So Much they cared about Human Rights

So Much the UK cares about Human Rights - Life with a Control Order : A wife's story

2009-07-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

Life with a control order: a wife's story

Mahmoud Abu Rideh has spent four years behind bars and another four years on a control order. A father of six, he is in a wheelchair and has never seen the evidence against him. Today he goes to the High Court, backed by Amnesty International, in a plea to leave Britain. Here Dina Al Jnidi, his wife, describes the family's descent into a nightmare

Friday, 3 July 2009

The family of Mahmoud Abu Rideh campaign for his freedom

It is still fresh in my mind the day the police came to arrest my husband – it was the 19 December 2001. They broke down the door and forced their way into our home while I was still in my night dress. They were pointing their guns in my face and in the children's faces. There were about 30 armed officers. They forced my husband to the floor and handcuffed him, pressing down on his back and neck with their knees as he screamed in pain. They yelled: "Shut up you f***ing terrorist!" I implored the police to stop because my husband suffers from back pain. All this was in view of my children who were terrified; they were crying, shaking, many had wet themselves .

The police took my husband away – to where, I do not know. They took me and my children to a hostel; they wanted to search our home.

After two days we were allowed to return home. The local newspaper had taken pictures of our house. The headlines read something like: "Terrorist raid". After this article I had my face veil forcibly removed three times. We also had rubbish thrown at our front door.

Forty days passed and I still did not know where my husband was. I called the police, immigration – no one told me where he was.

Eventually I swapped my home because our neighbours had resorted to spitting at me. Prior to the arrest of my husband and the raid on our home, we had never had any trouble with our neighbours. The police have caused this problem which led to our victimisation.

I finally found out my husband was in Belmarsh prison and I went to visit him there. I discovered he was on a hunger strike. The visit was a closed visit, which means that neither I nor my children could touch him. The children were unable to hug or hold their father. Even shaking his hand was not allowed. On many occasions after travelling long distances in difficult circumstances we were sent away without being allowed to see him. My husband does not speak English well, but he was not allowed to speak Arabic (eventually this was allowed for one visit out of four).

My husband used to call and often he would be crying due to the torture and the discrimination he was facing. My children, too, would cry. The effect of all this torture, discrimination, and detention without charge or trial drove my husband insane, angry and psychologically mad. Never before was he like this, he was a normal person – a normal husband and a normal father. Due to his mental state he was transferred to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, a place for dangerous high-risk people.

While at Broadmoor, he was frequently attacked by staff, nurses and other prisoners. I could not visit him there. I tried, but whenever I went I was told he was in isolation, in solitary confinement.

Broadmoor was far from our home, it was difficult travelling with five children only to be sent home.

It was around this time that my husband began to self-harm. He drank detergents, he used pens to dig deep into his arms.

He was finally released in 2005. We were given only two hours' notice before his return. We were pleased to have him back home, but did not know the full extent of the conditions that would be placed on him. I did not know what a control order was. He had to wear an electronic tag around his ankle. He had to report in several times a day (including the middle of the night) using special equipment that had been placed in our home. We were not allowed to have a digital camera in the home, nor other basic items such as USB sticks, memory cards or MP3 players. Our children were not allowed to use the internet or have a computer. We were not allowed visitors unless they had been cleared by the Home Office after a rigorous vetting procedure. Many would not even call for fear of being harassed by the police or worse.

My husband was a wreck, a shattered man. He could not sleep, he would sweat and shake, he would have nightmares and flashbacks. It was almost impossible to deal with him. He was ill and had complex psychological needs – I am not a trained nurse and he required specialist help. One week later he attempted suicide by taking an overdose of his depression and anti-psychotic medications. I found him on the floor unconscious, in a pool of vomit foam coming from his mouth. He was taken to the hospital and remained unconscious for three days.

My life is ruined. I cannot sleep. I cry so much. It is having an effect on my children. I blame Tony Blair, the House of Lords, the Queen, the politicians, Parliament. They all have a have a hand in this. I am British. So are my children. Why, then, is it acceptable for us to be treated in this manner? The police came many times to search my house, violating the sanctity that is a home. What do they expect to find among my clothes and my children's clothes? They confiscated money, a Nintendo Wii, a Playstation, a PSP. The Nintendo Wii was a gift from my husband's solicitor to our children. Despite numerous requests, none of these items have been returned to us. Why? Are my children not allowed the things everyone else's children are?

Even irrelevant documents have been confiscated – birth certificates, school reports, a car log book and MOT certificates. Of what significance or benefit are these?

I was at breaking point. I could take no more. I was pregnant with my sixth child. During my pregnancy the Home Office made things difficult – I could not get help as people required clearance before being allowed to visit me. How could I care for a sick husband and five children while pregnant?

I want to know how the majority of Christians in Britain prepare and share joy at the christening of their newborn children. Am I exempt from sharing my happiness with friends and family? Should I too not be allowed to show off my precious gift to others? Am I subhuman? I want to ask the politicians, the Queen – would this not affect you?

I tried to remain hopeful many times. But there is no hope. My husband has been charged with no crime, he has not been interviewed or interrogated. He has been presumed guilty because he is Muslim – for what other reason could it be? Please explain to me and my family – why have we had to endure this treatment? Pets are treated better than we have been. Is this the humanity you profess, is this the justice you want to spread?

Judge Ousley ordered and ruled that the Home Office should release the secret evidence that is held against my husband. But the Home Office appealed this decision and it has been a long time and nothing has been heard or seen.

On or around the 19 February this year, the European Courts of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights declared that the secret evidence being used against my husband be released to him and his solicitors. They said the control order should be lifted and that my husband should receive compensation for his unfair treatment. What is the point of these courts if Britain makes a mockery of them and refuses to submit to their judgment?

There is no justice. We have lost all hope of justice.

My family, especially our children, are scared of the police. The have suffered at the hands of the police. Their education has suffered. They have not been able to complete homework, they are at a disadvantage compared to other children as they are not allowed to access the internet. I have three girls in secondary school and three boys in primary school. I was attending college to study childcare. We all require a computer.

My husband was re-arrested for alleged breaches of his control order on at least four different occasions. Once he was arrested for having the Nintendo Wii which was the gift to our children. Once it was for having "mobile phones" in the home – they were actually toys purchased from the pound shop.

We, as a family, are dead. We are sick of the police and the Government's torture of our family that has gone on for eight years. Our family has been held hostage in Britain. My husband and I escaped torture at the hand of the Israelis to find worse torture in the UK. I now find myself in another country – J ordan – where I have sought asylum from the torture that Britain has placed me and my family under.

Psychiatrists from the Home Office advised me to divorce my husband, saying it would be better for me and my children. Scotland Yard on many occasions also told me this. What kind of twisted advice is this? Would this really be better for me and my children? Or are they looking for more reasons to drive my husband to suicide?

I have too many things to get off my chest. My heart is filled with anger. I am crying as I write this – it is all too much for me to remember. I have left my home to be in Jordan. My husband was not even allowed to accompany us to the airport. He is forbidden under the restrictions of his control order. Is it really likely that he can escape; he has no passport, no travel documents – where would he go?

As we left our home I knew, and he knew, that it was probably the last time we would see each other, the last time he would see, hold, hug and kiss his children. I had to watch my children crying at the thought of never seeing their father again. But I have no choice, I have been forced to leave.

Perhaps now I can try to repair the damage to my children; the emotional scars they will bear for how long I do not know. I can finally try to rid myself of the effects of the "Terrorist Act", the police, the searches and the torture I have had to witness my husband go through.

I still fear for my husband who is alone. He has made four suicide attempts – each time he has been serious. But Allah has not willed that he be successful.

The British public and Government complain about the effects of immigration and asylum seekers in the UK, about people coming to the country and claiming benefits. Why then do you force my husband to remain here? He has not been charged or convicted of a crime, yet you treat him this way .

I would like to tell the British Government and the rest of the world, I would like to tell anyone who has a heart, anyone who has an ounce of humanity – please allow my husband to leave the United Kingdom.

Please provide him with the necessary documents to go to any country, where there may be at least some hope of seeing him again – before I lose him for good and our children lose their father.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/life-with-a-control-order-a-wifes-story-1729620.html

So Much the US cared about Human Rights : Citizens held as illegal immigrants

2009-04-13T02:17:00.000-07:00

AP IMPACT: Citizens held as illegal immigrants

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_re_us/mistaken_for_illegal_i/print

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer Suzanne Gamboa, Associated Press Writer Sun Apr 12, 11:30 pm ET

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native — in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write — signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.

These days, back home in California, "He just changes from one second to another. His brain jumps back to when he was missing," said his brother, Michael Guzman. "We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him."

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system. The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system.

The result is the detention of citizens with the fewest resources: the mentally ill, minorities, the poor, children and those with outstanding criminal warrants, ranging from unpaid traffic tickets to failure to show up for probation hearings. Most at risk are Hispanics, who made up the majority of the cases the AP found.

"The more the system becomes confused, the more U.S. citizens will be wrongfully detained and wrongfully removed," said Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge who now teaches at Pepperdine Law School. "They are the symptom of a larger problem in the detention system. ... Nothing could be more regrettable than the removal of our fellow citizens."

Jim Hayes, ICE director of detention and removal, said he is aware of only 10 cases of U.S. citizens detained over the past five years. Even if combined with the cases found by the AP, "that's not an epidemic," Hayes said. He refused to identify any cases, citing privacy laws.

He added that agents investigate any claims to U.S. citizenship, but they often turn out to be false. He said U.S. citizens sometimes claim to be foreign-born, and that immigration officials never knowingly hold someone they can "definitively" determine is a citizen.

It's impossible to know exactly how many citizens have been detained or deported because nobody keeps track. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, testified at a U.S. House hearing last year that her group alone sees 40 to 50 jailings a month of people with potentially valid claims to citizenship.

"These cases are surprisingly, painfully common," she said.

The nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice found 322 people with citizenship claims in 13 immigration prisons in 2007, up from 129 the year before. That number does not include possible citizens in the nation's more than 300 other immigration prisons.

What is clear is that immigration detentions — including those of citizens — have soared in recent years. One reason is a heightened concern for security that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another is a political climate that encouraged a tough stance on illegal immigration, especially after Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation almost three years ago.

After 2003, the nation launched several programs to detain more immigrants, including one that called on local police and sheriffs for help. Before 2007, just seven state and local law enforcement agencies worked with immigration. By last November, more than 950 officers from 23 states had attended a four-week program on how to root out and jail suspected illegal immigrants.

A Government Accountability Office investigation has since found that ICE did not ensure local officials properly used their authority and failed to collect data to assess the program. As a result, ICE is rewriting agreements with 67 agencies.

The program came under fire partly because it gives local officers so much leeway to decide who to stop. Almost one in 10 Hispanic adults born in the U.S. report that police or other authorities stopped them and asked about their immigration status in 2007, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of more than 2,000 people.

___

It was a local sheriff's office that sent Guzman out of the country.

He was picked up near his home in Lancaster, Calif., on March 31, 2007, by Los Angeles County sheriff's department officers on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He had tried three times to board a private plane, showing lottery tickets for passage on one attempt, officers said in a report. He had also stolen a car and told officers his mother's car was broken.

A judge gave him three years' probation and three months in jail for vandalism.

At the jail, Guzman told officers he was born in California, a response noted in official records. But a sheriff's employee still got Guzman to sign an agreement to leave the country without a hearing.

On the day he arrived in Mexico, Guzman called a relative to say he didn't know where he was, and asked a passer-by. The answer: Tijuana. Then the phone cut off.

Guzman was finally returned to California legally in August 2007.

Now he can no longer stand the sun because it reminds him of Mexico. His family will not let him talk about the ordeal because it upsets him. He has frequent counseling sessions, but he is shaky, stutters and seems to hear voices, according to his brother.

"He is our brother, somebody's son, that they deported," said Michael Guzman. "California is like the main capital of Latin Americans. It doesn't matter whether you are a citizen or not. If you look Hispanic, they can question you. Deportation can happen to anybody."

Neither the sheriff's office nor immigration officials would discuss the case, citing pending litigation. The family has sued Los Angeles County and the federal government.

"When the whole story is told, people will see and understand what has occurred," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.

In the meantime, Guzman's mother, Maria Carbajal, often works the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box because she is afraid to leave him alone during the day.

___

American citizens also have been caught in the net of increased workplace arrests and jail sweeps.

