Month: December 2005

No.  This is not Hallowe’en night masking on New Year’s Eve.

Several people have spoken of this phenomenon, most notably former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia on an episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time.  Smoke and Mirrors pointed this out thusly on October 17:

It’s reported that there is a warehouse of bodies recovered, after being delivered at Charity Hospital in New Orleans with bullets to the back of their heads. The discovery has lead to former Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Foti – mentioned in these pages in past articles – who is now Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, asking for an independent investigation.

Well, now the curtain is rising on those 21 bodies.  And wouldn’t you know that only some backwater newspapers are reporting it via the Associated Press?

Not WaPo, not the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times.

From unexplained gunshot wounds to stabbings and fatal blows to the head, these unidentified victims are now the main characters in a real-life version of “CSI.”

[…]

With evidence that’s washed away, witnesses who fled the state and overworked police, at least one official says the mysteries may never be solved.

“We don’t know if they are suicide or murder or accident,” says New Orleans coroner Dr. Frank Minyard.

And many of the bodies were so badly decomposed and compromised that there was no blood or organs extant.

Out of the over 1,000 corpses in the St. Gabriel mortuary, if coroners found anything that looked remotely suspicious–a bullet lodged near a bone or a deep wound that looked as if it was made with a knife–they notified the police and the district attorney’s office.

New Orleans police spokesperson Captain Juan Quinton denied that there was any appreciable back log of unexplained deaths and refused to discuss the details of any ongoing investigation.  However, the Orleans Parish DA is investigating four murders that occurred after the hurricane: one at the Dome, one at the Convention Center and two that took place on the street.

I cannot believe that there are only four official deaths to investigate, just as there are only four reported rapes recorded in contrast to the dozens of  rapes that were said to have occurred throughout New Orleans.  I know, however, that what has given some Katrina survivors flashbacks and nightmares–and possibly an adamant refusal to return–have been their witnessing random acts of violence, not just the losses of life by flooding.  Violence not only perpetrated by civilians but by the very police, either in uniform or in plain clothes, that were supposed to protect them from harm in the days following the hurricane and during the flooding.  

Included in the morgue’s mysterious 21 – but not among the four on the DA’s homicide list – are the police-shooting deaths of two men in September. Police say the two opened fire on contractors traveling across the Danzinger Bridge on their way to make repairs. The family of one of the dead disputes the men shot at anyone, and Jordan’s office is investigating.

In late October, a prominent forensic pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht, coroner of Pittsburgh, PA, came to assist Minyard with 30 Katrina-related autopsies, including one involving a shooting death.  Wecht too could not rule whether the deaths were accidental or intentional.  The coroners could only make sure that each victim had pieces of their leg bones removed for DNA analysis for final identification.

And Louis Cataldie, the state medical examiner, said in another story yesterday that a precise casualty count of hurricane and flooding victims might never be known.  So far, there are 1,100 dead statewide, with some 6,000 unaccounted for.

Soj is celebrating in Romania right now. I’m just waiting for the Giants game. Go Big Blue.

I am very impressed with CNN’s decision to hire degenerate gambler, William Bennett, to be their brand new political analyst. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe they can use Jack Abramoff as a political analyst, too. You know, just back a satellite truck up to his prison walls, and see what wisdom Jack has to drop on the scandal du jour.

I wonder how often Big Bill will remember to disclose the fact that he gets preferential contracts for his Arkansas home-schooling initiative from the administration:

He never bothered to to disclose his conflict of interests when he blabbered on Fox News.

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the heads up.

will the New York Times follow suit?

It’s now official; add another tale of government dollars undermining journalistic integrity in 2005. Anthony Fenton and Dennis Bernstein of Flashpoints Radio broke this story last Tuesday; AP confirms:

AP Ends Relationship With Haiti Freelancer

The Associated Press has terminated its relationship with a freelance reporter in Haiti after learning she was working for a U.S. government-sponsored organization.

