food prices soar


By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Thursday, 10 April 2008

Demonstrators have tried to storm the presidential palace in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, as protests over hunger and rising food prices spread across the developing world.

Demanding the resignation of President René Préval, the protesters attempted to break through the palace gates before being driven back by a contingent of Brazilian United Nations peacekeepers who used tear gas and rubber bullets.

The prices of basic foods such as rice, beans, condensed milk and fruit have risen by more than 50 per cent in Haiti, where the poor even rely on biscuits made of mud to get through the day. Even the price of this traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs has gone up to more than $5 (£2.50) for 100 biscuits.

There is now a grave danger of a coup being triggered in what is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Rising costs of commodities and basic foodstuffs have brought immense hardship to the population, 80 per cent of whom survive on less than £1 a day and only a minority has paid full-time jobs.

And it's not just in Haiti where unrest is growing. A combination of high fuel prices, booming consumption of food in increasingly wealthy Asia, the use of crops for biofuels, and speculation on futures markets have driven commodity prices to record levels.

The rising food prices are causing waves of unrest around the world. In Manila, troops armed with M-16 rifles now oversee the sale of subsidised rice, the latest basic crop to see a spike in prices. In Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Cameroon there have been protests in recent weeks all related to the food and fuel prices.

Last night a desperate appeal by President Préval, who was elected in 2006, failed to restore order to the shattered capital. "The solution is not to go around destroying stores," he said. "I'm giving you orders to stop."

His first public comments on the crisis came nearly a week into the protests. With his job on the line, he urged congress to cut taxes on imported food.

But gunfire rang out around the palace after the speech, as peacekeepers tried to drive away people looting surrounding stores.

Some of the world's most populous countries are now increasingly vulnerable to higher food prices, with the cost of rice now rising in line with that of other grains such as wheat and corn. As food insecurity spreads, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning of tense times ahead because the shortages of basic commodities and high prices are expected to continue. There are only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks in the world and grain supplies are at their lowest since the 1980s.

Jacques Diouf, the director of the FAO, said: "There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 per cent of income goes to food." The cause, he said, was "higher demand from countries like India and China, where GDP grows at 8 to 10 per cent and the increase in income is going to food". The UN fears that governments may be toppled and that food riots could spread, fanned by hunger, frustration and global television coverage.

The UN is helpless in the face of the spreading crisis and it can only advise governments to improve crop irrigation, storage facilities as well as infrastructure.

Since 2002 there has been a steady surge in global food prices. They rose 35 per cent in the year to the end of January, and since then prices have jumped by 65 per cent. According to the FAO's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 per cent and grain 42 per cent last year.

Worldwide wave of protest

Morocco

34 people were jailed in January for rioting over the rise in food prices.

Indonesia

10,000 demonstrated in Jakarta this week after soya bean prices rose 125 per cent in the past year.

Cameroon

24 people died and 1,600 people were arrested during food riots in February. Tax cuts and wage increases followed.

Egypt

A wave of protests led to four deaths this month, after food prices rose 40 per cent.

Pakistan

Thousands of troops have been deployed to guard rice supplies after rationing was introduced in January.

Letters: World food markets

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-world-food-markets-807768.html

The Food Shortages out there should be considered here


Just today, i made a mental note to always measure my rice (half a mug and i eat it nearly every day) before i cook it - because i hate that i grew up in a world where it was more convenient to over estimate and cook too much - even scrape left overs into a bin, than horror of horrors - find you haven't cooked enough. If we could just cut down on consumption in the west - and not just food but fuel too. In the last two years the US has diverted 60 million tonnes of food to fuel.

*

I read a terrible thing today. That more than fifty women died crammed like cattle in the back of an enclosed truck.
I just want to leave this here - i'm not asking anyone to read it.



54 Burmese migrants suffocate in packed lorry
# an MacKinnon in Bangkok
# The Guardian,
# Friday April 11 2008

· 67 survive journey to Thailand in container
· Driver ignored attempts to alert him to danger



Fifty-four illegal Burmese migrants being smuggled by traffickers in southern Thailand suffocated in the sweltering confines of a tiny seafood container lorry yesterday after the air-conditioning system failed.

Some of the 67 survivors told how they were 30 minutes into the journey to the resort island of Phuket, where they hoped to find work, when conditions became unbearably stifling.

But the driver warned those trying to alert him by banging on the container's walls and calling on mobile phones to be quiet for fear of tipping off police as they passed through checkpoints along the route. He turned on the air-conditioning, but it failed after a few minutes. When the driver finally stopped on a quiet road running along the Andaman Sea 90 minutes later many, mostly women, had already collapsed. After discovering the horrific scene, he fled.

"I thought everyone was going to die," said a survivor, Saw Win, 30. "I thought I was going to die. If the truck had driven for 30 minutes more, I would have died for sure."

The case bore grim echoes of the 58 Chinese migrants found suffocated in the rear of an airless tomato freight container at Dover in June 2000 after being smuggled across the Channel.

It also underscored the plight of Burmese migrants fleeing conflict and economic collapse in their homeland. They flood into Thailand across the porous border desperately seeking work.