Workplace arrests rose from 517 in fiscal year 2003 to 6,274 in 2008. Julie Myers, former Homeland Security assistant secretary overseeing ICE, said agents quickly sort out which workers are citizens during raids. She added that federal law, court decisions and search warrants give immigration agents the authority to enter workplaces to question everyone inside, including citizens.

But the raids have already led to several lawsuits.

In 2007, 114 U.S. citizens and permanent residents sued after a raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer printer equipment recycler in Van Nuys, Calif. They alleged illegal detention and sought $5,000 damage each.

In 2008, the union representing workers at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants sued on behalf of eight citizens and legal residents caught up in raids.

In one case, three citizens and nine others, all Hispanic, sued after ICE agents raided their New Jersey homes as part of what was dubbed Operation Return To Sender. The lawsuit alleges that an immigration agent pulled a gun on one of the citizens, a 9-year-old boy.

A program to sweep jails and deport immigrants who have committed crimes is more popular. But critics fear the temptation is to deport anyone for anything because they are seen as bad seeds, even if they are American citizens.

___

Rennison Castillo arrived early at the Seattle immigration office on Oct. 28, 1998, to take his citizenship oath. He was dressed in a freshly starched Army uniform and was eager to grab a good seat. He sat in the second row.

Born in Belize, Castillo had lived in the U.S. since he was 7 and had served two years in the Army. But his superiors told him he could not stay in the Army without citizenship. So he took the citizenship test and passed easily, missing only one question, on the name of a locally elected official.

"I felt pretty good. I felt I definitely accomplished something, because having a citizenship to the United States was something that I felt proud of," Castillo said.

Seven years later, the U.S. government locked Castillo in a Tacoma, Wash., immigration jail. He had been picked up at the Pierce County jail, where he had spent eight months for violating a restraining order and for residential burglary.

At the holding cell, an officer asked if he wanted to go home. He thought she meant his home in Lakewood, Wash. "Yes," he answered. "I'd love to go home."

She chained him up and told him he would be deported.

Over and over, Castillo said, he told officers he was a citizen. He pleaded with them to check their computer files.

But officials said nothing in their records confirmed his citizenship or his military service. One officer actually recognized Castillo from their Army days at Fort Lewis, Wash., and mentioned their battalion, but told Castillo he couldn't help.

Then Castillo saw a number posted on the wall for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. On the group's advice, he contacted a friend who pulled his military document from the trunk of his car.

Nearly eight months after he was transferred to ICE custody, Castillo was released. He discovered that immigration officials had two files on him, with different numbers, and has since filed a lawsuit. ICE declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.

"I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don't understand how they could make a grave mistake like that," he said. "Because if this happened to me, I'm quite sure it's happened to somebody else. What's going to happen to the next person it happens to?"

___

For Ricardo Martinez, born in McAllen, Texas, it was not being able to get back into his own country.

Even though he was a U.S. citizen, Martinez lived in Mexico between the ages of 5 and 17.

Like many border residents with family on the other side, he made frequent trips to Mexico. When he tried to return to the U.S. after a visit to Mexico in July 1999, he was turned away by border officers at Nogales, Ariz., because two copies of his birth certificate, issued years apart, had different hospital registration dates. Not proficient in English, Martinez said he had never noticed the error.

Told to get his documents in order, he got a U.S. passport and was able to get into the country. But the problem was not over.

In January 2006, he went back to Mexico to be with his dying grandmother. When he tried to cross back at Laredo, Texas, in March, he carried his birth certificates, his birth registration card, his passport and state ID cards from Nebraska, California and Texas, where he had worked.

But by that time border security had become far stricter. Agents looked up Martinez in their database and found the earlier problem at Nogales. They claimed his U.S. passport was fake, he said.

Martinez was taken to an inspection room, forced to remove his shoes, searched, handcuffed to a chair and held for two hours while officers questioned his documents, he said. He was told unless he confessed to fraud, he would be sent to prison for six to eight months, according to a court document filed in Martinez's lawsuit against the government.

"They told me if I didn't say I was from over there, they would put me in jail. I was frightened," Martinez said.

He said he asked to call his mother to help prove his citizenship, but was refused.

Martinez's stepfather, Florentino Mireles, said in a Feb. 27, 2008, affidavit that he called border inspectors to ask why they had taken Martinez's documents. The response, he said: An officer didn't believe Martinez was a U.S. citizen because he didn't speak English.

Afraid of jail, Martinez signed the papers. In an affidavit in his lawsuit, Martinez said he didn't understand that by signing he was admitting to not being born in the U.S.

It took his parents two years to find an affordable attorney. Finally, at a meeting in Hidalgo, attorney Lisa Brodyaga showed border officers a copy of Martinez' birth certificate from his parents that included his footprints and a thumbprint and tax records showing he had worked legally in the U.S. Officials agreed he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to cross the border.

Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, declined comment because Martinez has sued. In court filings, the agency said Martinez denied being physically assaulted or subjected to excessive force and never filed a complaint against the officers.

Brodyaga said the cases of U.S. citizens detained or deported show more than bureaucratic bungling.

"I've been doing this for 30 years and I've seen bureaucratic bungling. This is more than that," she said. "This is an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, particularly for Mexican-Americans on the border."

___

Associated Press staff writers Traci Carl and Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.

So Much Germany cared about Human Rights - Children from across Eastern Europe are being sold for sex, mostly to Germans, in a network of sex "bazaars

2009-03-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Children from across Eastern Europe are being sold for sex, mostly to Germans, in a network of sex "bazaars" along the border between Germany and the Czech Republic, says a UNICEF report. In many cases, the children are sold into prostitution by their own families.

They come from all regions of Germany, men ranging in age from 18 to 80, travelling alone in expensive cars that cross into the Czech Republic. Their destination is just beyond the border: bus stops, service stations
and rest areas that form the epicentre of a child prostitution ring that one official calls the biggest brothel in Europe.

A new report from the United Nations organization for children (UNICEF) says the German-Czech border has become a haven for pedophilia, with desperately poor families on the Czech side selling their children into
sex slavery and tens of thousands of Germans paying for access to children as young as eight, some of whom are paid with candy.

"The Czech Republic is becoming a discount market for sex with children," said Adolf Gallwitz, a German police psychologist. Mr. Gallwitz said pedophilia in the southeast German border regions of Bavaria and Saxony is increasing "at an incredible rate," and he estimated 50,000 Germans visit the Czech Republic's burgeoning sex tourism industry.

The author of the UNICEF report, Cathrin Schauer, said areas such as bus stops and service stations near the border have been converted into "bazaars" where child prostitutes are bought and sold.

full story: http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/thomas100806.htm

Paedophiles, Cheb sex capital of Europe

Captive market:
The sexual slave traffic in children

By Gordon Thomas

Sunday, October 8, 2006

It was dusk when the BMWs and Mercedes once more began to enter Cheb on Christmas Eve, 2004. By midnight, the expensive cars cruised its streets. The town is on the Czech-German border, a crossing point on the highway that leads to Prague from Bavaria and Saxony.

Cheb is a mecca for German paedophiles who come to this drab town, with its ugly Stalinist-era apartment blocks and poorly-lit back streets for one purpose.

Every night, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cheb has maintained its reputation as the child sex capital of Europe. These include what are known as "the specials": children so small, so vulnerable, so fragile, that they cannot solicit for themselves. They are offered to the drivers of those cars by their "keepers". This is the shame of Czechoslovakia, a country that now prides itself on having a future in the European Community.

For the equivalent of US $50 a paedophile can take his pick of children often barely out of their diapers.

They are the ultimate degradation for a town of 38,000 people. With over 100 brothels, no one knows exactly how many young prostitutes work in them or on the streets of Cheb.

On New Year's Day, 2004, Europe's newspapers reported the latest child-sex scandal. A former Portuguese cabinet minister tipped to lead his socialist party, Paulo Pedroso, and a former ambassador to South Africa, Jorge Ritto, along with eight others, including a doctor and two television presenters, were all charged with sexually abusing minors.

Outside Portugal most newspapers gave little space to the revelations. They have become all too commonplace.

The allegedly abused children of Portugal represent a fraction of a global industry. Its annual revenues were estimated in 2003 to exceed half a trillion dollars globally. This is twice the value of all United States currency currently in circulation at any given time, more than the annual gross national products of many countries.

To understand the sheer size of profits accruing from such terrible misery, consider this: a million dollars in gold would weigh as much as a Japanese Sumo wrestler. A half trillion dollars would come close to exceeding the entire population weight of a medium sized Australian city.

The profits come from child sexual trafficking in all its forms: white slavery, sex rings, pornography, the sex tourism industry, lap dancing, bogus adoption schemes and procuring the victims -- the untold millions of children globally entrapped in the sex trade industry who are forced to allow their bodies to be used in exchange for food, money, shelter, alcohol and drugs.

Children are bought, sold, traded and misused in underground child sex markets daily. Every state in the United States, and every other nation, contributes in some fashion to the steady flow of children, the customers and exploiters.

It is estimated that the profits from this vast evil empire, when properly invested, would draw an interest exceeding US $2 million an hour. The sexual trafficking in children is not so much an industry but a global empire.

Sovereign and expansionist, it is frequently torn by internal struggle -- fights to the death between the Chinese Triads and the Russian Mafia, between the multi-gangs of the Balkans, are commonplace. But the empire presents a secret front to the world. It is from there it plunders our children, snatches them, never to be seen again.

The predators who control the sexual trafficking in children are well organized. They have thugs who snatch and break the resistance of children; banks who account the empire's profits without asking questions; ships that convey the hapless children from one continent to another and private planes that transport them to clients around the world.

Yet there is little or no cohesive and sustained war against this terrible evil. The United States and Britain try to stamp on the trafficking within its own borders. But as yet there is no universal challenge to the ever-growing sexual trafficking in children.

The shabby streets of Cheb are but one staging post in a necklace of shame that encircles the globe.

To the east of Cheb, a battered Volvo crossed into northern Bosnia. Hidden under filthy blankets were four teenage girls. One, a blonde called Maria, had just celebrated her thirteenth birthday.

To prepare for the long and uncomfortable journey, the girls had each been given an injection by a doctor. They were told it was to alleviate travel sickness. In reality it was a cocktail of drugs to keep them drowsy and unable to try and escape. This is standard procedure for the men operating this segment of the network in sexual trafficking that criss-crosses the Balkans.

The doctor is a man known by his first name only, Goran, in the girl's hometown of Chisinau, the capital of Europe's poorest country, Moldova. It has some of the prettiest children in central Europe. This has made it a magnet for the traffickers.

They moved in soon after the collapse of the Communist system in the country. Since then there is a widely accepted estimate that some 6,000 girls have been trafficked out of Moldova. No one knows how many of them received their drug injections from Dr Goran.

The girls in the Volvo had answered advertisements in a Chisinau newspaper. The ads promised them work in Paris, London and Dublin -- and even in the United States. The posts on offer included maids, nannies, house-keeping and bar work. The ads stressed no previous experience was required. The salaries were far beyond those available in Moldova.

A Moldavian recruiter told the girls their journey would involve them first being secretly driven over the border into Bosnia. There, they would receive passports, for which they had already paid him US $100 -- money borrowed from their families and friends. Then they would go West to earn undreamed of money. So they had been promised.

The break-up of the former Yugoslavia, followed by a vicious war in the region and the establishment of new states under the 1995 Dayton peace accord, had left many Balkan countries with virtually no legislation or border controls to deal with the sexual traffic in young women and children.

By the time Maria and her three young friends had been tricked into making the journey in the Volvo, the profits from sexual trafficking in the Balkans were matching those of the drug trade -- and the penalties for smuggling humans were minimal.

The border guards into Bosnia waved the Volvo through. The car was a familiar sight to them. Each time it crossed, the guards received US $200 for allowing its unhampered passage.

Five hours later the Volvo reached its final destination. "Arizona Market" is on the outskirts of Kosovo. The town resembles the old Wild West rather than Central Europe in the Third Millennium. It is also the UN headquarters in Bosnia.

An area interlaced with muddy tracks lead to establishments with names like Café Marlboro, Café Don, and The Golden Heart. Fronted by heaps of refuse, used condoms and empty liquor bottles, they are brothels. Between them stand wooden huts selling cheap denim clothes, alcohol, perfume, and guns.

Inside the sleazy bars, the scene seldom changes: dimmed red lights, loud music, cheap drinks -- and semi-naked girls. Usually they are draped over the men known as "the internationalists". These are the soldiers of the United Nations multi-national peace keeping force. In 2003, it consisted of 45,000 soldiers drawn from 39 countries. In addition, there were some 7,000 UN staff as well as members of over 200 Western aid agencies.