The National Endowment for Democracy confirmed Regine Alexandre began working for the organization in October as a “part-time facilitator” between the NED and Haitian groups. <snip>

“AP employees must avoid any behavior or activities that create a conflict of interest or compromise our ability to report the news fairly and accurately,” said Mike Silverman, the news agency’s managing editor.

Alexandre, who freelances for other news organizations, reported only one story for the AP – on the Dec. 24 killing of a U.N. peacekeeper in Haiti – after beginning her association with the NED. She first began reporting for the AP in 2004. <snip>

When told later that the NED confirmed her employment, she continued to maintain she did not work for the organization.

The NED said it was unaware when it hired Alexandre that she worked for the AP or any other media organization.

link

Fenton & Bernstein, in Denial in Haiti: AP reporter RéGINE ALEXANDRE is wearing two hats, ask:

Has the Associated Press and the New York Times gone to bed with the National Endowment for Democracy?

<snip>

Régine Alexandre, whose name appears as an AP by-line at least a dozen times starting in May of 2004, and appears as a contributor to two NY Times stories, is a part of an NED “experiment” to place a representative on the ground in countries where the NED has funded groups.

“This is almost like an experiment for us,” said Fabiola Cordova, a Haiti program officer with the NED in Washington D.C. on December 6th. “The NED usually doesn’t have a field presence and most of the work from our side takes place here in D.C. Then once the grants are approved it’s really very much on the grantees’ leadership and initiative to ‘implement their programs.’

Cordova said the NED tries to monitor the programs from DC and to provide some financial oversight, but “a lot of the organizations in Haiti really need a lot of hand-holding, so we hired this person to be part-time NED staff on the ground, and she’s helped us, well, both identify new grantees and to respond to any specific questions they’re going to have on the ground.”

Cordova said the relationship between NED and Alexandre has worked out well. “I think it has been very helpful, and over time as they get more used to having her there, they will use her more effectively too. It works out well for us,” said the NED program officer, “because we don’t need a full time person. Like I said, it’s an experiment, NED has never had like a field presence like this before, but we really wanted to expand our Haiti program so we thought it was really necessary to do this.”

Cordova said that Alexandre “was already in Haiti doing some other freelance work” and the NED hired her part time where she “works as a consultant.” As a follow up, NED’s Haiti program officer forwarded in a December 6, 2005 eMail the direct contacts for Regine Alexandre including her phone and eMail address. “Nice talking to you today,” wrote Cordova, “As promised, attached is the information on our Haiti grantees, and the contact information on our part-time field rep in Haiti. Her name is Regine Alexandre. I will drop her an e-mail and to let her know you might be in touch.”

In recent years, NED funding for Haiti has skyrocketed from $0 in 2003, before the forced departure of elected President John Bertrand Aristide, to $149,300 in 2004 to its current level of $541,045 in 2005 (8 grantees). NED spending in Haiti is at its highest level since 1990, the year Aristide was first elected.

Alexandre denies working for the NED, but said she has met with several NED grantees and was considering working for NED but then decided not to. “All I can tell you,” she said in a phone interview from Port-au-Prince on December 27th, “I met with NED, I was going to work for them, and I didn’t know much about NED and I decided not to work for them. I remember meeting with two, maybe three of the grantees and that’s it, but I do not work for NED.”

Alexandre’s denial includes this laugher:

Alexandre, who is also a development consultant in Haiti, says that at the request of NED she did meet briefly with some Haitian non-government organizations to provide them with contact information for NED, and was reimbursed by NED for travel expenses. She says she was unaware that NED had any U.S. government links.

Part of her work in Haiti has included ‘training’ journalists:

“The NED was created in the highest echelons of the US national security state,” writes William Robinson in Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony.

“It is organically integrated into the overall execution of US national security and foreign policy. In structure, organization, and operation, it is closer to clandestine and national security organs such as the CIA than to apolitical or humanitarian endowments, as the name would suggest.”