As many as 150,000 languish in refugee camps along the border. But 1.5 million more live and work in Thailand, often in the seafood processing, fishing and construction industries that Thais shun.

Just 482,925 have managed to secure work permits, leaving at least a million working illegally, vulnerable to abuse from corrupt officials and exploited by unscrupulous employers. They are forced to work for as little as £1.15 a day, half what a Thai worker could expect.

The 121 migrants who found themselves crammed in the seafood container left Song Island in Burma on Wednesday night for the short sea crossing by fishing boat, landing near Ranong.

They paid the traffickers £82 each to transport them to Phuket to work as day labourers, but were so tightly packed into the truck there was standing-room only in the airtight container, which measured six metres by 2.2 metres.

"It was hot when the truck started moving," a 40-year-old survivor said from his bed in Ranong hospital, where 20 others were treated.

"We asked the driver to turn the air-conditioner on. The heat made me pass out and the next thing I knew I was in hospital."

Colonel Kraithong Chanthongbai of the Thai police said: "The people said they tried to bang on the walls of the container to tell the driver they were dying, but he told them to shut up as police would hear them when they crossed through check-points inside Thailand."

When in the early hours of yesterday the police reached the scene, tipped off by villagers, they found 54 people already dead. Officers were seen lifting the bodies of the 37 women and 17 men, dressed in little more than T-shirts and shorts, from the truck's rear, where only rags of discarded clothing remained.

The bodies were taken to a shed where they were laid out on plastic sheets. Police said they would be buried in temporary graves so that relatives could reclaim them at a later date.

Last night two survivors remained in hospital while the other 65 were being detained by the police, who said they were likely to be deported as illegal immigrants.

Police were searching for the driver. The owner of the truck, part of the Rung Thip company's fleet, was detained for questioning but claimed to have no knowledge of the human cargo.

"We believe this must be part of a smuggling racket which has to be tracked down," said Kraithong.

"The large number of illegals represents a very brazen act."


July 1995
Eighteen Sri Lankan Tamils found dead in Hungary by the Austrian border. Their abandoned trailer attracted the locals' attention because it was covered in flies

June 2000
Fifty-eight Chinese migrants found dead behind boxes of tomatoes in the back of a container lorry in Dover. Only two men survived the crossing from Zeebrugge, Belgium. Each had paid £20,000 to travel to the UK. The Dutch lorry driver was jailed for 14 years

October 2001
Twenty-six migrants died after hiding in the unventilated fish tank of a ship travelling from China to the South Korean port of Yosu. They had been crammed into a space of 10 square metres with no air holes. Upon discovery, the crew threw the bodies overboard. The 34 survivors were sent back to China

December 2001
Eight Turkish and Albanian asylum seekers, including four children, suffocated after spending more than 100 hours in a container that had arrived in a business park in Drinagh, Co Wexford, from Zeebrugge. There were five survivors. The two Turkish families had been expecting a three-hour trip to the UK.

some good news


Soldiers' human rights 'breached by faulty equipment'

PA
Friday, 11 April 2008

Sending British soldiers out on patrol or into battle with defective equipment could amount to a breach of their human rights, a High Court judge ruled today.

The decision marked a groundbreaking legal defeat for Defence Secretary Des Browne and potentially has important implications for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Defence Secretary suffered yet another defeat when the judge rejected his bid to ban coroners from using phrases such as "serious failure" - implying criticism of the Ministry of Defence and its agents - in verdicts on soldiers who have died on active service.

In the same judgment, the judge said that in such cases families should be entitled to legal aid and as full access as possible to military documents put before inquest hearings.

MoD lawyers had argued that it was "impossible to afford to soldiers who were on active service outside their bases the benefits of the Human Rights Act".

But Mr Justice Collins, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that British servicemen and women were entitled to some measure of legal protection "wherever they may be" - possibly right on to the battlefield.

The judge granted the Ministry of Defence permission to appeal against his ruling.


from the BBC

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Nick Harvey described the ruling as a "shattering ruling for Des Browne" and said he hoped it would "wake the government up" to equipment shortages.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said it was now clear it was "not just the military covenant that protects our forces all over the world".

"Their fundamental right to dignity and fair treatment must be safeguarded as well."


However, Mr Browne told the BBC his department had come "a long way" in response to "the changing environment both in Iraq and Afghanistan" regarding equipment.

"So this is criticism which is dated criticism from a different time. It is not applicable to the troops that are presently deployed."

He confirmed the MoD would be appealing against the ruling that sending British soldiers into battle with defective equipment could breach human rights.

On the judge's rejection of the government's bid to stop coroners using critical language, the MoD said it had never attempted to prevent coroners from "undertaking independent investigations and making their findings public".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7342324.stm

(i highlight for future reference - when evidence of individuals lying through their teeth will be debated in the courts)

From Inside a Cage at Guantanamo

By David Swanson

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32784

Wednesday, April, 16th, 2008
Condi Must Go: Groups Launch Campaign to Remove Secretary of State

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=998

We live in some weird world, huh?
The Gitmo story comes about because of a book written by a German prisoner who was there.

