By Jaisal Noor
After taking part in preparatory discussions, the Obama administration announced on Feb. 27 that it would boycott the U.N. World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, April 20-24.
Also not participating are Canada, Italy and Israel, all close U.S. allies. Nonetheless, delegates from many nations are scheduled to meet in Geneva as a followup to the first conference, Durban I, held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001.
The State Department said the United States was withdrawing because it objected to language affirming the Durban I conference call for reparations for slavery. The Department also stated that the conference “must not single out any one country or conflict.”
This statement is widely seen as referring to Israel. In 2001, the official U.S. delegation walked out of Durban I after a draft declaration included language referring to “ethnic cleansing of the Arab population in historic Palestine” and described Zionism as being “based on racial superiority.”
A revised draft was released on March 17 that removed references to Israel but as The Indypendent went to press the White House had not changed its position.
Lobbying against U.S. participation were pro-Israel groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which said, “President Obama’s decision not to send U.S. representation to the April event is the right thing to do and underscores America’s unstinting commitment to combating intolerance and racism in all its forms and in all settings.”
Many observers were critical of the U.S. withdrawal, however. Jared Ball, who sought the Green Party presidential nomination in 2008, told The Indypendent that the White House’s refusal to participate “is another in a series of acts which demonstrate [Obama is] an appointee of the most elite elements of this nation to re-brand a weakening U.S. empire.”
Nora Barrows-Friedman, co-host of Flashpoints on Pacifica radio, commented, “It is not surprising that the Obama administration is taking steps to distance itself from criticism at the Durban conference.” She said the U.S. withdrawal is a reaction to the “growing global outrage in civil society against both the United States’ entrenchment of its lethal occupations and wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel’s expanding projects of occupation and genocidal actions in Palestine.”
Barrows-Friedman added, “Israel’s systematic racism against the indigenous, occupied and dispossessed people of Palestine continues to have the full support of the U.S. government.”
Over the last four decades, the United States has vetoed scores of U.N. resolutions regarding Israel, and Israel is currently in violation of at least 28 Security Council resolutions.
Recently, the president of the Israeli Association for Civil Rights said, “Israeli society is reaching new heights of racism that damages freedom of expression and privacy,” and last year the group reported that Israel’s occupation is “reminiscent of the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
Ball argues that even with a Black president, the United States is unable to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, colonialism or modern-day racism. Obama’s boycott, he said, “is further evidence of the fact of his blackness having nothing to do with his politics and less to do with his ability to articulate, defend or advance the causes and struggles of African-descended people here or abroad.”
The U.S. withdrawal is of significant concern because it is happening at a time when there is “exponential growth in hate crimes, ethnic tensions and other manifestations of … racism,” according to journalist and analyst Roberto Lovato.
Within the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of hate groups “continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000 — an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama.” The center also reports “a 40 percent growth in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2007.”
Another concern is racism within the U.S. prison system. One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million people, are now in the US corrections system, and a disproportionate number are Latino and African-American. In a recent study titled “Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States,” Human Rights Watch documented the “structural racism” of the prison-industrial complex.
Ball asserts that because a “pro-Israeli lobby” was able to “influence a Black president out of a global conference against racism and out of an international discussion of reparations for enslavement … only wide-ranging and well-organized social movements can produce the ‘change we can believe in,’ not marketing campaigns and well-crafted speeches.”
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
NYPD’s Racist Tactics Exposed
By Jaisal Noor
Ten years after the shooting of Amadou Diallo and subsequent public outcry against racial profiling, the New York Police Department continues to disproportionately target blacks and Latinos.
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) report, the NYPD stopped 543,982 individuals in 2008, more than 80 percent of whom were black or Latino.
Whites, who make up 44 percent of the city’s population, made up only 10 percent of those stopped and questioned.
In the last year of the Mayor Rudolph Giuliani administration, police stopped 86,705 individuals in 2001. The 2008 total represents a 71,886-stop increase from the 2007 total of 472,096 stops and is 15 percent higher than the 2005 to 2007 average of 459,000 stops per year.
The report notes the disparity in frisking after stops: Between 2005 and June 2008, only 8 percent of whites stopped were also frisked, while 85 percent of blacks and Latinos who were stopped were also frisked.
The number of stops is on the rise despite the police’s own data that show that almost 90 percent of those stopped over the past three years were never charged with a crime. Only 2 percent of stops resulted in recovery of weapons or contraband. Furthermore, according to the CCR, “Police stops-and-frisks without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment, and racial profiling is a violation of fundamental rights and protections of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
While the NYPD continues to deny allegations of profiling based on race, City Council member Charles Barron (D-East New York) told The Indypendent that the data “validates what activists have been saying now for decades: the police are out of control. This report is an important tool to make the case that the police … freely profile, harass and brutalize people. This is real, its not race-baiting that activists are making up.”
TEN YEARS AFTER THE DIALLO KILLING
The Feb. 4, 1999, shooting of Diallo — an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed outside his Bronx home in a barrage of 41 bullets fired by four undercover police officers — galvanized a wave of protests against police brutality of the Giuliani administration. More than 1,700 people, including many of the city’s elected black and Latino officials, were arrested for engaging in acts of civil disobedience.
A subsequent federal investigation concluded the NYPD’s Street Crimes Unit engaged in racial profiling. Public pressure forced the city to officially ban the practice. As part of a case filed by the CCR in response to the Diallo killing, the NYPD was required to keep stop-and-frisk data.
A new lawsuit, Floyd v. The City of New York, was filed in January 2008, and in September a federal judge ordered the police to release all of the past 10 years worth of stop-and-frisk data.
“The vast majority of stops are police initiated,” said CCR Staff Attorney Darius Charney. “Police are in certain neighborhoods and on their own initiative they decide to stop someone.” Charney also said that police data shows the least common reason for an NYPD stop was encountering an individual who fit a description of a suspect.
While Charney states that he doesn’t “want to assume bad intentions on the part of the police,” he argues that, “whatever the motivation, profiling is simply not an effective crime fighting strategy. And its continued use is building a lot of distrust in between police and community.”
Barron believes that the latest stop-and-frisk revelations highlight Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s failings as a city leader.
“Bloomberg has a protectionist policy,” Barron said. “It allows his commissioner to violate the law without reprimanding him or changing policies. The police have set up ‘impact zones’ and Bloomberg has allowed for police containment and harassment instead of job creation or economic development. He chooses to build more prisons and increase police presence while denying economic job creation — 40 to 50 percent of black men in New York City are unemployed.”
The CCR report recommends the NYPD enforce existing reporting requirements and that the city expand the power and the scope of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which currently investigates complaints of police misconduct, but has no enforcement powers.
For the full CCR report, see ccrjustice.org/criminal-justiceand-mass-incarceration.
Ten years after the shooting of Amadou Diallo and subsequent public outcry against racial profiling, the New York Police Department continues to disproportionately target blacks and Latinos.
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) report, the NYPD stopped 543,982 individuals in 2008, more than 80 percent of whom were black or Latino.
Whites, who make up 44 percent of the city’s population, made up only 10 percent of those stopped and questioned.
In the last year of the Mayor Rudolph Giuliani administration, police stopped 86,705 individuals in 2001. The 2008 total represents a 71,886-stop increase from the 2007 total of 472,096 stops and is 15 percent higher than the 2005 to 2007 average of 459,000 stops per year.
The report notes the disparity in frisking after stops: Between 2005 and June 2008, only 8 percent of whites stopped were also frisked, while 85 percent of blacks and Latinos who were stopped were also frisked.
The number of stops is on the rise despite the police’s own data that show that almost 90 percent of those stopped over the past three years were never charged with a crime. Only 2 percent of stops resulted in recovery of weapons or contraband. Furthermore, according to the CCR, “Police stops-and-frisks without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment, and racial profiling is a violation of fundamental rights and protections of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
While the NYPD continues to deny allegations of profiling based on race, City Council member Charles Barron (D-East New York) told The Indypendent that the data “validates what activists have been saying now for decades: the police are out of control. This report is an important tool to make the case that the police … freely profile, harass and brutalize people. This is real, its not race-baiting that activists are making up.”