Many of the girls appear to be drugged -- and not only from the ready supply of cocaine and heroin on open sale.

An American aid agency worker said: "Lookit, the bar owners who bought these girls like to keep them nice and quiet. So they buy drugs from some of the UN medics to do so. When a girl has finished her shift, she is taken to her room by a bar man and given a shot. When she wakes up she is ready for her next shift".

This is Arizona Market. Officially established by the peacekeeping forces to foster trade between Serbs, Croats and Muslims, today its five square miles is the epicenter of Bosnia's booming sex-slaves trade.

This was the destination of the four young girls. They would work here as prostitutes -- and maybe die -- in this forsaken place.

Almost 2,000 miles to the south of Bosnia, in the tropical heat of West Africa, a group of girls, each no more than thirteen years old, made their way to a small square in the suburbs of Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. They were escorted by hard-faced young men, the gold in their teeth glinting in the searing sunlight.

Dressed in their Sunday best -- colourful print cotton dresses -- with hair washed and combed, the girls were directed to sit on wooden benches in the centre of the square.

Each girl was for sale as a slave. Their prices ranged from US $5 -- the cost of a coffee in what passes for the city's finest hotel -- to the most expensive child, an eleven year old, costing US $15.

The place is known, locally, as Le Marche de Jeunes Filles -- the Market of Young Girls.

Buyers, men carrying fly-whisks, and sharp-eyed women, strolled up and down along the benches, feeling one girl's arm, looking at another's teeth. One was asked to stand and twirl. Another to bend.

Around the edges of the square stood the traders. The moment a prospective buyer stopped, a trader was there to emphasise a girl's good points.

"She is young and disease free. She is strong and will obey your every command. She will do whatever you want..." he would intone.

No one knows today how many sexual slaves there are in the world. The International Organisation for Migration estimated in December, 2003, that from Eastern Europe alone there could be half a million.

Anti-Slavery International believes the global figure may run to "tens of millions". The one certainty, adds the world's oldest human rights organisation, is that there are more sexual slaves than ever before.

The United States State Department announced in June, 2003, that fifteen countries were now deeply involved in trafficking humans. They included Greece and Italy, both members of the European Community. The State Department estimated that through the fifteen countries almost one million adults and children brought and sold annually into the sex slave market. Secretary of State Colin Powell rightly called it a blight on humanity.

There is growing evidence that many of those slaves are traded over the internet; pimps, often catering for extreme sexual demands ranging from unprotected sex to torture, can log on to women and children best suited to their "markets".

In Britain, Scotland Yard believes that over 5,000 girls from former-Communist countries were smuggled into the country in 2003. Each earned their pimps an estimated over US $2,000 a day.

Bill Hughes, Director General of Britain's National Crime Squad, said: "A growing number of girls are barely into their teens. Although the number is small compared to such countries as Greece and Italy, it has had a startling impact on London's indigenous vice trade.

"British teenagers have been moved out by their pimps into the city suburbs as their rates are undercut by sex slaves imported from the Balkans into London's traditional Soho red light district.

"They have come from Romania, the Ukraine and Moldova. The great majority have escaped from dirt-poor villages, with no modern form of communications -- some villages do not even have a single telephone let alone a policeman.

"That makes it easier for a young girl to be lured away or kidnapped from their homes -- and never to be traced again", added Hughes.

The former Soviet Republics are the nexus of the traffic. Serbia and Yugoslavia are key staging posts along this road of unspeakable misery. It is in those countries that the majority of girls are housed, waiting for pimps to conduct an initial inspection. The girls -- and some boys -- are then taken by road to one of the regular "flesh markets".

In 2003, those sales took place in the many apartment block complexes on the outskirts of Belgrade. The girls are handled like livestock and, once one has been bought by a pimp -- prices can be up to US $1,500 for a teenager, double that for a pre-teen -- the victim will usually be beaten, drugged and forced to have sex with scores of men a week. If she tries to escape, she can be subjected to further horrendous sexual abuse -- and warned that if she tries again to escape, her family back home will be killed.

The Belgrade apartments are owned by Semion Yokovich Mogilevich. He is a specialist in every type of major crime. A document by MI5, Britain's internal security service, describes this Ukranian as "one of the most dangerous criminals on earth".

Mogilevich is wanted in the United States for a multitude of crimes including bank frauds, money laundering and other currency offences. He is protected by his own private army -- and, according to CIA sources, he has a liking for young girls. Documents in the agency possession show he is a regular visitor to the apartments to pick out a girl.

One CIA document identifies Mogilevich as the head of the Rising Sun, one of Moscow's major criminal families.

"His business is global prostitution, drug running and traffic in humans. He runs a dark and evil empire. A number of people who have crossed his path have been disposed of. He has his own team of killers never further away than a phone call", said former British intelligence officer Colin Wallace.

Unable to travel to the West for fear of immediate arrest, Mogilevich moves between Moscow and Belgrade with his bodyguards and his latest choice of girl.

The office for the UN High Commission for Human Rights has identified other criminal gangs from Macedonia and Serbia as being involved in sex trafficking. But along with Mogilevich, it is the criminal warlords of Albania who now dominate it.

A report prepared by the Commission states:

"Girls who've shown signs of disobedience have had their feet cemented into washbasins before being dumped in the Aegean Sea. Others have been horrifically tortured. The Albanian gangs have a seemingly endless supply of women, and their power extends way beyond their homeland to the underworlds of Italy and parts of New York. The victims do not officially exist and are powerless to resist."

Most Albanian gangsters are men in their twenties from the backward north of the country. Rather than being based around individual gangland bosses, they are organized in clans bound by an ancient code of honour called kanun. Some of the profits are returned to their homelands.

In 2002, UN administration in Kosovo and Bosnia enacted new laws to prohibit the traffic. But there have been few prosecutions, and such as have occurred have been tainted by charges of corruption. UN teams set up to rescue the girls have often found that when they organise a raid, the brothel-keepers have been tipped off.

A UN report into trafficking claims that some Western officials are undermining attempts to clean up the trade by becoming cronies of Balkan pimps. The same is true of some of the international and local police. In one case, cited by the report, Bulgarian border police took money from girls to secure their safe passage back to Bulgaria, only to hand them back to the traffickers in exchange for yet more money.

The fate of those four young girls who were smuggled over the border into Bosnia to work in Arizona Market was to be hustled from the Volvo into a large wooden building. Standing around its walls were the brothel keepers of Arizona Market. Maria and her companions were ordered to undress. When Maria refused, her dress was ripped from her. Naked, she and the other girls were forced to stand on wooden crates. The brothel keepers physically inspected the women.

Then the bidding began. In minutes Maria had been sold to a brothel keeper for US $1,500. The other girls fetched prices ranging from US $350 to US $1,200.

For US $20 a client could spend thirty minutes with Maria. For US $2.50 he could buy a bottle of beer while he satisfied himself.

Maria would soon discover that there was no escape from a life where she is expected to have unprotected sex. She is owned body and soul by the man who bought her. All she receives are three meals a day, a bed to sleep on and the skimpy clothes her owner insists she must wear to attract clients.

A UN peacekeeper in Kosovo, who asked not to be named, told me: "Often the girls are sold on by other brothel keepers. They are traded like cattle and are routinely beaten and drugged. If a girl tries to escape, she is raped or tortured -- or told that her mother back home will be killed."

Milan Sitilovic, the Bosnian police chief with responsibility for Arizona Market says: "How can we stop it? Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world".

Frederick Larson who headed the office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Sarajevo identified the problem, "the girls are terrified of testifying against their owners. Those who dare to do so are simply murdered".

In 2001, the naked bodies of several girls were found in a river near Arizona Market. They bore the hallmarks of Russian mafia-style killings; hands had been tied behind their backs and their feet set in concrete. Their breasts had been slashed off.

Arizona Market is situated close to the Bosnian headquarters of the US peacekeeping force. During 2002, six Russian soldiers, members of K-For, gang-raped two girls in the Arizona Market. As they were "owned" by the club owner, the soldiers paid him a small sum in compensation. No other charges were brought against the rapists.

Those who survive such inhumane treatment are often sold on to the international slave market.

Paul Holmes, of London's Metropolitan Police Vice Squad, has estimated that 80% of all women working in the brothels of Britain's capital are from the Balkans. His own investigations concluded that the traffic in women had made their owners at least US $75 million since the start of the Third Millennium.

His facts and figures can be repeated through the Western world. In Paris, Dublin, Rome, New York, Montreal and Los Angeles, police report the same story: when rescued from sexual bondage, the women are too terrified to testify against those who traffic in them.

As of now the penalties against trading in preteen sex slaves is small compared to those handed out against drug runners or arms dealers. Indeed, in Bosnia, the offence is not even on the statute book.

Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention said: "the trafficking in people is now the fastest growing transnational criminal activity".

Frederick Larson explained that, apart from his organisation, there is almost nothing to protect sex slaves in Bosnia.

The girls are regarded as illegal immigrants, and are treated as such, rather than the victims of gross human rights violations. All NATO and UN officials who frequent Arizona Market are entitled to immunity from Bosnian prosecution -- although not from legal consequences when they return home.

However, the possibility of any conviction in a US or UK court is non-existent, given that no abused girl is ever likely to be able to give evidence.

Recently an international police team carried out a raid on three bars in Arizona Market. They rescued thirty-four girls, three of whom were aged just fourteen. The raids were carried out without the assistance of the local police.

Afterwards, team members faced disciplinary charges for "exceeding their authority". The charges were not pursued; the officers have quietly left Bosnia.

The IOM has set up safe houses in Sarajevo to protect girls, some as young as eleven, who have escaped from brothels.

"The best we can do is to offer them support and repatriation", said Larson.

But the reality again is that a girl who does go home to a country like Moldova is often cast-out by her family who suspect what happened to her in Bosnia. All too often, she ends up prostituting herself on the streets of the country's capital, Chisnau.

In Bosnia, the international peace-keeping force has failed to control, let alone eradicate, the transport of sexual slaves.

Jaque Grinberg, the UN missions head of civil affairs -- a caring and committed official -- said there was "an urgent need for an effective border force". The office of the High Representative in Bosnia ordered its creation. But there was no money to bring it to reality.

The trafficking business started with the arrival of UN peacekeepers in 1993. Until then Bosnia had no "sex industry". The mission of the peacekeepers was to bring democracy. But too many of their members saw an easy way to make money as well as satisfy their own sexual desires.

"After the peacekeepers arrived, criminal gangs who had smuggled guns during the war began to traffic in women and girls. There was more profit and less risk. And so it goes on", said a member of the international police force, Don Thomas.

"The evils of what is going on are obvious. But the problem is that the victims are horribly exploited, many of them also claim they are not in Bosnia involuntarily. That is the rub. How can you convince some kid who is so terrified that she will not talk? If she opens her mouth she is dead meat", added Thomas.

The worst offenders are the 3,000 Russian peace-keepers. Some girls have described how friends were taken into the Russian camps and never seen again.

Unlike Bosnia, where the UN peacekeepers arrived in a blaze of publicity, no one knows exactly when "the Germans" started to arrive in their big cars for sex with the children of Cheb.

The men who drive into the cheerless town know they no longer have to fly to Thailand to have sex with a child.

Many of the child prostitutes come from Cheb's large Roman refugee population. Their knowledge of German is confined to the sexual words of their trade.

By night, they haunt the park adjoining the town's Evropska Street or stand in darkened doorways in the alleys.

New byelaws have forbidden street prostitution in the centre of Cheb; video cameras have been installed to monitor the area.

Catherin Schauer, a nurse who works for Karo, a child-rescue project supported by the German Red Cross and the European Commission, said the police are largely indifferent to what goes on.

"Those who work as prostitutes are usually homeless and turned on to drugs. They start by sniffing glue and then move on to a substance known as ‚Äòpiko", a cheap amphetamine which suppresses feelings of cold and hunger", said Schauer.

Some of the children have been born in Cheb after their families fled from eastern Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. At an age when their childhood is beginning to expand, they are forced into prostitution.

One girl, her face smeared with make-up who admitted she was thirteen, said "the Germans like us to wear as little as possible. I only wear a short skirt and a t-shirt and my sandals".

