Violence Erupts in South After Tunisian Islamists Win Vote

Supporters of the Ennahdha Party celebrating the victory of the Islamist party in Tunisia. The country rose up beginning in December 2010 and drove out longtime leader Ben Ali., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Violence erupts after Tunisian Islamists win vote

7:34pm EDT
By Tarek Amara and Andrew Hammond

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian electoral officials confirmed the Islamist Ennahda party as winner of the North African country's election, setting it up to form the first Islamist-led government in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings.

But the election, which has so far confounded predictions it would tip the country into crisis, turned violent when protesters angry their fourth-placed party was eliminated from the poll set fire to the mayor's office in a provincial town.

Ennahda has tried to reassure secularists nervous about the prospect of Islamist rule in one of the Arab world's most liberal countries by saying it will respect women's rights and not try to impose a Muslim moral code on society.

The Islamists won power 10 months after Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian vegetable seller in the town of Sidi Bouzid, set fire to himself in an act of protest that led to the fall of Tunisia's leader and inspired uprisings in Egypt and Libya.

"We salute Sidi Bouzid and its sons who launched the spark and we hope that God will have made Mohamed Bouazizi a martyr," said Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi, a soft-spoken Islamic scholar who spent 22 years in exile in Britain.

"We will continue this revolution to realize its aims of a Tunisia that is free, independent, developing and prosperous in which the rights of God, the Prophet, women, men, the religious and the non-religious are assured because Tunisia is for everyone," Ghannouchi told a crowd of cheering supporters.

Announcing the results, election commission members said Ennahda had won 90 seats in the 217-seat assembly, which will draft a new constitution, form an interim government and schedule new elections, probably for early 2013.

The Islamists' nearest rival, the secularist Congress for the Republic, won 30 seats, the commission members told a packed hall in the capital, ending a four-day wait since Sunday's poll for the painstaking count to be completed.

ISLAMIST-LED GOVERNMENT

Ennahda, banned before January's revolution, fell short of an absolute majority in the new assembly. It is expected to broker a coalition with two of the secularist runners-up and, with them, form a government.

The Islamists will get the biggest say on important posts. They have already said they will put forward Hamadi Jbeli, Ghannouchi's deputy and a former political prisoner, for the post of prime minister.

Tunisia's complex election system, which replaced the rigged, one-horse races conducted before the revolution, made it impossible for any one party to win a majority of assembly seats.

Ennahda lies at the moderate and liberal end of the spectrum of Islamist parties in the Middle East. Ghannouchi models his approach on the moderate stance of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

The party's victory is the first for Islamists since the Hamas faction won an election in the Palestinian Territories seven years ago.

It is a result which will resonate in Egypt, where a party with ideological ties to Ennahda is expected to do well in a multi-stage parliamentary poll that starts in November.

REVOLUTION BIRTHPLACE

Thursday night's violence broke out in Sidi Bouzid, the birth-place of the revolution which ousted autocratic leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Protesters there were angry that election officials had canceled seats won by the Popular List, a party led by businessmen Hachmi Hamdi, over alleged campaign finance violations. The party is popular in Sidi Bouzid.

"They have set fire to a large part of the mayor's office, and the police are nowhere to be seen," local resident Mehdi Horcheni told Reuters by telephone from the town.

He said elsewhere in the town, the protesters set fire to an Ennahda campaign office and police used tear gas in a failed attempt to disperse the crowd.

Another witness, Hafed Abdulli, said the crowd was burning tyres in the streets. "People are protesting against the cancellation of the Popular List," he said.

The Popular List was running in fourth place in the election, according to preliminary results, before its seats were canceled. The party's leader used to support Ben Ali and during the election ran a populist campaign heavily promoted on the British-based television station he owns.

The violence appeared confined to Hamdi's supporters, as the three main secularist parties have already accepted defeat.

There have been none of the clashes that were predicted involving hardline Islamists who are more radical than Ennahda or the secularists who believe the election result will threaten their liberal lifestyles.

Ghannouchi and his party officials have issued a carefully-choreographed series of announcements designed to reassure skeptics that there is no need to fear an Islamist government.

They have said there will be no ban on foreign tourists -- a vital source of revenue for Tunisia's spluttering economy -- drinking alcohol or wearing revealing beachwear.

The party has also reached out to anxious investors by saying it will not impose Islamic banking rules and that it is inclined to keep the finance minister and central bank governor in their posts when it forms the new government.

(Additional reporting by Abdelaziz Boumzar; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

Pages From History: President Kwame Nkrumah of the Republic of Ghana Speaks at the Inauguration of the Volta River Project, January 22, 1966

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who led the national independence and Pan-African movements of the post World War II period. 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of his birth., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Inauguration Speech at the Volta River Project in the Republic of Ghana on January 22, 1966

The following speech was delivered by Ghana's President, Kwame Nkrumah at the formal inauguration of the Volta River project on January 22, a month before he was deposed.

What you see before you is the happy result of the faith and determination of our people and their friends. It is the outcome of the readiness of the United States Government, the World Bank, and other financial institutions which, apart from our own contribution lo the scheme, have granted loans and other forms of assistance in this great enterprise. It is an achievement in cooperation and joint endeavor.

I am personally happy that so many of those connected with this scheme are here with us today for this inauguration. In addition, I am pleased that His Holiness Pope Paul VI has seen fit to send a Papal representative to witness the ceremony.

On behalf of myself, and the government and people of Ghana, I extend to you all a sincere welcome.

We had looked forward eagerly to welcome in our midst today Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. We had wished her to unveil the plaque commemorating the part which her husband, the late President Kennedy, and President Eisenhower played in this endeavor. Mrs., Kennedy is unable to be with us here today. She has, however, written to tell me that she hopes to visit Ghana with her children, in the very near future. I have assured her that a warm and truly Ghanaian welcome awaits her.

Next to the late President Kennedy and President Eisenhower, I must make mention of my friend Edgar Kaiser, whose faith and enthusiasm for the Volta Project provided the spark that brought it to life when the prospects for its continuation were at their lowest ebb. It is a pity that Edgar's father, Henry Kaiser, cannot be with us today. He has been a lower of strength and inspiration to Edgar and myself throughout our efforts on this project.

By this inauguration ceremony, our great and dynamic party, the Convention People's Party, has kept faith with the people. In our party election manifesto in 1951, we made a promise that we would do everything possible to bring the Volta River Project into being. From that time, this scheme has been one of our greatest dreams. My faith in it never faltered, in spite of the disappointments and frustrations created by the difficult and intricate financial negotiations involved. I have on a previous occasion told the story of my meeting with Edgar Kaiser in New York in 1958, which proved to be an important watershed in the story of this scheme. I cannot minimize the part played by Chad Calhoun as an intermediary between me and Edgar. My meeting with Edgar Kaiser illustrates the way in which individuals of faith and goodwill can contribute to close relations between peoples and nations, between governments and governments.

With Edgar's characteristic way of "getting down to brass tacks"-to use an American slang-he took me straight along to see President Eisenhower who happened to be in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York where I was also staying. Eisenhower expressed surprise that the United Stales Government had delayed consideration of this scheme for so long. Thereupon he turned to one of the principal aides in his party, who I believe was one of the key men in The White House at the time. He turned to him and asked: "Then why don't you get on with the damned thing?" It was then that "The damn thing" - this giant hydroelectric scheme-was triggered back to life.

Even Then, years of further negotiations followed. Throughout we had to demonstrate by resolute action and practical decisions our determination to go ahead with the project by all means. In 1959, when the financial arrangements were still incomplete, I decided that, whether we succeeded in raising loans or not, we would go ahead with the scheme from our resources.

I therefore gave orders for the preliminary works to be constructed: the Tema-Akosombo highway, the necessary access roads to the site, and the building of a new township in Akosombo. By this lime, we were nearing completion of the construction of the Tema harbor and township, which were also essential parts of the preliminary works. And so we commissioned Kaiser Engineers to undertake the preparation of the necessary plans and tender documents. These decisions, risky as they then appeared, gained for us at least a year in construction time and its equivalent in money. It was (his calculated risk which really gave the impetus to the scheme. In all this, Edgar Kaiser shared our optimism and gave us full support and encouragement.

I wish I had time here to discuss in detail the magnitude of Edgar's contribution. However, I will mention only one example. The Kaiser Company's re-examination of the project enabled us to lower substantially the cost of the entire project, a reduction which was a critical factor making construction of this vast project economically feasible.

It was not until December 16, 1961, after three years of negotiations, that the legal documents providing for the financing of the project, said (to be the most complicated of their kind, were signed.

