Posts Tagged News

Machetero POW Pleads Guilty

Posted by carnalizmo in General, News, Prisoners of War/Political Prisoners on February 12, 2010

HARTFORD, Conn.— A Puerto Rican nationalist has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his involvement in a 1983 armored truck robbery of about $7 million in Connecticut _ one of the largest robberies in American history.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that 67-year-old Avelino Gonzalez-Claudio pleaded guilty in Hartford to foreign transportation of stolen money and conspiracy to rob federally insured bank funds.

Gonzalez-Claudio conspired with others to rob the Wells Fargo Armored Service Corp. in West Hartford and to transport the stolen money to Mexico, authorities said.

Authorities allege the robbery was committed to fund the activities of Los Macheteros, a clandestine organization that seeks Puerto Rican independence.

Gonzalez-Claudio was a fugitive for more than 22 years before he was arrested in 2008 in Puerto Rico, where he had been living under an assumed name. He faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced May 26. A plea agreement, subject to court approval, calls for a seven-year sentence.

“It’s a very fair and I would say favorable resolution,” Gonzalez-Claudio’s attorney, James Bergenn, said Friday.

Bergenn has said his client’s membership in the Macheteros was not a crime and accused prosecutors of making unsubstantiated claims about him.

The Macheteros, whose name translates as “Machete Wielders” or “Cane Cutters,” are suspected of using the stolen millions to finance bombings and attacks designed to promote independence for the U.S. territory.

Their alleged leader, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, was killed in a 2005 shootout with the FBI at a remote farmhouse in Puerto Rico.

The robbery was allegedly carried out by Victor Gerena, a Wells Fargo driver recruited by the independence group. Authorities say Gerena took two co-workers hostage at gunpoint, handcuffed them and injected them with an unknown substance to disable them.

Gonzalez is accused of helping to get Gerena and the half-ton of cash out of the United States.

Two suspects, Gerena and Gonzalez-Claudio’s brother, Norberto Gonzalez-Claudio, remain at large, and Gerena is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

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Officials Hid Truth About Immigrant Deaths in Jail

Posted by madAPOC in General on February 8, 2010

by Nina Bernstein

Silence has long shrouded the men and women who die in the nation’s immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. Even in 2008, when The New York Times obtained and published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how they died.

But behind the scenes, it is now clear, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.

The documents, obtained over recent months by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, concern most of the 107 deaths in detention counted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 2003, after the agency was created within the Department of Homeland Security.

The Obama administration has vowed to overhaul immigration detention, a haphazard network of privately run jails, federal centers and county cells where the government holds noncitizens while it tries to deport them.

But as the administration moves to increase oversight within the agency, the documents show how officials – some still in key positions – used their role as overseers to cover up evidence of mistreatment, deflect scrutiny by the news media or prepare exculpatory public statements after gathering facts that pointed to substandard care or abuse.

As one man lay dying of head injuries suffered in a New Jersey immigration jail in 2007, for example, a spokesman for the federal agency told The Times that he could learn nothing about the case from government authorities. In fact, the records show, the spokesman had alerted those officials to the reporter’s inquiry, and they conferred at length about sending the man back to Africa to avoid embarrassing publicity.

Nery Romero, who died in immigration detention in 2007.

In another case that year, investigators from the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that unbearable, untreated pain had been a significant factor in the suicide of a 22-year-old detainee at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, and that the medical unit was so poorly run that other detainees were at risk.

The investigation found that jail medical personnel had falsified a medication log to show that the detainee, a Salvadoran named Nery Romero, had been given Motrin. The fake entry was easy to detect: When the drug was supposedly administered, Mr. Romero was already dead.

Yet those findings were never disclosed to the public or to Mr. Romero’s relatives on Long Island, who had accused the jail of abruptly depriving him of his prescription painkiller for a broken leg. And an agency supervisor wrote that because other jails were “finicky” about accepting detainees with known medical problems like Mr. Romero’s, such people would continue to be placed at the Bergen jail as “a last resort.”

In a recent interview, Benjamin Feldman, a spokesman for the jail, which housed 1,503 immigration detainees last year, would not say whether any changes had been made since the death.

In February 2007, in the case of the dying African man, the immigration agency’s spokesman for the Northeast, Michael Gilhooly, rebuffed a Times reporter’s questions about the detainee, who had suffered a skull fracture at the privately run Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey. Mr. Gilhooly said that without a full name and alien registration number for the man, he could not check on the case.

But, records show, he had already filed a report warning top managers at the federal agency about the reporter’s interest and sharing information about the injured man, a Guinean tailor named Boubacar Bah. Mr. Bah, 52, had been left in an isolation cell without treatment for more than 13 hours before an ambulance was called.

While he lay in the hospital in a coma after emergency brain surgery, 10 agency managers in Washington and Newark conferred by telephone and e-mail about how to avoid the cost of his care and the likelihood of “increased scrutiny and/or media exposure,” according to a memo summarizing the discussion.

One option they explored was sending the dying man to Guinea, despite an e-mail message from the supervising deportation officer, who wrote, “I don’t condone removal in his present state as he has a catheter” and was unconscious. Another idea was renewing Mr. Bah’s canceled work permit in hopes of tapping into Medicaid or disability benefits.