She added that in "a good night" she had four or five clients. "They pay me anything from US $20 to US $30 dollars. It's good money for a few hours of work. I always make them use a condom. But some of the younger girls allow unprotected sex. Because they are not menstruating, they believe they won't become pregnant".

Catherine Schauer said that a growing number of these under-age girls had developed HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

She and her colleagues distribute condoms to the children. The rescue centre has a drop-in facility where the children can go for treatment.

"We are a little sensitive about all this. There would not be a problem but for the Germans. We know that the sex tourists are 99 percent from Bavaria and Saxony", said Petr Jaks, Cheb's deputy mayor.

He did admit there had been "a problem to get our police motivated, but we hope this will change soon".

A senior police officer reluctantly agreed to talk on the basis of having his identity concealed.

"My colleagues and I have better things to do than check on every kid who hangs around the streets. As far as we are concerned, they are just out for a night of fun. Look at the way they dress: good quality jeans, Adidas shoes. Sure, they may take a little dope. But so do the kids in Munich."

What about all the Germans who drive into the town every night? The officer shrugged. "They spend good money in our bars. If they pick up a girl, so what. It happens everywhere."

Even small children? He smiled indifferently. "How can you tell if a girl is ten, thirteen or fifteen? These Romanian kids grow up quickly. Anyway, why pick on Cheb? Prostitution is all along the border."

That is true. At every crossing, the child whores are there, alongside the traders selling cheap cigarettes and Becherovka, the Czech national drink.

Catherin Schauer and her small team of dedicated social workers note down the license plate numbers of the German cars entering the town, then send them to the nearest German city of Regensburg.

There is a German law, passed in 1993, under which the Federal Republic can prosecute men who have sex with minors abroad. If found guilty, a culprit can be sentenced up to ten years in jail.

But, as in Bosnia, the reality is very different. Josef Heisl, a police officer with the Regensburg force said "when we get the license plates from Cheb, we do question the car drivers. The men just say they were looking for directions. To make a successful prosecution, we have to catch a man in the act of having sex with a minor -- or get a child to file a complaint. That is purely wishful thinking".

Just as in Cheb, the turnover of girls is high at Le Marche de Jeunes Filles -- the baked earth market place in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast.

The girls come from the country's remote rural areas, lured away from their villages by promise of a better life in the city. Family and friends sew their new clothes and arrange their hair before they leave home. But once they arrive in Abidjan, they find there is no work; instead they are sold-off like cattle in that market place.

Some, the lucky ones, are sent to toil in up-country cocoa plantations. Others are shipped off to Sudan, where slave traders shackle them for the long journey to the Middle East to restock the region's brothels.

Still others end up in a truck stop called Salgaa on the main Kenya-Uganda highway. It is the biggest whorehouse in central Africa. In 2003, it had 24 bars and 500 prostitutes -- an estimated half of them under age.

In a regional economy that is close to collapse elsewhere, Salgaa is booming. It is a cut-price version of Arizona Market. In Salgaa a child can be procured for one US dollar. In Salgaa the life expectancy of a prostitute is put in months rather than years. Their clients are the thousands of truck drivers who travel every week up and down the highway.

The girls work out of seedy bars with names like the Good Times Hotel and New Paradise.

AIDS is a killer by many names here: "mikingo" meaning "slow puncture"; and "kauzi" meaning "slim as a thread", an apt description to describe the body wasting process of the disease.

Sharin Cmemtai, who admitted to being "only fifteen", said that her "worst clients are the Arabs. They can be very violent. I try to charge them more. But it is impossible for me to keep the extra money. He always takes it straight away after sex".

"He" was her pimp, a burly Kenyan who is reputed to have a stable of fifty young girls, a number of them in their pre-teens, working in Salgaa.

His girls live in a small compound. It has one water tap, two showers and three stinking pit latrines. Most weeks a girl is diagnosed as in the final stages of AIDS. Overnight she will be taken from the compound by the pimp. There is a widespread fear she is dumped in the bush to be devoured by the jackals or other wild animals.

Within hours a new girl will arrive as a replacement.

She, too, can expect to be dead within a year. To survive longer in Salgaa is a miracle.

Only none of the girls who work there believe in such divine intervention.

The global traffic in children for commercial sexual exploitation involves torture and their premeditated rape and mutilation. If and when the authorities decide to take action against the child sex trade, it achieves very little.

This terrible human abuse, the prerogative of no one race or colour, continues to occur under all religions, and where there is no religion. The sexual traffic in children is the product of greed and lust which feeds off abject poverty.

There is no solution in sight until that poverty is addressed -- and the traffickers sentenced to long terms. By a collective indifference and silence, the betrayal of children will persist.

© Gordon Thomas 2006

So Much Australia cared about Human Rights - Aborigines letter to the UN

2009-03-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

World's governments being asked to help the Aborigines

Posted March 24th, 2009 by Diet Simon

http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/worlds-governments-being-asked-help-aborigines

Goodooga, northwest-NSW, 24 March 09 - - As Australia is having to answer to the United Nations Human Rights Committee over its treatment of Aborigines, a northwest-NSW Aboriginal leader is asking the governments of all member countries of the UN to help overturn the Northern Territory intervention and recognise Aboriginal sovereignty.

This follows an urgent decision by the UN's Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 13 March condemning Australia's suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act as part of the intervention.

Michael Anderson, Leader of the Euahlayi Nation and elected spokesman of the 16 clans in the Gumilaroi nation, has lobbied at past CERD conferences and has written the letter below to member countries' missions in New York.

"Australia must be held accountable by the international community for its Human Rights breaches and abuses against Aboriginal Peoples in Australia and its strident opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," Anderson says in the letter.

Anderson and other Aboriginal leaders from all over Australia have also asked President Barack Obama to intervene (http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/media-release-aboriginal-people-brief-barack-obama-his-meeting-kevin-rudd) when he meets with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Washington on Wednesday our time (early Tuesday US).

Here is the letter to the UN missions:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

23 March 2009

Your Excellency,

Australia's continued human rights violations and abuses of Aboriginal peoples

We enter into this correspondence with you to highlight the fact that Australia has not earned the right to have permanency status on the UN Security Council.

Australia is the only country in the world that has a constitution that allows for the imposition of laws and/or regulations that target specific racial groups. Section 51 (xxvi) says:
Australian Constitution - Section 51 - Legislative powers of the Parliament

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:-

(xxvi.) The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws:
In the Hindmarsh Island Court case, Justice Kirby pointed out that this section does not necessarily require any Australian government, whether they be Labor, Liberal or National Party, to always pass beneficial laws, rather it permits the passing of laws that can be detrimental or against any race as they deem necessary. [Kartinyeri-v-The Commonwealth 1998 HCA (High Court of Australia) 22 at para 163]

If we are to question why this section exists at all in the Australian constitution, we only have to visit some key documents that describe the thinking that existed in Australia pre-federation of 1901 and immediately thereafter.

In 1901 the first federal prime minister, Edmund Barton, advocated for a continent that could be free of ‘contamination' by foreign and unwanted racial impurities by quoting Professor Pearson:

'The fear of Chinese immigration which the Australian democracy cherishes ... is in fact, the instinct of self-preservation, quickened by experience ... We are guarding the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely for the higher civilisation ... The day will come ... when the European observers will look around the globe girdled with a continuous zone of the yellow and black races. It is idle to say that if all this should come to pass our pride and place will not be humiliated. We are struggling among ourselves for supremacy in a world which we thought of as destined to belong to the Aryan race; and to the Christian faith; to the letters and arts and charms which we have inherited from the best of times.'

Unfortunately the majority of European and non-Aboriginal thinking in Australia today continues to reflect racist ideologies, which in turn permits the continued emergence of prejudice and discrimination against Aboriginal Peoples by the dominant society.

Australia is a country of contradictions. On the one hand, it promotes living in harmony and reconciliation, without any real effort to enter into meaningful dialogue with the Aboriginal communities throughout Australia. This reflects Australia's unwillingness to recognise Aboriginal Peoples for who we really are.

Aboriginal people continue to argue that we have never been defeated in battle, neither have we ceded nor relinquished our sovereignty.

Australia continues to operate in the world under a flawed legal assumption that Australia is bona fide by virtue of an antiquated international doctrine as is referred to in the Mabo judgment No. 2 when Brennan J relied upon:

'The acquisition of territory by a sovereign state for the
first time is an act of state which cannot be challenged,
controlled or interfered with by the courts of that state.'

[Mabo v Queensland (No 2) ("Mabo case") [1992] HCA 23; (1992)
175 CLR 1 (3 June 1992) at para 31]

It cannot be a fact that a civilised society, which has been invaded in this manner, does not have any legal rights to question the powers of the invading authorities. In respect to the claim of Act of State, former chief Justice Mason of the High Court commented after the Mabo decision that Blackstone's Commentaries on international law at the time clearly suggest that the Aboriginal Nation States could be recognised and therefore treaties and other arrangements could be entered into, if the invading State had chosen to. There is sufficient correspondence between the invaders in Australia and British colonialists in England that suggested and recommended that treaties with the Aborigines be entered into but the colonial authorities in the invaded territories refused.

We assert that the court got it right when it states that the issue of Aboriginal Sovereignty cannot be dealt with by the High Court and it belongs to another jurisdiction. Brennan J concludes in the High Court Mabo No.2 Judgment:

‘1. The Crown's acquisition of sovereignty over the several parts of Australia cannot be challenged in an Australian municipal court.‘ [at para 83]

All laws passed in relation to Native Title rights and interests are legally presumptuous and therefore the judgements are dubious, because the issue of the Sovereignty of Aboriginal Peoples is still subject to international legal definition. While the Mabo judgement No. 2 erased the myth of terra nullius, we cannot permit Australia to continue with another myth, which is that associated with the High Court's right to rule on Aboriginal proprietary interests in land (Native Title rights) without first having resolved the issue of Aboriginal Sovereignty in Australia by the international legal jurisdiction.

I also wish to draw attention to the Northern Territory Emergency Response. Advice given to me suggests that this NT Intervention is a response to an alleged state of emergency associated with child abuse and domestic violence and that the executive government in 2007 irrationally decreed this Northern Territory Emergency Response, which has its origin in martial law.

Since colonisation there have been a number of proclamations of a similar nature, which gave the police and the military absolute power and authority over Aboriginal Peoples in a defined area, e.g. Governor Macquarie's Proclamation of 1815.

Under the existing Northern Territory ‘state of emergency' all powers have been vested in the military, which has engaged the Federal Police to police the communities, thus presenting an image of civil control outside of the military. This practice is merely a façade to shield the military powers. In order for the NT Intervention to remain ‘legal' it requires the continuation of the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) 1975 in Australia.

On 13 March 2009 the Urgent Action CERD decision from Fatimata-Binta Victoire Dah, Chairperson of the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, condemned Australia's suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975:

'... in order to continue a constructive dialogue with your Government, the Committee requests the State party to submit further details and information on the following issues no later than 31 July 2009:

Progress on the drafting of the redesigned measures, in direct consultation with the communities and individuals affected by the NTER [Northern Territory Emergency Response], bearing in mind their proposed introduction to the Parliament in September 2009.

Progress on the lifting of the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act.'

Aboriginal people question how can compulsorily acquiring peoples' land protect children and why does the Australian government need until September before they reverse the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act. It is within their power (if the political will is there) to repeal the Northern Territory Emergency Response Acts and reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act in the next winter sitting of Federal Parliament. The question is why do they wait till our next spring sitting before they do it.

Today, 23 March 2009, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Jenny Macklin, has advised the Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs that she has extended the deadline for the Tangentyere Council to sign over their leases of the Town Camps, under their jurisdiction, by 2 May 2009, otherwise no housing projects will be funded nor will any community infrastructure be put in place for Aboriginal communities in these Town Camps. This is an act by an intolerant minister, who is dictating and blackmailing defenceless and disadvantaged peoples.

Detail of the racism imposed by the Northern Territory Intervention recently sent to President Obama is available from this link:

http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/letter-president-obama-barbara-shaw-rudd-government-s-treatment-aboriginal-nations-and-peoples

In conclusion, it is our hope that from this piece of correspondence your government will raise the seriousness of the issues that we have discussed with the Australian Labor government and urge them, in the strongest terms, to take immediate steps to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act that affects the civil liberties, rights and freedoms of Aboriginal Peoples in Australia, under the Early Warning and Urgent Action procedures of the CERD.