Other groups that have worked with Alexandre include RANCODHA, a Haiti-based group, also working around the elections. RANCODHA was the recipient of a $41,220 grant from the NED, according to documents obtained from the NED. Gadin Jean-Pierre, a spokesperson for the group, said in an interview from Haiti on December 27th that Alexandre has been in regular touch with the group, as a representative of the NED. “She’s keeping in touch with us, and we keep her informed about our activities that we are doing now with the project. I have had a meeting with her already, and she keeps in touch with us.”

In a second interview, Jean-Pierre again confirmed Alexandre’s work for the NED. “NED is the organization funding our program…We get funding from NED and we are working in close collaboration with Regine Alexandre. She will meet tomorrow with us, at 9:00; we have the evaluation of the program of the last module we have done. She will be with us tomorrow (Thursday,December 29th).”

Hans Tippenhauer, director of Fondation Espoir (Hope Foundation), the recipient of a $132,970 NED grant, also confirmed that Regine Alexandre was working for the NED, and acted as a “contact officer” between his organization and NED. In an interview from Haiti Tippenhauer said “Yes, she is a contact person” for Fondation Espoir, and added that “the reality is our last program was approved before she was in charge, so now she is just a contact officer for us, but we are working directly with, I mean we had previous engagements with NED in Washington…”

Maryse Balthazar is the coordinator of the Association of Haitian Women Journalists or AMIFEH. The group received a $16,815 NED grant for 2005. Balthazar said she last met with Regine Alexandre on December 8th. She says that she first started working with Alexandre in September 2005. Part of AMIFEH’s work is to train Haitian journalists how to cover elections. “Yes,” she said in an interview on 12/29/2005, “I work with Alexandre.” Balathazar said the last meeting she had with Alexandre was “before the Session of the North department,” on December 8th, and that she had commenced working with her in September of 2005.

Alexandre has also contributed to stories for the New York Times. Ethan Bonner, NYT Deputy Foreign Editor, is ‘investigating’:

Dennis Bernstein: And would you say that working with her again is on hold until you get to the bottom of this?
EB: Oh, sure. Yeah, that’s for sure.
DB: So, you won’t be using her until you know a lot more about this – you don’t have any idea so, you still might use her?
EB: No, well, you know, we’re investigating – you know how that is . . . If in fact the NED says that she works for them, or is on contract with them, then we will not be able to continue to employ her. You know, we do it on a per diem basis anyway, you understand, she’s not on a contract, or . . .
DB: I understand
EB: but in any case, we do not want those who do journalism for us to be in the employ of government-sponsored organizations. You know, so
DB: could you just complete that thought? And why is that? Because you believe
EB: Because we believe that that would be a conflict of interest for that reporter.  <snip>

Subsequent to the above interview we received a phone call from New York Times Deputy Foreign Editor, Ethan Bonnar.

He stated that a spokesperson for the NED confirmed that, in fact, Regine Alexandre is an employee of the NED. Bonnar asserted that it is his understanding that she was not an NED employee at the same time she was a stringer for the NYT.

When asked if she was paid indirectly – through another agency – Bonnar replied, “…that is a deeper question…” that he would have to look into it further:

DB: Given that she lied, is that not a serious problem?
EB: This does kinda smell bad to us. We’ve been trying to reach Ms. Alexandre but we’ve been having a difficult time. Maybe she’s in hiding.

Bonnar further stated that Regine Alexandre has been freelancing for the NYT for some time going back into the 1990’s. Additionally, he suggested that she may have “fed into” stories filed by Lydia Polgreen and David Gonzales. Bonnar said that the NYT is not yet where the AP is in announcing that it is severing all ties, but he said that if the Times confirmed that Alexandre was in fact lying regarding her work with the NED, then they would not be able to work with her.

