Laura Norton | appeared on March 27, 2009

Madagascar, a tourist paradise of beaches and exotic animals, is home to one of the most uninterrupted cycles of coups and crises in Africa.
Democracy hasn’t settled easily on the world’s fourth largest island. Like so many other African nations still struggling still with their colonial past, Madagascar was left by France in 1960 ill-equipped for free and fair elections. It experienced political upheaval for much of the post-colonial period. In 2002, the United States recognized the current president — the country’s sixth — after he grabbed power in a coup that left dozens of Malagasy dead. That coup, and the creation of Marc Ravalomanana’s government, was the fifth political crisis to successfully unseat a president in 30 years.
On January 26, this cycle of political upheaval began again. Andry Rajoelina, the ousted mayor of the capital city, accused Ravalomanana of leading a dictatorship. Soon after that came protests, marches, and bloodshed. On March 17, days after Rajoelina burst into the unoccupied presidential palace with gunshots and mortar fire, Ravalomanana handed power over to the military.

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‘Everyday life in N’djamena has become unbearable’, concludes Nakar Djindil, who returned to the Netherlands on 5 March after a two week visit to see her family in N’djamena, the capital city of Chad. She left Chad two years ago after finalising her doctoral fieldwork concerning the long-term effects of war on Chadian society. Djindil is a nutritionist interested in how people’s health is being affected by the ongoing crisis in Chad. Chad, a central African country, is not very well-known in the West or even in other parts of Africa. The nation has, however, received more publicity in the last few years due to conflict in neighbouring Darfur, Sudan.
Violence has spilled over into eastern Chad where large refugee camps are operated by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other international organisations. Chad has also received global recognition because of its oil. In particular, the World Bank has indicated that the country’s investment in this sector — meaning the exploitation of Chadian mineral resources — will turn Chad into a positive example of poverty alleviation.
Chad experienced a long civil war from the late 1960s until its official end in 1990 when the current president, Idriss Déby, gained power and replaced Hissein Habré. This period of civil war resulted in a vastly undeveloped infrastructure and an absence of healthcare for Chad’s citizens. Each person’s history is coloured by the war (Bruijn and van Dijk 2007, p. 61–98), and the preliminary conclusions of Djindil’s work illustrate the long-term effects of this continuous crisis on the health and psychological well-being of Chadians (Djindil 2008).
Although Chad’s civil war officially ceased in 1990, violence and oppression continued to play a prominent role in governance. In the first years of his reign, President Déby exploited ethnic rivalries and his regime gave orders to kill those who were seen as opponents. Specific ethnic groups became victims of Déby’s regime, and his mode of governance created a general atmosphere of fear. As a result of international pressure, President Déby eventually introduced democracy and decentralisation as part of his governance rhetoric. Indeed, Chad became more decentralised and elections were held; however the outcome remained aligned with the wishes of the ruling elite, the majority of whom belong to President Déby’s own ethnic group, the Zaghawa.
The oil exploitation that started in 2002 has been an important turning point for Chadian governance. The involvement of the World Bank and other international organisations has made Chad more visible internationally. Moreover, President Déby has ensured Chadian issues maintain a prominent role within international political agendas. Chad has attracted international attention as a result of the refugee crisis in Darfur, and the country’s oil reserves.

Read more on Everyday life in N’djamena: An eye-witness account by Nakar Djindil…

Rene Wadlow

The lives of children and mothers have been placed at high risk by the forced withdrawal of non-governmental organizations (NGO) from Darfur, Sudan. The withdrawal was an act of vengeance on the part of the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir when arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court (ICC) were signed against him. The people who suffer are Sudanese victims of five years of violence in Darfur. Nearly three million people have been displaced as villages have been destroyed, crops burned and farm animals deliberately killed. Wells which provide water have been filled in with sand. As a result, a large percentage of the population depends on food, shelter and medical aid from the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs.