TEN YEARS AFTER THE DIALLO KILLING
The Feb. 4, 1999, shooting of Diallo — an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed outside his Bronx home in a barrage of 41 bullets fired by four undercover police officers — galvanized a wave of protests against police brutality of the Giuliani administration. More than 1,700 people, including many of the city’s elected black and Latino officials, were arrested for engaging in acts of civil disobedience.
A subsequent federal investigation concluded the NYPD’s Street Crimes Unit engaged in racial profiling. Public pressure forced the city to officially ban the practice. As part of a case filed by the CCR in response to the Diallo killing, the NYPD was required to keep stop-and-frisk data.
A new lawsuit, Floyd v. The City of New York, was filed in January 2008, and in September a federal judge ordered the police to release all of the past 10 years worth of stop-and-frisk data.
“The vast majority of stops are police initiated,” said CCR Staff Attorney Darius Charney. “Police are in certain neighborhoods and on their own initiative they decide to stop someone.” Charney also said that police data shows the least common reason for an NYPD stop was encountering an individual who fit a description of a suspect.
While Charney states that he doesn’t “want to assume bad intentions on the part of the police,” he argues that, “whatever the motivation, profiling is simply not an effective crime fighting strategy. And its continued use is building a lot of distrust in between police and community.”
Barron believes that the latest stop-and-frisk revelations highlight Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s failings as a city leader.
“Bloomberg has a protectionist policy,” Barron said. “It allows his commissioner to violate the law without reprimanding him or changing policies. The police have set up ‘impact zones’ and Bloomberg has allowed for police containment and harassment instead of job creation or economic development. He chooses to build more prisons and increase police presence while denying economic job creation — 40 to 50 percent of black men in New York City are unemployed.”
The CCR report recommends the NYPD enforce existing reporting requirements and that the city expand the power and the scope of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which currently investigates complaints of police misconduct, but has no enforcement powers.
For the full CCR report, see ccrjustice.org/criminal-justiceand-mass-incarceration.
Artists Juxtapose a World of Dispossession
Artists Juxtapose a World of Dispossession
By Jaisal Noor
Material for a film (2004–) and Material for a film (performance) (2006)
By Emily Jacir
Guggenheim Museum Through April 15
Museum as Hub Becoming Dutch: “Exodus 2048”
By Michael Blum
New Museum Through March 29
The ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has recently found an outlet in the gallery world. Israeli artist Michael Blum’s futuristic installation Exodus 2048, currently at the New Museum, and the highly acclaimed Palestinian-American artist Emily Jacir’s commemoration of slain Palestinian artist and intellectual Wael Zuiater at the Guggenheim, catapult the viewer into a world of dispossession and dislocation. Both evoke cultural and political oppression, themes all too common to the Palestinian and Jewish experience.
Due to the high birthrates among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and Israeli Arabs, combined they are projected to outnumber Israeli Jews by 2025. One possible outcome of this “demographic problem,” explored in Exodus 2048, is the Arab Israelis’ overthrow of the Jewish state and the forced migration of the Israelis.
PHOTO COURTESY: NEW MUSEUM
PHOTO COURTESY: NEW MUSEUM
The world Blum creates includes a new Jewish state in Uganda, Israel’s government in exile in Brooklyn, and the refugee ship Exodus 2048, which wanders the seas for months before finally being accepted by the Dutch government. The exhibit depicts a refugee camp in a museum in the Netherlands where 150 of the boat’s passengers find shelter.
The exhibit opens with six text panels chronicling the events from Dec. 26, 2047, the start of the Arab uprising, to the end of the state of Israel five months later.
Viewers can sneak a peek through curtains into a refugee camp scene. The room is jammed with cots and bunk beds and the floor strewn with personal belongings, newspapers, children’s toys, open bags of potato chips, spilled coffee, dirty rags, shopping carts full of bags and clothes. Televisions pump out Hebrew language programming and the radios blare Israeli music.
Jacir’s two-part exhibition, which won the Guggenheim’s 2008 Hugo Boss prize, resurrects the life and work of Zuiater, a Palestinian born in Nablus who lived much of his life in exile as an artist and served as a spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was assassinated by Mossad agents in Rome in 1972 for his alleged association with Black September, the group responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympians in that year’s Munich Games. No evidence has been offered linking him to the attacks, and by many accounts Zuiater was dedicated to nonviolence.
The exhibit includes personal effects from Zuiater: postcards he wrote to his girlfriend Janet, photos of him with family and friends, and photos of places that he frequented. It also brings Zuiater to life through audio recordings of him translating his writings from Arabic to Italian and conversations captured by Italian police wiretaps. When Zuiater was killed, he was carrying a copy of 1,001 Arabian Nights (his life’s ambition was to translate the work into Italian). One of the bullets was lodged in the spine of the novel. Jacir devotes a room to displaying 1,000 blank books with bullet holes, which she shot with a .22 caliber pistol, similar to that which took Zuiater’s life.
According to a friend of Zuiater, “his ultimate goal was the reconciliation of the Jews with the Palestinians.” The violent elimination and marginalization of moderate and progressive voices has had a deep impact on the Palestinian national struggle. As the exhibit points out, the world will never know Zuiater’s opinion of Hamas, the Islamist movement that was founded more than a decade after his death.
Blum’s work obviously invokes the plight of displaced Palestinians, especially the hundreds of thousands who have lived in refugee camps for decades. Another reference to the conflict comes from a fictitious Jewish leader who vows before leaving Israel, “You shouldn’t consider our escape as treason or cowardice, but as a strategic retreat while preparing for the next battle.” These words could have come from the mouth of any number of Arab leaders throughout the last 60 years of defeats.
South African intellectual and anti-apartheid activist Breyten Breytenbach has noted that “No two peoples are as similar and have as much of a shared commonality as the Israelis and the Palestinians.” These exhibits provide a rare glimpse into their intertwined history and future.
By Jaisal Noor
Material for a film (2004–) and Material for a film (performance) (2006)
By Emily Jacir
Guggenheim Museum Through April 15
Museum as Hub Becoming Dutch: “Exodus 2048”
By Michael Blum
New Museum Through March 29
The ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has recently found an outlet in the gallery world. Israeli artist Michael Blum’s futuristic installation Exodus 2048, currently at the New Museum, and the highly acclaimed Palestinian-American artist Emily Jacir’s commemoration of slain Palestinian artist and intellectual Wael Zuiater at the Guggenheim, catapult the viewer into a world of dispossession and dislocation. Both evoke cultural and political oppression, themes all too common to the Palestinian and Jewish experience.
Due to the high birthrates among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and Israeli Arabs, combined they are projected to outnumber Israeli Jews by 2025. One possible outcome of this “demographic problem,” explored in Exodus 2048, is the Arab Israelis’ overthrow of the Jewish state and the forced migration of the Israelis.
PHOTO COURTESY: NEW MUSEUM
PHOTO COURTESY: NEW MUSEUM
The world Blum creates includes a new Jewish state in Uganda, Israel’s government in exile in Brooklyn, and the refugee ship Exodus 2048, which wanders the seas for months before finally being accepted by the Dutch government. The exhibit depicts a refugee camp in a museum in the Netherlands where 150 of the boat’s passengers find shelter.
The exhibit opens with six text panels chronicling the events from Dec. 26, 2047, the start of the Arab uprising, to the end of the state of Israel five months later.
Viewers can sneak a peek through curtains into a refugee camp scene. The room is jammed with cots and bunk beds and the floor strewn with personal belongings, newspapers, children’s toys, open bags of potato chips, spilled coffee, dirty rags, shopping carts full of bags and clothes. Televisions pump out Hebrew language programming and the radios blare Israeli music.