Has the world gone completely nuts?
I'm starting to believe it has

Torturers in the White House: Why Is This Story Being Ignored?
Ruth Conniff, The Progressive
Rights and Liberties: We now have confirmation that the President of the United States gave the OK to torture. Where is the media? Where are the Democrats?

McCain Shows Us How to Kill an Army
Sara Robinson, TomPaine.com
McCain is gunning to tear up an ancient contract between a nation and its veterans, denying security to the very people who defend ours.

The Supreme Court Brings Back the Death Penalty
Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Rights and Liberties: With a 7-2 ruling ending a moratorium on state-sanctioned killing, states across the country are gearing up to resume executions.

http://www.alternet.org/

Published on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Fascism Is Creepy
by Stacey Warde

For nearly eight years, I've tried without success to describe the radical shift that has taken place in our government.

Each time I've approached the task, I've had to throw up my hands in frustration because the only model that makes sense to me is the one called fascism.

But that word doesn't go over too well in polite conversation. It evokes horrors too horrible to imagine. The reality, however, is that fascism isn't just about jackbooted thugs and state-sponsored industry built on slavery and death to one's enemies.

The danger of fascism is its seemingly benign mechanisms of control - fear, conformity, the state's intermingling with religion and corporate enterprise - for keeping a populace in check, for making its people feel content with the way things are and never quick to protest occasional violations of human rights and infringements on their or another's liberties.

The danger of fascism is its seemingly magical ability - through brilliant propaganda outlets like Fox News - to keep a people resigned to whatever the government does in their name, making them feel secure through its adventures in endless wars and policing the globe and the homeland.

The other great thing about fascism is its capacity for supporting, even indulging, denial on the most massive scale: "We don't torture. …You can trust us. …If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about…."

Our phones are tapped, elections rigged, bogus wars planned and executed, real and imagined enemies created, and police acquire more powers to intimidate and harass while more rights are taken away from citizens.

Churches pray for the end of the world and offer their children as sacrifices for the war machine, and collude with the government colluding with the corporations and financial institutions - promising blood, anything, for National Security.

Soon, we who protest have been silenced, or marginalized. The Supreme Leader has the right to put anyone he considers a threat - U.S. citizens included - into prison indefinitely, without access to an attorney, or the right to confront his accusers, merely by declaring that person an "enemy combatant."

The whole drama and theater of the fascist play draws its action from the government wedding itself to corporate interests - in the U.S., a nationalist religious fervor is thrown into the mix to make it all palatable.

Eventually, we all do what we are told - or suffer the consequences. The real danger of fascism is its creep factor. It creeps up on us, and before we know it, we've become model citizens in the state that runs secret prisons and gulags around the world. We accept, approve and justify state-sponsored kidnapping, torture and preemptive war. Fascism is creepy.

Historically, by the time citizens realize what's happened to the country they love, it's too late.

Like many others, I've known for a long time that America has changed. Its legacy of freedom has morphed into something grossly distorted, something the founders of this nation would not have recognized.

I believe they would have wanted us - those who came after them - to fight just as hard for this legacy, which they bestowed upon us, trusting that what they obtained through their own blood and sacrifice was worth the cost, the promise of freedom, to live free from the tyranny and fear of not just our enemies but our own government.

I used to nod with a smile at the pithy "I love my country but fear my government," but now it's not so funny. Under the Bush administration, the government has cynically debased rather than protected my rights as a citizen, and I've got good reason to fear.

My eyes are wide open.

Still, it's hard for some citizens to acknowledge the plain and simple fact that our liberties have diminished and not advanced under Bush's leadership. It's been hard for many of us to draw a clear picture of our predicament, to know just how much has actually been lost, and where that leaves us as citizens.

How does anyone make sense of something as horrible as the loss of liberty and the emergence of something darker and more sinister? What word or words can possibly describe it?

The United States hasn't always lived up to its promise as a haven of freedom, but it's come close, and has built an even greater legacy of expanding and protecting those freedoms handed down to us from the Revolution, giving people around the globe reason to hope.

Our government has at times acted criminally in the name of freedom, justifying acts of terror and war. But I'd like to believe that the swing has always been in the other direction, toward more human rights and freedom.

Yet, in the nearly eight years since Bush took office, U.S. foreign and domestic policy has tilted away from not closer to its responsibility of guaranteeing individual freedoms. Our government has done more during Bush's tenure to jeopardize and infringe upon those rights than to protect them.

The world distrusts American interests precisely because we've failed to honor and respect the codes of our own charters of freedom, let alone those of the international community, neglecting human rights at home and abroad.

Consequently, repressive nations like China have no reason to fear repercussions from the United States for abuse of citizens seeking democratic reforms. They can continue to oppress their own people without fear of reprisals because the United States is no longer the beacon or protector of freedom that it once was.

How does the United States, given its own recent history of sanctioning repressive tactics like waterboarding, hooding, and indefinite imprisonment, claim higher ground and demand an end to repression and terror?

As noted by historians of the fascist movements of the 20th century, repression and human rights abuses like those practiced by China, and recently the United States, can appear in waves, sweeping up state governments around the globe in a frenzy of abuse against their own people.