Moreover, we ask that you include in your correspondence, should your government decide to do so, to urge in the strongest terms to repeal the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 in the Native Title Amendment Act 1998, as was recommended by CERD and ECOSOC, and to permit the courts of Australia to consider Aboriginal proprietary interests and rights in land as a common law right, as was the case in the original Mabo No. 2 judgement, as opposed to having the courts decide rights and interests based upon a coded legislative regime set by the Australian Parliament.

Australia must be held accountable by the international community for its Human Rights breaches and abuses against Aboriginal Peoples in Australia and its strident opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This is why we have criticised Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd's ambition to seek permanency status on the UN Security Council. Australia has not earned this right and responsibility.

Yours faithfully

Michael Anderson

Leader of Euahlayi Nation

+61 (0) 427 292 492 and +61 2 6829 6355

ngurampaa@bigpond.com

So Much the UN cared about Human Rights - Tamil Links in UN, Terrorism, bogus refugees and terrorist funding from UK

2009-03-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

Open Letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon UN

Ben Silva UK

18 – 03 - 09

Dear Sir,
Tamil Links in UN, terrorism, bogus refugees and terrorist funding from UK

I have discussed below, various inter linked issues related to terrorism, Sri Lanka and the UN so that you are aware of the concerns of many Sri Lankans.
When LTTE carried out terrorism in Sri Lanka, UN was absolutely silent and gave no help to deal with terrorism. UN was silent when terrorists carried out child soldier recruitment and when Tamil LTTE carried out terrorist activities against defenceless civilians. UN was silent when LTTE agents killed defenceless Sinhala villagers by hacking them to death. UN is incapable of understanding the true situation in Sri Lanka and UN is unable to distinguish between the victim and the culprit. UN did nothing to dismantle the shipping, procurement, financial, propaganda and other LTTE structures that are overseas, from India to Canada and Australia. In short, UN did nothing to curtail the activities of the terrorist group LTTE. Terrorism could have been eliminated by cutting off their life line, but UN did nothing of the sort, and is now trying to give a life line to the terrorists. In the view of many, such attempts will only lead to more unnecessary loss of human lives. What is even more worrying is evidence that LTTE has managed to infiltrate UN. Leaked reports containing incorrect data based on LTTE media outlets, quoted in the Inner City Press, , is an indication that LTTE sympathisers are busy discrediting Sri Lanka. The biased nature of UN in favour of LTTE is a serious matter and need the attention of senior UN officials.

In a nutshell, the problem appears to be that a group of global, networked Tamils are funding the Sri Lankan terror group LTTE, to create a mono ethnic racial state, perhaps with the intention of expanding Tamil Nadu state, in South India.

If UN is genuinely interested in Human rights, it would have taken action to stop funding being received by LTTE.
Sri Lanka is a victim of terrorism and the people who should be responsible for the death and destruction in Sri Lanka are those that funded the terrorists, those that gave residency to bogus refugees and those that turned a blind eye to terrorism such as UK authorities and the UN.

Tamils have projected the image that they are the underdogs, in order to get sympathy and to obtain bogus refugee status. In reality Tamils are a powerful group with international connections, even connection in the UN. They are attempting to carve out a part of Sri Lanka. The real underdogs and the victims are the poor, voiceless, Sinhalese peasants.

It is indeed UK that allowed an estimated 300000 bogus refugees [9],[11] into UK and then turned a blind eye to propaganda and fund raising by LTTE agents. The global bogus Tamil refugees number around 1 million and they appear to exert considerable unfair political muscle. It is utter hypocrisy for UK to show concern about human rights, when it is UK that allowed LTTE to base its head Office in London and then allowed LTTE to grow into a monster.

It is well known that LTTE fire at fleeing civilians and have killed escaping civilians, as a human shield is the only way to protect the terrorists from the security forces. In addition LTTE have sent suicide bombers to IDP camps, to discourage civilians to escape to safe areas. Rather sadly, any liberation of civilians may cause collateral damage. It is hoped that the damage is kept to a minimum. Even neutralising 10 terrorists in Mumbai resulted in the loss of over 200 civilians.

The situation in Sri Lanka is a complex issue and asking for a ceasefire, without understanding the situation is meaningless.

Both UN and UK have been touting for a ceasefire. I will ask the question, which has been asked by Shenali Waduge before, ‘how can a ceasefire release civilian hostages especially those being forcefully kept by the LTTE and condensed to 31sq.km?’
It is most likely that LTTE will use the ceasefire to rearm, regroup and increase the grip on civilians, as they have done on all occasions previously, costing more lives, when LTTE is dislodged. It is certain to cost more lives if they are allowed to survive. It is important that OHCHR, the UN, the Peace Activists, the NGOs/INGOs and all those who steer the bandwagon for ceasefires actually make an attempt to understand the situation in Sri Lanka. This may be difficult task due to the lack of professionalism of the above mentioned groups.

These groups such as HRW do not even understand that authenticity, accuracy, bias are important issues to be considered when using secondary data. These groups including UN and HRW appear to use innuendo, hearsay, propaganda material from LTTE media outlets such as Tamilnet as Gospel truth. The above mentioned groups simply parrot LTTE propaganda. Further Tamils in UN such as Ms Navanethem Pillay appear to play Tamil Tiger tribal politics, which will discredit UN. Ms Pillay has not recognised that ‘human rights violations in this respect has been brought about by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, when it mercilessly herded up the civilian population of Wanni, uprooted them from their traditional habitats and marched them on foot day and night as human shields. This was done at gunpoint’. Ref: United Nations is not the place for Navi Pillay to serve, by Durga Velautham in New Delhi, http://www.amarasara.info/hotnews/20090318-01.htm#United

Many would ask, did she ignore LTTE atrocities because she is a racist LTTE supporter or is it because she is incompetent as her predecessor, clueless Ms Arbour was. Or is it that UN is unable to stand up to powerful and rich terrorist groups and simply put the blame on the victim ?

As for the civilians trapped by LTTE, they are the brothers and sisters of all Sri Lankans and it is our duty to protect them.

As such, the biased opinions of Tamils, playing tribal politics need to be challenged and appropriate persons informed. For both UN and UK, they can talk peace, but for Sri Lankans, who have lost over 60000. due to the terrorist menace and who have suffered enormously, action is needed to permanently eradicate terrorism.

It is complete fallacy to talk about Tamil Home land in Sri Lanka, when the whole of Sri Lanka was the home of the Sinhalese . The Tamil home land is in South India. Unfortunately, from time to time, invaders from South India, temporarily occupied parts of Sri Lanka and they were always driven back. Modern Sri Lanka, in a global village, should be for all Sri Lankans, and racists should not be allowed to grab a part of Sri Lanka, for a mono ethnic, racist Tamil state.

UK heavily favoured Tamils and heavily discriminated against the Sinhalese.

Sri Lankans had to suffer the pain of terrorism for over 25 years and it is utter shame that countries such as UK and organisations such as UN are now trying to give a life line to the deadliest terror group in the world. If UN or UK are genuinely interested in human rights, then they should:
1. Ask LTTE to free the civilians
2. Ask LTTE to surrender
3. Provide technical assistance to Sri Lanka So that civilian casualties could be kept to a minimum
4. Provide technical assistance to Sri Lanka so that it is possible to distinguish the civilians from the terrorists
5. Provide technical assistance to disable terrorists
6. Stop funds flowing into LTTE offers
7. Stop propaganda and political activities of various LTTE fronts.
8. Instruct LTTE not to engage in military activities in the NFZ, not to take cover using civilians, not to fire at security forces from the NFZ.
9. Stop arms procurement by LTTE fronts.

At the moment Sri Lanka is trying to stop the insane terrorists and Sri Lanka should be allowed to finish the job. A generation of Sri Lankans of all ethnic groups have lost normal living due to terrorism. Sri Lanka should be allowed to finish off terrorism and get on with living. The countries that allowed terrorist fund raising should be invited to share the expenses for the care of disabled and orphans.

Remember forces lead by USA killed over 100000 Iraqi civilians as a result of the conflict in Iraq.
Sri Lanka has to explain the deadly nature of LTTE to the world, with appropriate evidence. It has to be clearly explained, with evidence, that no one in Sri Lanka would be safe if LTTE is allowed to exist as many suspect the mental state of Prabakaran.

As for Sri Lankan Tamils they are our brothers and sisters and we have a collective responsibility for each others safety and welfare.

Many suspect that LTTE has infiltrated UN.

The problem in Sri Lanka is mainly due to Tamil racism, that is trying to carve out a part of Sri Lanka to expand the Tamil Nadu state. LTTE is doing a ‘Hitler’. Many believe that the leader of LTTE is similar to Pol Pot and that LTTE is an extremely racist organisation. No one inb Sri Lanka would be safe if LTTE is allowed to survive. It is the responsibility of our missions abroad and also GoSL to explain to the world, the real threat faced by all Sri Lankans from LTTE and alsothe danger of giving a life line to LTTE.

Sri Lanka should have the right to safeguard its territory and the people from internationally funded, global racist terror organisations. Unless proper information is communicated to the world, the world may not understand the true situation faced by Sri Lanka. There is lot of scope for improvement in Communication skills of GoSL.

LTTE is holding civilians as hostages and as a human shield, and yet UN is inactive against LTTE. UN has failed to understand the nature of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, Tamils such as Ms Coomaraswamy, who displays Tamil tribalism on her face is occupying a key position in UN.

Further the Human rights Chief of UN is yet another Tamil from South Africa. It is well known that South African Tamils are biased against Sri Lanka. Media reports have indicated that LTTE pilots may have been trained in South Africa.

I have to state that I consider Sri Lankan Tamils as part of the family and I have no issues with them. I am however concerned about the racist attitude of some Tamils with a Chola mentality.

The comments made by Ms Pillay show that she is biased against Sri Lanka and she should not deal with issues related to Sri Lanka.
These facts need to be drawn to the attention of world leaders immediately.

Why has the UN not taken any action against coalition forces, that killed over 100000 civilians in Iraq.? UN itself should be taken to task for taking no action against terrorists and terrorism. Is it because some key UN officials are Tamils and LTTE has infiltrated UN ?

Yours sincerely,
Ben Silva

References
1. Tiger Tax Part 1 http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/3398206/
2. Tiger Tax part 2 http://beta.muxlim.tv/video/JwY5whNFLjA
3. UK Double Standard Helps Terror Alastair Reynard Alastair Reynar http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items08/160608-3.html
4. Visa scam trio 'must pay £2.3m'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6994087.stm
5. HAS LABOUR TOTALLY FAILED TO CONTROL IMMIGRATION? http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/31652/Has-Labour-totally-failed-to-control-immigration%3F/
6. Labour's left it too late to get a grip on immigration http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23575059-details/Labour's+left+it+too+late+to+get+a+grip+on+immigration/article.do
7. Real story behind Tamil tigers http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2008/2/24775_space.html
8. Violence of Tamil gangs revealed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3096978.stm
9. Five US Citizens to claim asylum in UK , London lite 16 Oct 2006, Anna Davis 10. Jane's Sentinel examines the success of the LTTE http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/sentinel/sent000904_6_n.shtml

11. . Steve Moxon, ref: The Great Immigration Scandal, Steve Moxon, 2006, imprint Academic

So Much EU cared about Human Rights - demanded Cuba to release political dissidents while passed a law to jail illiegal immigrants for up to 18 mths

2009-03-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

Castro condemns EU's 'hypocrisy'

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has lashed out at the EU's decision to lift sanctions against his country, calling it "an enormous hypocrisy".

He said the move was "disparaging" because it was conditioned on human rights progress in Cuba.

The ailing 81-year-old said the measure came just days after the EU passed a "brutal" law that could jail illegal immigrants up to 18 months.

The EU lifted the sanctions against Cuba in principle on Thursday.

The decision is expected to come into formal effect on Monday. The EU said its move was aimed at encouraging change in Cuba, following Fidel Castro's replacement by his brother Raul in February.

The decades-old US trade embargo against Cuba remains in place.

EU warning

In an article published on Cuba's official website, Fidel Castro said he wanted "to put in writing my contempt for the enormous hypocrisy that surrounds the [EU] decision".

“ There will be very clear language also on what the Cubans still have to do ”

Benita Ferrero-Waldner
EU External Relations Commissioner

While saying that Cuba must improve its human rights record and free political prisoners, the EU mistreats illegal immigrants from Latin America by using the new law to jail and expel them, Mr Castro wrote.

"From Cuba, in the name of human rights, they demand impunity for those [dissidents] that try to deliver... the homeland and the people to imperialism," he said, referring to the US.