Eventually, faced with paying $10,000 a month for nursing home care, officials settled on a third course: “humanitarian release” to cousins in New York who had protested that they had no way to care for him. But days before the planned release, Mr. Bah died.

Among the participants in the conferences was Nina Dozoretz, a longtime manager in the agency’s Division of Immigration Health Services who had won an award for cutting detainee health care costs. Later she was vice president of the Nakamoto Group, a company hired by the Bush administration to monitor detention. The Obama administration recently rehired her to lead its overhaul of detainee health care.

Asked about the conference call on Mr. Bah, Ms. Dozoretz said: “How many years ago was that? I don’t recall all the specifics if indeed there was a call.” She added, “I advise you to contact our public affairs office.” Mr. Gilhooly, the spokesman who had said he had no information on the case, would not comment.

On the day after Mr. Bah’s death in May 2007, Scott Weber, director of the Newark field office of the immigration enforcement agency, recommended in a memo that the agency take the unusual step of paying to send the body to Guinea for burial, to prevent his widow from showing up in the United States for a funeral and drawing news coverage.

Mr. Weber wrote that he believed the agency had handled Mr. Bah’s case appropriately. “However,” he added, “I also don’t want to stir up any media interest where none is warranted.” Helping to bury Mr. Bah overseas, he wrote, “will go a long way to putting this matter to rest.”

In the agency’s confidential files was a jail video showing Mr. Bah face down in the medical unit, hands cuffed behind his back, just before medical personnel sent him to a disciplinary cell. The tape shows him crying out repeatedly in his native Fulani, “Help, they are killing me!”

Almost a year after his death, the agency quietly closed the case without action. But Mr. Bah’s name had shown up on the first list of detention fatalities, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and on May 5, 2008, his death was the subject of a front-page article in The Times.

Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview that the newly disclosed records represented the past, and that the agency’s new leaders were committed to transparency and greater oversight, including prompt public disclosure and investigation of every death, and more attention to detainee care in a better-managed system.

But the most recent documents show that the culture of secrecy has endured. And the past cover-ups underscore what some of the agency’s own employees say is a central flaw in the proposed overhaul: a reliance on the agency to oversee itself.

“Because ICE investigates itself there is no transparency and there is no reform or improvement,” Chris Crane, a vice president in the union that represents employees of the agency’s detention and removal operations, told a Congressional subcommittee on Dec. 10.

The agency has kept a database of detention fatalities at least since December 2005, when a National Public Radio investigation spurred a Congressional inquiry. In 2006, the agency issued standard procedures for all such deaths to be reported in detail to headquarters.

But internal documents suggest that officials were intensely concerned with controlling public information. In April 2007, Marc Raimondi, then an agency spokesman, warned top managers that a Washington Post reporter had asked about a list of 19 deaths that the civil liberties union had compiled, and about a dying man whose penile cancer had spread after going undiagnosed in detention, despite numerous medical requests for a biopsy.

“These are quite horrible medical stories,” Mr. Raimondi wrote, “and I think we’ll need to have a pretty strong response to keep this from becoming a very damaging national story that takes on long legs.”

That response was an all-out defense of detainee medical care over several months, including statistics that appeared to show that mortality rates in detention were declining, and were low compared with death rates in prisons.

Experts in detention health care called the comparison misleading; it also came to light that the agency was undercounting the number of detention deaths, as well as discharging some detainees shortly before they died. In August, litigation by the civil liberties union prompted the Obama administration to disclose that more than one in 10 immigrant detention deaths had been overlooked and omitted from a list submitted to Congress last year.

Two of those deaths had occurred in Arizona, in 2004 and 2007, at the Eloy Detention Center, run by the Corrections Corporation of America. Eloy had nine known fatalities – more than any other immigration jail under contract to the federal government. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement was still secretive. When a reporter for The Arizona Republic asked about the circumstances of those deaths, an agency spokesman told him the records were unavailable.

According to records The Times obtained in December, one Eloy detainee who died, in October 2008, was Emmanuel Owusu. An ailing 62-year-old barber who had arrived from Ghana on a student visa in 1972, he had been a legal permanent resident for 33 years, mostly in Chicago. Immigration authorities detained him in 2006, based on a 1979 conviction for misdemeanor battery and retail theft.

“I am confused as to how subject came into our custody???” the Phoenix field office director, Katrina S. Kane, wrote to subordinates. “Convicted in 1979? That’s a long time ago.”

In response, a report on his death was revised to refer to Mr. Owusu’s “lengthy criminal history ranging from 1977 to 1998.” It did not note that except for the battery conviction, that history consisted mostly of shoplifting offenses.

A diabetic with high blood pressure, he had been detained for two years at Eloy while he battled deportation. He died of a heart ailment weeks after his last appeal was dismissed.

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Police brutality breeds public outrage in wake of Jordan Miles beating

Posted by Nationalism.n.Matriarchy in News, Police State/Police Brutality on February 7, 2010

Jordan Miles, at hospital, following his arrest. (Photo: Terez Miles)

Jordan Miles following his arrest. (Photo: Terez Miles)

Take a look at the photos of Jordan Miles, the 18-year-old CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts) high school student allegedly beaten by Pittsburgh Police on January 11, and it’s impossible to ignore the signs of force used in his arrest. And while it is questionable whether this level of force was required to subdue a man of Miles’ size, the incident is now center stage, with community groups calling for action and formal investigations set to begin.