Read more on Darfur : Heavy Storm Warning…

By Jan Oberg & Annette Schiffmann

March 20 marks the 6th anniversary of the US-led invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq – coming upon 12 years of the most cruel sanctions history has witnessed.
About 2 million innocent Iraqi citizens have died as a consequence of those Western policies. About 4 million out of 24 million are either displaced inside the country or refugees abroad. In a country where more than half the entire population is well under 20, hundreds of thousands are clinically traumatized.
At the same time Western media – part of the MIMAC, the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex – give wide publicity to a BBC opinion poll that shows that "security" has improved in Iraq.
It is going so well, isn’t it?
The West has now – at what is likely to be only the beginning of worldwide economic breakdown and environmental decay – secured the majority of profits (up to 75%) from Iraq’s oil wealth. This means destroying life opportunities for nearly every Iraqi, even the yet unborn — “nearly” because a few Iraqis who must have been paid for this sell-out. It is sanctions in a new key:
Read here if you ever wondered whether oil was a leading motive
- and here:
It is going so well, isn’t it?
President Obama has announced withdrawal – a withdrawal that means staying. What will stay are 50.000 troops, advisers, mercenaries, 4 mega and some 20 major U.S. military bases and many more ‘facilities’ — all listed by GlobalSecurity.org.
Remain will also the 6000-staff U.S./CIA Embassy, history’s largest ever and the de facto ruler of new, ‘democratic’ Iraq.
Yes, some troops will be withdrawn but more importantly, profits will be squeezed out of the only wealth this totally devastated country possesses. If you think that is wrong, you are called a ‘resource nationalist’ and nationalism is not a good thing.
Such nationalists simply won’t see it: it is going so well.
And what should those be called who think it would be morally appropriate to say ‘we are sorry’ to the Iraqis and pay them some compensation for the sanctions and the war?
Next, in just a few days on March 24, it is the 10th Anniversary of NATO’s destruction of Rest-Yugoslavia – under the present U.S. Secretary of State’s husband’s Administration; not one of Bill Clinton’s arguments and assumptions about that conflict has turned out to hold water.
Thanks to that bombing, particularly in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, it is all going so well now, isn’t it?
The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who enthusiastically spearheaded Denmark’s tragic participation in Iraq’s destruction from 2003 to 2007 – in other words, an non-convicted war criminal – is a top candidate to the post as NATO Secretary-General.
That continues a tradition from when Javier Solana, the present EU ‘foreign minister’ in that position presided over the illegal destruction of Yugoslavia. So, NATO — defender of freedom and democracy – has no qualms about war criminals. With that political and moral blunder behind him, Mr. Fogh Rasmussen’s judgement will influence those whose fingers could be on a nuclear button in a future crisis.
But that is going to go well too, isn’t it?
No mainstream media remind us of these anniversaries. Perhaps we have lost a sense of history. Perhaps we are in denial? Perhaps, they don’t really feel like a triumph for the West today?
TFF predicted they wouldn’t be. Way back and when it mattered.
This is what we published about Iraq between 2002 and 2005, here are all the warnings and all the fairly precise predictions:
Here is our Middle East section since then.
And here is the evolving TFF Plan for Peace In and With Iraq that we continue to believe must be implemented before it can be said that life is improving for Iraq and the Iraqis:
If it is really going as well as we are told, may we ask for whom is it going so well?
And in whose interest is it that you believe it is going to go well for the Iraqis?

Read more on War Anniversaries – It is all going so well in the Balkans and Iraq – isn’t it?…

By Francis Njubi Nesbitt

While there is no doubt that President Barack Obama is winning hearts around world, the jury is still out on whether he can convince skeptical intellectuals. A surge in Afghanistan, residual troops in Iraq and the resumption of renditions in the Horn of Africa conjure up fears of quagmires.

Read more on Hearts and Minds and Empire…

by Keith Harmon Snow/Dissident Voice

Backed by the Obama Administration and its former Clinton allies, Rwandan troops have marched into Congo, ostensibly to save the day, yet again, barely a month after a scathing United Nations report revealed that they were already there. Meanwhile, the recent UNHCR Gimme Shelter campaign uses the iconic Rolling Stones song and Hollywood star Ben Affleck’s video of suffering in Congo as a propaganda tool to peddle the international catastrophe of western AID, intervention and plunder in Central Africa. A look behind the scenes reveals the hidden interests of the misery industry, the obliviousness of do-gooder celebrities, and actor Ben Affleck’s personal patronage of Paul Kagame and the perpetrators of genocide in Central Africa.