As of an hour ago, the NYT had yet to report on Alexandre. “All the news that’s . . .”

Here’s a link to Tueday’s interview, breaking the story. There’s more as well on site from Friday’s program.

As the US/UN supported assault on Haiti’s poor continues, one gets the real story only from alternative news sources, where atrocious headlines appear:

Police use rape to terrorize women and girls in Haiti:

Since the Feb. 29, 2004, coup overthrowing the democratic government of Jean Bertrand Aristide, reports have surfaced of a growing problem: politically motivated mass rape. Women in the popular neighborhoods – which are known for their support of Aristide and the democratic movement – have accused members of the police force and U.N. soldiers, as well as members of the demobilized Haitian army, of targeting them for sexual attacks.

Bay View reporter Lyn Duff spoke this week with Estelle, a resident of Port-au-Prince’s Bel Air neighborhood about the attack on her family by police:

One had his police identification out and said, “See what this is? It means that I can do with you whatever I want.” But it was too dark for us to see the name on the card, even though we recognized it as a policeman’s identification card.

Four police officers stayed behind after the others took my husband away. The way they were looking at me, I knew I was in trouble . . .

But one police officer said to me, “Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy it.” I think you can imagine what happened next. All of the police officers raped me, both in the natural place for having sex and also in the unnatural way, in my rear.

The whole time my children were there watching. When the police officers finished with me, they went for my oldest girl, the one who is here with me today. They wanted to violate her as well but she is too small. One police officer put his fingers up inside of her and she bled.

UN “Peacemakers” in Haiti

Heavily armed soldiers of the Brazilian military, which leads the UN military mission to Haiti known as MINUSTAH, had earlier taken over a building in Pele belonging to an accused drug dealer with alleged ties to presidential candidate Guy Philippe. The troops were seen reinforcing the facility with sand bags and equipment as a military unit on the ground led a group of black-hooded residents through the neighborhood on a mission to identify and target suspected “bandits” for arrest.

Twelve residents, ten men and two women, were reportedly arrested based on the accusations of the hooded informants and were taken away to an undisclosed UN facility. Several residents reacted with shock and anger at the site of the black-hooded informants, a new tactic apparently being used by the UN forces to pacify poor neighborhoods in the capital. “This is really scary because we don’t know who these hooded accusers are. We don’t even know if they are really from our area. I just saw them arrest a man I have known for years and who is not involved with anything violent. Where are they taking him?” asked one angry woman who refused to give her name.

The neighborhood of Pele borders the teeming seaside slum of Cite Soleil that has been a launching site for massive demonstrations demanding the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Demonstrations have also demanded an end to political persecution against Aristide’s Lavalas party and the release of their leaders held behind bars and deemed to be political prisoners.

On July 6, about 350 UN troops led by a Jordanian contingent under the command of the Brazilians, entered Cite Soleil on a mission to kill a suspected gang leader and Aristide supporter Emmanuel “Dread” Wilme along with four of his lieutenants. When the smoke cleared not only did the five men lie dead from a hail of bullets but also so did at least 12 unarmed residents including women and children. Exclusive video footage of the incident seen by independent journalists is said to provide enough evidence to conclude that UN forces deliberately targeted unarmed civilians in the deadly raid.

Although the UN promised an investigation into the July 6 incident, nothing has been said since except the well-known denials of UN Special Envoy Juan Gabriel Valdes who continues to dismiss any criticism of the UN mission as “propaganda and lies.”

On November 27, Cite Soleil came under heavy fire again from Brazilian forces in a military operation against suspected bandits (a code word, according to residents, borrowed from Haiti’s wealthy elite to describe Lavalas supporters in poor neighborhoods of the capital). At least seven people were wounded by automatic gunfire in an incident described by Canadian journalist Isabel MacDonald, “Suddenly, we saw four UN APCs-also manned by Brazilians–drive slowly up along the largest road in the vicinity. MINUSTAH bullets were suddenly whizzing by our heads. In the street alley we were in, people frantically flew in all directions, ducking into doorways, hiding behind ledges of the long concrete walls lining the alleyway. I took cover with a half dozen residents hiding behind a ledge of the wall that jutted out about six inches. The MINUSTAH APCs continued to fire rounds in our direction for about ten minutes.”

