Next Meeting:   TUESDAY, February 28, 2012.
Home of Adela and Michael,  7:15 PM refreshments, 7:30 PM meeting.
Please park on the street.

Dark History in Latin America and the Struggle for Justice

Dark History in Latin America and the Struggle for Justice
By Cyril Mychalejko
February 07, 2012

“Information Clearing House“ –  Elliott Abrams, a former high level State Department official during the 1980s, testified last week that the Reagan administration knew that Argentina’s military junta was systematically stealing babies from murdered and jailed democracy activists and giving them to right-wing families friendly to the regime.In a meeting with the Junta’s ambassador in Washington on December 3, 1982, Abrams suggested that the dictatorship could “improve its image” by creating a process with the Catholic Church of returning the children, some of whom were born in secret torture chambers, to their legitimate families. The contents of this meeting were recorded in a memo Abrams wrote, which was declassified by the State Department in 2002 and is now a key piece of evidence against former junta officials in this high profile trial.

“While the disappeared were dead, these children were alive and this was in a sense the gravest humanitarian problem,” Abrams read from his cable via videoconference testimony to a federal court in Buenos Aires. But thisdidn’t deter the State Department at the time from granting Argentina certification indicating that the country’s human rights record was improving. Alan Iud, a lawyer representing The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, who claim that as many as 500 children were stolen, said that Abrams’ testimony “exceeded our expectations.” However, Abrams’ and the Reagan Administration’s relationship with the military junta was not adversarial, something that has been lost in the story, if not the trial. In fact, in 1978, even before being elected president, Ronald Reagan wrote a column in The Miami News attacking President Jimmy Carter’s criticisms of Argentina’s record of human rights abuses. Reagan countered that the military junta “set out to restore order” and that too much was being made over the jailing of “a few innocents.” However, human rights organizations estimate that tens of thousands of people were tortured, killed and disappeared during Argentina’s “dirty war.” One of Reagan’s first acts as president was to overturn military aid restrictions put in place by Carter as a result of the regime’s horrendous human rights record. The administration even hosted Argentine generals “at an elegant state dinner.” Furthermore, Reagan paid members of Argentina’s notorious death squads to travel to Honduras to train the Contras, as well as Honduran paramilitaries, such as the infamous death squad Battalion 3-16, as the Baltimore Sun revealed in a 1995 exposé.

Meanwhile, Argentina isn’t the only Latin American country facing its bloody past—and Abrams played a role in these state atrocities as well.

In Guatemala, Efraín Ríos Montt is standing trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. Rios Montt, an evangelical general who ruled Guatemala in 1982-83 after seizing power through a military coup, was a close ally of Washington who received training at the infamous “School of the Americas”. He is accused of being responsible for “1,771 deaths, 1,400 human rights violations and the displacement of 29,000 indigenous Guatemalans.”

Reagan, with Abrams’ assistance, not only covered up, but aided and abetted war crimes and genocide in Guatemala. For example, President Reagan traveled to Guatemala in December 1982 to declare that Rios Montt was getting a “bum rap”, while praising the dictator’s “progressive efforts” and dedication to democracy and social justice. Just a few days after Reagan’s presidential visit the Guatemalan military massacred 251 men, women and children in Las Dos Erres.

In another recent instance, El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes apologized and asked for forgiveness for the 1981 El Mozote massacre where the Atlacatl battalion, a notorious US-trained death squad, killed as many as 1,000 people. Like in Guatemala and Argentina, Reagan with Abrams’ help simultaneously armed and covered-up thehuman rights abuses in El Salvador. The country endured a 12-year civil war which left some 70,000 people dead, with the Reagan-backed government and paramilitaries believed to be responsible for over 90 percent of the deaths. In 1993 when Congress planned to investigate the Reagan administration’s role in human rights abuses in El Salvador an indignant Abrams’ called it “a reprehensible McCarthyite charge,” while also saying that, “The Administration’s record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.”