Read more on Ben Affleck, Rwanda, and Corporate Sustained Catastrophe…

By Elias Farhud

Today is the sixth Anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie by an Israeli Bulldozer. All posts today will be dedicated to her memory.

Rachel was a 23 year old peace activist from Olympia, Washington.  She was a courageous young woman with special qualities.  She was special because she cared for people, and put others before herself.  In 2003 she left the United States to go to Gaza to fulfill her destiny to help the Palestinians People who were under the worst kind of oppression by the Apartheid State of Israel.

Read more on Rachel Corrie will always be remembered by Palestinians!…

By Cheryl LaBash

The U.S. Supreme Court got a glimpse of the strong support for Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Cuban Five–Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, René González and Ramón Labañino–when friend-of-the-court legal documents were filed March 5 and 6 on behalf of these six internationally known political prisoners.
The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on as few as 100 cases per year, although thousands are submitted. The briefs submitted support a full examination of the legal issues in both cases.
Racism in jury selection and the right of defendants to a fair trial are at the center of both appeals. Abu-Jamal and the Cuban Five were prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for political reasons.
Abu-Jamal, imprisoned for more than 27 years, is a noted African-American journalist who dared to be “the voice of the voiceless,” defending the MOVE organization and Philadelphia’s African-American community against the racist police. The state of Pennsylvania continues to push to execute Abu-Jamal, despite evidence of police coercion of witnesses and even a sworn confession from another person.
On March 5, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) filed a friend of the court brief supporting Abu-Jamal’s “claim of racial discrimination in the selection of the jury for his 1981 death penalty trial.” The first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, was also the first director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, which was founded in 1940 to “assist African Americans in securing their rights through the prosecution of lawsuits.” http://www.naacpldf.org
The LDF’s blog, http://www.thedefendersonline.org , lays out some of the blatant evidence of racism in the Philadelphia prosecutor’s office toward Abu-Jamal’s case, including a video of Jack McMahon, then a Philadelphia assistant district attorney, offering strategies on how to exclude jurors of color. The LDF’s brief and additional information on the fight to free Abu-Jamal are at http://www.millions4mumia.org .
On March 6, 12 separate friend-of-the-court briefs were filed urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of the Cuban Five. According to a press release from attorney Thomas Goldstein, it is “the largest number of amicus briefs ever to have urged the Supreme Court to review a criminal conviction.”
The documents represent 10 human rights Nobel Prize winners; hundreds of international parliamentarians; the Mexican Senate; Mary Robinson, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former president of Ireland; the National Jury Project; the National Lawyers Guild; the National Conference of Black Lawyers; the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers-Miami Chapter; Cuban-American scholars; and more. A detailed summary and link to the complete texts can be found at http://www.thecuban5.org .
The briefs distill the deep international support for the five Cuban men, who came to the United States to monitor Florida-based paramilitary organizations plotting to carry out violent attacks on Cuba during the 1990s. Many local and national committees, including the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, relentlessly organized to make this case known in a determined uphill effort to pierce the wall of media silence inside the U.S.
A March 3 letter from the 56,000-member Canadian Union of Postal Workers to President Barack Obama said: “Recent history has shown that terrorist attacks have been planned and launched from the United States against the Cuban people for many years. There was no real effort by U.S. authorities to prevent this and much evidence that your security services aided and abetted these crimes. The crime of these Cuban Five men was to investigate and report planned terrorist attacks that were directed against the people of Cuba. At no time did these individuals seek or obtain military secrets. Their only goal was to protect their people from more death originating from south Florida.
“These men have been further punished. While there is no evidence they are anything but model prisoners, they have been held in solitary for long periods. Two of the five have been denied visits from their spouses. We see no value in this cruel punishment, no gain in security for the United States and serious damage to your credibility as a nation founded on law.”
Although these important cases are up for consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court, the struggle in the streets is where the decisions will finally be won. As Robert Bryan, Abu-Jamal’s attorney, wrote, “This is a life and death struggle to save Mumia. He is in greater danger than at any time since being arrested. Your support and activism is needed. That Mumia remains in prison and on death row is an affront to basic human rights. We must aggressively continue this struggle until he is free.” http://www.millions4mumia.org
Free Mumia! Free the Cuban Five!
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By Rachel Harvey