The financing of the project on such a scale involved many governments and international agencies. Its achievement was largely due to the sympathy and understanding of the late President Kennedy. He had a positive belief in this Volta River Project. I was the first President to meet him after his inauguration. And from that very moment I knew that I was in the presence of a sincere and honest man. Between us a real bond of friendship was established and we knew that whatever differences of opinion we might have, they could be discussed rationally.

It was characteristic of Kennedy that, despite the opposition of forces both in his Cabinet and Congress, he put his full personal weight behind the scheme. Indeed, at one time he stood alone in his Cabinet on this matter...

We live in a world of contradictions. These contradictions, somehow, keep the world going. Let me explain what I mean. Ghana is a small but very dynamic independent African state. We are trying to reconstruct our economy and to build a new, free, and equal society.

To do this, we must attain control of our own economic and political destinies. Only thus can we create higher living standards for our people and free them from the legacies and hazards of a colonial past and from the encroachments of neocolonialism.

In such a world we certainly need great friends. The United States is a capitalist country. In fact, it is the leading capitalist power in the world today. Like Britain in the heyday of its imperial power, the United States is, and rightly so, adopting a conception of dual mandate in its relations with the developing world. This dual mandate, if properly applied, could enable the United States to increase its own prosperity and at the same time assist in increasing the prosperity of the developing countries.

Edgar Kaiser, President Eisenhower, and President Kennedy were genuinely interested in this project because they saw, behind the cold figures and the rigid calculations, that the Volta River Project was not only an economically viable project, but also an opportunity for the United States of America to make a purposeful capital investment in a developing country. In other words, they saw in the Volta River Project a scheme with new dimensions of growth and development which they felt could benefit both Ghana and the United States.

It was on this common ground of our mutual respect and common advantage that our two countries-Ghana and the United States of America-made the contact from which grew this project. The result of this contact is living proof that nations and people can cooperate and coexist peacefully with mutual advantage to themselves despite differences of economic and political opinions.

Four years ago today, in January 1962, I set off the blast which marked the beginning of construction of this scheme. Since then, we have witnessed a marvel of construction, organizational efficiency, and administrative achievements.

You see before you-in all its majesty, strength and power-the Akosombo Dam, 463 feet from the lowest foundations, and 2,200 feet long, which has tamed the turbulent waters of the Volta, turning them into the beautiful vast lake which will ultimately cover over three percent of the surface area of our country. Due to the fact that the River Volta is very deep at this very point, over two-thirds of the dam lies hidden beneath the surface of the water.

The result of this is that this huge structure blends harmoniously and imperceptibly into the natural landscape, giving the impression that this dam and its vast lake are not man-made but a creation-a creation of nature. To the east are the two spillways with their 12 gigantic gates. Further east is the Saddle Dam, closing a gap in the hills, a large dam in its own rights.

To the west of the main dam is the powerhouse wherein are installed the large turbines fed by water tumbling down the huge penstocks, and generators which will provide the country with electric power, nearly 10 times the present power production in the country from all sources.

We have enough power for our immediate needs from the Volta Dam and for the aluminum smelter which VALCO is now constructing at Tema. But we are ready and prepared to supply power to our neighbors in Togo, Dahomey, the Ivory Coast, and Upper Volta. As far as I am concerned, this project is not for Ghana alone. Indeed, I have already offered to share our power resources with our sister African states.

The story of the Volta River Project will not be complete without reference to the 80,000 people who had to be moved from their villages, and resettled in other areas, because of the formation of the Volta Lake. The story of this resettlement scheme is an epic in itself.

I would like to pay tribute to the thousands of families who were called upon to move from their traditional homes in the interest of the nation. Today, as we inaugurate Volta power, they can share in the joys of the country, in our sense of achievement, and in our gratitude for the sacrifices which have made this project possible.

I must also record with pride the important role which thousands of Ghanaians have played at all levels and in all aspects of the scheme. As we move into the new phase of our development, we have every confidence that all Ghanaians who have worked on this scheme will bring to bear on the problems of our nation and continent the experience they have acquired in the implementation of this scheme.

And here I would like to pay tribute to the work of Sir Robert Jackson and the staff of the Preparatory Commission who prepared much of the detailed overall planning on which this scheme is' based. I must also say a special word of thanks to Frank Dobson, Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority, and all the members and executives of the Authority. They have done a grand job. In this connection, I must congratulate the contractor, Impregilo and Company. This consortium of giant Italian construction organizations combined their strength and skill to build the Volta Dam. It was a magnificent and challenging job, and they have done it magnificently.

The Volta River Project is a concrete symbol of the type of international cooperation which can, to quote my friend Edgar Kaiser, help to "forge world peace." It is perhaps the greatest tragedy of today's world that billions of dollars, rubles, and pounds should be spent every year on military armaments and on wars. If the money wasted on wars and war preparations were invested in projects like the one spread out before us, these enormous capital funds could revolutionize the economies not only of the developing world, but also of the developed countries.

It would in fact eliminate what is the major threat to world peace, namely the ever-widening gap between the developed and the developing nations. Unless this gap is closed, no peace effort of any kind can save mankind from ruin and ultimate destruction.

It is in this spirit of fruitful collaboration for a better world for all that I welcome you here to inaugurate the Volta River Project. Let us dedicate it to Africa's progress and prosperity. When, in a few moments, I turn the switch to shed the full radiance of Volta power on this scene, may it symbolize not only a great achievement of Ghana, but let it also be a light leading us on to our destined and cherished goal-a union government for Africa. Only in this way will Africa play its full part in the achievement of world peace and for the advancement of the happiness of mankind.

The Destruction of Libya and the Murder of Muammar Gaddafi

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi addressed the country on national television where he charged the western imperialist states of backing the rebels that are trying to destroy the unity and sovereingty of this oil-rich North African state., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

The Destruction of Libya and the Murder of Muammar Gaddafi

27 October 2011 289
by P. Ngigi Njoroge
24 October, 2011

I get terribly affected by the kind of things that are happening today, and confess to not being able to be dispassionate.

But some important facts we should keep in view if we want to remain sane and work out a saving response to European and American criminal aggression against us are the following.

Muammar Gaddafi came from an Arab tribe living in Libya. He belonged to a culture completely different from American and European culture. He therefore did not—and never pretended to—champion Western values of so-called “democracy” and “freedom”.

This, however, did not prevent him from being a force for good for his people and for some other African peoples. When 42 years ago he took over power through a BLOODLESS coup—mark this: he did not have to slaughter his own people to overthrow King Idriss’s government (a lethargic government that allowed the Libyan people to live in poverty and underdevelopment—he took measures to ensure that Libya’s oil wealth was used for the benefit of the Libyan people.

Over the decades he created a genuine welfare state with state-of the-art medical facilities accessible to all Libyans, with state funded educational facilities, initiated afforestation of large areas of Libya, and lifted the status of Libya to a middle-income economy.

Non-Libyan black Africans flocked to Libya to seek employment. One Kenyan who was working in a Libya-based company when the Europeans started the troubles in March this year was distraught: he spoke of the high standards of living in Libya and his comfortable life, where you’d buy petrol for 10 Kenya Shillings a litre!

Gaddafi was not a modern European or American to believe arrogantly and foolishly that good governance consists only in regular elections and the limited term of a ruler. Like a Ghanaian commentator wrote the other day, Gaddafi believed he had devoted those 42 years of his rule taking care of the welfare of his people.

The ridiculous thing is that Westerners believe only systems of governance developed by themselves are to be adopted. People forget that there are good alternative systems indigenously developed by others. For example, the Agikuyu practised democracy before they had the misfortune of being conquered by the white predators, and had 35-year cycles of ruling generations handing over power peacefully to another generation.

Gaddafi assisted freedom movements in other countries of Africa, notably South Africa. He armed and financed the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela when the western powers were doing normal business with the white-dominated apartheid (race-separation) regime.

When Bill Clinton visited newly independent South Africa and criticized Libya under Gaddafi, Nelson Mandela rebuked him using the following words: “We cannot join you in criticizing the people who helped us in our darkest hour.”

It is an absolute shame to see the mainstream media, including the Kenyan media, join in mouthing cliches about “dictator Gaddafi”, “despot Gaddafi”, and the “tyranny” suffered under Gaddafi.

The other day a local newspaper published a tasteless, highly offensive cartoon about Gaddafi. This is all due to ignorance and brainwashing by the Western Media Juggernaut.

We have many Africans who are quite incapable of thinking as themselves and for themselves. You can call such people mental and spiritual slaves. These people miss one aspect of Gaddafi’s character and ideals.

Gaddafi believed that the Arabs were the descendants of Black Africans and taught his people that they owed special respect to blacks. (One of his sons, Hannibal, was named after a famous black African general who used elephant-mounted soldiers to fight the Roman army around the time of Christ; Hannibal served the state of Carthage which was geographically situated in Libya.)