Once again, fascism appears to be on the rise, in the West as well as in fundamentalist Islamic nations that oppress women and nonbelievers.

I don't have any illusions regarding the threat of militant Islam, or its own fascist turns against liberty, subjecting its enemies and its own people to terror and inhumane treatment.

Sharia law, in which local Imams dictate morality, is no more appealing to me than the White House dictating my responsibilities as a citizen.

I like the old biblical injunction of "set your own house in order" before attempting to influence another's.

The time is ripe to turn the United States back to its original radical design of guaranteeing the individual liberties of all its citizens, including the right to speak out against the government and to turn tyranny on its head.

It's time to reaffirm the right of the accused to confront their accusers, to put teeth back into the force of law that protects our freedoms as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. It's time for a refreshingly honest discussion of our rights as U.S. citizens in a nation stifled by fear and ignorance.

If we can pool the talents and passions and resources of people whose vision embraces the human spirit's quest for freedom, we might just stop the frightening tilt toward fascism that has made the United States - a nation founded on democratic ideals - a stranger to the world and to itself. We might reawaken ourselves to the legacy of freedom that once served as a bulwark against fascism.

Stacey Warde is editor of The Rogue Voice (www.theroguevoice.blogspot.com). He can be reached at [email protected].


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

Notable Comment by libertas fugit April 15th, 2008

Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottoes, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

There is an old saying; "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it is probably a duck."


More



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


**** - i'm starting to understand now - what seems like complacency is fear, isn't it? That's what makes it look to the rest of the world as if American citizens don't give a fu ck. No one's saying anything for fear of what will happen to them if they do. Well, i think it's time for everyone in the world to start talking about fascism.
Remember the Guernica?




Charles Goyette Interviews Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern, veteran intelligence analyst for the CIA, joins Charles in studio to discuss George Bush's criminal "authorization" of the torture of human beings, the arrogance of those who hold unlimited power, the details of the conspiracy between Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Condoleezza Rice, and George Tenet to get it done, the Democrats' refusal to do a thing about it, how the retroactive immunity in and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 makes it easier for foreign courts to indict these war criminals, the difference between the analytical and "Gestapo" side of the CIA, the recent ABC News torture conspiracy revelations, the question of retroactive immunity in the torture and NSA domestic spying cases, the supreme war crime and "accumulated evils" of aggressive war, the urgency of impeachment as a preventive measure against war with Iran, John McCain's insane neocon crew and their desire for war with Iran, Elliot Abrams dangerous role in Iran policy and the centrality of Israel to the neocon agenda, the lies about Iran's role in Iraq and his giving back of his commendation medal given to him by George H.W. Bush.

MP3 here. (58:23)

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years - from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush. He is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

YOU KNOW...... FOR KIDS



www.saroff.com/peace.htm

Get these Quotes

(Vets for peace)

Thanks for posting these Endy.

We do appreciate this thread. I don't post on it often. I haven't the words.

How can I have not seen this thread for so long?

Because your always hanging out with those status quo groupies. ........

i was going to write something about Fadel Shana and his death, captured live on film (HIS film)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/18/8373/

or Bill Quigley's report on The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots
http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley04212008.html

or Juan Cole's (President of the Global Americana Institute) reaction to Ms Rice taunting the Mahdi army and calling Muqtada al-Sadr a 'coward.'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19780.htm

or talk about the write-up this week in the Independent on The great campaigner, Doreen Lawrence
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/doreen-lawrence-fighting-on-for-the-love-of-stephen-812196.html

All these things are on my mind, but like Edgar - i just don't have any words

thanks everyone for looking in

Endy

.... england and St George! (The Tortured Rebel)




Who was St George?


This from The Royal Society of St George:

Most authorities on the subject seem to agree that he was born in Cappadocia in what is now Turkey, in about the year 280 AD. It is probable that from his physical description, he was of Darian origin, because of his tall stature and fair hair. He enlisted into the Cavalry of the Roman Army at the age of 17, during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian and very quickly established a reputation amongst his peers, for his virtuous behaviour and physical strength; his military bearing, valour and handsome good looks.

He quickly achieved the rank of Millenary or Tribunus Militum, an officer's rank roughly equivalent to a full Colonel, in charge of a regiment of 1,000 men and became a particular favourite of his Emperor. Diocletian was a skilled military tactician and strict disciplinarian, who set himself the task of rejuvenating the morale of the citizens of Rome by reviving the prevailing traditions and paganism of Rome. It may be recalled that this was a time of high inflation and civil unrest and one outcome of this was the increasing influence of Christianity.

Diocletian's second in Command was Galerius, the conqueror of Persia and an avid supporter of the Pagan religion. As a result of a rumour that the Christians were plotting the death of Galerius, an edict was issued that all Christian Churches were to be destroyed and all scriptures to be burnt. Anyone admitting to being a Christian, would lose his rights as a citizen, if not his life.

As a consequence, Diocletian took strict action against any alternative forms of religion in general and the Christian faith in particular. He achieved the reputation of being perhaps the cruellest persecutor of Christians at that time.