The word most often associated with West Papua is remote.
An area of thick jungle and mountains, roughly the size of Spain, Papua is the eastern-most outpost of the Indonesian archipelago, some 3,200km (2,000 miles) from the government in Jakarta.
Culturally it feels even further.
Papua became part of Indonesia in 1969 after a controversial and very limited vote. Ever since there have been calls from some Papuans for independence and for decades a low-level armed resistance has been rumbling on, largely unnoticed by the outside.
International journalists are severely restricted from working in the province. A special permit is required.
But the BBC’s Newsnight programme was recently offered rare footage of rebel fighters in their jungle hide-out.
The pictures were filmed by a British man keen to document the independence movement. He travelled undercover, aided by local activists, and asked that he remain anonymous to protect those who helped him.
It took him nine hours in a car and 16 hours on foot, trekking through the jungle, to reach the mountain stronghold of the Free Papua Movement Rebels.
Cultural erosion
They are, in truth, a pretty fragmented, poorly armed band of warriors. Some dress in Western-style shorts and T-shirts, with wellington boots the footwear of choice.
Others proudly sport more traditional attire – a few feathers and beads, unkempt beards, wild hair and penis gourds. The size and curlicue of the latter denoting status.
They are armed with a few assault rifles stolen from the Indonesian security forces, and homemade bows and arrows.
The power of the rebels lies as much in the symbolism of their existence as it does in their ability to wage war.
Many Papuans feel their culture and identity are slowly being eroded. Papuans don’t look like other Indonesians. They are Melanesian, closer to Aboriginals than Asians.
But migrants from other Indonesian islands now make up about half the local population. Some of these incomers consider the traditional Papuan way of life backward and uncivilised.
Layers of grievance have built up over the decades.
"We’ve had enough," said Anton, a tribal leader. "Indonesia has committed crimes, killing people and other human rights abuses. We want freedom, justice and democracy."
Investigation promised
A rebel commander, Goliath Tabuni, sits at Anton’s right hand. Compared to the chief’s traditional body decorations, the commander looks a bit dishevelled in his floppy camouflage hat.
But in terms of their passion for the cause, they are equals.
"This is my land," said Goliath. "Our ancestors gave us this land. Indonesia has stolen it from us."
Over the years there have been serious abuses committed by the Indonesian security forces. Accusations of torture and rape persist.
But under the democratically elected government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the military and police are being reformed.
In a statement responding to the Newsnight programme, the Indonesian Embassy in London said: "No-one in Indonesia will ever condone human rights violations. Therefore, it is a sad fact if one still judges Indonesia by the old yardsticks.
"We can confirm that all human rights abuses will be duly investigated in Indonesia and, if proven guilty by the court, all abusers of human rights will be punished. No-one is immune."
But the legacy of past behaviour will take time to erase.
Elusive dream
As long as the independence fighters exist, the soldiers and police will stay in Papua in large numbers.
Their mission is not just to root out the rebels, but also to protect vital business interests. Papua is rich in natural resources.
It is home to the world’s largest gold and copper mine and there are big investments in gas, timber and palm oil. A blessing for some. A curse for others.
"We believe it’s about morality," said Anton, the tribal leader.
"Because the world is interested in our resources, they won’t talk about us. That’s why the world just ignores us and our struggle."
On 1 December, independence supporters gathered in a clearing in the jungle to mark Papua’s self-declared Independence Day.
With great ceremony and formality they raised the Papuan flag. It was a very deliberate act of defiance: raising the Morning Star flag is illegal in Indonesia.
In the jungle no one could see. But when, in 2004, the flag was raised in the provincial capital, Jayapura, the police were looking on.
Yusak Package, who spoke at the rally, was arrested and charged with treason. He is currently serving a 10-year jail sentence and is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience.
In terms of raising the international profile of the Papuan cause, Yusak’s case, and others like it, are probably more effective than the armed rebellion.
But there is no sign yet that independence is any closer. And in their remote mountain hide-out, that is still the dream the rebel fighters are striving for.

Read more on Papua’s struggle for independence…