Jacir’s two-part exhibition, which won the Guggenheim’s 2008 Hugo Boss prize, resurrects the life and work of Zuiater, a Palestinian born in Nablus who lived much of his life in exile as an artist and served as a spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was assassinated by Mossad agents in Rome in 1972 for his alleged association with Black September, the group responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympians in that year’s Munich Games. No evidence has been offered linking him to the attacks, and by many accounts Zuiater was dedicated to nonviolence.
The exhibit includes personal effects from Zuiater: postcards he wrote to his girlfriend Janet, photos of him with family and friends, and photos of places that he frequented. It also brings Zuiater to life through audio recordings of him translating his writings from Arabic to Italian and conversations captured by Italian police wiretaps. When Zuiater was killed, he was carrying a copy of 1,001 Arabian Nights (his life’s ambition was to translate the work into Italian). One of the bullets was lodged in the spine of the novel. Jacir devotes a room to displaying 1,000 blank books with bullet holes, which she shot with a .22 caliber pistol, similar to that which took Zuiater’s life.
According to a friend of Zuiater, “his ultimate goal was the reconciliation of the Jews with the Palestinians.” The violent elimination and marginalization of moderate and progressive voices has had a deep impact on the Palestinian national struggle. As the exhibit points out, the world will never know Zuiater’s opinion of Hamas, the Islamist movement that was founded more than a decade after his death.
Blum’s work obviously invokes the plight of displaced Palestinians, especially the hundreds of thousands who have lived in refugee camps for decades. Another reference to the conflict comes from a fictitious Jewish leader who vows before leaving Israel, “You shouldn’t consider our escape as treason or cowardice, but as a strategic retreat while preparing for the next battle.” These words could have come from the mouth of any number of Arab leaders throughout the last 60 years of defeats.
South African intellectual and anti-apartheid activist Breyten Breytenbach has noted that “No two peoples are as similar and have as much of a shared commonality as the Israelis and the Palestinians.” These exhibits provide a rare glimpse into their intertwined history and future.
Blocking the ‘Washington Consensus’: New Book Reveals How Bolivia Rolled Back Neoliberalism
Blocking the ‘Washington Consensus’: New Book Reveals How Bolivia Rolled Back Neoliberalism
By Jaisal Noor
Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization
Edited By Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper
University of California Press, 2009
Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable that in 2009 Bolivia would approve a constitution rejecting neoliberal policies and recognizing indigenous rights. Drawing on a decade of advocacy, research and reporting from Bolivia, the Democracy Center looks for lessons from the struggle in Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization. Editors Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper weave together eyewitness accounts and interviews framed by insightful analysis.
The book presents a range of perspectives within the globalization debate, from Bolivian officials on the payroll of the U.S.-based Inter-American Development Bank, to Doña Porfira, one of the countless Bolivians whose livelihood was washed away during the massive Enron and Shell oil spill of 2000. The book documents the enormous gap between the reality on the ground and the theoretical benefits of policies dictated by the “Washington Consensus,” under which funds are loaned to developing nations on the condition they privatize state industries and cut public spending.
Bolivia has the greatest number of indigenous people in South America and is among the continent’s poorest nations. This poverty can be traced back to the extraction of vast amounts of silver from “Cerro Rico” by the Spanish, which financed its empire for the next two centuries, but left Bolivia deeply impoverished. Chronic poverty translated into chronic political instability and dependence on foreign aid. Starting in the 1980s, the economic policies of the “Washington Consensus” were leveraged upon Bolivia in return for desperately needed financial aid. This succeeded in enriching the elite few, while the vast majority suffered.
Recently, Bolivians have had increasing success rejecting these policies. During the Water Revolt of 2000, Bechtel took control of Cochabamba’s water supply and distribution and jacked up the price. In response, residents organized,took to the streets and drove Bechtel out of the city. Shultz was awarded for his reporting in Cochabama by Project Censored. Ever since, Bolivia has found itself at the forefront of opposition to neoliberalism, and the Democracy Center has been on the ground to report on events and to organize campaigns in solidarity.
When Bechtel sued Bolivia for $50 million dollars for the loss of the water contract in 2004, international solidarity movements pressured the company to settle for a five-cent symbolic payment. Bolivian social movements and indigenous groups have also had increasing success, for the first time propelling one of their own, Evo Morales, to the presidency in 2005. With this victory Bolivians firmly rejected the neoliberal policies that perpetuate poverty. The editors point out that while Morales has begun directing profits from the sale of Bolivia’s natural resources towards the indigenous majority, an abundance of resources alone is not enough to guarantee wealth. Bolivia’s challenge is to create a sustainable model of resource extraction and growth.
Bolivia held a constitutional referendum January 25. The referendum was hotly contested, and the version put to ballots was considered watered down by many of the nation’s indigenous groups who had pushed for stronger language addressing land distribution. The referendum passed easily, and included provisions for political reforms, land reform, the advancement social programs and indigenous rights and will make changes to the country’s oil and gas laws.
On January 23rd, I spoke with Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center, which is located in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He is also the co-editor, along Melissa Crane Draper of the book “Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization” published last month. An excerpt of our conversation follows.
Jaisal Noor: The release of your book coincides with two historic events. You have the inauguration of the first African-American president in the US, and you have the vote on the constitutional referendum on Sunday January 25 in Bolivia, which is expected to pass. Could you describe the mood right now towards the constitutional referendum, which is seen by many as a compromise compared to what was originally sought by the indigenous people of Bolivia?
Jim Shultz: After 11 years in Bolivia, I’ve seen quite a few elections and this is one of the stranger ones. Up until the very last few days, there’s been almost no visibility of campaigning on the streets. Not in the urban area here in Cochabamba where I work or the rural area of Tikiawa (?) where I live. Usually for almost a month before an election you see lots and lots of campaigning. On the other hand, the few times that I have snuck a peak at television here and there, it’s pretty obvious that the airwaves in Bolivia are just carpeted with ads. I mean, [practically]the only ads on the air are ‘yes’ or ‘no’ ads on the constitution. And some of them are completely over the top. You know, an image of Evo Morales and an image of Jesus - “Which side are you on? Vote ‘no’ on the constitution” is one of the ads that have been running.
The political interests that are promoting the yes or no vote have certainly invested resources on television to make their case. But I don’t see a lot of popular engagement in the vote. If you contrast that with, for example, the election in December 2005 in which Evo [Morales] was elected, my gosh — for weeks you couldn’t walk out of your door without being plastered with some sort of campaign activity. There were mass rallies in stadiums, there were caravans, there were people leaf-letting on corners for candidates — this has been almost absent in this vote.
Most Bolivians are just trying to deal with the day-to-day struggles of making ends meet in an economy that is in deep trouble, and trying to find some economic opportunity in a country where there isn’t much, dealing with the rises in the prices of food. I just think that [this vote] hasn’t really connected with people as something that has a real direct impact on their lives. And Bolivia’s problems that are really about how the government can have a strategy to generate economic opportunity in this country for the people who have been frozen out of economic opportunity.
Now certainly people without land who focus on land as the economic opportunity that they’re seeking have pinned their hopes on the new constitution. But land reform has been watered down so much in this new constitution that I’m not quite sure what difference it’s going to make. All of the big tracts of land that are currently out there that are “in production” are now exempt from land reform under this watered-down proposal. Certainly people’s hopes are that if Bolivia can get more control of its gas and oil resources and get involved in the sale of those and the marketing of those that those resources can be used to invest in infrastructure projects and education and those kinds of things to lift up people’s lives.
But again the problem is that, one, Bolivia has had a real hard time getting its state oil company up and running and efficient. Two, just as in Venezuela and elsewhere in the world, oil revenues are not going to be in the coming years what they were in the last few. So it’s not going to be the raining gold that people thought it was as oil prices and gas prices are reduced. And three, under any political party and ideology in this country Bolivian governments have a real hard time operating honestly and efficiently to deliver the goods. So it’s unclear how schools are going to suddenly get better. It’s unclear how a pretty decrepit public health system is going to suddenly get better. These issues of reclaiming natural resources and all of these things are extremely important and certainly that was the original intent of the constitutional process, but I sense more and more of a disconnect between the process of political change in the country and how people’s day to day lives are impacted.