Many Christians feared to be loyal to their God; but, having become a convert to Christianity, St. George acted to limit the excesses of Diocletian's actions against the Christians. He went to the city of Nicomedia where, upon entering, he tore down the notice of the Emperor's edict. St. George gained great respect for his compassion towards Diocletian's victims.

As news spread of his rebellion against the persecutions St. George realised that, as both Diocletian and Galerius were in the city, it would not be long before he was arrested.He prepared for the event by disposing of his property to the poor and he freed his slaves.

When he appeared before Diocietian, it is said that St. George bravely denounced him for his unnecessary cruelty and injustice and that he made an eloquent and courageous speech. He stirred the populace with his powerful and convincing rhetoric against the Imperial Decree to persecute Christians. Diocietian refused to acknowledge or accede to St. George's reasoned, reproachful condemnation of his actions. The Emperor consigned St George to prison with instructions that he be tortured until he denied his faith in Christ.

St George, having defended his faith was beheaded at Nicomedia near Lyddia in Palestine on the 23rd of April in the year 303 AD.

The Royal Society of St George
Incorporated by Royal Charter
Patron: Her Majesty The Queen
http://www.royalsocietyofstgeorge.com/historyofstgeorge.htm

New painting of St George


St George Painted as Saint of Peace A new painting of St George by Scott Norwood Witts is to be unveiled at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St George, Southwark London on April 23rd, St George's Day.

St George and Dead Soldier was stimulated by the deployment of British forces overseas and the historical misrepresentation of St George. The patron saint of soldiers and England is shown battle weary, identifying another fatality of war - exploding the contrived mythical identity developed during The Crusades, to reveal a man in mourning. As a high ranking soldier of the Roman Empire converting to Christianity was extremely dangerous, yet his faith inspired him to put down his weapons and personally confront the Emperor Diocletian over his persecution of Christians. The lifesize, but intimate portrait shows the 'dragon slayer' as a saint of peace and one chose debate over violence.

The painting will be displayed on the 19th and 20th April and then officially unveiled and blessed by the Dean on St George's Day and exhibited until 3rd May.

Scott Norwood Witts has previously exhibited at the American Church in London and the Carmelite Friary in Kent. Commissions have included altarpieces at Dover Castle and the Royal Garrison Church at British Army HQ Aldershot.



http://www.stgeorgefestival.org.uk/st-george-dead-soldier/


St George is no crusader

Adopting the Warrior ArchetypeI conclude that St George was a true Warrior

~ (More recently by Professor Bonfiglio)


The Way to Peace Can Be Paved With Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Negotiation

Published on Friday, April 18, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

by Olga Bonfiglio

Peace activists are often accused of being naïve dreamers when it comes to dealing with conflict or dangerous enemies.

So what is the alternative? Usually it's to fight fire with fire (i.e., revenge and retaliation).

The very nature of peacemaking, however, is not to fight but rather to confront "the opponent" with intelligence, craftiness, humor and a thirst for justice. We have some splendid examples of this approach in Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, just to name a few. Skeptics recoil and sputter that such people were exceptions.

However, let's not forget that these "peace heroes" inspired ordinary people to follow them and choose to become part of a movement for change.

Skeptics also claim that the American "sheeple" cannot be moved because they are asleep, unaware, too numb and too busy to care about injustices. They also say it is impossible to fight against the awesome power of Corporate America, Big Government and other power brokers.

OK, then maybe that's a cue for peace activists' next challenge: How can we inspire others so deeply that they choose to form a movement for change from violence and war to peace; from hatred to love; from revenge and retaliation to forgiveness and reconciliation; from an obstinate refusal to communicate to negotiation?

Let's look at some recent examples of the impossible.

The Amish

On October 2, 2006, ten Amish girls were gunned down in a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

A community known for its gentleness, religious faith and the rejection of modern technological society had been severely violated. However, within six hours of the shooting, Amish leaders reached out to family members of the killer to let them know that they forgave him and still regarded them as part of the community.

The typical Amish attitude about forgiveness is: "We have to forgive others so that God will forgive us." They formed this outlook on life 300 years ago when their ancestors, the Anabaptists, were persecuted and tortured by Catholic and Protestant religious authorities who objected to their belief in a second baptism. And even as they were burning at the stake, those same Anabaptist martyrs forgave their persecutors, just as Jesus did to his persecutors during his crucifixion 2,000 years before.

The Amish practice of humility, submission and patience "provides them with an enormous capacity to absorb adversity, forgo revenge and carry on-gracefully," say the authors of Amish Grace, a book about the Nickel Mines community's response to this terrible tragedy. It was forgiveness that opened everyone to grace and everyone and everything was suddenly changed.

South Africa

April 27, 1994, marked the day apartheid ended and all of South Africa voted. Nelson Mandela, who had been released from prison after 27 years with 18 in solitary confinement, was elected South Africa's first black president.

Mandela's victory became even more incredible when he called on the post-apartheid government's efforts to create peace and equality among the races. He did this by getting the new government to pass a general amnesty toward those who were guilty of the crimes and atrocities of apartheid as long as they made a full disclosure of all the facts of their activities.