The EU sanctions were imposed in 2003 in protest at the Cuban government's imprisonment of more than 70 dissidents.

They included a limit on high-level government visits and the participation of EU diplomats in cultural events in Cuba.

But EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said on Thursday the EU would continue to monitor human rights conditions in Cuba.

"There will be very clear language also on what the Cubans still have to do... releasing prisoners, really working on human rights questions," she told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels.

The sanctions' removal is largely symbolic but still a success for Raul Castro's new government, analysts say.

Several leading Cuban dissidents have criticised the decision.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7466943.stm

So Much the US cared about Human Rights - OBAMA BOWS TO PRESSURE: Drops U.S. from Major Anti-Racism Conference

2009-03-28T19:05:00.000-07:00

OBAMA BOWS TO PRESSURE: Drops U.S. from Major Anti-Racism Conference

http://eurweb.com/story/eur51521.cfm

Even with a Black man as president, the U.S. government appeared ready last week to bow to Jewish pressure and boycott a major international conference designed to combat racism.

The conference, informally known as the Durban Review, is scheduled for April with the aim of evaluating progress toward the goals of the 2001 “World Summit against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.”

The 2001 Summit was held in Durban, South Africa. But under heavy pressure from American Jewish organizations and the state of Israel, the U.S. State Department announced last week that it will probably boycott the April gathering because preliminary documents unfairly criticize Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and its often brutal and racist treatment of the Palestinian people.

The U.S. is also opposed to language which calls for reparations for slavery and Arab recommendations which it says might restrict freedom of speech.

Thus far the only nations which appear ready to follow the U.S. boycott are Israel and Canada. Several U.S. human rights groups are denouncing the U.S. boycott plans but led by the Anti-Defamation League, most major American Jewish organizations are applauding it. (source: Taylor Media Services)

So Much the West cared about Human Rights - Sinking the Boat People

2009-03-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

December 9, 1989 New York Times

Sinking the Boat People

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/09/opinion/sinking-the-boat-people.html

Nothing is more unfashionable than yesterday's victims. This is the fate of more than 50,000 Vietnamese boat people now threatened with forced repatriation from refugee camps in Hong Kong. No longer ''victims of Communist tyranny,'' they are merely ''illegal immigrants,'' in the words of Prime Minister Thatcher of Britain. According to her Foreign Office, their return is not ''forced'' but ''involuntary.'' This nice distinction will bring no comfort to those about to be repatriated.

All told, 167,000 boat people have fled to Hong Kong since 1975, of whom around 112,000 have been resettled there and in other countries. Recent arrivals come mainly from Haiphong, a trip of three to seven days in fragile boats.

After accepting 10,000 Vietnamese in 1979 and 1980, Britain has found room for only hundreds each year. The United States has absorbed 50,316, but only about 800 in the last year. Meanwhile the exodus continues - 46,000 since June 1988, and hundreds more arrive every month.

There is no recent parallel for handing over so many unwilling people to a Communist state. A less recent parallel is disturbing: the forced return in 1945-46 to the Soviet bloc of hundreds of thousands of refugees, chiefly by the British. Most were killed or sent to labor camps. It was to prevent such cruelties that civilized states agreed to forbid the practice called refoulement.

In French that means forced return, a practice proscribed in article 33 of the United Nations Convention on refugees: ''No contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.''

According to the British, nearly all the Vietnamese have been carefully screened by the U.N. and most cannot claim a well-founded fear of persecution. That is disputed by the respected Lawyers Committee on Human Rights. It regards the screening as biased and careless and contends the refugees are helpless to contest adverse findings.

The boat people do not share Britain's faith in Hanoi's avowals of decent treatment for returnees. As of September, only 264 Vietnamese elected voluntary repatriation, despite every inducement. Imagine what Charles Dickens might say about the silky assurance of a British civil servant that returning these people is ''a process of deportation which is used every day across the globe.''

Granted, the choices are difficult. Washington initially condemned forced repatriation as ''odious'' but is opening no doors, pointing out that America has already absorbed a million or so Indochinese refugees. The Lawyers Committee urges granting the boat people permanent asylum in labor-short Hong Kong. The U.S. Committee on Refugees urges, perhaps more realistically, a one-year grace period until the world comes up with a better solution.

The U.S., Britain and other countries in the region should be struggling to find one. That would sit easier on the conscience than idly watching as 50,000 refugees are forced from their refuge.

So much the UK cared about Human Rights in Sudan - Failed asylum seeker murdered after returning to Darfur

2009-03-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Gordon Brown and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon have said they are committed to helping the world’s poorest nations at the G20.

The two met in New York on Wednesday 25 March during the Prime Minister’s tour of some of the world’s major economies ahead of next week’s summit in London.

In a press conference after their meeting, Gordon Brown said it was the G20’s 'duty' to help other nations to restructure their financial institutions and take advantage of the benefits of trade. He said:

'I think we are recognizing that the Washington Consensus on economic policy is over, that the old world has gone, that we have got to build a new consensus on economic development for the future and we have got to send the message to every country that doing nothing is not an option.'

The UN Secretary General said he had written to the leaders of G20 nations asking them to commit to a large fiscal stimulus for developing nations. He said:

'G20 countries should commit to sustaining an international stimulus package on top of their national stimulus packages. It needs to be of a very substantial size.'

However, both men said the exact amount would have to be agreed by leaders at the summit next week.

The Prime Minister said they had also discussed the situation in Sudan, and he wanted to send a message to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir that aid agencies should be allowed back into the country. He said:

'I want the whole world to ask him [al-Bashir] to remove the ban on humanitarian agencies; to recognise that they are absolutely essential to the protection of the people of Sudan.'

Earlier in the day the Prime Minister took part in live interviews with the Wall Street Journal and New York University.

-----------------------

China 'is fuelling war in Darfur'

By Hilary Andersson
BBC News, Darfur

Page last updated at 03:00 GMT, Sunday, 13 July 2008 04:00 UK

The BBC has found the first evidence that China is currently helping Sudan's government militarily in Darfur.

The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to Sudan in 2005.

The BBC was also told that China was training fighter pilots who fly Chinese A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur.

China's government has declined to comment on the BBC's findings, which contravene a UN arms embargo on Darfur.

The embargo requires foreign nations to take measures to ensure they do not militarily assist anyone in the conflict in Darfur, in which the UN estimates that about 300,000 people have died.

More than two million people are also believed to have fled their villages in Darfur, destroyed by pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia.

Panorama traced the first lorry by travelling deep into the remote deserts of West Darfur.

They found a Chinese Dong Feng army lorry in the hands of one of Darfur's rebel groups.

The BBC established through independent eyewitness testimony that the rebels had captured it from Sudanese government forces in December.

The rebels filmed a second lorry with the BBC's camera. Both vehicles had been carrying anti-aircraft guns, one a Chinese gun.

Markings showed that they were from a batch of 212 Dong Feng army lorries that the UN had traced as having arrived in Sudan after the arms embargo was put in place.

The lorries came straight from the factory in China to Sudan and were consigned to Sudan's defence ministry. The guns were mounted after the lorries were imported from China.

“ When it is shooting or firing there is nowhere for you to move and the sound is just like the sound of the rain ”
Hamaad Abakar Adballa describing attack by anti-aircraft gun

The UN started looking for these lorries in Darfur three years ago, suspecting they had been sent there, but never found them.

"We had no specific access to Sudanese government army stores, we were not allowed to take down factory codes or model numbers or registrations etc to verify these kinds of things," said EJ Hogendoorn, a member of the UN panel of experts that was involved in trying to locate the lorries.

Culpability

China has chosen not to respond to the BBC's findings. Its public position is that it abides by all UN arms embargoes.

China has said in the past that it told Sudan's government not to use Chinese military equipment in Darfur.

Sudan's government, however, has told the UN that it will send military equipment wherever it likes within its sovereign territory.

An international lawyer, Clare da Silva, says China's point that it has taken measures in line with the arms embargo's requirements to stop its weapons from going to Darfur is meaningless.

"It is an empty measure to take the assurances from a partner who clearly has no intention of abiding by the resolution," she said.

Ms da Silva said the BBC's evidence put China in violation of the arms embargo.

The UN panel of experts on Darfur has said it wants to examine the BBC's evidence.

Homes scorched

The BBC found witnesses who said they saw the first Dong Feng which the BBC tracked down being used with its anti-aircraft gun in an attack in a town called Sirba, in West Darfur, in December.

"When it is shooting or firing there is nowhere for you to move and the sound is just like the sound of the rain. Then 'Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!'" said Hamaad Abakar Adballa, a witness in the Chadian refugee town of Birak.

The lorry's powerful anti-aircraft gun fired straight into civilian houses. The gun carries high calibre shells that explode on impact, spreading hot shards of metal and causing terrible wounds

Witnesses saw one hut take a direct hit from the gun:

"An intense wave of heat instantly sent all the huts around up in flames," one witness, Risique Bahar, said. "There was a lot of screaming."

In the attack on Sirba one woman was burnt to death, another horribly injured.

Genocide accusation

Sudan's government has been accused by the United States of genocide against Darfur's black Africans.

“ The terms of the embargo cover not only just the supply of weapons, military vehicles, paramilitary equipment. It also covers training any technical assistance, so the training of pilots obviously falls within the scope of the embargo ”
International lawyer, Clare da Silva

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) say war crimes by Sudan's Arab-dominated government have included summary executions, rape and torture.

Recently the conflict has deteriorated into more confused fighting, with rebel and militia groups also fighting each other. Two hundred thousand people have been displaced already this year.

Malnutrition rates are set to soar in South Darfur later this year due to insecurity and drought.

Darfur's landscape is spotted with blackened circles representing the hundreds of the villages that were burnt down by government forces and their Janjaweed allies.

Air attacks

In these attacks Darfur's civilians have been hunted not just from the ground, but from the sky.

Most civilians who tell stories of aerial attacks talk about Russian made Antanovs and helicopter gunships.

Many also talk about fighter jets being used, but no-one has ever answered the question of which type of fighter jets these are.

Kaltam Abakar Mohammed, a mother of seven, watched three of her children being blown to pieces as they were attacked by a fighter jet on 19 February in the town of Beybey in Darfur.

The BBC has established that Chinese Fantan fighter jets were flying on missions out of Nyala airport in south Darfur in February.

Panorama acquired satellite photographs of the two fighters at the airport on 18 June 2008, and its investigations indicate these are the only fighter jets that have been based in Darfur this year.

When Kaltam heard the sound of fighting early that morning, she took her children and ran.

"We start running near the well," she said. "We hid behind a big rock. Something that looks like an eagle started coming from over there. It looked like an eagle but it made a funny noise."

When the plane unleashed two bombs Kaltam's five-year-old daughter, Nura, was dismembered from the chest up.

Her eight-year-old son, Adam, was killed instantly, as was her 20-year-old daughter, Amna.

Kaltam's 19-month-old grandson still has shrapnel in his head from the fighter jet bombing. He cries a lot and often calls out for his mother, but she was killed in the attack.

Kaltam's 13-year-old girl, Hawa, cannot grasp what she saw happen that day to her brother and two sisters. She rarely speaks now.

Pilot training

The Chinese Fantan jets are believed to have been delivered to Sudan in 2003 before the current UN arms embargo was imposed on Darfur.

But the BBC has been told by two confidential sources that China is training Fantan fighter pilots.

Sudan imported a number of fighter trainers called K8s two years ago - they are designed to train pilots of fighters like Fantans.

"Clearly this is what they used to train for operations with the Fantans," said Chris Dietrich, a former member of the UN panel on Darfur.

International lawyer Ms da Silva says if China is training Fantan pilots, this represents another Chinese violation of the UN arms embargo.

"The terms of the embargo cover not only just the supply of weapons, military vehicles, paramilitary equipment. It also covers training any technical assistance, so the training of pilots obviously falls within the scope of the embargo."

There are strong economic ties between the China and Sudan.

China buys most of Sudan's oil and believes that what Sudan needs is good business partners, help with development and a solid peace process in Darfur, instead of confrontation and sanctions from the West.

So when China's President Hu Jintao visited Sudan in 2007 he wrote off millions of dollars worth of debt and donated a multi-million pound interest free loan for a new presidential palace to Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

In April last year, China's military leaders pledged to strengthen co-operation with Sudan.