As the embedded reporters were treated to photo opportunities of happy smiling residents receiving aid buckets in Pele last Friday, heavy gunfire broke out from Brazilian forces on Route Nationale 1, a main highway that separates Pele from Cite Soleil. “No one fired at them. They just started shooting for no reason and several people were injured,” stated a bystander who witnessed the incident.

27 year-old Fritzner Montinard was later interviewed in St. Catherine’s hospital in Cite Soleil were he lay immobilized by automatic gunfire that strafed both of his legs. “I was walking down the street. It was quiet and I saw the blue helmets but everything seemed calm. Suddenly they opened fire and I was shot in both legs. I didn’t hear any gunfire before that and still don’t know what caused them to shot at us like that” stated Mr. Montinard from his hospital bed.

Meanwhile, it appears that the coup government will not hold scheduled elections on Jan. 8, which will be the fourth time elections have been cancelled.

Happy New Year from soggy Northern California.

by Larry Johnson (bio below)

The Bush Administration’s new offensive against leakers just reminds us that when the President’s political standing is at stake all is fair if the purpose is to protect the Pres…., er I mean the nation. Too bad George Bush did not express the same outrage when Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, and others in his employ, told eager journalists that Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. I guess divulging secrets is okay if the White House needs to discredit Joe Wilson and his claim (subsequently proved true) that the President had misled the nation during his January 2004 State of the Union address. Plus, it offers the added benefit of warning the rest of the intelligence community–shut up or else. You can’t have whistle blowers coming out that would tarnish the President’s image as a tough guy waging war on the terrorists.

I also seem to recall that the Bush White House used leaks in the midst of the 2004 Presidential campagin to burnish the President’s image and keep Americans on edge. Remember the name of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan? His name was leaked to the New York Times in August of 2004 while Khan was still cooperating with Pakistani, CIA, and British authorities as part of a sting operation against Osama bin Laden’s network. On the eve of the Republican convention, unnamed senior NSC officials told New York Times reporters that Mr Khan was being used to send e-mails to al-Qaida members as part of a coordinated effort to identify and dismantle terrorist networks. Just because this leak destroyed the secret program’s effectiveness was no big deal because he helped remind Americans that George Bush was the only one who could keep us safe.

So, what’s really behind the latest anti-leak crusade?

For those outside the Beltway it is essential to recognize there are two kinds of leaks–officially sanctioned and whistle blowers. The ones described in the previous paragraphs are the “officially sanctioned” variety. These are not unique to the Bush Administration or Republicans. Politicians through the years have shared classified information with journalists as part of a public relations effort to build support for a policy or attack critics.

Then there is the whistle blower variant. This is more important and, in my opinion, the most valuable. It exists to keep politicians honest and alert the public to serious policy disputes. The two most recent examples are the revelations that the United States was holding possible terrorists in secret prisons around the world and that George Bush was circumventing the law and approving illegal electronic surveillance inside the United States. While the Bush White House is certain that those responsible for these leaks are political partisans hell bent on damaging the President, it is really a sign that folks on the inside with a conscience finally decided to speak out.

I recall back in 1989 that the United States was engaged in a variety of “covert” activities in Panama as part of a campaign to provoke Manuel Noriega into a war. The wiley Panamanian dictator kept his powder dry and wouldn’t take the bait. More fascinating for me was to be told in hushed tones inside the Central American Brach of the DI about these secret operations and then to read the very next day a full description of those very secrets on the front pages of the Washington Post and New York Times. The secrets leaked because folks at State Department and the Department of Defense had qualms about the policy. When there is an internal disagreement over a particular policy, leaks happen.