And Gaddafi put in place a policy where black Africans were welcomed into Libya as employees and even members of the Libyan army.

Gaddafi further championed the idea of the African Union, housing the Arabs of his country and the vast black population of sub-Saharan Africa. It is said that by the time he died, he had conceived the idea of an African Bank which would compete against the white-dominated World Bank.

Of course the so-called mainstream media wouldn’t appreciate such things; and neither would they be horrified by what the “revolutionaries” have been doing—including the rounding up and massacring of black people while putting others in concentration camps.

Neither are these mental slaves capable of grasping the enormous shame, horror and deceit of the campaign of the West against Gaddafi. The Great Lie is that there was a popular uprising against Gaddafi.

Rather it was an armed rebellion, engineered in Paris and other western capitals, and its success guaranteed by the use of the most sophisticated weapons of mass destruction by America, France and Britain.

ONE THING IS CLEAR: GADDAFI HAD MASSIVE POPULAR AND LOCAL ARMED SUPPORT and would have defeated the rebels if massive missile rocket and air bombardment had not been used by the American, French and British murderers. He lasted more than six months, a man leading a country of only 6.5 million people against an alliance of countries housing close to 500 million people.

To my mind Gaddafi was a lion-like figure fighting against shameless bullies, men absolutely devoid of honour: Barrack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicholas Sarkozy. These assassins have entered the pages of history for their brutal and ignominious acts.

The lesson for us self-respecting Africans? We can expect more horrors from these people who wield enormous military power. But we have a mighty weapon against them: building awareness about their intentions, crying out loudly against their grotesqueness and unfitness to claim the right to lead the world.

We can call them their real names: bullies, greedy predators, robbers of other people’s resources, deceivers and tellers of great lies. And, of course, I can see the rest of the world grouping together for mutual self defence: Africa, India, Brazil and other South American countries, Russia and China. The days of these mis-rulers are numbered.

Yeah, I just said that!

Libya: When 'Democracy' Violates Human Dignity

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during the 1980s when he was also under attack by U.S. imperialism. In 1986, Libya was bombed at Tripoli and Benghazi and an attempt was made to assassinate Gaddafi., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Libya - When ‘democracy’ violates human dignity

Thursday, 27 October 2011 00:00
Zimbabwe Herald

The Arena Hildegarde

Last week's Arena commemorated the life and works of former Mozambican leader Samora Moises Machel who perished in a mysterious plane crash on then apartheid-ruled South African soil. I ended the piece thus, "To Cde Machel we say, A luta tem que continua! (The struggle MUST continue!)", and Africa will never be colonised again. However, I digress on part 2 of 21st century revolutions.

That day, another African leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and an unknown number of aides were captured and killed in his home town of Sirte by rebels of the National Transitional Council assisted by NATO allied forces.

NATO forces were the first to bombard Libya on March 19 claiming they were implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973's no-flying zone, and protecting the

Libyan people against Col Gaddafi's onslaught

After the eight-month battle for the soul of Libya, it was clear that the world is a stage. William Shakespeare's tragic play, Julius Caesar is an expose of the vicissitudes of the power game: those who wield it; the abusers; opportunists who live in the conspiracy theory fast lane.

At the bottom of the heap are the "the people", the downtrodden who are manipulated and swayed into believing that everything is done to save their poor souls.

Julius Caesar formed part of how best I could analyse the most bizarre way a nation whose civilisation dates back to Biblical times could stoop to such levels of ludicrousness, pandering to the whims and caprices of nouveau riche empires.

As people question the manner of how Col Gaddafi met his death, with human rights organisations calling for a transparent probe, I have told myself that if extra-judicial killing of prisoners of war and the macabre display of their dead bodies in a meat locker for public view is the democracy that the West says it is still bringing to Africa, then God help us.

No one needs a democracy that dehumanises people's common decency. Former Cuban leader Cde Fidel Castro was incisive: NATO's "brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression the history of humanity has known."

He expressed ire at the killing and said he was "kidnapped and exhibited like a trophy of war, showed a conduct that violates the most elemental principles of Moslem norms and other religious beliefs."

Long before his death, in the court of public opinion, Col Gaddafi had been tried, and found guilty. But just as many argue that Col Gaddafi had himself to blame, Africa also has itself to blame for not investing in the generation, management and dissemination of news.

We ended parroting the "weapons of mass disinformation" - exactly what the West wanted us to believe about Col Gaddafi and his 42-year rule. The narrative is so one-sided and devoid of objectivity. The voices that have told a balanced story about Libyan history before and during Gaddafi's rule are a drop in the ocean, and on the Internet you struggle to find it.

Isn't it an important democratic tenet that there is no one side to a story, neither two, but many? This week as certain sections commemorate Open Sources Week, shouldn't we have the full story of what transpired last Thursday, including ALL the images?

When the uprisings started in Benghazi and Col Gaddafi reacted to them heavy-handedly, the United Nations was quick to intervene with the UN Security Council passing Resolution 1970 and 1973.

However, the same UN Security Council did not raise its voice when Libya's interim government allowed the "grisly and undignified spectacle" of Col Gaddafi's body. As one Islamic activist argued on BBC News on Tuesday, the NTC which should have demonstrated that they were their own masters and ready to be Libya's next government, did not have to wait for directives from the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Human Rights Watch to start an inquiry.

The NTC, if at all they were the once in charge of these grisly events, did not need international outcries even from people who have been fighting Islam to tell them that the manner in which they treated those bodies was a violation of Islam, for in Islam a person should be buried within 24 hours, and 48 hours at the most.

We don't know how long Osama bin Laden's body was kept before it was dumped in the sea, but another Western "trophy", Saddam Hussein was accorded a decent burial by his family, despite the weapons of mass destruction myth.

No one has turned his marked grave into a shrine unlike Col Gaddafi who was not only buried in an unmarked grave, but buried deep in the Libyan desert because there are fears that he might be turned into a cult, and also made a hero. Why should they be afraid of the dead? And, African leaders are not perturbed? Should an Arab Spring desecrate its own value systems?

When the NTC fails to respect its own religious rites for want of pleasing friends, then we wonder, especially after they declared Libya an Islamic state, governed by Sharia law.

Which Islam? Two wrongs do not make a right.

The democratisation of Libya also meant the abuse of children's rights. The queues of people who lined up for four days to see Col Gaddafi's decomposing body included children. Where were Unicef and other child rights organisations?

TV channels and the Internet fed into the frenzy by supplying video footage of those ghastly pictures, and they are still there on the net, a home for young people especially. Let history be the judge.

The desire to mete out revenge was also too humongous. The NTC wanted the Gaddafi's family extradited, but according to a report, a source in the Algerian government said they would not: "Algeria will not extradite Gaddafi's relatives either to Libya or any other country," Le soir d`Algerie newspaper quoted an informed government source (on Monday). "They were given refuge (in Algeria) on humanitarian grounds, and their status has not changed.

"The world has seen how Col Gaddafi was slaughtered. We have respect for human life, and the ensuring security of Gaddafi's family is a matter of honour for us," the source said.

Africa's leaders independently and through the African Union expressed their views. However, the AU is in the court of public opinion. People feel betrayed by a mother body that should stand up to defend their rights against an Anglo-Saxon world which is making it very clear by each passing day that Africa is for the taking.

Africa must explain to its people why UNSC resolution 1973 became bloodier and destructive, when it was meant to restore peace and order in Libya. The West is facing unprecedented economic challenges, but Africa becomes so blind and in some cases is bought off by 30 pieces of silver in order to give away its future.

When people like Julius Malema, leader of the of the ANC Youth League speak out, they are demonised, although they seem to understand the bigger picture for Malema saluted Gaddafi's saying he was a brave fighter, who stood firm against "imperialism".

Floyd Shivambu also said Gaddafi was an "anti-imperialist martyr", "a brave soldier" and "fighter against the recolonisation of the African continent."

Another South African colleague e-mailed: "Today has been a wretched day. The front page of The Star and the posters of all the papers have been obscene. How can I go on living in a country like this? It was just the same in Britain when Zimbabwe was fighting for its freedom.

"The media filled me with impotent rage. I could not wait to get out. But that was Britain. This is Africa, this is my country! It does not seem like my country.

What happened to the Geneva Convention?

What do the celebrators know about Gaddafi or the ‘rebels'? What do they really know about the whole situation in Libya or anywhere else for that matter except what they have been fed by the Western media?

Can they really not see the writing on the wall?
Last Thursday, all those Western journalists who gave a blow-by-blow account of events on the ground in Libya, were they really journalists?

When they gave so many conflicting reports turning the whole event into a charade and a weapon of mass deception what was the motive?

Taking the world for a ride, Africa in particular?