Jaisal Noor: One of the core themes in Dignity and Defiance is the basic human desire for self-determination, which is something I fear many in the West, especially in the United States, take for granted. One of the watershed moments in Bolivia’s anti-globalization movement was the Cochabamba water revolt, which was a struggle against corporate globalization. Do you see any difference in a Clinton administration and a Bush administration, which were dominated by corporations, to an Obama administration, which is dominated by corporations? Do you think there is a hope that U.S.-Bolivian relations will change? They have been tense in the last several months of the Bush administration.
Jim Schultz: Your point is right about self-determination. The fundamental point about the Democracy Center is that democracy isn’t about elections and all by itself. Democracy is the right of every person on this planet to understand and influence the public decisions that shape their lives. What the book documents is how organizations like the IMF and the World Bank - which are controlled by the United States government structurally - undermine that principle of democracy and took away from the people some basic decisions about who controls their water, who controls their gas, and oil, how money should be raised and spent in their national budget. Bolivia was the lab rat for 20 years of the Washington Consensus or the neoliberal model, exported to poor countries under pressure from the World Bank and the I.M.F., and the lab rat rebelled. And that’s what’s so profound. Not just the [Cochabama water war of 2000] but other struggles after are David and Goliath- quite literally David versus Goliath with a sling and that’s all people had here as well.
The lesson from that is that people do want to make these decisions for themselves. And the question of whether or not the United States will be a force on the side of democracy in this regard or against it under new administration, that’s the right question to ask. It’s not about the politicians who sit in the chair. There’s no question that we have a right to be more hopeful that Obama’s sitting in the chair than George Bush or even Bill Clinton, but it’s not about what the politicians do. The politicians will ultimately stick their fingers in the wind and try to figure out which way the wind is going. That’s what they do. The issue is now how do we connect the people in the United States with the people in Latin America to influence the government of the United states and the governments of Latin America to make policy that’s based on what the people need and what the people are demanding.
Let me give you an example. You talked about the decline in the relationship between the Bush administration and the Morales administration which was stunning, I mean, they kicked each others ambassadors out and all of that. Well one of the things that the Bush administration did to retaliate against Bolivia was basically try to nuke 20,000 Bolivian jobs by taking Bolivia out of this Andean Trade Preferences program. And we have a project; we call it voices from Latin America, which is very simple. We use old fashioned organizing and new technology to bring people’s voices into the debates that affect their lives. And so, a team of young people from the democracy center, Bolivian and U.S., fanned out by jeep and bus around the country and interviewed the people who were going to lose their jobs. Put together a five minute video within a week, put it up on YouTube, tied it to an electronic petition and then we hammered on the Bush Administration until they agreed to actually let that video and that testimony be aired at the Washington hearing that the law required that the administration hold on Bush’s plan. And so, these people’s voices were actually right there in that room in Washington, heard. And I think doing that kind of thing is the way we educate people in the United States about what’s happening, it’s the way we educate and pressure politicians in the United States to take the different view of the way they’re handling countries like Bolivia and regions like Latin America. At the end of the day, What Bolivia teaches us is that change happens not because politicians led the way, but because people led the way. And ultimately change will happen in the United States because people lead the way. And ultimately change will happen in the way globalization works on this planet based on whether people link up across national lines and come up with new strategies to challenge globalization to be something that can serve the interest of people in stead of take away their democratic decisions and take away their natural resources, and make them essentially tools of what the world should look like.
Jaisal Noor: As much as your book deals with the successes of the anti-corporate globalization movement, it doesn’t gloss over its shortcomings. Could you share some of your insights on the future of the struggle in Bolivia?
Jim Schultz: It’s a sad fact that nine years after the Water Revolt, which was a global inspiration, the public water company’s situation here in Cochabamba is still miserable — it’s still inefficient, it’s still corrupt, it’s still not doing the job. Part of the lesson here is if we don’t follow up these great victories in the street with nutsand- bolts work of creating the alternative that actually delivers the goods, then the victory ends up being hollow. And sooner or later, if public control of these resources doesn’t work, the people in places like Bolivia are going to begin to turn around and say, “Gosh, we really should have corporations doing this.” So as a movement for social justice we have to pay much more careful attention to building these public systems that can deliver the goods.
That privatization of water is certainly no panacea, and in places such as Cochabamba, it is certainly not the answer. And this gap between the theory and reality is something that is extremely important. The flip-side of that, and this is something we document in the book as well, is the gap between the romance of kicking the corporations out and the hard work involved in actually making things work. Look at it- its a sad fact that nine years after the Water Revolt, which was a global inspiration, the public water company here in Cochabamba is still miserable, its still inefficient, its still corrupt, its still not doing the job. And you know the Democracy Center as an organization, we sort of straddle the line that not many organizations do. One hand, we’re very integrated and very involved in social justice movements that involve protest and direct action, and all of those things.
Jaisal Noor: What do you think the future holds for US-Latin American relations?
Jim Schultz: Oddly enough, the one upside to the “global war on terror” is that the Bush Administration didn’t pay any attention to Latin America while an important pendulum swung with the election of a whole class of left-of-center national governments. They range in ideology and policy quite a bit, and governing style, but from Lula in Brazil, to Chavez in Venezuela, to Morales here in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador - the list is quite long. Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, South America is in very different political space the last time the United States tried to bully people around. And they are a very united force. After the violence in Bolivia in September and October [2008], the South American presidents not the United States intervened.
The way we make sure a difference happens is by linking citizens with citizens, people with people in the United States and Latin America. Diplomatic relationships between the United States and its neighbors ought to be determined by the people of the United States and those neighbors as opposed to just diplomatic experts. That’s really new, we’re very accustomed to having lots and lots of citizen engagement and activism in protest and advocacy on domestic issues, not so much on foreign policy issues. If there’s a war, people will come out on the streets. But this idea of saying “You know what? Diplomatic relationships between the United States and its neighbors ought to be determined by the people of the United States and those neighbors as opposed to just diplomatic experts”. That’s what we are trying to build and that’s what I think we’re going to see in the next 10 years. That’s what we are trying to build and that’s what I think we’re going to see in the next 10 years.
For more information about the tour, visit the Dignity and Defiance website:
democracyctr.org/publications/dignitydefiance/
By Jaisal Noor
Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization
Edited By Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper
University of California Press, 2009
Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable that in 2009 Bolivia would approve a constitution rejecting neoliberal policies and recognizing indigenous rights. Drawing on a decade of advocacy, research and reporting from Bolivia, the Democracy Center looks for lessons from the struggle in Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization. Editors Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper weave together eyewitness accounts and interviews framed by insightful analysis.
The book presents a range of perspectives within the globalization debate, from Bolivian officials on the payroll of the U.S.-based Inter-American Development Bank, to Doña Porfira, one of the countless Bolivians whose livelihood was washed away during the massive Enron and Shell oil spill of 2000. The book documents the enormous gap between the reality on the ground and the theoretical benefits of policies dictated by the “Washington Consensus,” under which funds are loaned to developing nations on the condition they privatize state industries and cut public spending.
Bolivia has the greatest number of indigenous people in South America and is among the continent’s poorest nations. This poverty can be traced back to the extraction of vast amounts of silver from “Cerro Rico” by the Spanish, which financed its empire for the next two centuries, but left Bolivia deeply impoverished. Chronic poverty translated into chronic political instability and dependence on foreign aid. Starting in the 1980s, the economic policies of the “Washington Consensus” were leveraged upon Bolivia in return for desperately needed financial aid. This succeeded in enriching the elite few, while the vast majority suffered.