The victims of apartheid would likewise waive their right to sue for compensation and instead accept reparations. Reparations, then, became a symbolic gesture of the nation that bore the victims' pain and trauma. Mandela's underlying assumption was that peace in South Africa could only be won when the people admitted that evil was present in everyone.

"We sat down and negotiated with our former enemies," said Bishop Desmond Tutu, presidential appointee of the Truth and Reconciliation Committees, the key instrument in healing the wounds of apartheid. "We forgot the past, looked for the best in everyone, and came to terms with the ghastly things done by both sides."

Tutu illustrated how this worked by citing an "incredibly moving" inter-faith service he attended in Pretoria.

Survivors who had endured the killing of 11 people in their community held hands with the white police officer who had given the order to kill their family and friends years before.

The officer had applied and was granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but he also was required to make a public show of regret for his actions by asking the community to forgive him of his deeds. At first, the community was hostile toward him and disbelieved his repentance, but he pressed them to move beyond the past.

"In that moment, barriers toppled," said Tutu, "and the community forgave him."

"We don't know how it can happen, but it happened. Former enemies were able to find one another in magnanimity, even after they experienced untold suffering. They all had good reasons for revenge, but by discovering their own capacities for evil as part of the whole picture of themselves, they were able to forgive and forget."

Burundi

Burundi is a geographically-isolated country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa with a population of 6 million, down considerably after four decades of civil war, genocide, displacement and an epidemic of HIV affecting nearly four percent of the adult population.

Roughly 85 percent of the population is of the marginalized Hutu ethnic origin while most of the minority is the politically dominant Tutsi.

The coffee-based economy (78 percent of its export trade) make it the lowest GDP per capita in the world at US$90 compared to $43,594 in the United States.

It's no wonder that Burundi was recently declared the country with the lowest "satisfaction with life". Howard Wolpe, currently director of the Africa Program for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former seven-term U.S. congressman, had been working with Burundi for 10 years including five years as presidential special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region. After getting the go-ahead from the World Bank, Wolpe instituted the Burundi Leadership Training Program (BLTP), which aimed to develop the leaders' communication and negotiation skills needed to guide Burundi's recovery and transition to democracy.

Wolpe went beyond conventional diplomacy, which is usually aimed at obtaining a "quick acceptance" to agreements hammered out by lawyers. The missing element in that process is to take into consideration the personalities of the leaders who harbored decades of fear, mistrust and suspicion.

According to the Wilson Center Web site, the BLTP, "seeks to enable leaders from belligerent parties to address four challenges that are key to the achievement of a durable peace: (1) shifting key leaders from a zero-sum mindset to one that recognizes interdependence and the importance of collaboration; (2) rebuilding the trust and relationships among key leaders that have been fractured by conflict; (3) strengthening their communication and negotiation skills; and (4) rebuilding a consensus on how power should be organized and decisions made."

The Burundi Program has been so successful that Wolpe has been invited to work with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and most recently, East Timor.

For those of us who want change we need to remember that just because our leadership does not possess the qualities of forgiveness, reconciliation and negotiation, does not mean that "we the people" can't. And if we really believe in democratic governance, then it is incumbent on us to initiate and "be the change" in order to show our leaders the way.

Forgiveness, reconciliation and negotiation are not easy. However, they are essential if we are to move beyond our present divisions, hatreds, violence and war both at home and abroad.

Peace activists, in particular, can make a difference everyday to serve as bridges in our local communities so that the spirit of forgiveness, reconciliation and negotiation can spread throughout our country and the world.

Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of social justice and religion.
Contact her at [email protected].

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/18/8379/

Amnesty unveils shock 'waterboarding' film

By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Tuesday, 22 April 2008

An American expert in torture techniques has denounced his government for allowing "waterboarding" to be practised against terror suspects, just as a graphic advertisement showing the brutal reality of the technique is unveiled to British cinema-goers.

Malcolm Nance, who trained hundreds of US servicemen and women to resist interrogation by putting them through "waterboarding" exercises, demanded an immediate end to the practice by all US personnel.

He said: "They seem to think it is worth throwing the honour of 220 years of American decency in war out of the window. Waterboarding is out-and-out torture, and I'm deeply ashamed President Bush has authorised its use and dragged the US's reputation into the mud."

Mr Bush faced criticism recently when he vetoed a Bill that would have outlawed such methods of "enhanced interrogation" - the White House refuses to describe it as torture.

Mr Nance said: "You have a purpose-built table with straps in a pattern so that people can be strapped and unstrapped quickly. The head is strapped down in such a way so they cannot resist the water. The head is elevated so the water goes down the oesophagus.

"The water is poured very carefully over the nose - you keep a constant pour. You are drowning in water but you don't have the ability to hold your breath. You feel the water going in, you understand that water is filling your lungs."

Mr Nance, who is now an independent consultant, said the technique was also futile, as well as barbaric, as the prisoner would say anything to survive - regardless of its truth.

Amnesty International is leading the campaign to persuade the US to abandon the practice - a form of torture used as long ago as the Spanish Inquisition - and is stepping up its efforts with the release of a graphic and disturbing advertisement.