Shakespeare is right after all: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Now, just like Iraq and Afghanistan, the "saved" look like they want their liberators (NATO) not to leave Libya. Is this what Resolution 1973 stipulates? Nigeria, Gabon and South Africa voted in favour of the treacherous resolution 1973. Libya is back in the AU. Is the silence an endorsement of Africa's re-occupation?

Feedback: tendai.manzvanzvike@zimpapers.co.zw

Gaddafi: The Murderous Western Touch

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is fighting against an imperialist onslaught against his North African state. Gaddafi is a former chairman of the African Union and is an advocate for a unitary pan-african state on the continent., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Reason Wafawarova:- Gaddafi: The murderous western touch

Thursday, 27 October 2011 00:00
Zimbabwe Herald

So now Muammar Gaddafi has died; apparently after being incapacitated by the fire power of US drones and French gunship bombers, and left to face a very primitively ruthless death at the hands of the NATO led rebels.

Jurist Special Guest Columnist and international lawyer Curtis Doebbler has indicated that the killing of Gaddafi was a violation of The Third Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, was a crime of aggression and also constituted the use of excessive force; in as much as it was a clear violation to the right to life, besides being in violation of Resolution 1973 which sought to protect civilians; not to bomb fleeing people as what happened to Gaddafi's convoy.

To some Barack Obama has emerged as the number one champion of the West's anti-terrorism war. Ironically Obama has teamed up with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda to take over Libya, leading to his drones incapacitating Gaddafi from the air so that his Al-Qaeda allies could summarily execute the defenceless and unarmed Gaddafi and his son, among others.

Obama now commands a remarkably bloody record - killing thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, killing Arch Terrorist Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, arming and backing Al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan rebels all the way from Benghazi to Sirte, via Tripoli; killing over 50 000 Libyan civilians in the process, grazing down Sirte and Bani Walid so they submit to the Al-Qaeda thugs calling themselves the National Transitional Council; and subsequently getting himself the trophy of Gaddafi's battered body.

Now the global witch-hunt for terrorists has reached remarkably impressive levels, with Gaddafi's death eliciting cheers for Obama and his sidekicks from brainwashed and hapless global citizens. It is somehow hard not to cheer the smart and fast speaking Obama even when he is announcing a murder act under his command. The man comes across like a genius.

The brainwashing of the global masses is so deep that a heartless and hell-hailing monster like France's Nicolas Sarkozy can also boast of admirers. This writer treats the barbaric murder of Gaddafi and all other callous and murderous Western schemes as purely satanic; apparently exposing the maggoty and inherently evil forces behind Western imperialism and white supremacy. No apologies.

The manhunt for Gaddafi was clearly not part of effecting a no fly zone, the pretext by which Western powers entered Libya, ostensibly to protect civilians they baselessly said were about to be wiped out by Gaddafi.

The manhunt was undoubtedly orchestrated by the same people who founded and executed slavery on us Africans, the very people who occupied our continent by the power of colonial conquest, the people who brought to humanity two world wars, the people who helped create a murderous Zionist Israel, and the very people who today preside over a predatory imperialistic system.

The whole NATO operation in Libya cannot be separated from the work of those who founded the American constitution, and the so-called American exceptionalism. This is why Hillary Clinton brazenly bragged about her role in ordering the murdering of Gaddafi, declaring with a cruel laugh "We came, we saw, and he died."

The she-devil could have aptly put it like "We came, we bombed, and he died." Dear reader, you have to understand the language of this piece in the context of the invasion of a sovereign country that has suffered so much loss of civilian lives at the hands of foreigner aggressors reputed with a murderous history based on racial supremacy.

There are a number of reasons that makes it impossible for this writer to join the celebration over the death of Col Gaddafi, and supporting the man himself is not one of them. Col Gaddafi courted Westerners in the last years of his reign, and the revolution of Zimbabwe was not served well by this rather treacherous behaviour.

In fact Gaddafi had as many admirable traits as he had deplorable ones, like supporting liberation movements, while trying the Arabisation scheme in Sudan, or supporting the British-sponsored Idi Amin in Uganda, even when the dictator was waging a war against Tanzania.

He is the same Gaddafi who helped train our own freedom fighters during Zimbabwe's war for independence, and the same Gaddafi who turned Libya into one of the richest countries on this planet from the second poorest country when he took over power. Talk of 42 years of massive economic progression and tightly controlled political monopoly of power.

The first reason I cannot and will not celebrate the death of Gaddafi is perhaps the fact that I am a cynic and somewhat a political pessimist by nature. Secondly, I hail from an international relations training background, and also from a media background. As such I am what you would charitably call an expert in the knowledge of how brainwashed this world is.

It is not easy to make someone like this writer an easy target of mass deception tactics; often sugar coated in humanitarianism; the rhetoric on democracy, liberties and freedoms; or any of the hoopla around which rivals and enemies of Western politicians are derided and denounced.

This writer is a discerner and not only a listener to Western political voices. The third reason is I am an ideological creation that is allergic to imperialistic values and whatever they are meant to stand for. No sane person from the African continent can admire imperialism.

Simply put, I believe monopoly capitalism practised at the expense of weaker nations is a program designed from the depths of hell, and by its very nature it is the number one crime against humanity. It is imperialism that breeds devil incarnates like Nicolas Sarkozy, and it is imperialism that deceives humanity to the point of elevating such a heartless murderer to the level of a liberator.

Dear reader, if your idea of democracy has got anything to do with the actions of NATO in Libya over the last eight months, then this writer has got bad news for you. You are simply confusing sugar-coated imperialistic aggression for democracy and such an error is fatalistic by definition.

If your source of information over Libya has been the BBC "world service" or any of the mainstream Western media, again this writer has bad news for you. You have been lied to, misled, deceived, manipulated, cheated, brainwashed; and you have to work extremely hard to sieve the information so as to differentiate grain from chaff.

As a matter of principle and by the definition of personality this writer did not cheer American forces when they announced they had killed Osama bin Laden, and neither does he cheer them for ending the life of Muammar Gaddafi.

This writer does not count Obama a hero of whatever magnitude, just like it is increasingly becoming hard to keep counting Nicolas Sarkozy among humans.

The man is proving to be simply a heartless beast walking on two legs. His British sidekick David Cameron comes along as a beautiful looking angel from the Devil's kingdom. Libyan atrocities committed by NATO and its Al-Qaeda allies stink to high heavens, and they speak strongly on the characters of Sarkozy and Cameron. Displaying dead bodies in a shopping centre is something that infuriates the Devil himself, yet these

Allah preaching goons reckon its laudable conduct.

These views are figurative descriptions purely based on intellectual opinion from an angered writer. Let us start with Barack Obama, a man fitting so well into Malcolm X's "house nigger" description, dutifully doing

Uncle Sam's dirty work at home and abroad.

It is a fact that Obama has not used his eloquence and oratory skills to say anything tangible about racism in the United States, or about the deplorable conditions of the African American. Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.

Russian Prime Minister Putin Voices 'Disgust' at Gaddafi Lynching

African Union chairman and Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, spoke before the United Nations on its undemocratic character., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Putin voices ‘disgust’ at Gaddafi coverage

Thursday, 27 October 2011 00:00
AFP-Zimbabwe Herald

MOSCOW. - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday expressed his "disgust" at the global media for its graphic coverage of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's death.

The overwhelming favourite in next year's Russian presidential elections told an election campaign meeting that he found the television coverage of Gaddafi's death immoral.

"Almost the entire Gaddafi family was killed. His body was shown on all the world channels. You could not watch without disgust," news agencies quoted Putin as saying.

"What is that?" Putin exclaimed.

"They show a bloodied man, wounded, still alive but getting beaten to death. And they splash that all over the screen."

The comments were Putin's first on the death of the Libyan leader. Disquiet has grown internationally over how Gaddafi met his end after National Transitional Coalition fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.

Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point.

Russia had earlier condemned NATO for using its jets to attack the convoy Gaddafi had attempted to use to break through the National Transitional Council troops that surrounded his home town of Sirte on October 20.

Defeaning Silence From The Hague On Lynching of Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi

Niger workers forced to return home after their jobs were destroyed by the imperialist war against Libya. Millions of jobs were eradicated by the imperialists and their puppet NTC rebel forces., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Deafening silence of The Hague

Sunday, 23 October 2011 01:49
By Christopher Mutsvangwa
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail

The gory details of the murder of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi by the National Transitional Council (NTC) rebels who are accountable to their Nato handlers have ignited a media frenzy epitomising the celebration of the macabre.

Even in the 21st century, the post-imperial Nato invaders still hark to the savagery that was the hallmark of their treatment of conquered “lesser races”.

Such barbarity being flighted as prime-time news is offensive to all civilised humanity.
Indeed it is revolting to us in Southern Africa.