Recently, Bolivians have had increasing success rejecting these policies. During the Water Revolt of 2000, Bechtel took control of Cochabamba’s water supply and distribution and jacked up the price. In response, residents organized,took to the streets and drove Bechtel out of the city. Shultz was awarded for his reporting in Cochabama by Project Censored. Ever since, Bolivia has found itself at the forefront of opposition to neoliberalism, and the Democracy Center has been on the ground to report on events and to organize campaigns in solidarity.
When Bechtel sued Bolivia for $50 million dollars for the loss of the water contract in 2004, international solidarity movements pressured the company to settle for a five-cent symbolic payment. Bolivian social movements and indigenous groups have also had increasing success, for the first time propelling one of their own, Evo Morales, to the presidency in 2005. With this victory Bolivians firmly rejected the neoliberal policies that perpetuate poverty. The editors point out that while Morales has begun directing profits from the sale of Bolivia’s natural resources towards the indigenous majority, an abundance of resources alone is not enough to guarantee wealth. Bolivia’s challenge is to create a sustainable model of resource extraction and growth.
Bolivia held a constitutional referendum January 25. The referendum was hotly contested, and the version put to ballots was considered watered down by many of the nation’s indigenous groups who had pushed for stronger language addressing land distribution. The referendum passed easily, and included provisions for political reforms, land reform, the advancement social programs and indigenous rights and will make changes to the country’s oil and gas laws.
On January 23rd, I spoke with Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center, which is located in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He is also the co-editor, along Melissa Crane Draper of the book “Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization” published last month. An excerpt of our conversation follows.
Jaisal Noor: The release of your book coincides with two historic events. You have the inauguration of the first African-American president in the US, and you have the vote on the constitutional referendum on Sunday January 25 in Bolivia, which is expected to pass. Could you describe the mood right now towards the constitutional referendum, which is seen by many as a compromise compared to what was originally sought by the indigenous people of Bolivia?
Jim Shultz: After 11 years in Bolivia, I’ve seen quite a few elections and this is one of the stranger ones. Up until the very last few days, there’s been almost no visibility of campaigning on the streets. Not in the urban area here in Cochabamba where I work or the rural area of Tikiawa (?) where I live. Usually for almost a month before an election you see lots and lots of campaigning. On the other hand, the few times that I have snuck a peak at television here and there, it’s pretty obvious that the airwaves in Bolivia are just carpeted with ads. I mean, [practically]the only ads on the air are ‘yes’ or ‘no’ ads on the constitution. And some of them are completely over the top. You know, an image of Evo Morales and an image of Jesus - “Which side are you on? Vote ‘no’ on the constitution” is one of the ads that have been running.
The political interests that are promoting the yes or no vote have certainly invested resources on television to make their case. But I don’t see a lot of popular engagement in the vote. If you contrast that with, for example, the election in December 2005 in which Evo [Morales] was elected, my gosh — for weeks you couldn’t walk out of your door without being plastered with some sort of campaign activity. There were mass rallies in stadiums, there were caravans, there were people leaf-letting on corners for candidates — this has been almost absent in this vote.
Most Bolivians are just trying to deal with the day-to-day struggles of making ends meet in an economy that is in deep trouble, and trying to find some economic opportunity in a country where there isn’t much, dealing with the rises in the prices of food. I just think that [this vote] hasn’t really connected with people as something that has a real direct impact on their lives. And Bolivia’s problems that are really about how the government can have a strategy to generate economic opportunity in this country for the people who have been frozen out of economic opportunity.
Now certainly people without land who focus on land as the economic opportunity that they’re seeking have pinned their hopes on the new constitution. But land reform has been watered down so much in this new constitution that I’m not quite sure what difference it’s going to make. All of the big tracts of land that are currently out there that are “in production” are now exempt from land reform under this watered-down proposal. Certainly people’s hopes are that if Bolivia can get more control of its gas and oil resources and get involved in the sale of those and the marketing of those that those resources can be used to invest in infrastructure projects and education and those kinds of things to lift up people’s lives.
But again the problem is that, one, Bolivia has had a real hard time getting its state oil company up and running and efficient. Two, just as in Venezuela and elsewhere in the world, oil revenues are not going to be in the coming years what they were in the last few. So it’s not going to be the raining gold that people thought it was as oil prices and gas prices are reduced. And three, under any political party and ideology in this country Bolivian governments have a real hard time operating honestly and efficiently to deliver the goods. So it’s unclear how schools are going to suddenly get better. It’s unclear how a pretty decrepit public health system is going to suddenly get better. These issues of reclaiming natural resources and all of these things are extremely important and certainly that was the original intent of the constitutional process, but I sense more and more of a disconnect between the process of political change in the country and how people’s day to day lives are impacted.
Jaisal Noor: One of the core themes in Dignity and Defiance is the basic human desire for self-determination, which is something I fear many in the West, especially in the United States, take for granted. One of the watershed moments in Bolivia’s anti-globalization movement was the Cochabamba water revolt, which was a struggle against corporate globalization. Do you see any difference in a Clinton administration and a Bush administration, which were dominated by corporations, to an Obama administration, which is dominated by corporations? Do you think there is a hope that U.S.-Bolivian relations will change? They have been tense in the last several months of the Bush administration.
Jim Schultz: Your point is right about self-determination. The fundamental point about the Democracy Center is that democracy isn’t about elections and all by itself. Democracy is the right of every person on this planet to understand and influence the public decisions that shape their lives. What the book documents is how organizations like the IMF and the World Bank - which are controlled by the United States government structurally - undermine that principle of democracy and took away from the people some basic decisions about who controls their water, who controls their gas, and oil, how money should be raised and spent in their national budget. Bolivia was the lab rat for 20 years of the Washington Consensus or the neoliberal model, exported to poor countries under pressure from the World Bank and the I.M.F., and the lab rat rebelled. And that’s what’s so profound. Not just the [Cochabama water war of 2000] but other struggles after are David and Goliath- quite literally David versus Goliath with a sling and that’s all people had here as well.
The lesson from that is that people do want to make these decisions for themselves. And the question of whether or not the United States will be a force on the side of democracy in this regard or against it under new administration, that’s the right question to ask. It’s not about the politicians who sit in the chair. There’s no question that we have a right to be more hopeful that Obama’s sitting in the chair than George Bush or even Bill Clinton, but it’s not about what the politicians do. The politicians will ultimately stick their fingers in the wind and try to figure out which way the wind is going. That’s what they do. The issue is now how do we connect the people in the United States with the people in Latin America to influence the government of the United states and the governments of Latin America to make policy that’s based on what the people need and what the people are demanding.
Let me give you an example. You talked about the decline in the relationship between the Bush administration and the Morales administration which was stunning, I mean, they kicked each others ambassadors out and all of that. Well one of the things that the Bush administration did to retaliate against Bolivia was basically try to nuke 20,000 Bolivian jobs by taking Bolivia out of this Andean Trade Preferences program. And we have a project; we call it voices from Latin America, which is very simple. We use old fashioned organizing and new technology to bring people’s voices into the debates that affect their lives. And so, a team of young people from the democracy center, Bolivian and U.S., fanned out by jeep and bus around the country and interviewed the people who were going to lose their jobs. Put together a five minute video within a week, put it up on YouTube, tied it to an electronic petition and then we hammered on the Bush Administration until they agreed to actually let that video and that testimony be aired at the Washington hearing that the law required that the administration hold on Bush’s plan. And so, these people’s voices were actually right there in that room in Washington, heard. And I think doing that kind of thing is the way we educate people in the United States about what’s happening, it’s the way we educate and pressure politicians in the United States to take the different view of the way they’re handling countries like Bolivia and regions like Latin America. At the end of the day, What Bolivia teaches us is that change happens not because politicians led the way, but because people led the way. And ultimately change will happen in the United States because people lead the way. And ultimately change will happen in the way globalization works on this planet based on whether people link up across national lines and come up with new strategies to challenge globalization to be something that can serve the interest of people in stead of take away their democratic decisions and take away their natural resources, and make them essentially tools of what the world should look like.