On Tuesday, the FBI announced it will investigate allegations that Miles’ arresting officers — Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte, and David Sisak — brutally beat the teenager:

FBI spokesman Jeff Killeen says the probe is in an early stage that will determine whether there’s “a potential violation of federal civil rights criminal laws” and the need for a more thorough investigation.

Killeen says the assessment has begun even though the bureau has not yet received a letter from Jordan Miles’ attorney formally requesting a criminal investigation. (via Associated Press)

justice for jordan

Supporters hold “Justice for Jordan” signs during Tuesday’s protest. (Photo: Post-Gazette)

And on the heels of the FBI announcement, public outrage played out on the streets of downtown Pittsburgh. Miles’ CAPA classmates, along with local activists and community leaders from groups such as The Black Political Empowerment Planning Council (B-PEP), marched from outside CAPA to the office of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, where a public rally was held. More than 50 classmates from Miles’ school took turns publicly expressing their grief, frustration, and anger over the police beating of their friend and classmate:

“Jordan will never forget what has been done to him, and he will have to live with this for the rest of his life,” said Damarra Underwood, Miles’ classmate at CAPA. “On behalf of his suffering, I believe the police who are involved in this case should be suspended without pay until this case is further investigated.” (via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

And longtime local activist, and former head of Pittsburgh’s NAACP chapter, Tim Stevens had this to say:

“I cannot remember in my more than 40 years of community activism seeing a picture much worse than that of the severely beaten face of Jordan Miles. I cannot fathom how the Pittsburgh police could in any reasonable way defend the beating, stomping, choking and kicking and hair-pulling of an unarmed, 5-7, 150-pound teenager by three armed police officers.” (via WTAE)

Following comments from activists and Miles’ classmates, Police Citizen Review Board chairwoman Marsha Hinton addressed the crowd and pledged a full investigation, saying: “Most of the members sitting here feel just as much outrage at what has happened to this child.”

Earlier in the week, as words of Miles’ beating spread, police chief Nate Harper asked the citizens of Pittsburgh to be patient as the Office of Municipal Investigations looks into the incident. At the same time, members of the Fraternal Order of Police pointed out the accomplishments of Ewing, Saldutte, and Sisak as the city’s best at getting guns off the streets.

“Their actions were correct and law-abiding by everything they received in their training,” FOP Vice President Charles Hanlon said. “The demand by special interest groups that they be removed from the streets is an insult to their hard work.” (via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Terez Miles, mother of Jordan Miles, at the NAACP press conference. (Photo: Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette)

Terez Miles, mother of Jordan Miles, at the NAACP press conference. (Photo: Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette)

On Wednesday, after what some had viewed as an initial lack of support, the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP called for the firing of the officers involved in Miles’ beating and suggested criminal charges be filed. “When a young man is simply walking down a street to get to his grandmother’s house and is savagely beaten almost beyond recognition, we must speak out,” said M. Gayle Moss, president of the Pittsburgh NAACP. Moss also urged police to drop the loitering and aggravated assault charges against Miles.

But what happens next? For Miles, physical recovery is the first step. Last week, the young violinist and honor roll student told NPR that he was still awaiting physician approval to return to school, and suffering from nightmares and flashbacks.

At the same time, however, the fate of officers Ewing, Saldutte, and Sisak, the undercover officers who arrested Miles on suspicion of gun possession, remains unclear. At last word, the men had been ordered to uniformed office duty with no disciplinary action taken. And the charges against Miles still stand.

“I feel that my son was racially profiled,” Terez Miles told NPR earlier this week. “[Homewood is] a rough neighborhood; it was after dark. … They assumed he was up to no good because he’s black. My son, he knows nothing about the streets at all. He’s had a very sheltered life, he’s very quiet, he doesn’t know police officers sit in cars and stalk people like that.”

Claims of police brutality and racial profiling are sensitive subjects in Pittsburgh, especially given the city’s history of police violence against black citizens. In the wake of this recent incident, the names of past victims have been appearing with increasing frequency: Johnny Gammage, Maneia “Little Stoney” Bey, Deron S. Grimmitt, Jerry Jackson, and Micheal Ellerbe. Each name represents an incident that ended in the death of a black citizen. And in each case, officers were acquitted of any wrongdoing.

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Woman Faces 15 Years for Cutting Line at Walmart, KKK Involved

Posted by APOC-Philly in General, News on October 24, 2009

by Boyce Watkins, PhD

Heatherellis-KKK

Heather Ellis of Kennett, Mo., has quite a story to tell. It all started nearly three years ago in a local Wal-Mart.

Ellis was shopping in the store with a cousin, and the two temporarily parted ways to find the shortest line. Seeing that the other line was moving faster, Ellis went to get in line with her cousin.

She was accused of cutting the line by a store employee, who then notified the security guard. According to Ellis, she was shoved by another customer, had her items pushed to the side and was shortchanged when she finally checked out. The police affidavit states that Ellis was belligerent, loud, abusive and cursing when she was told to leave the store by the assistant manager.

Ellis’ aunt, Lily Blackmon, received a frantic call from her son and claims that when she arrived, her daughter’s head was being repeatedly banged against the police car as she told officers that she wasn’t resisting arrest. Blackmon, who was a probation officer in the town for 11 years, asked the officers why her niece was getting such rough treatment.