The broadcast begins with images of glistening clear liquid, suggesting it could be promoting a new brand of vodka or gin. But the camera pulls back to show water is being poured over the face of a desperate man strapped to a table.

Kate Allen, the UK director of Amnesty International, said: "Our film shows you what the CIA doesn't want you to see - the disgusting reality of half-drowning a person.

"For a few seconds, our film-makers did it for real. Even for those few seconds, it's horrifying to watch. The reality - in a secret prison with no one to stop it - is much, much worse."

The advertisement can be seen at www.unsubscribe-me.org from today and at 50 cinemas from next month onwards.


**


Adrian Hamilton: An ethical foreign policy is still within reach
Thursday, 24 April 2008

No apologies for returning to the subject of human rights and an ethical foreign policy. It's what concerns a great many people. And it isn't just because of a knee-jerk reaction to horror pictures on the television. Out there, among ordinary citizens, there is a feeling that it shouldn't be like it is, not in this day and age of global communication and huge wealth.

And to those who dismiss those concerns as a naive demand that governments "do something", just look at the fate of the Chinese ship taking arms to Zimbabwe or the course of the Olympic torch as it makes its way around d the world. If it was up to governments, the arms would have been unloaded in South Africa and be already delivered by truck to Harare. If politicians had their way, the Olympic torch would have been relayed through the world's capitals with barely a murmur of protest.

In fact, the dockers of South Africa, by refusing to unload the cargo in Durban, have forced the arms ship to wander the high seas like the Flying Dutchman, unable to make landfall on any of Zimbabwe's coastal neighbours. In the same way, the Tibetan protesters have forced the torch relays to scurry along foreshortened routes not just in the Western cities of London, Paris and San Francisco but in the Asian locations in Japan and Jakarta.

Whether this will do much good for the poor people of Zimbabwe or Tibet may be open to question. They're in the end just gestures. Some would even argue that they will only serve to make the accused governments treat their oppressed people even worse. But then gesture is an essential part of politics. To keep a ship from docking, or force country after country to limit the route of a propaganda parade, is not to be dismissed lightly.

The point about these incidents is that they make it much more difficult for the politicians of the home countries to brush the questions aside. When South Africa's ministers or Japanese officials go to Zimbabwe and China, they are going to have to keep justifying in public their stance. Even President Sarkozy, desperate to get out from under the pressure of Chinese counter-demonstrations against French business, cannot renege on his previously announced concerns about human rights.

Yes, of course it's easy to be cynical about it all. If you look at the issues of most public concern at the moment - Darfur, Burma, the Middle East - all that has been achieved by outside condemnation is to show up Western impotence. We've huffed and we've puffed and we haven't even blown the garden shed down, never mind the house. But that should be a cause for sober reflection not despair.

The reality of today is that the military solution so beloved of Tony Blair and President Bush has proved disastrous. The idea that the US, Britain and whoever they could rope in as allies would march around the world, re-ordering regimes at will, has been shown to be entirely counter-productive. Indeed the whole concept of righteous Western intervention is looking a throw-back to the Victorian past. There is at least an argument that the most positive thing that the West could now do for human rights around the world is to shut up and look to its own. Its constant meddling - in Haiti, Somalia or Iraq - has done nothing but harm.

And yet people in the democracies (and that includes countries such as Japan, South Africa and Brazil as much as the West) have a right to feel that others should have a right to the privileges they enjoy and that their governments should support those principles, abroad as at home. The world would have been a better place if we hadn't sucked up so much to Saddam Hussein and almost every dictator round the world (we still do, viz Central Asia and the Arab world).

Even short of largely counter-productive measures such as sanctions, there are pressures that government can apply, if only in denying relationships and agreements to regimes which are inimical to us. Never underestimate the effect on people within those countries of knowing that their cause has support outside.

On a more practical level, we could and should be doing far more to offer asylum to the persecuted and endangered and to give more aid and protection to refugees fleeing across borders. It is a standing rebuke to the West that it has found it so much easier to mouth condemnation of offending regimes while doing so little for the refugees from Iraq, Burma, Tibet, the Congo and all those other peoples we claim to care about.

Humanitarian intervention may have died a deserved death, but an ethical foreign policy is far from moribund and far from a Western construct. Just ask the dockers of Durban.

[email protected]


http://www.independent.co.uk/

A world of casual racism' exposed at BA

Senior BA pilot exposes shocking cockpit culture of Britain's flag carrier

By Andy McSmith
Saturday, 26 April 2008

A senior British Airways pilot reveals today the startling levels of casual racism in the flagship UK company, which once famously claimed to be "the world's favourite airline".

Captain Doug Maughan, who has 28 years' flying experience, including 15 years with BA, says that derogatory remarks about race by his colleagues are so common they are treated as normal.

Mr Maughan, a serving pilot who captains BA aircraft to all parts of the world, has decided to go public with his complaints after struggling to persuade BA's management to take racism among its senior staff seriously. He has complained by email to BA's chief executive, Willie Walsh, but says no action was taken.

His allegations are an acute embarrassment for the airline which carries 36 million passengers a year; operates out of airports in every continent; and could plausibly claim to be one of Britain's most high-profile companies. The airline is already threatened with a boycott by Nigerians flying to and from the UK.