Unfortunately, as Latin America seeks to reconcile with its unsavory past in order to forge a more just and humane future, the United States blindly barrels on—never looking back. The US media is missing an excellent opportunity to use Abrams’ career as a vehicle to examine and reflect on the United States’ bloody and barbaric history in the hemisphere. One could even argue that there should be a Truth Commission in the United States. Yet it is because of this willful ignorance and institutionalized impunity that diplomats such as Abrams, who the Philadelphia Inquirerin a rare moment of editorial clarity in 2001 described as a “deceitful, scheming coddler of Latin American tyrants” and “uncontrite peddler of lies,” can continue to resurface in Washington as a national security council member to President George W. Bush and as an informal adviser to president Barack Obama.

Back in 2009, President Obama said in response to a question about whether he would apologize for the CIA’s role in Chile’s 1973 coup, “I’m interested in going forward, not looking backward. I think that the United States has been an enormous force for good in the world.”

If history isn’t going to repeat itself the president and U.S. citizens need to think again, and start looking back to history so justice can move forward. 

Cyril Mychalejko is an editor at www.UpsideDownWorld.org.

Why We Must Close the Guantanamo Gulag
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on January 16, 2012, Printed on January 19, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/153789/why_we_must_close_the_guantanamo_gulag

Travelers to Cuba and music lovers are familiar with the song “Guantanamera”— literally, the girl from Guantánamo. With lyrics by José Martí, the father of Cuban independence, Guantanamera is probably the most widely known Cuban song. But Guantánamo is even more famous now for its U.S. military prison. Where “Guantanamera” is a powerful expression of the beauty of Cuba , “Gitmo” has become a powerful symbol of human rights violations—so much so that Amnesty International described it as “the gulag of our times.”

That description can be traced to January 2002, when the base received its first 20 prisoners in shackles. General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were “very dangerous people who would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down.” We now know that a large portion of the 750 plus men and boys held there posed no threat to the United States . In fact, only five percent were captured by the United States ; most were picked up by the Northern Alliance , Pakistani intelligence officers, or tribal warlords, and many were sold for cash bounties.

The Guantánamo story starts in 1903, when the U.S. Army occupied Cuba after its war of independence against Spain . The Platt Amendment, which granted the United States the right to intervene in Cuba , was included in the Cuban Constitution as a prerequisite for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the rest of Cuba . That provision provided the basis for the 1903 Agreement on Coaling and Naval Stations, which gave the United States the right to use Guantánamo Bay “exclusively as coaling or naval stations, and for no other purpose.”

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a new treaty with Cuba that allows the United States to remain in Guantánamo Bay until the U.S. abandons it or until both Cuba and the United States agree to modify their arrangement. According to that treaty, “the stipulations of [the 1903] agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantánamo shall continue in effect.” That means Guantánamo Bay can be used only for coaling or naval stations. Additionally, article III of the 1934 treaty provides that the Republic of Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “for coaling and naval stations.” Nowhere in either treaty did Cuba give the U.S. the right to utilize Guantánamo Bay as a prison camp.

It is no accident that President George W. Bush chose Guantánamo Bay as the site for his illegal prison camp. His administration maintained that Guantánamo Bay is not a U.S. territory, and thus, U.S. courts are not available to the prisoners there. But, as the Supreme Court later affirmed, the United States , not Cuba , exercises exclusive jurisdiction over Guantánamo Bay . Amanda Williamson, a spokeswoman in the Red Cross’ Washington office, noted that prisoners at Guantánamo “have been placed in a legal vacuum, a legal black hole.” Amnesty International went further, noting an obvious gap between U.S. rhetoric and practice: “Given the USA’s criticism of the human rights record of Cuba, it is deeply ironic that it is violating fundamental rights on Cuban soil, and seeking to rely on the fact that it is on Cuban soil to keep the U.S. courts from examining its conduct.”

Although the Convention Against Torture, a treaty the United States has ratified, forbids the use of coercion under any circumstances to obtain information, prisoners released from Guantánamo have detailed assaults, prolonged shackling in uncomfortable positions, sexual abuse, and threats with dogs. Mustafa Ait Idr, an Algerian citizen who was living in Bosnia when he was sent to Guantánamo, charged that U.S. military guards jumped on his head, resulting in a stroke that paralyzed his face. They also broke several of his fingers and nearly drowned him in a toilet. Mohammed Sagheer, a Pakistani cleric, claimed the wardens at Guantánamo used drugs “that made us senseless.” French citizen Mourad Benchellali, released from Guantánamo in July 2004, said, “I cannot describe in just a few lines the suffering and the torture; but the worst aspect of being at the camp was the despair, the feeling that whatever you say, it will never make a difference.” Benchellali added, “There is unlimited cruelty in a system that seems to be unable to free the innocent and unable to punish the guilty.”