“I said, ‘What is going on?’ And all [the officer] could say was, ‘She cursed,’” said Blackmon.

Ellis was charged with disturbing the peace, trespassing, resisting arrest and two counts of assaulting a police officer. She was then offered a plea deal by Dunklin County Prosecutor Stephen Sokoloff. The prosecutor offered to drop the felony counts to one misdemeanor of disturbing the peace, as long as Ellis signed the plea deal. Her aunt claims that the deal was offered so their family wouldn’t file a lawsuit.

Ellis refused to take the plea deal, claiming that she wasn’t willing to admit to something she didn’t do; however, 11 months later, the misdemeanor counts were dropped, which seemed to be good news. The good news, though, was replaced with something even more disturbing.

It turned out that the misdemeanor counts had been replaced by felonies. Ellis now faces 15 years in prison if convicted. When her aunt went to prosecutor Sokoloff to find out what happened, Sokoloff allegedly told her, “Mrs. Ellis, when you get through, I don’t care what you say. You may as well take my way out. My way was the plea bargain. If you don’t take that way, I can assure you, you’ll never win in here.”

Ellis claims that her pending convictions have cost her two jobs and the chance to enter medical school, but she still refuses to sign the plea deal. Racism recently entered in to the story when Ellis was handed KKK cards from a Kennett police officer warning her about her actions. The cards stated, “You’ve just been paid a social visit by the Ku Klux Klan; the next visit will not be social.” The officer claims that he only showed the family the cards to make them aware of the situation. Since that time, and after a dramatic plea for support, people have come to help Heather. The site www.SaveHeatherEllis.com has emerged, and her father appeared on CNN on the 15th of October to tell her story.

Dr. Towanna Freeman, a management consultant, argues that Walmart was to blame for the unfortunate sequence of events: “No matter what angle you take on this case, it all started when Walmart failed a valued customer and it’s Wal-Mart that owes Ms. Heather Ellis a written apology.”

Dr. Freeman goes on to argue that Walmart should have cleared up the disturbance as soon as it occurred, rather than allowing it to get out of hand.

When it comes to the trial of Heather Ellis, the bottom line is this: This young woman’s future should not be in jeopardy over this incident. If the prosecutor’s office could drop significant felony counts down to one misdemeanor, then they can drop the charges altogether. This may also be a case of what I call, “You got the wrong black person syndrome,” in which police treat a black suspect a certain way because they believe the person is either uneducated or without influence. Most cases of police abuse go unreported or without accountability by the police department. Once they found out that Ellis was a college student, this may have led to the surprisingly generous concessions made in the original plea deal. There appears to be a power trip in this case, in which the prosecutor (like the one in the Jena 6 case) seems to feel that he has the right to destroy this young woman’s life over an argument at Wal-Mart. I don’t think we should let that happen. Rev. Sharpton and I will have something interesting to talk about this week.

source: http://www.bvblackspin.com/2009/10/12/woman-faces-15-years-for-cutting-line-at-walmart-kkk-involved/

To watch video about the incident, please click the image below:

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Jack Poole, VANOC Chairman, Dies as Olympic Torch Lit in Greece

Posted by APOC-Philly in Canada, News on October 24, 2009

Vancouver Olympic chairman Poole dies

Jack Poole, head of Vanoc

CBC News, Friday, October 23, 2009
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2009/10/23/jack-poole-obit.html?ref=rss

Jack Poole, the man who brought the 2010 Winter Olympic Games to Vancouver, has died.

Olympic officials confirmed early Friday that Poole, the chairman of the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee’s board of directors, died after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.

The death of Poole, 76, comes a day after the flame for the Vancouver Games was lit in Olympia, Greece.

During the ceremony, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge gave special thanks to Poole, to whom, he said, “I bring a very warm and special salute.”

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, who attended the torch-lighting ceremony, also praised Poole’s work in bringing the games to Vancouver.

“British Columbia and Canada have lost a great friend,” Campbell said in a statement Friday.

“Few citizens reflect the generosity of spirit, the commitment to the public good and the undying dedication to public well-being that was exemplified by Jack Poole. His was an example of leadership, strength and integrity that is unmatched in my recollection”.

Poole, born on April 14, 1933, in the small town of Mortlach, Sask., started out in residential construction and went on to become one of B.C.’s top real estate developers.

He was also known for his philanthropic work and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2006.

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Nahr al-Bared reconstruction delays protested

Posted by APOC-Philly in Middle East, News, Palestine on October 2, 2009

Ray Smith, Electronic Lebanon, 1 October 2009

Palestinians from Nahr al-Bared and their Lebanese supporters protest the halt to reconstruction, Tripoli, north Lebanon (August 2009). (Matthew Cassel)

Since the end of August, construction equipment in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, has stood unused after the Lebanese State Council granted a two month moratorium for the reconstruction of the camp. Nahr al-Bared, home to approximately 30,000 refugees, was destroyed during a three-month-long battle between the Lebanese army and the militant group Fatah al-Islam in the summer of 2007.