Jaisal Noor: As much as your book deals with the successes of the anti-corporate globalization movement, it doesn’t gloss over its shortcomings. Could you share some of your insights on the future of the struggle in Bolivia?
Jim Schultz: It’s a sad fact that nine years after the Water Revolt, which was a global inspiration, the public water company’s situation here in Cochabamba is still miserable — it’s still inefficient, it’s still corrupt, it’s still not doing the job. Part of the lesson here is if we don’t follow up these great victories in the street with nutsand- bolts work of creating the alternative that actually delivers the goods, then the victory ends up being hollow. And sooner or later, if public control of these resources doesn’t work, the people in places like Bolivia are going to begin to turn around and say, “Gosh, we really should have corporations doing this.” So as a movement for social justice we have to pay much more careful attention to building these public systems that can deliver the goods.
That privatization of water is certainly no panacea, and in places such as Cochabamba, it is certainly not the answer. And this gap between the theory and reality is something that is extremely important. The flip-side of that, and this is something we document in the book as well, is the gap between the romance of kicking the corporations out and the hard work involved in actually making things work. Look at it- its a sad fact that nine years after the Water Revolt, which was a global inspiration, the public water company here in Cochabamba is still miserable, its still inefficient, its still corrupt, its still not doing the job. And you know the Democracy Center as an organization, we sort of straddle the line that not many organizations do. One hand, we’re very integrated and very involved in social justice movements that involve protest and direct action, and all of those things.
Jaisal Noor: What do you think the future holds for US-Latin American relations?
Jim Schultz: Oddly enough, the one upside to the “global war on terror” is that the Bush Administration didn’t pay any attention to Latin America while an important pendulum swung with the election of a whole class of left-of-center national governments. They range in ideology and policy quite a bit, and governing style, but from Lula in Brazil, to Chavez in Venezuela, to Morales here in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador - the list is quite long. Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, South America is in very different political space the last time the United States tried to bully people around. And they are a very united force. After the violence in Bolivia in September and October [2008], the South American presidents not the United States intervened.
The way we make sure a difference happens is by linking citizens with citizens, people with people in the United States and Latin America. Diplomatic relationships between the United States and its neighbors ought to be determined by the people of the United States and those neighbors as opposed to just diplomatic experts. That’s really new, we’re very accustomed to having lots and lots of citizen engagement and activism in protest and advocacy on domestic issues, not so much on foreign policy issues. If there’s a war, people will come out on the streets. But this idea of saying “You know what? Diplomatic relationships between the United States and its neighbors ought to be determined by the people of the United States and those neighbors as opposed to just diplomatic experts”. That’s what we are trying to build and that’s what I think we’re going to see in the next 10 years. That’s what we are trying to build and that’s what I think we’re going to see in the next 10 years.
For more information about the tour, visit the Dignity and Defiance website:
democracyctr.org/publications/dignitydefiance/
Gaza’s Facts on the Ground: A Summary of the Israeli Assault
Amnesty International released a report Nov. 5 stating that a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas “has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza.” However, it warned that a spate of Israeli and Palestinian attacks and counter-attacks in the previous 24 hours could “once again put the civilian populations of Gaza and southern Israel in the line of fire.”
Seven weeks later, Israel launched a massive military offensive into Gaza that shocked much of the world while gaining widespread support inside the Jewish state.
The Gaza offensive took 13 Israeli lives, including three civilians. Meanwhile more than 1,300 Palestinian lives were lost, more than half of which were civilians, including at least 400 children. At least 5,000 were injured. The price tag for the reconstruction of 21,000 homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and other infrastructure destroyed is estimated at more than $2 billion. The conflict destroyed half of Gaza’s agricultural industry, which provided a quarter of its food.
Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth; it holds 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under 15. The majority of Gazans are the descendants of Palestinians who were forced to flee during the founding of Israel in 1948. Eighty percent of Gazans subsist on less than $2 a day and depend on the United Nations for basic survival. Israel has imposed a 19-month-long blockade, stopping food, fuel and medical supplies from reaching Gaza despite U.N. pleas that the restrictions be lifted.
Israel stands accused of firing on and killing civilians waving white flags, those it ordered to flee their homes and on aid workers. Israel has also been accused of refusing to let the injured get medical care by impeding and firing on ambulances. A coalition of nine Israeli human rights groups called for an investigation into whether Israel committed war crimes, protesting the “wanton use of lethal force” against Palestinian civilians. The U.N.’s special rapporteur to Palestine said Israel could be in violation of the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, international law and international humanitarian law. The Israeli explanation for high civilian casualties is that Hamas fighters concealed themselves within the civilian population.
Amnesty International accused Israel of using white phosphorus “in densely populated residential neighborhoods, [which] is inherently indiscriminate,” adding, “Its repeated use in this manner … is a war crime.” Israel has also been accused of using cluster bombs in densely populated areas, as well as using experimental weapons that are illegal under international law, including dense inert metal explosives (DIME) and GPS-guided mortars. A former U.S. Department of Defense official, now with Human Rights Watch, stated, “Experimenting has a different meaning for Americans. We think animal experimenting, but [its use was] indeed a field test.” Israel has dismissed all accusations of using illegal weapons and promised to protect its soldiers from prosecution.
It is difficult to say how many Israeli soldiers and reservists refused to take part in the fighting as the Israeli military was sending military resisters quietly home rather than jailing them and risking puncturing an aura of shared national purpose. One military resister who went public with his opposition was Yitzchak Ben Mocha, who refused to fight in Gaza because, “It’s not a war of defense. … You can’t separate the war in Gaza from the fact that the Palestinian nation is under occupation for more than 40 years.”
A DIFFERENT PATH FORWARD
According to the Israeli group Peace Now, Israel has escalated settlement expansion by 57 percent over the past year. The scope of the Israeli government’s complicity came into focus Jan. 30. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that a secret database developed by the Israeli military confirms that many settlements are built on private Palestinian land and considered illegal under Israeli law. According to Haaretz, “in the vast majority of the settlements — about 75 percent — construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.”
It has been reported that President Barack Obama may start indirect low-level talks with Hamas, similar to those that the Carter administration held with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the late 1970s. In 1982, Israel responded to the PLO’s willingness to negotiate by invading Lebanon, where the PLO was based, in a war that killed as many as 25,000 people. Twenty-seven years later the PLO’s Fatah party has been reduced to the role of collaborating in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and in spite of 16 years of negotiations it has been unable to stop Israeli expansion onto Palestinian lands.
It has been argued that the objective of Israel’s assault on Gaza was to knock out Hamas because it opposes the Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Jerusalem. According to a leading Israeli expert on the conflict Avi Shlaim, the “definition of terror is the use of violence against civilians for political purposes.” So while Hamas is a terrorist organization, “by the same token, Israel is practicing state terror, because it is using violence on a massive scale against Palestinian civilians for political purposes.”
An internationally-backed peace agreement has been on the table for more than 30 years: the creation of a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. With Hamas now indicating it is willing to negotiate along these lines, the main obstacle to peace remains the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation, which only the U.S. public has the power to end.
To read more coverage on the Arab-Israeli conflict and related activism, click here.
Seven weeks later, Israel launched a massive military offensive into Gaza that shocked much of the world while gaining widespread support inside the Jewish state.
The Gaza offensive took 13 Israeli lives, including three civilians. Meanwhile more than 1,300 Palestinian lives were lost, more than half of which were civilians, including at least 400 children. At least 5,000 were injured. The price tag for the reconstruction of 21,000 homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and other infrastructure destroyed is estimated at more than $2 billion. The conflict destroyed half of Gaza’s agricultural industry, which provided a quarter of its food.
Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth; it holds 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under 15. The majority of Gazans are the descendants of Palestinians who were forced to flee during the founding of Israel in 1948. Eighty percent of Gazans subsist on less than $2 a day and depend on the United Nations for basic survival. Israel has imposed a 19-month-long blockade, stopping food, fuel and medical supplies from reaching Gaza despite U.N. pleas that the restrictions be lifted.