It is not long ago that the brutality of the savage wars of colonial and racist minority domination masterminded and executed countless massacres in a broad swathe of the sub-region stretching from the Indian Ocean in Mozambique all the way to the Atlantic Ocean in Angola.

Practitioners of racist genocide rampaged, smiting to death thousands of the defenceless populace.

Etched deep in our memories are a string of massacres by Portuguese colonial fascist soldiers, Rhodesian colonial racist supremacists and their South African colonial and apartheid kindred.

Our hearts still grieve for those killed at the Wiriyamu Village massacre in Tete (1972); the massacre of Zimbabwean refugees at Nyadzonia (1976); Chimoio (1977) in Mozambique; and Freedom Camp (1977) in Zambia; the Cassinga massacre of Namibian refugees in Angola in 1978 among other hundreds of thousands of cruel killings that included victims of wars by their surrogates.

What is remarkable is that not even one of the various African nations that emerged victorious ever carried out any mass trials and revanchist executions of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

Great care was taken to restrain the spirit of mob revenge or summary killings of these racist and fascist killers who qualified as vermin of the earth.

It is this humanity that pervades the sub-region and is thus a harbinger of great promise.

Thus evil practitioners of genocide like General Magnus Malan (who died earlier this year), General Peter Walls and Prime Minister Ian Smith (who died in 2007) and Hans Dreyer of Koevoet in Namibia all went on to live as unmolested free men after their various wars of massacres wrought by their sordid hands.
The Nato handlers of NTC rebels clearly seem never to have learnt anything of such magnanimity.

While they were keen to hand out weapons of war and to impart war skills to their Libyan surrogates, they conveniently overlooked teaching them the cherished principles of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of captured prisoners of war.

They are thus complicit as scriptwriters of the gory debauchery of evident summary killing of a captured and wounded Gaddafi.
As I write, the world is listening to the loud silence of Luis Moreno Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

His legal vision is jaundiced by an ideological tint with his favoured quarry being humans of very dark colour originating from a targeted African continent.

The Africa Union is indeed fully justified in refusing to deal with a jurist of such bias and prejudice.

It is also appalling to read and hear comments from local notables and journalists associated with the pro-West agenda who are exhibiting evident glee at the television and Press circus of the cruel and the macabre.

Syrians Hold Another Pro-Government Demonstrations

Large demonstrations in support of the Syrian government of President Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus, the capital, on March 29, 2011. The president addressed parliament on March 30 and denounced the foreign plot against the country., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Syrians Stage Another Pro-Regime Rally

by The Associated Press

Tens of thousands of Syrians held a massive rally Thursday in support of embattled President Bashar Assad, but the regime's crackdown on dissent continued in opposition areas as security forces killed at least four people, including a teenager, activists said.

The demonstration in the coastal city of Latakia came one day after a similar pro-regime rally in the capital, Damascus, as authorities try to galvanize supporters in the face of a seven-month uprising against Assad.

The U.N. estimates that the government crackdown on protests has killed 3,000 people.

On Thursday, a 14-year-old boy in the southern village of Dael was among at least four people killed by Syrian forces during security raids, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group.

A video posted online by activists showed blood pouring from the teenager's head, soaking his blue T-shirt, as another boy screamed in the background.

The video could not be independently verified. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting, making witness accounts and activist groups crucial sources of information about the uprising.

It is difficult to gauge the strength of the revolt in Syria, a country of 22 million people, although the movement has been remarkably resilient.

But the regime is strong as well and in no imminent danger of collapse, setting the stage for what could be a drawn-out and bloody stalemate.

Assad's main bases of support include Syrians who have benefited financially from the regime, minority groups who feel they will be targeted if the Sunni majority takes over, and others who see no clear and safe alternative to Assad.

Both sides of the conflict remain energized. Anti-regime protesters pour into the streets across the country every Friday, defying the near-certain barrage of shelling and sniper fire.

But the opposition has yet to bring out the middle- and upper-middle classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the two economic powerhouses, although protests have been building. Latakia, the site of Thursday's pro-regime demonstration, has strong historical ties to the Assad family's minority Alawite sect.

The Syrian government insists the unrest is being driven by terrorists and foreign extremists looking to stir up sectarian strife.

On Wednesday, an Arab committee held talks with Assad over ways to end the crisis, which began in mid-March as the Arab Spring uprisings swept the region.

The Arab committee is trying to start talks between Assad's government and its opponents, but protest leaders reject any dialogue with the regime while it continues its brutal crackdown.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani, who heads the committee, was quoted by State TV as saying that the Arab delegation felt that the Syrian government is eager to work with the committee to reach a solution.

Sheik Hamad told reporters that the Arab committee and the Syrian government will hold another meeting on Sunday either in Syria or in Qatar.

President Obama Africa Policy; Somalia Neocolonialist Genocide...

Somalia al-Shabab resistance fighters inside the country where a US-backed regime is attempting to dominate the Horn of Africa state. A notice about potential attacks in Kenya was discredited as a fake claim., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

President Obama African Policy; Somalia Neocolonialist Genocide…

October 26, 2011 by Staff

(ThyBlackMan.com) I often wonder what Obama’s father would say about his son’s incessant intervention in Africa. For certain, I know he would not say Obama’s loves him some Africa. Maybe he would because every time we look around, he sending troops to the continent left and right and in all cases to date, to murder established leaders. We saw what his intervention in Libya resulted in and we know that the goal in Uganda is to kill Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). And in Somalia, a nation that has not had a functioning government since 1991 when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, we may be doing our most dirtiest job.

Mohammed Siad Barre came to power via a military coup in October 1969 scientific socialism as Somali state policy – Somali nationalism with the goal of uniting all Somali people under one flag. Once (1970s), the United State provided military and economic assistance to Somalia, and the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu became one of the biggest American diplomatic missions in Africa. After being criticized by the world for providing military support to the Siad Barre regime, efforts in Congress to cut off military assistance to Somali finally succeeded in 1989.

Although we know that the present food and refugee emergency in Somalia is considered to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, placing millions at immediate risk via disease, drought and massive starvation, the Obama administration sent a U.S. Marine task force to the region instead of focusing on humanitarian aid and has escalated drone attacks in Somalia that contribute even more to the starvation and death of additional millions of Africans. For it is the administrations belief that the al-Shabab resistance is mostly responsible for the drought emergency.

Strange since the Obama administration has put in place policies to limit food aid to the region in an effort to starve out those who might be supporting the Shabab. Yes food as a weapon of war in Somalia. What we forget is that the problems of today can be connected to our action four yeas ago when we got the Ethiopian government to invade Somalia in an effort to overthrow an Islamist government that had established peace by ended street battles between warlords and militias via islamic fundamentalist law..

But what is more problematic for me as an African American who has lived in the region (Ethiopia in 1999) and visited Somalia, is the reckless manner in which we disrespect and lessen the value of lives there via the US policy of using drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to kill civilians in the hundreds daily.

In addition, this is not even mentioned on the news nor is discussed openly by President Obama almost Bush-like. Maybe this is why the President is seeking to ban the access of international news agencies the likes of Press TV who reports such daily.

When I lived in Africa, Press TV, BBC, Der Welt Television (Germany) and Al-Jazerra were watched more than any American News outlet and to me are equal to ITN and PBS in their coverage of world news. Since I do not have cable television, I am left to reading the web sites of these respected news agencies. Case in point, the information I have found on the aforementioned in the past two weeks alone is startling and unbeknownst to most US citizens.

On Oct 14, 2001, an attack by a US UAV resulted in the killing of at least 78 people and injured 64 others in southern Somalia. The attack, which occurred near Qooqani town located in southern Somalia happened the same day another US drone attack killed 11 civilians and wounded 34 more in Hoosingow district in the south of the country. Oct 21, 2001 another attack by a US unmanned aerial vehicle killed at least 44 civilians and injured 63 others in southern Somalia near Ras Kamboni town in the Badhaadhe district of Lower Juba region near the border with Kenya.

Several hours latter, a US done attack killed 22 in Kudhaa Island in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya.

Somali military officials reported an attack on Oct 22, 2011 near the town of Bilis Qooqani, an unmanned US drone strike killed at least 49 people in famine-stricken in southern Somalia, while injuring at least 68 others. The next day, Oct 23, 2011, US drones carried out attacks near the Bilis Qooqani districts in southern Somalia, leaving 9 dead and 14 others wounded.

The following day, On Oct 24, 2011, an attack took place in the Somali island of Kudhaa near the country’s border with Kenya according to Somali army officer Colonel Aden Dheere in which killed at least 36 Somali people. Latter that day, another 59 people were killed and dozens more injured during French military attacks on Kudhaa.

In each case Washington claims the airstrikes target militants, though most such attacks have resulted in civilian casualties in Somalia. More recently representatives of the Obama administration have denied any “US involved or supported airstrikes in Somalia: a claim friends and associates of mine from my days living in the region contradict.