What is truly shocking is that many in the media, both print and electronic, seem ignorant of the difference between official and whistle blower leaks. In fact, some seem eager to carry water for the White House and feed the myth that the whistle blower leaks are putting us in jeopardy. Not surprisingly these are the same “journalists” who sought to excuse the leak of Valerie Plame’s name as no big deal. Christmas is past and Hannukah is winding down. But I do have a gift request for 2006–can we have more journalists like Sy Hersh, Jim Risen, Jon Landay, Warren Strobel, and David Kaplan, who speak truth to power, and fewer Bob Woodwards, Chris Matthews, Tim Russerts, and Judy Millers, who value their invitations to the White House Christmas Party over challenging the status quo? That’s what I want.
……………………………………………………..

Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world. Further bio details.

Personal Blog: No Quarter || Bio
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The BBC World Service has commissioned Globescan to do an opinion survey in 27 countries worldwide asking an open ended question “In the future, when historians think about the year 2005, what event of global significance do you think will be seen as most important?” Globally the most significant were seen as the Asian tsunami and the Iraq war but the details are quite interesting.

The most accessible results are on the  polling company’s site.
The results varied from country to country with some fairly obvious peaks. 48% of Poles for example saw the death of the Pope as highly significant, not surprising in a deeply Catholic country and where John Paull II was born. The most surprising perhaps was the British response to the bombings in London. It was only the fourth largest response at some 7% , as Globescan comments

only 7 percent mentioned the London bombings–only modestly higher than the worldwide average of 4 percent. The London bombings also figured more prominently among Ghanaians (11%) and Australians, South Koreans, and the Spanish (8% each) than among the British. In contrast, Indonesians were more influenced by the bombings in Bali, with 48 percent mentioning them as the most significant event. The French, though, were similar in that only 9 percent mentioned the riots in the French suburbs.

Which raises questions. Have the French and British both “seen it all before” and shrugged off what might have been thought to be traumatic events? Does it prove that terror attacks would actually have very little effect among the British public? Is the hysterical Bush-like angst Blair is trying to ingender to pass draconia legislation backfiring on him?

Instead of spendin billions on the war

I can use that money

So I can feed the poor

Cuz I know some so poor

When it rains that’s when dey shower

Screamin fight the power

That’s when the vulture devours

Wyclef Jean, “If I were President”

2005 was the year of the disaster: Tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes. But for the tragedy that nature has bestowed upon us, there’s been a growing human calamity that’s gone almost unnoticed. The migration of peoples from Africa away from war, famine, and desperation has been met with massive tragedy twice in the closing months of the year.  Early Friday, 20 refugees from Sudan were killed in the streets of Cairo, dozens more were injured, thousands more were displaced.

At least 20 Sudanese refugees were killed and 50 injured yesterday as Egyptian police forced an end to a three-month sit-in outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Cairo office.

Since late September, 2,000 refugees from southern Sudan and the western province of Darfur had been camped in squalid conditions outside UNHCR offices in an affluent Cairo neighbourhood. They were de-manding full refugee status and relocation from Egypt, where they complain of poor treatment and racial discrimination.

Witnesses said police, after attempting negotiations, sprayed the protesters with water cannon before moving in with truncheons to force them on to buses.

One witness who followed the buses after watching events from a nearby building, said some of the refugees had been taken to a state security camp in the desert outside Cairo. “We could hear children screaming, and we saw women being dragged along the ground by their hair, and men being beaten all the way on to the buses,” she said.

In the face of this tragedy, there’s silence.  We can make excuses. They’re so far away (read they’re Africans.) I can’t relate to them (read they’re black Africans.) What can we do? (read they’re poor black Africans,  such is life.) More shameful than the silence of the media, is the deafening silence from the blogosphere. All I hear is the Banshee’s wail, and never did the wretch sound so right.

God bless you MSOC, and god damn those who turn away now.