Israel stands accused of firing on and killing civilians waving white flags, those it ordered to flee their homes and on aid workers. Israel has also been accused of refusing to let the injured get medical care by impeding and firing on ambulances. A coalition of nine Israeli human rights groups called for an investigation into whether Israel committed war crimes, protesting the “wanton use of lethal force” against Palestinian civilians. The U.N.’s special rapporteur to Palestine said Israel could be in violation of the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, international law and international humanitarian law. The Israeli explanation for high civilian casualties is that Hamas fighters concealed themselves within the civilian population.
Amnesty International accused Israel of using white phosphorus “in densely populated residential neighborhoods, [which] is inherently indiscriminate,” adding, “Its repeated use in this manner … is a war crime.” Israel has also been accused of using cluster bombs in densely populated areas, as well as using experimental weapons that are illegal under international law, including dense inert metal explosives (DIME) and GPS-guided mortars. A former U.S. Department of Defense official, now with Human Rights Watch, stated, “Experimenting has a different meaning for Americans. We think animal experimenting, but [its use was] indeed a field test.” Israel has dismissed all accusations of using illegal weapons and promised to protect its soldiers from prosecution.
It is difficult to say how many Israeli soldiers and reservists refused to take part in the fighting as the Israeli military was sending military resisters quietly home rather than jailing them and risking puncturing an aura of shared national purpose. One military resister who went public with his opposition was Yitzchak Ben Mocha, who refused to fight in Gaza because, “It’s not a war of defense. … You can’t separate the war in Gaza from the fact that the Palestinian nation is under occupation for more than 40 years.”
A DIFFERENT PATH FORWARD
According to the Israeli group Peace Now, Israel has escalated settlement expansion by 57 percent over the past year. The scope of the Israeli government’s complicity came into focus Jan. 30. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that a secret database developed by the Israeli military confirms that many settlements are built on private Palestinian land and considered illegal under Israeli law. According to Haaretz, “in the vast majority of the settlements — about 75 percent — construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.”
It has been reported that President Barack Obama may start indirect low-level talks with Hamas, similar to those that the Carter administration held with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the late 1970s. In 1982, Israel responded to the PLO’s willingness to negotiate by invading Lebanon, where the PLO was based, in a war that killed as many as 25,000 people. Twenty-seven years later the PLO’s Fatah party has been reduced to the role of collaborating in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and in spite of 16 years of negotiations it has been unable to stop Israeli expansion onto Palestinian lands.
It has been argued that the objective of Israel’s assault on Gaza was to knock out Hamas because it opposes the Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Jerusalem. According to a leading Israeli expert on the conflict Avi Shlaim, the “definition of terror is the use of violence against civilians for political purposes.” So while Hamas is a terrorist organization, “by the same token, Israel is practicing state terror, because it is using violence on a massive scale against Palestinian civilians for political purposes.”
An internationally-backed peace agreement has been on the table for more than 30 years: the creation of a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. With Hamas now indicating it is willing to negotiate along these lines, the main obstacle to peace remains the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation, which only the U.S. public has the power to end.
To read more coverage on the Arab-Israeli conflict and related activism, click here.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Interview with Jim Shultz on Bolivia's Constitutional Referendum by Jaisal Noor
Interview with Jim Shultz on Bolivia's Constitutional Referendum by Jaisal Noor
Bolivia is holding a constitutional referendum Sunday, January 25. The referendum has been hotly contested in Bolivia and its current version is much watered down compared to the original document. It is expected to pass easily and includes provision for political reforms, land reform, the advancement social programs and indigenous rights and will make changes to the country's oil and gas laws.
On Friday January 23rd, I spoke with Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center, which is located in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He is also the co-editor, with Melissa Crane Draper of the book “Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization”. They will be accompanying other Democracy Center activists on US tour in February to raise awareness of the impact of US policy towards Latin America. They will be in New York City on February 17th and 18th. For other dates, and more information you can visit the Dignity and Defiance website here: http://democracyctr.org/publications/dignitydefiance/.
Bolivia is holding a constitutional referendum Sunday, January 25. The referendum has been hotly contested in Bolivia and its current version is much watered down compared to the original document. It is expected to pass easily and includes provision for political reforms, land reform, the advancement social programs and indigenous rights and will make changes to the country's oil and gas laws.
On Friday January 23rd, I spoke with Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center, which is located in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He is also the co-editor, with Melissa Crane Draper of the book “Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization”. They will be accompanying other Democracy Center activists on US tour in February to raise awareness of the impact of US policy towards Latin America. They will be in New York City on February 17th and 18th. For other dates, and more information you can visit the Dignity and Defiance website here: http://democracyctr.org/publications/dignitydefiance/.
Listen to the interview (26 minutes).
Download URL: http://media.switchpod.com/users/jaisalnoor/Shultz40kbs .mp3
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Top Three Gaza Myths Debunked By Jaisal Noor
Despite the so-called "liberal" media’s endless barrage of pro-Israeli propaganda, a significant portion of the U.S. public is opposed to the current attack on Gaza. As the casualties mount and peace is pushed further out of reach, The Indypendent’s Jaisal Noor exposes three big myths of the conflict.
MYTH # 1
The root of the conflict is that Hamas is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel.
It is true that Hamas commits unjustifiable terrorist acts and is on the United States’ terror list. The "terrorist" label is often used against enemies of U.S.-supported countries. When it was deemed in their interest, Israel and the United States bolstered both Hamas and its predecessor the
Muslim Brotherhood. Terrorist tactics were also used by the groups Irgun and the Stern Gang to aid in the creation of a Jewish state. Meanwhile, Israel stands accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians by the United Nations and human rights groups.
The "terror" list currently includes the Lebanese Hezbullah which was born from the resistance to the 1982 Israeli invasion, and until last year included Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.
Another former member of the U.S. terror list is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The original PLO charter concurs with the Hamas charter, proclaiming that "armed struggle" be used to reclaim Palestine. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once accused former PLO leader Yasser Arafat of being a "terrorist," and refused to negotiate with him. Today the PLO’s biggest party, Fatah, is the preferred peace partner.
Recently, Hamas has firmly maintained that it is now willing to participate in negotiations based on internationally recognized borders and rights. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that as early as 2006, Hamas leader Ismaeil Haniyeh offered "a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and … a truce for many years." Haniyeh called on President Bush to launch a dialogue with the Hamas government. "We are not warmongers, we are peacemakers and we call on the American government to have direct negotiations with the elected government." Hamas re-emphasized this position recently, adding, "our conflict is not with the Jews, our problem is with the occupation." The United States and Israel ignored the offer.
Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank — which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War — are recognized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 as the land for a future Palestinian state. This has become the international consensus for peace, with only Israel, the United States and a handful of other nations voting against the annual General Assembly resolution calling for a settlement based on "242."
MYTH # 2
Hamas is to blame for ending the cease-fire and Israel’s actions are in self-defense.
The three conditions for the June 2008 ceasefire were that (1) Israel would drastically reduce its military blockade of Gaza, (2) Israel would halt all military incursions into Gaza and, (3) Hamas would halt all rocket attacks into Israel.
From the outset of the cease-fire, Israel did little to ease its military blockade. As a result, Gazans continued to suffer from a lack of food, fuel, financial aid, electricity, clean water, medical supplies and more. The United Nations warned that Gaza would face "catastrophe" if the blockade were not lifted. The Israeli government maintained that the blockade was necessary to stop rocket attacks. However, as the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper reports, Hamas had ceased launching rockets into Israel during the cease-fire and even arrested members of militant groups who did fire a handful of rockets.
Despite the intense blockade against Gazan civilians, the cease-fire held until Nov. 4. On that date, Haaretz reports, it was the Israeli military that made an incursion into Gaza and killed six Palestinians. The Israeli government sought to justify these actions, saying that these Palestinians were suspected of plotting to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Predictably, militants responded to the attack by launching rockets into Israel. Thus began the unraveling of the cease-fire.