Whatever the case, the facts remain the same. First, Somalia strategic location in the horn of Africa and its vast natural resources cannot be questioned.

Second, It is not implausible that the US would do anything to keep China, India and Russia out of the region. Third, the nation is a geopolitical prize that has brought about the United States via the Obama administration to use neocolonial approaches to develop a foothold in the nation as well as offers a reason to employ resources of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), to achieve any clandestine objectives, especially in the context of the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP). Supported by the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and the Special Operations Command (SOCAFRICA).

Not to mention they are involved with assisting the brother of President Yoweri Museveni in training troops for military efforts both in Somalia and Uganda. Strange since the Obama administration as recently as yesterday denied any involvement in arial strikes in Somalia. Like I said, very Bush-like.

Staff Writer; Torrance Stephens

OWS Spreads Through U.S., Makes Space for Struggle

Activists from "Occupy Detroit" marching on Woodward Avenue through the financial district to Bank of America demanding a moratorium on foreclosures. Demonstrations have been held since October 14, 2011. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe), a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

OWS spreads through U.S., makes space for struggle

By LeiLani Dowell
New York
Published Oct 26, 2011 4:17 PM

Throughout the country, the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to defy the cops, make demands for social and economic justice, and provide spaces for solidarity and anti-capitalist momentum. The following is a snapshot of people’s occupations taking place:

In Chicago, police arrested 130 people who defied police orders to clear out of Occupy Chicago in Grant Park. The weekend before, 175 arrests had been made at the same location. Eleven members of Occupy Cincinnati were arrested and charged with criminal trespass on Oct. 23.

New York

In New York City, Occupy Wall Street has spread from Manhattan to Harlem and the borough of Queens. On Oct. 21, dozens were arrested, including a large contingent from OWS, after a march from the Harlem State Office Building to Harlem’s 28th Police Precinct to protest the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, more than 85 percent of those harassed by police under the program are Black or Latino/a. A solidarity march to the 33rd Precinct, where those arrested were said to be held, ensued. The day’s events were organized in solidarity with Occupy Harlem, which is scheduled to begin on Oct. 28. (occupywallst.org)

That same day, members of the Muslim communities held Jumma Prayer at Zucotti Park, the location of OWS.

If not for the helicopter overhead and the lineup of police and their vans outside of the Symphony Space concert venue on the evening of Oct. 21, most Upper West Side residents strolling down Broadway would not have known their neighborhood was about to be “occupied.” At about 10:30 p.m., a crowd emerged from the theatre following a concert by Pete Seeger, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, David Amram, Arlo Guthrie and others. Like Pan Pipers, they led a lively OWS march down Broadway, picking up parents with strollers and others who eagerly came out of shops and restaurants and down from their apartments to join the march or raise their fists in support. Accompanied by guitars, a flute, an accordion and various other instruments, they sang union solidarity songs and traditional Seeger and Guthrie favorites. According to the Associated Press, 1,000 people ultimately converged on Columbus Circle, where the 92-year-old Seeger led them in song.

In a show of solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist) has organized street meetings and rallies in a number of Indian metropolitan areas and cities. In Kolkata on Oct. 19, protesters marched more than two miles to the “American Center” at the U.S. Consulate General. As police blocked the road, a protest meeting was held and an effigy of an octopus was burned to signify the destruction of the grip of capital over society. Protest leaders urged people to rise up against Indian capitalism.

After immigrant and workers’ rights organizations gathered for the founding event of the International Migrants Alliance in Jackson Heights, Queens, on Oct. 23, they then marched to the Manuel Unanue Park for a symbolic Occupy Queens, featuring speakers and cultural performances. Organizers of the event stated that the march was dedicated to supporting and standing in solidarity with the OWS movement. “IMA and the other groups … recognize that the economic crisis devastating so many workers’ lives is in essence what is behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. … The special onerous conditions for immigrants will be emphasized Sunday at Occupy Queens,” a press statement reads.

In a mobilization in support of public education, OWS members plan to occupy a meeting of the Department of Education on Oct. 25. According to organizers, the meeting is being hosted by the Panel for Educational Policy, an unelected, 13-member body that makes all decisions for the DOE.

The Jobless Avengers Working Group is meeting on Oct. 28. That same day, protesters at OWS will wear kaffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian resistance, in support of Palestinian political prisoners and in solidarity with the people of Palestine in general.

A People’s Video Network video, “Voices of Occupy Wall Street,” can be seen at tinyurl.com/6k5kg93.

Philadelphia

Occupy Philadelphia entered day 18 on Oct. 23. A well-organized community has sprung up around City Hall complete with a medical tent, legal tent, library, food tent, security, housing and general information, and a wide range of outlets for political and economic struggles.

On Oct. 17, hundreds of Service Employees Local 32BJ members gathered at Occupy Philly for a march and press conference that issued a clear statement of solidarity with the OWS movement.

On Oct. 21, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor abruptly cancelled his planned speech at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business when he learned that Occupy Philly participants might be in the audience. Just in case Cantor missed the message that they would no longer put up with Wall Street’s greed, more than 500 demonstrators marched more than two miles from City Hall to the campus. Chants of “Stand up, get down! Revolution has come to town!” were greeted with applause, raised fists and people grabbing fliers all along the route. Once there, nearly 200 protesters jammed Wharton’s lobby to push demands for income equality, chanting, “Occupy Philly! Occupy Penn! Occupy Wharton!” They promised to return.

The first arrests at Occupy Philly occurred at noon on Oct. 23, after dozens had taken over the streets outside Philadelphia’s police headquarters the night before to protest police brutality. In a clear statement condemning the role police play in protecting, supporting and enforcing the interests of the CEOs, superrich and politicians, 14 demonstrators willing to risk arrest sat in, in solidarity with those who have been silenced and terrorized by police brutality in Philadelphia. Among the demands was one to reopen the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Detroit

Protesters called out by Occupy Detroit descended on the Bank of America branch in downtown Detroit on Oct. 18 and again on Oct. 21 to demand an immediate moratorium on home foreclosures. The People Before Banks Coalition and the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs helped bring out hundreds of community, religious, union and social justice activists. People’s anti-foreclosure attorney Vanessa Fluker told Workers World that the actions at BofA were crucial in helping to save her client’s home. Occupy Detroit has held an ongoing encampment in Grand Circus Park since Oct. 14.

Rochester, N.Y.

The General Assembly of Occupy Rochester has decided to physically occupy Washington Square Park in downtown Rochester, located two and a half blocks from daily protests at the Liberty Pole. The Band of Rebels demonstrates in front of the Bank of America, located across the street from the Liberty Pole, every Monday at noon.

On Oct. 18, union leaders and workers from the Rochester Central Labor Council joined Occupy Rochester for a demonstration and press conference supporting the extension of the millionaire’s tax in New York state. About 200 people attended.

On Oct. 20, protesters from Occupy Rochester marched from the Liberty Pole to City Hall, where they protested the police’s killing of Hayden Blackman only days before. From the doorway of his apartment, Police officer Randy Book shot Blackman three times. Blackman’s family and supporters joined the other protesters. They then packed a meeting of the newly formed Police Commission, which is supposed to investigate police abuse. Several witnesses gave vivid and moving personal testimony of police brutality. Both the witnesses and those attending strongly urged the formation of a truly independent, civilian review board controlled by the community, not the police.

Wisconsin

OWS actions are growing across Wisconsin. On Oct. 22, Occupy Appleton, Wis., protesters marched on the main Chase bank in downtown, chanting, “Bail out the people, not the banks!” That same day, the Occupy Eau Claire, Wis., group sponsored a demonstration at Owen Park.

Occupy Milwaukee, which is now operating from Garden Park in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, sponsored a protest at M&I Bank on Oct. 20. Austin Thompson, an African-American organizer, was arrested for disorderly conduct and put in the Milwaukee County Jail for the night. Occupy Milwaukee mobilized to win his release the next day. Supporters are now calling the district attorney to have Thompson’s disorderly conduct charge dropped and working to pack the court for his scheduled appearance.

Occupy Milwaukee is now mobilizing for an Oct. 29 march beginning at 12 noon at Lincoln Park. Occupy The Hood-Milwaukee, a group focused on issues of people of color, is mobilizing for a Nov. 12 event in Milwaukee.

Occupy Green Bay, Wis., continues to meet at the County Courthouse on various days, and Occupy Sheboygan, Wis., began its weekly General Assembly meetings, which will take place every Friday at 4 p.m. at Fountain Park. Occupy Madison, Wis., is ongoing and sponsoring various events.

All of the OWS groups in Wisconsin have Facebook pages and are mobilizing speak-outs, leafleting days at banks and more. For more information and frequent updates visit www.wibailoutpeople.org.

