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Denial of Rights No Way to Treat Special Friends
, was Keith Locke’s reaction on 20 May to a Select Committee report into a petition requesting a repeal of the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 – which cancelled the New Zealand citizenship of thousands of Samoans.“The majority of the committee argues that it can’t impose New Zealand citizenship obligations on those Samoans affected, but there was another course available.
“In my Minority View in the report, I have proposed that we offer New Zealand citizenship to the estimated 52,000 Samoans detrimentally affected by the 1982 legislation. They would have the individual choice of accepting or rejecting that citizenship. To take this course would be to implement the spirit of the petition, so widely backed by the Samoan people.”
Read
Keith’s release
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Where America Goes, There Go the Nats
said Jeanette Fitzsimons in reaction to Simon Powers’ (National’s third ranked MP and Defence Spokesperson) call for New Zealand to voluntarily give up it’s sovereignty and independence.“Nick Smith has confirmed that Simon Power wasn’t joking and National really is committed to turning Aotearoa into America’s 51st state, Green Party Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said today.
Jeanette noted that Dr Smith had committed a future National government into opting out of the Kyoto agreement on climate control if the United States and Australia didn’t sign-up to it. The ditch-Kyoto policy follows hard on the heels of Simon Power’s “where America goes, we go” pledge and Dr Brash’s signal that he favours allowing US nuclear-powered ships into our ports.”
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Jeanette’s release
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Time’s up for Kiwi Troops in Iraq
, said Keith Locke on 9 May. He said that the Government cannot ignore the fighting in Basra and the ongoing scandal over the abuse of prisoners and must pull New Zealand’s troops out of Iraq.“New Zealand’s good name internationally is being sullied by our troops being embedded in a British force that is being increasingly discredited by reports of brutality towards Iraqis,” said Keith.
“The fighting in Basra over the past few days, involving British troops, is another reason for the New Zealanders to get out. The Kiwi troops have admitted to helping the British military effort, both in constructing roadblocks away from their Basra base and in repairing boats used for British combat operations. The Iraqis won’t look kindly on this military role.
“It is embarrassing when US and British leaders continually list New Zealand as a ‘coalition’ member, when the Iraqi people clearly want the occupation troops out of their country.
“The numerous negatives in the New Zealand army engineers staying in Iraq now clearly outweigh the positives the Government sees in their contribution to reconstruction. The troops should come home now,” said Keith.
Read
Keith’s release
. [Note: That press release refers to photos in the Daily Mirror depicting British soldiers abusing Iraqi’s. Those particular photos have since been exposed as a hoax. However, evidence of abuse in the British sector is strong.].
Action
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Ahmed Zaoui and other Challenges to Human Rights in the ‘War on Terrorism’
. Keith Locke will speak in
Palmerston North
next week.Tuesday 20 May 4.00pm Bernard Chambers A, Library Road,
Massey University
; and
Tuesday 20 May 7.30pm
Community Leisure Centre
, 569 Ferguson St. -
Sign the Petition
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End NZ support for the ‘war on terrorism
.’This petition calls on the NZ government to end its military and political support for the US government-led ‘war on terrorism’, and to recall all NZ military personnel who are involved in it. It is available on line or you can email PMA from the website to ask to be sent printed copies to take to meetings, put on stalls, etc.
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See What they should have Learned from History
. At the Auckland War Memorial Museum, ongoing until June 6, are two exhibitions of photographs from the Vietnam War.‘
Another Vietnam
‘ contains never-before-published images by North Vietnamese photographers who risked their lives to capture their country’s struggle. It is accompanied by ‘
Vietnam – A Kiwi Snapshot
‘ an exhibition presenting New Zealanders’ memories of power politics, protest and the sacrifice made by our own soldiers in this unpopular war. The exhibition is
co-produced by the National Geographic Museum at Explorers Hall, Washington, and the International Center of Photography, New York. Entry is $8 adults, $6 concessions. -
Saharawi Speaker
. Kamal Fadel, a representative of the Saharawi people who were driven out of their Western Sahara homeland by Moroccan occupiers over 25 years ago, and are struggling to regain their land, is visiting NZ next week. He will be speaking in the following places:
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Christchurch
, Thursday May 27, 7:30 p.m., PEETO, cnr Madras and Peterborough Streets -
Wellington
, Thursday May 27, 1 pm., Victoria University Rm 304, Cotton Building -
Auckland
, Monday, May 31, 7:30 p.m., St Columba Centre, 40 Vermont St, Ponsonby
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Action
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Darfur in Flames – Atrocities in Western Sudan
. This week the United States removed Sudan from it’s list of countries that are ‘uncooperative’ in the “War on Terrorism”, this is based purely on information sharing with the United States regarding Islamic militants. Human Rights Watch has recently released a report stating that:“Militias backed by the government of Sudan are committing crimes against humanity in Darfur, western Sudan, in response to a year-long insurgency. The past three months of escalating violence threaten to turn the current human rights and humanitarian crisis into a man-made famine and humanitarian catastrophe.