Australian lawyer Richard Bourke, who has represented many of the men incarcerated at Guantánamo, charged that prisoners have been subjected to “good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages.” According to Bourke, “One of the detainees had described being taken out and tied to a post and having rubber bullets fired at them. They were being made to kneel cruciform in the sun until they collapsed.” Abdul Rahim Muslimdost, an Afghan who was released from Guantánamo in April 2005, said he suffered “indescribable torture” there.

U.S. and international bodies have verified reports of torture and abuse. Physicians for Human Rights found that “the United States has been engaged in systematic psychological torture of Guantánamo detainees” at least since 2002. FBI agents saw female interrogators forcibly squeeze male prisoners’ genitals and witnessed detainees stripped and shackled low to the floor for many hours. In February 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Commission reported that the violent force-feeding of detainees by the U.S. military at Guantánamo amounts to torture.

The very existence of the Guantánamo prison camp harms America ’s international reputation. A January 2005 editorial in Le Monde concluded, “The simple truth is that America ‘s leaders have constructed at Guantánamo Bay a legal monster.” Moreover, it has created more enemies of the United States . Writing for the New York Times, Somini Sengupta maintained that Guantánamo Bay has been a setback in the war on terror insofar as it has “emerged as a symbol of American hypocrisy.”

The list of Guantánamo critics is a long one. Archbishop Desmond Tutu dubbed it a stain on the character of the United States . Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said the United States must close the camp as soon as possible. The Economist called for the facility to be dismantled, described the treatment of the prisoners there as “unworthy of a nation which has cherished the rule of law since its very birth,” and claimed it “has alienated many other governments at a time when the effort to defeat terrorism requires more international co-operation in law enforcement than ever before.” The National Lawyers Guild, Association of American Jurists, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Amnesty International have all called for closing the prison camp and releasing or charging prisoners with criminal offenses in accordance with international legal norms.
In addition to legal and political problems with Guantánamo, there are enormous human costs to consider. Attorney Joseph Margulies has been to death row in six states and watched his client be executed. But as he noted, “I have never been to a more disturbing place than the military prison at Guantánamo Bay . It is a place of indescribable sadness, where the abstract enormity of ‘forever’ becomes concrete: this windowless cell; that metal cot; those steel shackles.”

Indeed, Army Col. Terry Carrico, the first warden at Guantánamo, complained that when he was there, the men were held in “basically outdoor cages,” adding, “It’s what you would normally find in a veterinarian’s facilities to hold animals.” Carrico said “very few” of the men imprisoned during his tenure had useful intelligence. He favors closing Guantánamo, but doubts that will ever happen.

President Barack Obama said a year ago that he was committed to closing Guantánamo because it was a symbol that was “probably the No. 1 recruiting tool” on terrorist websites. But Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which bars any transfer of detainees to U.S. prisons, even for trial. The act also restricts the President’s authority to transfer detainees to other countries. Of the 171 men remaining at Guantánamo, 89 have been cleared for release by a review conducted by the CIA, FBI, military, and Department of Homeland Security. But those men will likely die at Guantánamo because Obama refused to put the brakes on Congress’s use of the issue as a political football in the NDAA.

In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Harvard lecturer Jonathan M. Hansen wrote, “It is past time to return this imperialist enclave to Cuba ,” adding, “It has served to remind the world of America ’s long history of interventionist militarism.”
Obama should heed Hansen’s words. For the abiding presence of the Guantánamo gulag is not simply illegal and immoral. It also continues to be a symbol of U.S. hypocrisy, and makes us a target for more terrorist attacks.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/153789/

Activist Awards Gala 2011

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Washington Peace Center – Activist Awards Gala 2011 The Activist Awards Grassroots Gala is a wonderful event where we celebrate DC activists’ hard work and successes in creating a more just and peaceful world.  We honor local activists and throw … Continue reading →

14th Annual Human Rights Potluck Dinner

This gallery contains 1 photo.