Panorama: China's Secret War will be on BBC One at 2030 BST on Monday 14 July 2008.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7503428.stm

-----------------------

Failed asylum seeker murdered after returning to Darfur

A failed asylum-seeker who returned to Darfur from Britain under a government repatriation scheme was later murdered by Sudanese security officers, it has been reported.

Last Updated: 4:10PM GMT 17 Mar 2009

Adam Osman Mohammed, 32, was shot dead in his home in front of his wife and four-year-old son just days after arriving in south Darfur, it is claimed.

Mr Mohammed, a non-Arab Darfuri, came to Britain seeking sanctuary from persecution in Sudan, where he said his life was in danger.

The village where he was a farmer had been raided twice by the Janjaweed, the ethnic Arab militia, forcing him and his wife and child to flee their home.

Mr Mohammed became separated from his wife during a second attack on the village a few weeks later and escaped to Chad before making his way to the UK in 2005.

He lived in Birmingham for three years but his appeal for asylum was finally turned down last year and he returned to Darfur.

In August he was flown to Khartoum under the Home Office's assisted voluntary return programme, in which refugees are paid to go back to their country of origin.

He stayed in Khartoum for a few months and then, when he believed it was safe, he travelled to Darfur to be reunited with his family.

Mr Mohammed's cousin, Mohamed Elzaki Obubeker, who is chairman of the Darfur Union in the UK, said: "The government security forces had followed him to another village, Calgoo, where his wife and child had sought help. They came to the village to find him and then targeted him. They shot him in front of his wife and son."

The case is to be used by asylum campaigners to counter Home Office attempts to lift the ban on the removal and deportation to Sudan of failed asylum-seekers.

Waging Peace, the human rights campaign group which is to bring Mr Mohammed's case to the attention of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in April, claims that people returning to Sudan face imprisonment, torture and death.

The group's director Louise Roland-Gosselin, told the Independent: "We are deeply concerned by what has happened to Adam and many like him.

"The Government still wants to send back Darfuri asylum-seekers. But it is difficult to understand on what basis the Government is making this decision.

"The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, over murders committed during the genocide.

"It shows just how out of touch the Home Office is with the reality taking place in Khartoum if it thinks it's safe to send people back to a country where there is clear evidence of genocide."

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: "We consider every asylum application with the utmost care and, crucially, there is oversight from the independent courts. We are continuing to monitor the situation in Sudan, and in July last year we took the decision to stop returning non-Arab Darfuris until the courts decided it was safe to do so."

A source said that Mr Mohammed's case was twice turned down by the High Court at appeal and that he returned to Darfur "of his own volition".

So much the UK cared about Human Rights in Zimbabwe - UK sending 11 000 Mugabe refugees back

2009-03-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

Summary :

Jun 23, 2008 / Guardian / US and Britain: Mugabe's Zimbabwe 'not legitimate'
July 06, 2008 / Mail & Guardian Online / UK sending 11 000 Mugabe refugees back
July 12, 2008 / Mail Online / UK condemnation as Russia and China veto sanctions on Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

US and Britain: Mugabe's Zimbabwe 'not legitimate'

guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 June 2008 11.32 BST

Mark Tran, Peter Walker, Julian Borger and agencies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/23/zimbabwe5

The US and Britain today led international condemnation of Zimbabwe by urging countries not to recognise Robert Mugabe's "criminal and discredited cabal".

Mugabe is expected to come under strong diplomatic pressure when the UN security council meets later today. Ahead of the meeting, US and British officials stepped up their criticism of the 84-year-old Zimbabwean president.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said that, without a proper election process, Mugabe's government could not be considered legitimate and should be condemned "in the strongest possible terms".

In similar comments, Gordon Brown, told MPs he had spoken to Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader today, adding that he would push for more sanctions against the Mugabe government.

"The international community must send a powerful and united message: that we will not recognise the fraudulent election rigging and violence and intimidation of a criminal and discredited cabal," the prime minister said.

"The world is of one view: that the status quo cannot continue."

As international leaders denounced Mugabe, Tsvangirai, the head of the Movement for Democratic Change, sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare amid escalating violence orchestrated by the ruling Zanu-PF party.

The Dutch foreign ministry, in The Hague, confirmed that Tsvangirai was "temporarily" sheltering at the embassy for safety.

Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, had agreed to a request for shelter from Tsvangirai's party, a spokesman told AFP.

The spokesman added that Tsvangirai was "currently reflecting on what the next step should be".

Tsvangirai yesterday announced he was withdrawing from this week's scheduled run-off vote against Mugabe, saying he did not want to put the lives of his supporters at risk.

An estimated 100 opposition activists have been murdered by security forces and militia connected to Zanu-PF, and thousands of MDC supporters have been raped and tortured.

Earlier today, riot police raided the MDC headquarters in Harare, taking away up to 60 people, a witness quoted by AFP said.

Mark Malloch-Brown, Brown's Africa minister, said Britain planned to argue at the UN that Mugabe "no longer remains the proper rightful leader of the country".

Much could depend on the reaction of Zimbabwe's neighbours. South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, has faced intense international criticism for failing to use what influence he has on Mugabe's regime to try and rein in anti-opposition violence.

The African Union expressed its "grave concern" at the situation. The union was closely monitoring events following Tsvangirai's announcement, Jean Ping, chairman of the executive arm, the African Union commission, said.

The union was holding talks with a mediation team led by Mbeki, to see how it could help, he added. Despite Tsvangirai's decision to drop out, the ruling Zanu-PF party has promised it will go ahead with Friday's vote.

Mugabe's justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, ridiculed Tsvangirai's announcement. "Zanu-PF is not treating the threats seriously - it is a nullity," Chinamasa was quoted as saying by today's edition of the Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece.

"We are proceeding with our campaign to romp to victory on Friday."
After the MDC leadership met yesterday it said it was withdrawing from a "violent, illegitimate sham of an election".

"Mugabe has declared war, and we will not be part of that war," Tsvangirai said.

"The militia, war veterans and even Mugabe himself have made it clear that anyone that votes for me in the forthcoming election faces the very real possibility of being killed.

"We in the MDC cannot ask them to cast their vote on June 27 when that vote could cost them their lives. We believe a credible election, which reflects the will of the people, is impossible."

Speaking on South Africa's Radio 702 today, Tsvangirai said he was willing to begin talks with Zanu-PF, but only if the violence ended.

"We are prepared to negotiate with Zanu-PF, but of course it is important that certain principles are accepted before the negotiations take place," he added. "One of the preconditions is that this violence against the people must be stopped."

According to contested official results, Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe in an initial presidential election on March 29, but did not gain enough for an outright win.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

UK sending 11 000 Mugabe refugees back

Jul 06 2008 06:53

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-07-06-uk-sending-11-000-mugabe-refugees-back

Attempts by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to use a meeting of G8 leaders this week to campaign for tougher action against Zimbabwe are in danger of being undermined by claims that Britain is forcing as many as 11 000 Zimbabweans seeking refuge in the country to make a stark choice between destitution or returning home to possible torture or death. Letters obtained by the Observer show that the Home Office continues to order failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers to return home in the face of mounting violence.

A removal letter, sent at the end of May to an exiled London-based member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, states: "The support that you have been provided with is to be discontinued ... You should note that there is no right to appeal against this decision ... You must now leave the United Kingdom."

The letter, which refugee groups say has been sent to hundreds of Zimbabweans in the past few months, continues: "As a failed asylum seeker you are expected to make arrangements to leave the United Kingdom without delay."

The letter's recipient, a man who asked not to be named for fear it would jeopardise his safety if he is forced to return to Zimbabwe, said that he had been tortured by President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. "I have to report to the Home Office every two weeks but I haven't got any money to pay the travel costs," he said.

The majority of Zimbabweans in the UK are too scared to return. As a result, refugee groups and charities say many Zimbabwean asylum seekers are now destitute and relying on friends and charity.

"These letters are shameful," said Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council. "It is appalling that the government is continuing to order Zimbabweans to go back to Zimbabwe, especially under the current circumstances, and basically leaving them to starve if they don't."

She said: "It is scarcely believable that even now, when there can be no questioning of the atrocities being committed by Mugabe's regime, people asking for safety here are being turned away."

John Waite, co-chairperson of the Independent Asylum Commission, which has just published a report on the asylum system in the UK, described the situation as a source of shame.

He said: "We heard testimony from many Zimbabwean asylum seekers and we were shocked by what we found -- Zimbabweans sleeping on sofas, in parks and launderettes, reliant on charity and prevented from working."

He added: "Our nation's leaders have loudly condemned the Mugabe regime, but perhaps we should also look a little closer to home, to the thousands of Zimbabwean asylum seekers who have been left in a harsh legal limbo -- unable to work, deprived of welfare and unable to return home. If the British people had heard what we have heard from destitute Zimbabweans, they would be troubled and perhaps even ashamed."

The Home Office won a legal ruling earlier in the year giving it the power to send Zimbabweans home. But the ruling, the result of a three-year legal battle, was disputed by refugee groups.

Last week the Court of Appeal adjourned the case, a move that has meant thousands of Zimbabweans continue to be left without benefits. "The hidden consequence of this decision is that up to 11 000 refused Zimbabwean asylum seekers will be left destitute, not given any support or accommodation and at risk of prosecution if they work to support themselves, so that some are forced to beg and sleep rough," said Caroline Slocock, chief executive of the Refugee Legal Centre.

Nick Scott-Flynn, head of refugee services at the Red Cross, estimates a tenth of the 10 000 refugees his organisation helps in the UK each year are Zimbabwean.

"Many are petrified about going back," he said. "They are in limbo -- not allowed to work and not allowed to receive benefits. The consequences of this policy is causing a lot of needless suffering, and there is no evidence it is encouraging people to return home."

Marilyn Bonzo, who is seeking asylum in the UK after being accused of supporting the MDC, is one Zimbabwean living in destitution. "I now live on the charity of my British friends and food that the Red Cross give me," she said.

This week Britain is to lead calls urging G8 countries not to recognise the re-election of Mugabe and to consider tighter sanctions against his regime. In April, Brown said: "I am appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence."

But Covey said the government's policy on Zimbabwe was contradictory. "What people find bewildering is the disconnect between what the government says in regards to its foreign policy and its immigration policy," she said. "The Home Office has got very expensive lawyers trying to deport opposition activists, and the message going back to Zimbabwe is that the UK is not a safe haven."

Refugee support groups are now calling on the government urgently to relax the rules barring Zimbabwean asylum seekers from working. The Foreign Office minister, Malloch Brown, recently hinted this was a proposal being considered by the government.

A UK Border Agency spokesperson said that, although the agency was sending out letters ordering failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers to return home, it had no plans to start forced removals. "We always seek to assist anyone who wishes to return," she said. -

guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

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UK condemnation as Russia and China veto sanctions on Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime

By Ian Drury
Last updated at 4:52 PM on 12th July 2008

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1034529/UK-condemnation-Russia-China-veto-sanctions-Zimbabwes-Mugabe-regime.html

Russia and China rejected a draft resolution to impose restrictions on Robert Mugabe and 13 of his henchmen

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has condemned Russia and China for blocking international sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime.

He said he was 'very disappointed' that the two super-powers had prevented the United Nations taking action to punish the murderous Zimbabwean president.

Russia and China risked sparking outrage by flatly rejecting a draft resolution which would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe, as well as financial and travel restrictions on Mugabe and 13 of his henchmen.

The move was a devastating and embarrassing blow for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who thought he had gained sufficient backing for the U.N. Security Council motion after Zimbawe's recent elections were marred by violence.

On Tuesday, he appeared to have pulled off a remarkable coup at the G8 summit in Japan by persuading Russia - which traditionally opposes interference in the affairs of other nations - to join in condemnation of the tyrant.

But in a controversial move which led to angry recriminations, Moscow sabotaged the imposition of sanctions by using its veto.

Downing Street described the result as a 'missed opportunity' for the people of the former British colony, but said today it would not rule out a renewed attempt to get a Security Council resolution if efforts to deliver a mediated settlement failed to make progress.

'It is disappointing that the Security Council failed to stand up for the democratic rights of Zimbabweans. But it was right to push for a tough Security Council resolution, and those who stood in its way must now take responsibility for the failure of the Security Council to act," a No 10 spokesman said.

'We will continue to stand firmly for human rights and democracy, and will return to the Security Council in the absence of early progress on mediation, humanitarian access and an end to violence.

'This is not the outcome we sought, but we have other options.'

The spokesman said that Britain would continue to press UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send a special envoy to Zimbabwe, while pushing for further EU measures against the regime.