Although a master plan for the reconstruction was already compiled by early 2008 and approved by the Lebanese government, the beginning of the construction works was delayed again and again. Ancient ruins were discovered beneath the rubble of the camp this spring, but few among the refugees believed the reports. For the last two years they heard too many — often flimsy — reasons for repeated delays in the reconstruction of the camp.

However, the archaeological findings were legitimate and the Lebanese Directorate General for Antiquities (DGA) became involved. Along with the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) and the office of the Lebanese prime minister, a solution was found: before the different sectors of the old camp would be backfilled and the concrete foundations laid, the DGA would excavate and document the archaeological findings.

The delay is understandably frustrating for refugees who could hardly believe their eyes when, after almost two years, reconstruction finally began in Nahr al-Bared late last June. According to UNRWA, the backfilling first stage of the eight-stage plan was almost complete by the end of August and the laying of the concrete foundation was about to start when the agency was ordered by the Lebanese government to halt construction.

Amr Saededine, an organizer with the Nahr al-Bared Reconstruction Commission, told The Electronic Intifada, “There is a real fear in the camp based on previous experiences that the displacement will continue and they will not be allowed to return to Nahr al-Bared,” referring to camps like Nabatiyeh, Tel al-Zatar and even areas of Shatila that were destroyed in the past and never rebuilt.

The leader of the opposition-aligned Free Patriotic Movement, former Lebanese General Michel Aoun, filed a plea this summer against the government’s decision regarding the backfilling of the camp. On 18 August, the English-language Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star reported that the State Council, in light of Aoun’s request, granted a moratorium for the time being. A definitive decision is expected in October.

Representatives of the Nahr al-Bared Reconstruction Commission accuse Lebanese politicians of using the archaeological findings for scoring political gains. The commission points to a discourse demanding the transformation of the ancient ruins into a tourist site. In a recent speech, Michel Aoun denied delaying the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared but said: “It is the government’s responsibility to purchase substitute lands to build the camp on, instead of rebuilding on the site where an archeological discovery was recently made.” The commission meanwhile rejects resettling the refugees on lots surrounding Nahr al-Bared, calling Aoun’s intentions “theoretical and unworkable.”

Thousands of Nahr al-Bared residents organized a massive protest at the end of August at the entrance to the construction site, which was complemented by protests in other Palestinian refugee camps throughout Lebanon. Criticism not only targeted the halting of reconstruction, but also the Lebanese army’s continued siege of the camp. The Lebanese army controls movement inside and at the perimeters of Nahr al-Bared, isolating the camp’s residents and crippling its economy. On 16 September, the refugees took their protest to the streets of Tripoli where they were joined by Lebanese supporters.

Three protesters were shot dead and many others wounded at a demonstration during the military operations in Nahr al-Bared at the end of June 2007. Since then, protests have been limited to non-confrontational gatherings, but at a press conference on 3 September, activists from Nahr al-Bared hinted at launching a series of nonviolent direct actions and more strategic campaigns.

Saededine of the reconstruction commission stated that these latest protests were just the beginning: “There is an escalation happening now in the organizing against the halt to reconstruction. [The protests] began in Nahr al-Bared, then [the nearby refugee camp of] Baddawi, then Tripoli and next Beirut.” He said that there would be a sit-in held on 12 October in downton Beirut “organized by all the camps in Lebanon, saying that we will not accept [a failure] to reconstruct Nahr al-Bared. This is also supported by forces in the Lebanese civil society [movement].”

Nahr al-Bared’s refugees meanwhile stick to a slogan they’ve been using since the first days of their displacement in 2007. At the nearby Baddawi refugee camp, displaced families had taken refuge in schools which they refused to leave for other temporary shelter, claiming that they would only be satisfied by a return to Nahr al-Bared camp — or to their property in Palestine.

Ray Smith is an activist with the anarchist media collective a-films. The collective has been working in Nahr al-Bared for the past two years and has published about a dozen short films from the camp at a-films.blogspot.com.

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VIDEO: ANC attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo

Posted by APOC-Philly in General, News on October 2, 2009

Tell the ANC to stop it’s repression against Abahlali baseMjondolo

October 1, 2009

On the morning of September 27th armed mobs of ANC members attacked the Kennedy Road Development Community due to it’s participation in the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement. Since then, despite the clear presence of the police and senior ANC officials, the attacks have continued, these attacks have led to the murder of several Abahlali members and have forced thousands of Kennedy road residents to flee. Visit the Abahlali website for more information and tell the ANC that this repression must stop!

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Sistah Vegan Book Release

Posted by APOC-Philly in Black/New Afrikan, Herbivores/Vegans of Color, News, Wimmin/Women on October 1, 2009

From: http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to update folk and let them know that my book,

svamazon

Sistah Vegan: Food, Identity, Health, and Society: Black Female Vegans Speak is now available for pre-order.

I am very excited about this, as it’s been nearly 4.5 years since its inception.

Best,

Breeze

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California: Community Shuts Down Nazi Rally

Posted by APOC-Philly in Action, News on October 1, 2009

ALERT: Update 12:30pm 9/26/09: A contingent of close to 100 activists, including Mecha, Brown Berets, local anarchists and day labors successfully broke up the rally. Activists surrounded the Nazis and attempted to seize their Nazi flags and burn them. Nazis were forced to retreat under the protection of a police escort. No arrests or injuries have been reported. Anti-fascist activists are now headed to a location believed to be the Nazis headquarters.