Mr Maughan alleges that racism is a "generational" problem - common among middle-aged pilots, but rare among younger pilots.

He lodged his first complaint after hearing a senior training captain use the word "coon" during a training session on a flight simulator - but says that no action was taken.

"There was the time when we set off for Los Angeles with a large party of Saudis on board, who had joined us at Heathrow direct from the VIP lounge," he added. "In the cruise, my captain suddenly embarked on an extraordinary rant about 'rag-heads'. He got the word out twice before I stopped him by explaining he was going to be short of a first officer for the return sector if he carried on."

Mr Maughan, who lives in Dunblane, Perthshire, was on another flight when a fellow flight officer complained that there were too many Asians in Britain. "The captain turned to me and said: 'I don't suppose there are many of them up your way.' I replied: 'Well, there's my wife.' After that, they had the decency to fall silent," he said.

He has also complained about abusive emails sent to him by a fellow pilot, who is English. One of the emails said: "Come separation, will all Jocks F. off to that Welfare State (paid for by English middle classes)??? Please say yes."

Mr Maughan, 53, is so exasperated by what he sees as BA management's refusal to tackle the problem that he is planning a protest at this year's annual shareholders' meeting. "It's what I'd call a canteen culture," he said. "It seems to be accepted that people are going to make racist remarks and get away with it. The phrase 'institutional racism' has been so over-used as to be almost worthless, but I have to say that racism is as prevalent now in BA as it was in the RAF 25 years ago.

"What is common among white flying crew in BA is the use of mildly derogatory, sometimes jokey, language about other races, mainly aimed at black and Asian groups. Because it's so common, it's hard to tackle: it's ... the norm and rarely even noticed."

BA said: "All British Airways employees must adhere to our policies concerning dignity at work. Under these policies we encourage employees to report incidences of racism, sexism or any other behaviour that they deem offensive or inappropriate. Any reports of such behaviour are taken extremely seriously and investigated as a matter of priority. Captain Maughan has a duty as an employee to provide details of any alleged inappropriate behaviour direct to the airline."

Mr Maughan's revelations come as BA's treatment of Nigerian passengers threatens to have diplomatic repercussions. Robert Dewar, the British high commissioner to Nigeria, has been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be warned that Nigeria expects its citizens to be treated with "dignity". And a meeting between BA representatives and the director general of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, Harold Demuren, broke up when Dr Demuren objected that BA had slighted him by sending junior managers.

Nigeria's President, Umaru Yar'Adua, has ordered an investigation into an incident at Heathrow in which 136 passengers were turned off a BA flight to Lagos. It developed as immigration officers and BA staff were trying to force a man who was being deported to stay on board against his will. The deportee, Augustine Eme, is a member of Massob, a banned organisation in Nigeria campaigning for independence for the region of Biafra.

A fellow passenger, Ayodeji Omotade, from Chatham, objectedto Mr Eme's treatment and was arrested. Mr Omotade's arrest triggered more protests, until the BA captain ordered every passenger in economy class off the plane. BA has defended the decision to empty the aircraft saying that it was legally obliged to carry passengers such as Mr Eme. It said a large number of passengers on flight BA75 on 27 March became disruptive; that it was not possible to pinpoint which ones were involved; and that the police and crew agreed it could pose a safety risk to allow them to stay on board.



Statement from The Independent

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Our revelations today of casual and obnoxious racism among employees of British Airways come at an especially uncomfortable time for the "world's favourite airline".

For an organisation still smarting from the debacle of Terminal 5's opening at Heathrow, the scandal of the mistreatment of a plane-load of passengers on a flight to Nigeria, and the loss of its stranglehold on transatlantic flights, the last thing it needs is a row about staff racism. But this is not an issue that can be ignored.

Any company would have to investigate allegations such as this - if true, they reflect appalling attitudes. But British Airways is not just any company; it is the national flag carrier. It represents Britain around the world.

If British Airways' chief executive Willie Walsh expects his airline to retain that cherished status and esteem, he will put his house in order without delay.

Hey a lot has happened - too much to keep up with

I'm not even going to try

for when it all gets too much

Yes We Have No Answers
*******************************





Yes, we have no answers
The days for us, slip by
Democracy is a joke you see
We hide monsters behind our disguise

Men talk of change and deal weapons
What's the motive behind their crimes?
Is it war over peace?
Do they not feel our grief?
Are we fodder to their front lines?

Yes, we have no answers
Our dearest friends have died
Democracy is killing me
Cos they've stripped away my pride

Made to fear the freedom fighter
As the murdered call out from their graves
Is it wrong to speak
for the innocent, the weak?
Are we slaves to the mad and depraved?

Yes, we have no answers
We have no more to say
De-moc-racy hypoc-risy
Has blown our dreams away

To be caught in the fascist vision
In our hearts, in our minds, in us all
Can we say - NOT THIS WAY
Who will speak out today?
Yes we have no answers at all

Will the killings end
When we're all round the bend?
Yes, we have no answers at all

my friend

We have no answers at all






Endymion 2008

Steve Bell (Guardian) 2008