California

The Labor Video Project reports that hundreds of Occupy Oakland, Calif., supporters attended an Oct. 22 rally in defense of the occupation. ILWU Local 10 Executive Board member Clarence Thomas called on the entire labor movement to defend the occupation against threats by Mayor Jean Quan and the city of Oakland to shut it down. Other speakers included members of the California Nurses Association and the Industrial Workers of the World.

Occupy San Francisco is calling for an Occupy Education day on Nov. 16, when the University of California Board of Regents will meet to discuss and possibly vote on a proposal to raise student fees by up to 81 percent over the next four years.

A statement by Occupy San Francisco reads: “They say cuts are inevitable because there are no funds — but we know that if we really taxed the corporations, ended the wars, or took back the bailout funds, there would be no budget shortfall. They say we have to accept— but we know that if we take mass collective action, we can defeat these attacks.”

A rally of close to 1,000 people marched to the Civic Center, the site of Occupy San Diego, on Oct. 15. A few days later on Oct. 20, walkouts under the banner of “Occupy Higher Education” were held on the campuses of California State University San Marcos, Grossmont College, Palomar Community College, San Diego State University, UC San Diego and the University of San Diego.

It was a day of huge, loud and militant marches with chants targeting the corporate elite, the banks and government bailouts to them in Los Angeles. A march that began at Pershing Square ended at the site of Occupy Los Angeles, which by then had grown to almost 700 people.

The character of the occupation at City Hall, in downtown Los Angeles, resumed with its usual hustle and bustle of varied activities — from educational talks on various subjects, spanning politics and spirituality to constant drumming, music, food distribution and more. But, there was an added element that evening after the long march. At 6:30 p.m. on a big screen provided by the Occupy L.A. General Assembly, Workers World Party sponsored a film showing of “Cuba: In Defense of Socialism — Fighting Imperialism.” As soon as the film began, a large crowd formed a half shell around the screen, seemingly in awe of Cuba’s contributions to building the kind of society many of them are discussing at these occupations nationwide.

After the film, Aracely Espinosa and Mike Martinez answered questions about Cuba and countered one individual’s parroting of the State Department lies regarding Cuba’s “lack of democracy.” Regardless of that incident, the film and comments made one thing absolutely clear to 99 percent of those who consider themselves “the 99 Percent” — they were being lied to about Cuba and socialism is a system worthy of further study.

Lydia Bayoneta, Kris Hamel, Janet Mayes, John Parker, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Betsey Piette and Gloria Verdieu contributed to this report.
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Federal Government, Banks Through Municipalities Are Moving to Crush Occupy Wall Street Movement

Thousands protest at Grant Park in downtown Chicago. The municipal governments around the U.S. are cracking down of the demonstrations. The movement is anti-capitalist in its character., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Occupy Clashes Show Risks to Democrats in Embracing Protesters

October 27, 2011, 12:26 AM EDT

By Catherine Dodge and Esmé E. Deprez

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Clashes between members of the Occupy Wall Street movement in Atlanta and Oakland with police followed by dozens of arrests underscore the hazards for Democrats in embracing the burgeoning movement.

“With any nascent movement like this, there are always going to be risks because they haven’t clarified what they stand for,” said Glenn Totten, a Democratic political consultant in Alexandria, Virginia. “Anytime you take to the streets there’s an inherent sense that you are somehow rabble-rousers.”

The demonstrations, which began in New York on Sept. 17, are aimed at the financial industry and driven by the nation’s growing wealth gap. The top 1 percent of earners saw their inflation-adjusted, after-tax earnings grow by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, while those with incomes in the bottom 20 percent saw an 18 percent increase, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

In Atlanta, police arrested 53 people early yesterday as they cleared a park that had been occupied by protesters for more than two weeks, according to the Atlanta Journal- Constitution. Police lobbed tear gas at protesters in Oakland Oct. 25 as they dismantled a two-week-old encampment and made more than 100 arrests, according to the Oakland Tribune. Police said protesters threw rocks and bottles at them.

Not Afraid

Patrick Bruner, 23, a spokesman for the Occupy group in New York, called the arrests “unconscionable” and said the protesters will not be deterred. “What the police and government seem to not have realized yet is that we are done being scared. They can’t frighten us away from exercising rights. Every time they attempt to shut us down we only grow stronger,” he said.

President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz have expressed sympathy with the protesters’ complaints. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee circulated to its supporters a petition backing the protests.

“Right now, it feels to people like the deck is stacked against them, and the folks in power don’t seem to be paying attention to that,” Obama said Oct. 25 in an interview on NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”

Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the DNC, said there have been no formal meetings with Occupy members and the DNC isn’t advising candidates on how to approach the movement.

“It seems self-evident that this movement will be a potent political force, but it also doesn’t at all seem to be the type of movement that any political party should try to co-opt,” he said.

Urging Caution

Democrats should be cautious, Doug Schoen, a onetime strategist for former President Bill Clinton, said in an interview.

“The vast majority of the American people are centrists,” he said. “While they may share some of the sentiments that some of the Wall Street protesters express, they don’t believe in radical redistribution of income.”

The protests have injected the wealth inequality issue into the political debate, even as Occupy participants in New York and Washington said in interviews that they don’t want to become a part of a system they believe has failed them.

“The name a lot of people are using is ‘post-political,’” said Beth Bogart, 55, a documentary film maker who volunteers at the media table in New York’s Zuccotti Park.

Still, Jack Rothman, a professor emeritus at the UCLA School of Public Affairs who specialized in community organizing, said the movement already is having a political impact.

Ignition or Motor

“Their impact as the ignition rather than the motor could be enormous,” he said. The protests may “wake up the forces in the country that are suffering and are dissatisfied,” spurring them to become political active, he said.

That’s what Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, an online organization founded in its opposition to Clinton’s impeachment that became an advocate for the health care overhaul and other issues, said he’s seeing.

“We’ve seen more enthusiasm and passion around these issues of economic fairness than any other issue since the Iraq war,” he said, noting that his members are joining the protests.

That energy “will help leaders who actually step into the fight for the 99 percent and hurt those who don’t,” he said, referring to the movement’s “We are the 99 percent” slogan that is a reference to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing the richest 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth.

MoveOn Support

MoveOn created a website called OccupyWishList.org. Protesters from Anchorage to Albany have gone on it requesting items such as sleeping bags, generators, hand warmers, batteries and even a Mac Book computer.

Athena Chavez, 64, a council organizer for MoveOn in Fort Worth, said the movement is prompting members who had been on the sidelines to get back involved. “With the Occupy Wall Street movement, the energy is building,” she said in a telephone interview. “Finally there is a movement out there that is giving voice to our frustrations.”

Labor unions representing groups from teachers to construction workers to nurses have donated food, money and storage space to the protesters and are participating in events.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement yesterday that labor leaders “are extremely alarmed by the increasing number of arrests of peaceful protesters across the country and call on elected leaders to stop ordering the police to make these arrests.”

Labor Unions

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union, said in an interview that his members are joining the movement. “They are assimilating into the movement. They aren’t trying to control the movement,” he said.

Roxanne Pauline, coordinator for the Northeast Pennsylvania Area Labor Federation, said the protests have “energized the labor movement and a lot of others.”

“I think by them rallying together and showing personal strength and interest in their society, it will make politicians realize, ‘Ah, here’s another generation going to vote,’” she said in an interview from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Whether the enthusiasm benefits Obama’s re-election depends on the stands the president takes over the next year, said Ruben. “Many Americans will be looking to see how hard is the president fighting for me and the regular folks,” said Ruben.

--With assistance from Brian Faler in Washington. Editors: Jeanne Cummings, Joe Sobczyk

To contact the reporters on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.net; Esme E. Deprez in New York at edeprez@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

Barack Kissinger Obama: NYT Praises White House for Imperialist Military Aggression

Obama has continued the US imperialist militarism throughout the world. His administration has escalated the war in Central Asia and sent the CIA and AFRICOM into Libya and other regions of Africa., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

October 25, 2011

Barack Kissinger Obama

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times Columnist

Who would have predicted it? Barack Obama has turned out to be so much more adept at implementing George W. Bush’s foreign policy than Bush was, but he is less adept at implementing his own. The reasons, though, are obvious.

In his own way, President Obama has brought the country to the right strategy for Bush’s “war on terrorism.” It is a serious, focused combination of global intelligence coordination, targeted killing of known terrorists and limited interventions — like Libya — that leverage popular forces on the ground and allies, as well as a judicious use of U.S. power, so that we keep the costs and risks down. In Libya, Obama saved lives and gave Libyans a chance to build a decent society. What they do with this opportunity is now up to them. I am still wary, but Obama handled his role exceedingly well.