9/25/09: “The National Socialist Movement”, better known as the Nazis, has announced a rally and march on Saturday, Sept 26 in Riverside, CA. We will NOT allow the Nazis to scapegoat our communities and brothers and sisters. Urgent call to action..

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Obama warns Iran: `come clean’ on nukes

Posted by APOC-Philly in General, News on September 30, 2009

By CHARLES BABINGTON and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writers

President Barack Obama, followed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, center, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, arrive to make a statement on Iran’s nuclear facility, Friday, Sept. 25, 2009, during the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

PITTSBURGH — Backed by other world powers, President Barack Obama declared Friday that Iran is speeding down a path to confrontation and demanded that Tehran quickly “come clean” on all nuclear efforts and open a newly revealed secret site for close international inspection. He said he would not rule out military action if the Iranians refuse.

Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.

“Iran’s action raised grave doubts” about its promise to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only, Obama told a news conference at the conclusion of a G-20 summit whose focus on world economic recovery was overshadowed by disclosure of the Iranian plant.

Obama said a telling moment could come next week when Iran meets with U.S. and other major nations to discuss the nuclear issue.

“Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice” between international isolation and giving up any aspirations to becoming a nuclear power, he said. If they refuse to give ground, they will stay on “a path that is going to lead to confrontation.”

In a dramatic, early morning announcement about the secret Iranian facility, Obama said, “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow. The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.”

Unbowed, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had done nothing wrong and Obama would regret his accusations.

At a news conference in New York, Ahmadinejad said the plant wouldn’t be operational for 18 months but sidestepped a question about whether Iran had sufficient enriched uranium to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Still, he said such armaments “are against humanity, they are inhumane,” and he said anyone who pursues them “is retarded politically.”

Later Friday on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” Ahmadinejad said Iran did inform international authorities about its program and questioned what exactly Obama found fault with.

“We exceeded our commitment to the agency based on the regulations, and so is Mr. Obama really questioning why we informed the agency,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The head of Iran’s nuclear program suggested U.N. inspectors would be allowed to visit the site. Ali Akbar Salehi called the facility “a semi-industrial plant for enriching nuclear fuel” that is not yet complete, but he gave no other details, according to the state news agency IRNA.

The plant, near the holy city of Qom southwest of Tehran, would be about the right size to enrich enough uranium to produce one or two bombs a year, but inspectors must get inside to know what is actually going on, one U.S. official said.

At his Pittsburgh news conference, Obama appeared to hold out limited hope for the Oct. 1 meeting, which will be the first of its kind in more than a year. Iran has said its nuclear program should not be on the agenda.

“When we find that diplomacy does not work, we will be in a much stronger position to, for example, apply sanctions that have bite,” Obama said. “That’s not the preferred course of action. I would love nothing more than to see Iran choose the responsible path.”

He said he was confident in the reliability of the intelligence information about Iran’s secret nuclear facilities.

“This was the work product of three intelligence agencies, not just one,” Obama said. “They checked over this work in a painstaking fashion.”

Obama said he was especially pleased that Russia and China agreed with him that Iran must live up to its obligations under international rules on nuclear activities. The leaders of Britain and France joined Obama at his morning announcement.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, at his own news conference in Pittsburgh, urged Iran to cooperate and “demonstrate its good intentions” at the Oct. 1 meeting and in allowing inspections. “We call on Iran to show maximum cooperation with the IAEA on this issue,” he said.

Beyond tougher economic sanctions, options for acting against Iran are limited and perilous.

Military action by the United States or an ally such as Israel could set off a dangerous chain of events in the Islamic world. In addition, Iran’s facilities are spread around the country and well hidden, making an effective military response difficult.

Asked about the prospect of using military force to stop Iran from getting the bomb, Obama said, “With respect to the military, I’ve always said that we do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests, but I will also re-emphasize that my preferred course of action is to resolve this in a diplomatic fashion. It’s up to the Iranians to respond.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking Friday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said it would be a mistake to rule out military action, but he also said there was still room to pursue diplomacy.

“The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time,” Gates said, adding that the U.S. believes Iran could have a nuclear weapons within one to three years. “And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened.”

Obama’s European partners talked tough, too.

“We will not let this matter rest,” said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who accused Iran of “serial deception.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Iran has until December to comply with demands for a fuller accounting of its program or face tough new sanctions.

On Capitol Hill, three senators — Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana, Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — issued a joint statement condemning Iran.

“Given Iran’s consistent pattern of deceit, concealment and bad faith, the only way to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions is to make absolutely clear to the regime in Tehran that its current course will carry catastrophic consequences,” the senators said. “We must leave no doubt that we are prepared to do whatever it takes to stop Iran’s nuclear breakout.”

Iran had previously acknowledged having only the one uranium enrichment plant, under international monitoring, and had denied allegations of undeclared nuclear activities.

James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said a consensus has developed that if Iran were to decide to manufacture nuclear weapons the key material probably would be produced in a clandestine facility.

“This should persuade any doubters that Iran’s program is not for peaceful purposes,” Acton said.

National Security Writer Robert Burns reported from Washington. Also contributing were Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Ben Feller, Foster Klug, Lynn Berry and Michael Fischer in Pittsburgh, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Ben Judah in Moscow, John Heilprin in New York and Pamela Hess and Desmond Butler in Washington.