14th Annual Human Rights Potluck Dinner – a brief report Folks, I wanted to thank everyone for their efforts that made possible our 14th human rights event last night. It is so impressive that such a small group can have … Continue reading →

Calls to free the ‘Cuban Five’

“In Havana, appeals for release of Alan Gross are drowned out by calls to free the ‘Cuban Five’”

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Blog -Posted at 07:00 AM ET, 09/14/2011

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson failed this week in his efforts to persuade the Cuban government to release a U.S. subcontractor serving 15 years in prison. But his attempt may have come at the worst possible time.

This week marked 13 years since the U.S. imprisonment of five Cuban nationals who were convicted of espionage and related charges in Miami. Their release is a cause celebre in Cuba, whose government says they were subjected to an unfair trial and were wrongly convicted. For years, pictures of the “Cuban Five” have been splashed on billboards and posters in Havana.

As Richardson was seeking to meet with Alan Gross, who was arrested in December 2009 for trying to distribute satellite telephone and Internet equipment to Cuba’s small Jewish community, the Cuban government on Monday was holding a massive gala in the Cuban capital, where the families of the five were treated as heroes and victims. Senior officials called the prisoners’ treatment “inhumane and cruel” and again demanded their release.

Continue reading….

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/in-havana-appeals-for-release-of-alan-gross-are-drowned-out-by-calls-to-free-the-cuban-five/2011/09/13/gIQA4ZSMQK_blog.html

“Chile Awakes – Eyewitness Report from Santiago, Chile’

“Chile Awakes – Eyewitness Report from Santiago, Chile’by Dan Morgan

Published by Portside

Santiago, Chile 24 August 2011.

Chile has really woken from its long, anesthetized, ‘centre- left’ induced slumber. Dozens of university faculties and secondary schools have been on strike now for 3 months, often combined with sit-in occupations.

The market model of education is being actively rejected by virtually all organizations of students, teachers and parents.

On August 4th, the government decreed ‘enough was enough’ and banned two planned marches in Santiago. The result – chaos, and literally hundreds of tear gas bombs choking the center of the city. Then, that night, the first of weekly ‘cacerolazos’, protest banging of pots and pans, heard in working class and middle class neighborhoods on a massive scale.

Since then, more massive marches, last week on one of the few wet days of the year. About a hundred thousand marched and also blocked the anarchist minority who usually give the TV images of violent behavior, which muddy the message. Big marches also in almost all provincial capitals.

On Sunday 21st, a march to a concert in Santiago’s biggest park, close to a million people, and popular artists. August 24th and 25th, the Trade Union Confederation CUT called for a general strike, for labor, social and economic reforms. As usual, the danger of dismissal meant relatively low support in the private sector. This year, there was also a campaign of terror by the government to public sector workers but they supported it by a large majority.

The call for free, quality public education is the key demand of the moment, and in 4 huge marches in Santiago, and again almost all cities, the response was overwhelming. Hundreds of thousands jammed the main street (and not a policeman in sight until well after the crowds had gone).

Far from fading, the movement just continues to grow.

Linked to the demand for an end to the market system of education, other demands are gaining support:

• Re-nationalization of copper (the state Copper Corporation was never privatized but giving new deposits to BHP etc. means that 70% of production is now private).
• A thorough tax reform, to change Chile’s incredibly regressive tax regime.
• A plebiscite to decide on free education.
• A constituent assembly, to plan a new constitution.

Even many politicians from the Concertación coalition which managed the neo-liberal model for 20 years, are re- discovering some radical principles and supporting the growing tide of discontent.

Last week the government announced its third package of measures to try to stop the protests. Some money has been found, to reduce the interest rate paid on student loans to 2% (from 5.6%), and give scholarships to more poor students. Totally inadequate, say the university, and secondary students’ federations.

The pro-market forces show signs of desperation in their statements and actions. The main newspapers, of course, print articles with ever more spurious arguments for the present model.

The President of one of the two government parties has said “we must not give way to a load of useless subversives …”

An ex-military, pro-fascist mayor of a well-heeled suburb described Camila Vallejo, the popular President of the University of Chile Students as having “a demonized face”, and the Teachers’ College President as “pollerudo”, an insulting term like ‘mummy’s boy’, for a man who allows himself to be led by a woman.

Victory may not come this year but Chile is awake, and all the elements of the ‘Chicago Boys’ model, imposed with blood and iron, are under attack.