No doubt George Bush and Dick Cheney thought that both Iraq and Afghanistan would be precisely such focused, limited operations. Instead, they each turned out to be like a bad subprime mortgage — a small down payment with a huge balloon five years down the road. They thought they would be able to “flip” the house before the balloon came due. But partly because of their incompetence and lack of planning, it took much longer to flip the house to new owners and the price America paid was huge. Iraq may still have a decent outcome — I hope so, and it would be important — but even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.

So let’s be clear: Up to now, as a commander in chief in the war on terrorism, Obama and his national security team have been so much smarter, tougher and cost-efficient in keeping the country safe than the “adults” they replaced. It isn’t even close, which is why the G.O.P.’s elders have such a hard time admitting it.

But while Obama has been deft at implementing Bush’s antiterrorism policy, he has been less successful with his own foreign policy. His Arab-Israeli diplomacy has been a mess. His hopes of engaging Iran foundered on the rocks of, well, Iran. He’s made little effort to pull together a multilateral coalition to buttress the Arab Awakening, in places like Egypt, to handle the postrevolution challenges. His ill-considered decision to double down on Afghanistan could prove fatal. He is in a war of words with Pakistan. His global climate policy is an invisible embarrassment. And the coolly calculating Chinese and Russians, while occasionally throwing him a bone, pursue their interests with scant regard to Obama’s preferences. Why is that?

Here I come to defend Obama not to condemn him.

True, he was naïve about how much his star power, or that of his secretary of state, would get others to swoon in behind us. But Obama’s frustrations in bagging a big, nonmilitary foreign policy achievement are rooted in a much broader structural problem — one that also explains why we have not produced a history-changing secretary of state since the cold war titans Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and James Baker.

The reason: the world has gotten messier and America has lost leverage. When Kissinger was negotiating in the Middle East in the 1970s, he had to persuade just three people to make a deal: an all-powerful Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad; an Egyptian pharaoh, Anwar Sadat; and an Israeli prime minister with an overwhelming majority, Golda Meir.

To make history, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by contrast, need to extract a deal from a crumbling Syrian regime, a crumbled Egyptian regime, a fractious and weak Israeli coalition and a Palestinian movement broken into two parts.

We don’t even bother anymore to negotiate with the flimsy civilian government in Pakistan. We just go right to its military, which only wants to perpetuate the conflict with India — and exploit Afghanistan as a chip in that war — to justify the Pakistani Army’s endless consumption of so many state resources.

Making history through diplomacy “depends on making deals with other governments,” says Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert (and co-author with me on “That Used to Be Us”). “But now, to make such deals, we actually have to build the governments we want to negotiate with — and we can’t do that.” Indeed, in so many hot spots today, we have to do nation-building before we can do diplomacy. So many states propped up by the cold war are failing.

And where states are stronger — like Russia, China and Iran — we have less leverage because leverage is ultimately a function of economic strength. And while many of America’s companies are still strong, our government is mired in debt. When a nation is in debt as deep as we are — with severe defense cuts inevitable — its bark is always bigger than its bite.

The best way for us to gain leverage on Russia and Iran would be with an energy policy that reduced the price and significance of oil. The only way to gain more leverage on China is if we increase our savings and graduation rates — and export more and consume less. That isn’t in the cards.

So, Mama, tell your children not to grow up to be secretary of state or a foreign policy president — not until others have done more nation-building abroad and we’ve done more nation-building at home.

HRW Is Absolutely Not About Human Rights

Home where Said al-Arab Gaddafi was assassinated along with his three children by the imperialist forces of NATO. The US/Nato assault on the North African state has resulted in thousands of deaths., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Human Right Watch is absolutely not about Human Rights

Posted: 2011/10/26
From: Mathaba

HRW works for NATO and endeavours to cover up its Crimes Against Humanity in Libya (and all over the world).

In a recent article, I explained how Human Rights Watch (HRW) proceeds to mislead the public opinion. Today, another proof came out in the media. And today, they’ve reached another level. The ultimate level of deception.

Indeed, today HRW claims that rebels executed 53 so-called Gaddafi loyalists. The corpses were found in Hotel Mahari in District 2 of Sirte. In a Russia Today article, we can read: "the group considers the accident to be part of the murders and lootings from some opposition forces that do not want to obey any law at all. HRW calls for Libya to get these people under control."

Well, there are several interesting things to point out about HRW and its apparently UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY of loyalists being executed.

Since day 1, reports from many independent sources that were part of fact-finding missions in Libya, confirmed that the rebels where slaughtering civilians just because they supported Muammar Gaddafi; or just for being "Black" (e.g. sources like Lizzie Phelan, Mahdi Nazemroaya, Sukant Chandan, Franklin Lamb…). Where were the HRW people at the time? Oh true, at that time, they were comfortably sitting in their European offices, reporting about Gaddafi’s crimes… Gaddafi’s crimes that NEVER TOOK PLACE and that none of the NATO members have succeeded to prove until today. Seems like the mainstream media don't care since they're not talking about this crucial point anymore (which contributes in making this War totally unjustified and unlawful). Nor does HRW. Correction: They’ve never talked about it actually.

On top of spreading fake reports, HRW has apparently been granted with an additional mission by NATO member states: besides misleading the public opinion by demonizing Gaddafi by providing fake information, they now have to cover up NATO's war crimes. When the White Empire's most powerful army in history started dropping thousands of bombs full of depleted uranium on innocent Libyan civilians, HRW remained totally silent. Instead of reporting about the ongoing Crimes Against Humanity being carried out by its masters and funders, it shifted the public opinion's focus on Syria in order to demonize Bashar Al Assad's government by providing, once again, fake information.

Today, they've reach another level. It has reach the ultimate stage of deception. With its above mentioned report (see here) on "loyalists" being executed, they are misleading the public opinion again, and cover up one of the worst atrocities of our decade (We don't forget about Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Pakistan. But today we're focusing on their role in the Libya War).

HRW assumes that this execution was carried out by "anti Gaddafi fighters from Misrata" and calls on "Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) to conduct an immediate and transparent investigation into the apparent mass execution and to bring those responsible to justice".

1. Well, this simple extract is enough for HRW to wipe away NTC's accountability in this mass killing. But wait… I thought the Misrata fighters were controlled by the NTC… Yes, so NTC is accountable for these executions. Well, they apparently aren't anymore… So, some random fighters from Misrata, nobody knows who they are, are to be blamed and punished for it… What a great example of JUSTICE!

2. Why didn't HRW call on Gaddafi to conduct an immediate and transparent investigation into the apparent killing of civilians and to bring those responsible to justice? Instead of calling for a UN resolution that led to the NATO intervention? Well, if we cannot hold NTC accountable for hideous mass killings from its own "freedom fighters" especially with blatant proof, then why could we hold Gaddafi accountable? Especially without any proof…

3. On top of that, by focusing on these 53 "loyalists" (peace be upon them) HRW is covering up a much more important killing, we can even call it a Crime Against Humanity. The one carried out by NATO. If HRW found those 53 corpses in Sirte, how couldn't it see the civilian corpses laying all over the city? And all over the country? Couldn't HRW see the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, residential areas, schools, water pipes, electricity plants in the very same city? Are they blind? No, they aren't. And they did see the chaos that NATO brought about. And they very well know that thousands of civilians must have died since NATO's primary targets turned out to be civilian infrastructures.

4. Why didn't HRW expose that each Tomahawk, like the ones dropped on Libya, contains 300Kgs of depleted uranium? Why didn't it exposes the use of cluster bombs? Why don't they focus on estimating the civilian deaths brought about by NATO? Especially when estimations from independent sources are about 60,000 dead innocents. Maybe because those sources in their eyes are not reliable enough… but those claiming that Gaddafi sent his Air Force to bomb his population were apparently more reliable… Please watch the next video, Russia Intel satellite shows Gaddafi did not attack his people:

5. Why didn't HRW exposed NATO members providing heavy weapons and artillery to the rebels in complete breach of UN resolution?

6. Why didn't HRW expose the fact that the ones who mainstream media and Western leaders now call "Rebels" or "Freedom Fighters", were once called Al Qaeda terrorists?

So many questions… And all answers lead to the same point: HRW is absolutely not about Human Rights.

Brief Conclusion:

HRW, NATO, UN and other international organizations no longer benefit from their beautiful image of FREEDOM and JUSTICE lovers. Every day brings loads of proofs that all those organizations are nothing more than smoke screens to cover up White Empire hideous crimes and world enslavement.

I call on you, people, to spread this article, and all other articles of interest that you might find on mathaba, on our website and on other websites. Spread the truth. Expose the traitors. Expose the liars. Expose the crimes. Don't remain silent and idle while our leaders take us, everyday, a step closer to the Global Chaos.