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Jalil Muntaqim’s 2009 Parole Hearing

Posted by APOC-Philly in General, News, Prisoners of War/Political Prisoners on September 30, 2009

Jalil is asking that we write letters supporting his 2009 parole, which has been postponed for 30 to 90 days for lack of records. This means the hearing could occur as early as Oct. 22 and as late as the end of December. It is believed that they want a new victim impact statement and the sentencing minutes from California. In the interim he said we need to continue efforts to build support. Please address the letter to the Parole Commissioners (Re: Parole application of Anthony Jalil Bottom #77A4283) but send to: NYC Jericho, PO Box 1272, New York, NY 10013

The more personal and individual your letter is, the better. You can write about visiting or communicating with Jalil, or if you haven’t been in direct touch with him, you can write about the articles you’ve read by him or any other knowledge you have of his activities while in prison. Please say that you are aware of the case for which he is serving his sentence. You can also talk about your own perspective – for example, if you are a teacher, you know how valuable it is that Jalil has counseled young prisoners. Any particular slant you can give to your assertion that he will be an excellent candidate for release can give the letter more force. For a list of Jalil’s accomplishments, go to www.freejalil.com.

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Mixed Verdict in S. African Lesbian’s Murder Trial

Posted by APOC-Philly in News, Queer/Trans/Two-Spirit, Wimmin/Women, africa on September 29, 2009

Paballo Thekso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Supporters of Eudy Simelane danced in August outside the court where three men charged with her killing were to go on trial. One defendant was convicted Tuesday and two were acquitted.
Published: September 22, 2009

DELMAS, South Africa — Eudy Simelane was a 31-year-old lesbian activist and one of this nation’s best female soccer players, a tall, muscular woman who knew how to defend herself with her fists and her elbows. She could not have been easy to kill.

Before leaving her naked body face down in a drainage ditch, her murderers stabbed her nine times, said the doctor who performed the autopsy. Three of the deep cuts were in the upper inside of her thighs. Those wounds as well as the bruising at the entrance of her vagina led the doctor to conclude that the assailants had tried to rape her.

In February, one of the attackers, Thato Mpithi, 23, pleaded guilty to murder, implicating three other men before denying their involvement almost six months later. On Tuesday, in a courtroom here in Delmas, two of the men he named were acquitted for lack of evidence, though the judge, Ratha Mokgoathleng, warned that they might someday have to answer to God.

The other man on trial, Themba Mvubu, 24, had no reasonable explanation for his trousers’ being stained with Ms. Simelane’s blood. He received a life sentence but walked from the courtroom smiling, showing no contrition and telling a reporter, “Ach, I’m not sorry at all.” He disappeared down a stairway to a holding cell as some of Ms. Simelane’s friends shouted that they would prefer he be sliced into pieces.

Ms. Simelane, who was killed in April 2008, was one of 18,148 murder victims in the 12 months that ended in March. Tuesday was also the day the South African Police Service released its annual crime report. The data showed 339 fewer homicides than in the previous 12-month period, an improvement that still left this country of 49 million people with one of the world’s highest murder rates. At the same time, the number of reported sex crimes jumped to 70,514, up nearly 7,000. Burglaries of homes and businesses also increased sharply.

South Africans are obsessed with the violent crime in their midst, and earlier this month the new police minister, Nathi Mthethwa, tried to reassure them. “We are tired of waving nice documents like the Constitution” at criminals, he said, vowing instead to “meet the thugs head-on, and if it means we kill when we shoot them, so be it.”

The problem with such tough talk, gay and lesbian groups say, is that it often excludes crimes directed at them. They claim they are special targets of violence, and snickering, abusive police officers do little to protect them or pursue their complaints.

The Simelane case has been central to a campaign to bring attention to attacks against lesbians and gay men. But sexual orientation was never established as a motive at the trial. Judge Mokgoathleng was uncomfortable with the term lesbian itself. “Is there another word that you can use instead of that one?” he asked the prosecutor.

Ms. Simelane grew up in Kwa Thema, a township of small, modest homes southeast of Johannesburg. “There were three of us: Eudy, me and Zodwa,” said Pretty Makhalya, her closest friend. “Whatever we did was boyish. We were different, you could tell. We were athletes. We played with the boys but we had feelings for the girls.”

By high school, they better understood their sexuality, she said. They dressed butch, wearing pants and T-shirts, jockeys instead of panties. They dated other girls, preferring their partners “looking beautiful with makeup and everything.”

Kwa Thema was unusual among townships. Lesbians were quite open. Most boys their age were comfortable around them. “But there were also guys who’d say, ‘C’mon, we’ll teach you how to be a girl,’ ” Ms. Makhalya said. “They looked at us like we were crazy people, defying nature. Things would heat up. There’d be fights.

“And it wasn’t just some boys who hated us, we realized. Some churches were no-go areas. They wouldn’t let us in if we were wearing trousers.”

Ms. Simelane was one of the best-known people in Kwa Thema. People were wild about soccer, and she was good enough to make the national team, Banyana Banyana, competing internationally for a few years. She was a bar-hopper, not just hanging out at places like Savey’s and Hlubi’s that welcomed gay men and lesbians, but at other spots, too.