Following the end of the cease-fire, Israel moved closer to an invasion, claiming this was the only remaining option to eliminate rocket attacks from Gaza. According to Haaretz, Hamas offered to extend the ceasefire if Israel lifted its blockade. There is evidence that Israel was planning to strike Gaza before and during the cease-fire.
The White House said that Israel will cease its attack when Hamas has agreed to a truce. Hamas has said it would abide by a cease-fire if border crossings were reopened and the economic siege of Gaza ended. Israel has refused this offer.
Meanwhile, Israel unleashed its U.S.-supplied arsenal — which includes unconventional weapons — while attacking its own designated safe-areas. This forced the Red Cross and United Nations to briefly suspend relief work in Gaza, spurring the Vatican to compare the conditions there to a "concentration camp." The United States abstained from a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
MYTH #3
Israel and the United States are doing everything in their power to achieve peace.
For decades the United States has provided Israel with billions of dollars annually in military aid and backed Israel’s seizure of occupied lands. The number of settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem has increased from 200,000 in 1990 to more than 460,000 today. Claiming it received secret U.S. approval , Israel announced it would build thousands of new homes in 2008. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that this directly "contravenes both international law and Israel’s obligations" in the peace process.
Israel has also erected a "security barrier" through the West Bank, annexing large swaths of land. In 2004, the International Court of Justice declared construction of the wall "contrary to international law."
Meanwhile, even outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently stated that to achieve peace and recognition by the Arab world, Israel "should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including in East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights."
Amid reports that President-elect Obama may reverse U.S. policy and negotiate with Hamas, scholar Norman Finkelstein observes, "Hamas in recent months has supported a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, joining the international consensus. It’s abiding by the terms of the truce, showing it can be trusted to abide by its agreements, which means it was becoming a credible negotiating partner." He adds, "Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated in early December 2008 that although Israel wanted to create a temporary period of calm with Hamas, an extended truce ‘harms the Israeli strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement.’ Translation: a protracted cease-fire that enhanced Hamas’ credibility would have undermined Israel’s strategic goal of retaining control of the West Bank." Finkelstein concludes: "Israel was facing a new Palestinian peace offensive and therefore it has to knock out Hamas."
Click here to view a 2008 map of Israeli Settlements and separation barrier in the West Bank produced by the The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'TSELEM.
Adam Sheets contributed to this article.
Despite the so-called "liberal" media’s endless barrage of pro-Israeli propaganda, a significant portion of the U.S. public is opposed to the current attack on Gaza. As the casualties mount and peace is pushed further out of reach, The Indypendent’s Jaisal Noor exposes three big myths of the conflict.
MYTH # 1
The root of the conflict is that Hamas is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel.
It is true that Hamas commits unjustifiable terrorist acts and is on the United States’ terror list. The "terrorist" label is often used against enemies of U.S.-supported countries. When it was deemed in their interest, Israel and the United States bolstered both Hamas and its predecessor the
Muslim Brotherhood. Terrorist tactics were also used by the groups Irgun and the Stern Gang to aid in the creation of a Jewish state. Meanwhile, Israel stands accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians by the United Nations and human rights groups.
The "terror" list currently includes the Lebanese Hezbullah which was born from the resistance to the 1982 Israeli invasion, and until last year included Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.
Another former member of the U.S. terror list is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The original PLO charter concurs with the Hamas charter, proclaiming that "armed struggle" be used to reclaim Palestine. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once accused former PLO leader Yasser Arafat of being a "terrorist," and refused to negotiate with him. Today the PLO’s biggest party, Fatah, is the preferred peace partner.
Recently, Hamas has firmly maintained that it is now willing to participate in negotiations based on internationally recognized borders and rights. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that as early as 2006, Hamas leader Ismaeil Haniyeh offered "a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and … a truce for many years." Haniyeh called on President Bush to launch a dialogue with the Hamas government. "We are not warmongers, we are peacemakers and we call on the American government to have direct negotiations with the elected government." Hamas re-emphasized this position recently, adding, "our conflict is not with the Jews, our problem is with the occupation." The United States and Israel ignored the offer.
Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank — which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War — are recognized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 as the land for a future Palestinian state. This has become the international consensus for peace, with only Israel, the United States and a handful of other nations voting against the annual General Assembly resolution calling for a settlement based on "242."
MYTH # 2
Hamas is to blame for ending the cease-fire and Israel’s actions are in self-defense.
The three conditions for the June 2008 ceasefire were that (1) Israel would drastically reduce its military blockade of Gaza, (2) Israel would halt all military incursions into Gaza and, (3) Hamas would halt all rocket attacks into Israel.
From the outset of the cease-fire, Israel did little to ease its military blockade. As a result, Gazans continued to suffer from a lack of food, fuel, financial aid, electricity, clean water, medical supplies and more. The United Nations warned that Gaza would face "catastrophe" if the blockade were not lifted. The Israeli government maintained that the blockade was necessary to stop rocket attacks. However, as the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper reports, Hamas had ceased launching rockets into Israel during the cease-fire and even arrested members of militant groups who did fire a handful of rockets.
Despite the intense blockade against Gazan civilians, the cease-fire held until Nov. 4. On that date, Haaretz reports, it was the Israeli military that made an incursion into Gaza and killed six Palestinians. The Israeli government sought to justify these actions, saying that these Palestinians were suspected of plotting to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Predictably, militants responded to the attack by launching rockets into Israel. Thus began the unraveling of the cease-fire.
Following the end of the cease-fire, Israel moved closer to an invasion, claiming this was the only remaining option to eliminate rocket attacks from Gaza. According to Haaretz, Hamas offered to extend the ceasefire if Israel lifted its blockade. There is evidence that Israel was planning to strike Gaza before and during the cease-fire.
The White House said that Israel will cease its attack when Hamas has agreed to a truce. Hamas has said it would abide by a cease-fire if border crossings were reopened and the economic siege of Gaza ended. Israel has refused this offer.
Meanwhile, Israel unleashed its U.S.-supplied arsenal — which includes unconventional weapons — while attacking its own designated safe-areas. This forced the Red Cross and United Nations to briefly suspend relief work in Gaza, spurring the Vatican to compare the conditions there to a "concentration camp." The United States abstained from a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
MYTH #3
Israel and the United States are doing everything in their power to achieve peace.
For decades the United States has provided Israel with billions of dollars annually in military aid and backed Israel’s seizure of occupied lands. The number of settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem has increased from 200,000 in 1990 to more than 460,000 today. Claiming it received secret U.S. approval , Israel announced it would build thousands of new homes in 2008. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that this directly "contravenes both international law and Israel’s obligations" in the peace process.
Israel has also erected a "security barrier" through the West Bank, annexing large swaths of land. In 2004, the International Court of Justice declared construction of the wall "contrary to international law."
Meanwhile, even outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently stated that to achieve peace and recognition by the Arab world, Israel "should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including in East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights."
Amid reports that President-elect Obama may reverse U.S. policy and negotiate with Hamas, scholar Norman Finkelstein observes, "Hamas in recent months has supported a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, joining the international consensus. It’s abiding by the terms of the truce, showing it can be trusted to abide by its agreements, which means it was becoming a credible negotiating partner." He adds, "Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated in early December 2008 that although Israel wanted to create a temporary period of calm with Hamas, an extended truce ‘harms the Israeli strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement.’ Translation: a protracted cease-fire that enhanced Hamas’ credibility would have undermined Israel’s strategic goal of retaining control of the West Bank." Finkelstein concludes: "Israel was facing a new Palestinian peace offensive and therefore it has to knock out Hamas."
Click here to view a 2008 map of Israeli Settlements and separation barrier in the West Bank produced by the The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'TSELEM.
Adam Sheets contributed to this article.
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