The concept of international law has been “rendered”  quaint these days by the machinations of the Bush Admininstration, but there was a time when we as a nation were  shining light to a dark era.

When the rest of the world cowered in fear, a great American said that all “we have to fear is fear itself”, going on the declare the Four Freedoms:

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look  forward to a world founded upon four essential human  freedoms.

 The first is freedom of speech and expression –everywhere   in the world.

  The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his   own way– everywhere in the world.

  The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world   terms, means economic understandings which will secure to   every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants   –everywhere in the world.

  The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into   world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to   such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation   will be in a position to commit an act of physical   aggression against any neighbor –anywhere in the wold.

  That is no vision of a distant millennium.  It is a definite   basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and   generation.  That kind of world is the very antithesis of   the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators   seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

  To that new order we oppose the greater conception –the   moral order.  A good society is able to face schemes of  world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

  Since the beginning of our American history we have been   engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a   revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself   to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the  quicklime in the ditch.  The world order which we seek is  the cooperation of free countries, working together in a   friendly, civilized society.

FDR would not live to see the defeat of the fascist threat and the establishment of the United Nations, but the his wife Elanor  would go on to chair the committee that would issue the Universal Declaration of Human Rights among its many achievements was the recognition of the right to asylum in Article 14 of the declaration:

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

The right to asylum and the definition of what consitute a refugee where expanded upon in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which defines a refugee in Article 1 of the document as a person who:

owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

>  

The US while not a signatory to the 1951 convention, did acede to the the 1967 protocol in which the text of the 1951 document was subsumed.

The UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has drawn a stron distinction in the events of the past days between those coming from Darfur where there is active, armed conflict, and those coming frm South Sudan where the Arab government of Khartoum has reached an understanding with the Black Christians and Animists of the South.  It’s interesting to note that on the  web page of the UNHCR, there’s a section dedicated to the “organized repatriation” of refugees from South Sudan.  On the web page it states that:

After many years in exile, Sudanese refugees are finally returning to their homeland – with the long-awaited organized repatriation launched by UNHCR on 17 December 2005.

The Egyptians must be pleased, they’ve long held a desire to expel the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese present in the country.  The operation that led to the deaths in Cairo is not the first in Egypt, today’s Guardian reveals that 3 years ago Egyptian authorities launched an operation referred to as Operation Track Down Blacks on police documents to clear Africans from the streets.  Jim Crow lives….. in Cairo.

There’s a disturbing parallel here to events earlier this year.  All the accounts of the eviction I’ve read state that the Sudanese were gathered onto buses and taken to “camps” in the desert.  In October of this year,  hundreds of Sub-Sahran migrants made a rush on the border fence at Melilla, a Spanish North African possession. 14 were killed, and Morrocan authorities rounded up the rest, and putting  them onto buses to be removed from the area around Melilla. The migrants who were rounded up were unceremoniously dumped in the desert and left to die.  400 were dumped in an arid region in the south of the country including allegations that some were dropped in mine fields, without food or water.

So when the Egyptians say that they’ve taken the refugees to “camps” in the desert it makes me suspicous that they’re going to dump them out of sight and hope no one pursues the matter.  The world needs to be asking to see the refugees and confirm their humane treatment, and there needs to be action.  Instead of spending billions on the war maybe we could drop a little change for our brothers left without a home.  Since 1975, Egypt has received more than $50 billion  in foreign aid, and it remains one of the largest recipients of American largesse, this is a payback for making peace with Israel  Given our own record of late, we’re probably not the best messenger, but we should question whether the US should continue to channel billions of dollars in aid to Egypt given the events in Cairo.  Perhaps at least a portion of that money could be earmarked to support refugees instead of buying F-16’s? At the very least, for all talk about  democracy and human rights, it would be nice to see Washington take Cairo to task for what they’ve done.

And we should not remain silent ourselves.