Her killers attacked her in the darkness as Ms. Simelane was walking home near an open field. Mr. Mpithi said that he did not know Ms. Simelane, and that robbery — not her identity as a lesbian — was the only motive for the attack. One of the other three men, Johannes Mahlangu, decided to rape Ms. Simelane because she was carrying no money, Mr. Mpithi said. As the sexual assault went on, Ms. Simelane recognized Mr. Mvubu. To save themselves from arrest, the men decided she had to be killed.

Mr. Mpithi, promising to testify against the others, was given a 32-year prison sentence. But when the trial began in July, he said he had become a born-again Christian and could no longer repeat his earlier lies. He then said that the other three defendants were not involved.

Without Mr. Mpithi’s incriminating testimony, the judge found only Mr. Mvubu, caught in the bloodstained pants, guilty. The other two defendants went free.

Khotso Simelane, Ms. Simelane’s father, watched them go, the shackles removed from their legs. He had observed the trial’s unfolding, a rail-thin retired bricklayer often burying his head in his hands.

“Those two should never come back to Kwa Thema,” he said. “Eudy was loved, and the mob will kill them for stealing the life of my daughter.”

A version of this article appeared in print on September 23, 2009, on page A8 of the New York edition.

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No Olympic ‘Truce’ for Canadian Troops in Afghanistan

Posted by APOC-Philly in Canada, News, Turtle Island on September 29, 2009

September 21, 2009 – 01:02 — no2010

CF Soldiers in Afghan Break and Enter

Olympic truce tradition hard for Canada to swallow

Organizers say they have no intention of asking troops fighting in Afghanistan to lay down arms during the Games

ROD MICKLEBURGH, Globe and Mail, Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009

Canada may be in an awkward “do as I say, not as I do” situation next month as it prepares a resolution for the United Nations General Assembly calling on all nations to observe an Olympic truce during the 2010 Winter Games.

Canadian soldiers continue to fight and die in war-torn Afghanistan, and 2010 organizers say they have no intention of asking that their country’s own troops lay down their arms for the 17 days of the Olympics.

“We will not be entering into that kind of discussion with Canada,” VANOC president John Furlong affirmed yesterday.

The UN has traditionally passed an Olympic Truce resolution before each Summer and Winter Games since the early 1990s, echoing the practice of the ancient Greeks, who, according to legend, put aside their weapons every four years to compete peacefully at the Olympic Games of yore.

The country where the Games will be staged routinely introduces the resolution.

“The goal is to have all nations of the world support the truce, which is intended to promote a spirit of peace around the world during the period of the Games,” Mr. Furlong said. “The whole idea is to promote peace, not just in the host country, but in other countries.”

Canada, however, as one of the few host Olympic nations in recent years to be engaged in an actual conflict, is unlikely to observe any sort of ceasefire.

The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was the last occasion a country held an Olympics while taking part in military hostilities. The United States was then at war, also in Afghanistan, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. diplomats watered down their UN Olympic Truce resolution to focus on providing “a safe passage” to the world’s athletes, rather than a call for peace.

Of course, Olympic controversy over foreign troops in Afghanistan is nothing new. The largest boycott in the history of the Olympics took place in 1980, when dozens of Western nations, including Canada and the United States, withdrew from the Moscow Summer Games to protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Now, it’s the West’s turn to fight in the impoverished Asian country, but this time, no one is boycotting anything.

Asked whether Canada would take any initiative to ease hostilities there during the Olympics, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione steered carefully away from the question.

“What I can tell you at this point in time is that, as host of the upcoming Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Canada is pleased to bring forward the draft resolution entitled ‘Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal,’ ” Mr. Cacchione responded in an e-mail.

He said the resolution would “promote the ideals of peace, understanding and fair play within the positive atmosphere of sport.”

The concept of a modern-day Olympic Truce was launched by the International Olympic Committee in 1992. Despite some early successes (a temporary ceasefire in the bloody civil war in Sudan, and an arrangement to deliver humanitarian aid to the hard-hit population of strife-ridden Bosnia), the IOC now plays down expectations of meaningful peace gestures while the Games go on. Advocates stress instead the symbolic value of the truce.

“The world is a complex place,” Mr. Furlong acknowledged. “But by bringing the world’s attention to the truce, the whole idea is to promote the spirit of peace at home, and just try to get the world to focus on the value of this, at a time when it’s needed.

“We’ve always believed, and people in sport believe, that when you’re playing, you are not fighting.”

Late yesterday, VANOC officials released examples of recent truce initiatives by previous Olympic Organizing Committees.

For the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, for instance, a partnership with Unicef was struck to help vaccinate children in countries ravaged by conflict during the truce period, while organizers of the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004 added peace to the message of its torch
relay.

Canada is due to introduce its Olympic Truce resolution at the UN General Assembly on Oct. 20. The wording of the motion is still being worked on. Those involved include representatives of Foreign Affairs, VANOC, the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee.

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En estado delicado Lolita Lebrón

Posted by APOC-Philly in General, News, Prisoners of War/Political Prisoners, Puerto Rico on September 29, 2009

La ex-presa nacionalista se encuentra en intensivo debido a una afección cardio respiratoria

Por: Maritza Cañizares – 21/9/09 8:25 PM

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