“Using indiscriminate aerial bombardment, militia and army raiding, and denial of humanitarian assistance the government of Sudan and allied Arab militia, called janjaweed, are implementing a strategy of ethnic-based murder, rape and forcible displacement of civilians in Darfur as well as attacking the rebels…
“…While many of the abuses are committed by the janjaweed, the Sudanese government is complicit in these abuses and holds the highest degree of responsibility for pursuing a military policy that has resulted in the commission of crimes against humanity…
“…More than 110,000 Zaghawa and Masaalit have fled across the border into neighboring Chad and at least 750,000 people, many of them Fur, remain displaced within Darfur, constantly vulnerable to attacks by predatory militia who rape, assault, abduct and kill civilians with full impunity. Attacks are on-going and the number of displaced persons grows by the day.”
That is a brief excerpt from the Summary of the 50 page
Human Rights Watch report Darfur in Flames – Atrocities in Western Sudan
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How Chalabi Conned the Neocons
Today news of a US raid on the home and headquarters of their once favoured Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi has broken. A couple of weeks ago an article in Salon.com explored the breakdown in the relationship between Chalabi and his former sponsors.“When the definitive history of the current Iraq war is finally written, wealthy exile Ahmed Chalabi will be among those judged most responsible for the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. More than a decade ago Chalabi teamed up with American neoconservatives to sell the war as the cornerstone of an energetic new policy to bring democracy to the Middle East — and after 9/11, as the crucial antidote to global terrorism. It was Chalabi who provided crucial intelligence on Iraqi weaponry to justify the invasion, almost all of which turned out to be false, and laid out a rosy scenario about the country’s readiness for an American strike against Saddam that led the nation’s leaders to predict — and apparently even believe — that they would be greeted as liberators. Chalabi also promised his neoconservative patrons that as leader of Iraq he would make peace with Israel, an issue of vital importance to them. A year ago, Chalabi was riding high, after Saddam Hussein fell with even less trouble than expected.
“Now his power is slipping away, and some of his old neoconservative allies — whose own political survival is looking increasingly shaky as the U.S. occupation turns nightmarish — are beginning to turn on him. The U.S. reversed its policy of excluding former Baathists from the Iraqi army — a policy devised by Chalabi — and Marine commanders even empowered former Republican Guard officers to run the pacification of Fallujah. Last week United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi delivered a devastating blow to Chalabi’s future leadership hopes, recommending that the Iraqi Governing Council, of which he is finance chair, be accorded no governance role after the June 30 transition to sovereignty. Meanwhile, administration neoconservatives, once united behind Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress he founded, are now split, as new doubts about his long-stated commitment to a secular Iraqi democracy with ties to Israel, and fears that he is cozying up to his Shiite co-religionists in Iran, begin to emerge. At least one key Pentagon neocon is said to be on his way out, a casualty of the battle over Chalabi and the increasing chaos in Iraq, and others could follow…”
The full article,
How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons
, by John Dizard can be found at [Salon.com is subscription based, but you can get a free day pass by watching an ad, though – depending on your internet access – that may be difficult.] -
The Roots of Torture
. The New Zealand Herald recently reprinted a Newsweek story on abuses in the US-led coalition Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It makes a strong case that this can’t be the work of a few ‘rogue’ soldiers:“Indeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal-that of a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires dangling from his fingers, toes and penis-may do a lot to undercut the administration’s case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That’s because the practice shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known only to veterans of the interrogation trade. “Was that something that [an MP] dreamed up by herself? Think again,” says Darius Rejali, an expert on the use of torture by democracies. “That’s a standard torture. It’s called ‘the Vietnam.’ But it’s not common knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did this, but someone taught them.”
The full story can be found at
The Roots of Torture
.The publication of that story lessened the attacks on Seymour Hersch of The New Yorker who had been accused of distortion and lying for similar claims published slightly earlier, available here:
The Gray Zone: How a Secret Pentagon Program came to Abu Ghraib
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Of course, it shouldn’t be forgotten that abuses of prisoners in Iraq are not, by any means the only abuses that have taken and are taking place there.
Atrocities in Iraq: ‘I killed innocent people for our government’
By Paul Rockwell – Special to the Bee
For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life – Marine boot camp.
The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.
When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.
The interview is available at
The Sacramento Bee
.
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