Mr Miliband said people in the beleaguered African nation, which has been pushed to the brink of civil war as millions endure starvation and violence, would find the U.N. vote 'incomprehensible'.

He said: 'I am very disappointed that the UN Security Council should have failed to pass a strong and clear resolution on Zimbabwe.

'In particular, it will appear incomprehensible to the people of Zimbabwe that Russia, which committed itself at the G8 only a few days ago to take further steps including introducing financial and other sanctions, should today stand in the way of timely and decisive security council action.

'Nor will they understand the Chinese vote.'

He added: 'All of our efforts will continue to be directed at alleviating the suffering of Zimbabweans. The violence against them must stop.'

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said it was now clear that Mr Brown had been 'over-confident' when he claimed a "major breakthrough" on sanctions at the G8.

He said that Britain now needed to find other ways of bringing pressure to bear on the Mugabe regime.

'The excuse given by Russia and China, that the issue is no threat to world stability, does not hold water when millions of Zimbabwean refugees have fled to neighbouring countries,' he said.

'It is becoming ever clearer that the 'responsibility to protect' which all nations agreed to at the last UN summit is a totally meaningless concept to some of them.

'The British Government should now look at whether a grouping of EU, Commonwealth and southern African nations could co-ordinate their own version of the pressure the UN has failed to apply.

'Above all, this huge setback cannot be the end of the matter. The people of Zimbabwe are suffering oppression, violence and poverty on a scale the world cannot be allowed to ignore.'

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said that the Government needed to find a way to get South African President Thabo Mbeki to take a firmer line with Mr Mugabe.

"President Mbeki has always held the key and now is the time to increase pressure on him. We need to talk to and support those political voices in South Africa who want to end the oppression in Zimbabwe," he said.

Britain's Ambassador to the U.N., Sir John Sawers, said the Security Council had 'failed to shoulder its responsibility to do what it can to prevent a national tragedy deepening and spreading its effects across southern Africa'.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has condemned Russia and China's decision to block the U.N. Security Council motion as "incomprehensible"

He added: 'The people of Zimbabwe need to be given hope that there is an end in sight to their suffering. The Security Council today has failed to offer them that hope.'

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad said Russia's U-turn over Zimbabwe was 'disturbing' and raised questions about its 'reliability as a G8 partner'.

But Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin said sanctions would have taken the U.N. beyond its mandate to deal with threats to international peace and security.

The resolution - which included the appointment of a special U.N envoy to Zimbabwe - won the backing of nine of the 15 council members, the minimum required to pass it.

But crucially China - Zimbabwe's biggest trading partner - and Russia both used their vetos to defeat the motion and scupper sanctions.

They were joined by South Africa, whose president Thabo Mbeki's refusal to take a strong stance against Mugabe has infuriated Western nations, Libya and Vietnam.

The other three members with veto power, Britain, the U.S. and France, called for sanctions to pile pressure on Mugabe after violence and intimidation marred Zimbabwe's recent discredited presidential election.

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the first round of Zimbabwe's presidential elections on March 29.

Official results gave him less than the 50 per cent share needed to seize power so a run-off was called.

But Mr Tsvangirai pulled out of the poll after many of his supporters suffered violence and brutality at the hands of Mugabe's militia, leaving the tyrant to declare victory at the end of last month.

In the wake of Mugabe 'stealing' the election, Britain upped the demand for G8 leaders to back tougher penalties against the dictator.

During this week's summit Mr Brown used horrific photographs of the tortured and burned body of an opposition party worker in Zimbabwe to unite world leaders in condemnation of Mugabe.

His highly-unusual decision to show the graphic images to other world leaders appeared to have got results as Russia surprisingly agreed to fresh action. Last night the move backfired.

In a statement to the U.N., Zimbabwe called the proposed sanctions 'escalatory and tragic'

It added: 'The situation in Zimbabwe does not warrant the attention that it is getting. Zimbabwe's quarrel with Britain is purely bilateral and has no place on the UN Security Council agenda.'

So much Canada cared about Human Rights !

2009-03-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

Nation of lost souls

TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR

Marcia Martel calms herself as she tells her story to the Star in Timmins.

March 16, 2009

Linda Diebel
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER

TIMMINS – The last time Marcia Martel saw her mother at home, it was late summer and she was a chubby little Indian kid of 4. She doesn't remember much because she was crying and clutching the tall grass as strange people pulled her away. She was scared of the police and didn't understand why she was being taken from Beaverhouse First Nation on Lake Misema in northeastern Ontario.

Forced into a waiting boat, she sat down. She'd been taught "little children rules" for the water. She fixed her gaze on her mother standing alone against the house until the image was only a speck and then, nothing.

She couldn't stop crying. She felt so worthless, she says, "I knew God Himself didn't want me."

Martel, now 45, is part of a multi-million-dollar class-action lawsuit filed recently in Ontario Superior Court against the Attorney General of Canada over the treatment of thousands of aboriginal children from 1965 to 1985. The claim alleges the federal government – with constitutional responsibility for aboriginal people, principally through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada– committed "cultural genocide" by delegating child welfare services to Ontario. As a result, it says, children (there are no precise numbers) were stripped of their aboriginal identity by being placed in non-native foster/adoptive homes.

A Justice Canada official referred questions to Indian and Northern Affairs, while an Indian Affairs spokesperson said officials are conducting "preliminary research" for a statement of defence. Meetings with a class-action judge are expected as early as next month.

Martel lived in foster homes until being adopted at 9. She thought her family didn't want her. In an exclusive interview with the Toronto Star, she said of her childhood, "I felt like an (abandoned) puppy."

She battled thoughts of suicide. She says her adoptive mother told her to eat off the floor like the "savage" she was and rubbed her raw to wash off her "dirty" brown colour.

Most Canadians think children are no longer being forcibly taken from aboriginal communities. They've heard about the "kill the Indian in the child" regime over the 150 years children were carted off to residential schools under the auspices of Canadian churches. That sordid story of abuse of tens of thousands of children has come to public attention through a $2 billion class-action settlement, a parliamentary apology to survivors by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the creation of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

But it's not over, far from it.

The removal of aboriginal children from their communities dragged on with the "Sixties Scoop" described in Martel's lawsuit and named for the practice of taking newborns from their mothers on B.C. reserves. It continues today.

Federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser reported in 2008 that 8,300 First Nations children, ordinarily resident on reserves, were in care nationally at the end of March 2007. That's more than five per cent of all kids living on reserves and eight times the proportion of children in the general population.

Fraser's report chastises Indian Affairs for, among other shortcomings, failing to monitor the "cultural appropriateness" of child care services for aboriginal children.

"We are still struggling with (child welfare) workers who come into our communities and take our children without consultation," says Arthur Moore, chief of the Constance Lake First Nation, himself a church school survivor. "They have too much power and think we're not capable of looking after our own children."

Adds Chief Keeter Corston, of the Chapleau Cree First Nation: "Marcia's story isn't an isolated incident. They didn't think of her as a person. It's genocide in terms of breaking down a people morally and hoping they will just disappear."

IT'S A LATE winter morning and we're gathered in a Timmins conference room, chiefs, welfare workers and educators, to hear Martel recount her experiences to the Star. Regional aboriginal child services are based in this town, about 800 kilometres north of Toronto, and many of the 49 chiefs from Treaty 9 lands are here for a conference.

Martel, born Sally Susan Mathias, has a strong face, with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose and shiny black hair cut in choppy layers. She places sacred symbols on a table before her – eagle feathers, pouches of tobacco and herbs, a turtle rattle, rocks and carvings. She occasionally flashes an infectious grin. Mostly though, she fights back tears, her lips pursed and eyes squeezed shut behind wire-rimmed glasses.

She massages her temples or the bridge of her nose, pausing often. Elizabeth Babin, education director for Wahgoshig First Nation, fans her with an eagle feather to calm her; the air smells of burning sage, tobacco and cedar.

Martel speaks slowly in a flat monotone, as if describing a trip to the grocery store.

She wasn't alone in the boat that day. Authorities also took her sister, Doris Lynn, about 6, keeping them together until Marcia went to another foster home. She wrongly believed her sister wanted her gone. (Five other siblings were left with their family in Beaverhouse.)

Martel thought her mother didn't want her either, discovering only years later it wasn't true. She describes a happy early childhood and never found out why she was taken. But her mother, when in her late 70s, said she was afraid if she had fought for her children, police would have shot her dead.

"That's a normal reaction. Indian people are trained to listen to authority," says Corston. "You're not a real person and only a real person can question authority."

Always, Martel wanted to go home. Instead, she bounced around foster homes suffering, she alleges, physical and emotional abuse. She once ran away and told her story to a police officer but he apparently replied: "Aw, it can't be that bad."

By 9 when she was adopted, she'd lost her Algonquin language and felt she belonged nowhere. Suicide wasn't an option because: "God doesn't like it if you kill yourself."

She liked school but later saw a children's aid file describing her as "slow" and not likely to progress beyond the mental capacity of a 10-year-old. Authorities apparently told her family she was mentally handicapped.

Over her protests, an Ontario family with four children adopted her. She says her adoptive father was kindly, if distant. When he died some 15 years ago, he left her a small inheritance. Her adoptive mother, she claims, was cruel.

Martel had been carting around a beloved stuffed tiger. One day, her adoptive mother told her to bring Tigger outside, where she'd lit a bonfire. The woman apparently claimed Tigger was full of bugs – Indian bugs – and made her thrown him into the fire. She says she was forced to watch him burn.

"Your people loved you but they didn't know how to look after you," the woman apparently said, as she incessantly went about her nightly scrubbings. In her adoptive father's absence, Martel alleges: "I got beat until I was black and blue with everything – spoons, hangers, the vacuum cleaner tubing. ... But she never touched my face."

When the couple divorced, she stayed with her adoptive father. Then, the worst. "Okay, um ... I would have been in Grade 9, I think ... I was 16 and, uh ... I got pregnant" by an unnamed boy. Martel went to live with her adoptive mother in Los Angeles, then moved with her to Texas. The woman wanted to keep the baby.

"I would not allow that. I knew enough about human beings that if you know bad stuff is happening and you're not able to protect yourself, there's no possible way you can protect a baby," says Martel. " So, I, uh ... it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done ... I gave him up."

Pause. She's sobbing quietly. "He was a beautiful boy." A nurse let her hold him briefly after birth and, "I never saw him after that."

She has one photo. "Nobody in my family ever saw him ... not even my Granny and my Granny loved me."

A few months later, her adoptive mother took her to the Houston airport, handed her a ticket to North Bay, Ont., and put her on a plane. She was 17. All she had was the suitcase she'd arrived with at age 9, filled with little girl's clothes.

An older sister met her in North Bay. Martel doesn't know how her adoptive mother found her sister Nancy; by then, they were alienated and she's forever lost other precious family connections. She tried to regain her Indian status but was told Sally Susan Mathias was deceased. She eventually won it back.

TORONTO lawyer Jeffery Wilson, who's handling the case with colleague Morris Cooper, stresses only Ottawa is named in the lawsuit, even though provincial Children's Aid Society (CAS) agencies were the ones removing aboriginal children from their communities and placing them in care. They did so under the 1965 Canada-Ontario Welfare Agreement.

Provincial legislation in 1985 recognized all services to Indian and native people should be provided "in a manner that recognizes their culture, heritage and traditions and the concept of the extended family."

However, Wilson argues: "That change (in provincial law) doesn't correct what happened before. ... It's shameful. You think you can raise a child and that it's in the best interest of the child to dispense with that child's culture?"

He argues the federal government was "improper and unlawful" in handing responsibility for child services to Ontario in the first place, thereby ignoring its duty to act in the best interest of Indian children "who are particularly vulnerable."

There's a buzz around the lawsuit. Aboriginal leaders see it as potentially precedent-setting and a step toward their goal of ensuring autonomous child care services. Aboriginal child and family services already exist. But many argue the province routinely big-foots them.

Vicky Hardisty, executive director of Kunuwanimano Child and Family Services, based in Timmins, argues all too often the province takes aboriginal children independently, without consulting community leaders. It's such a mess in the north, five Treaty 9 chiefs have banned provincial child welfare officers from their reserves.

Anne Machowski-Smith, spokesperson for Ontario children and youth services, says the law requires local CAS agencies to consult with bands or native communities in the apprehension and placement of aboriginal children. She adds: "We believe that, wherever possible, aboriginal children in need of protection, should be cared for in ways that recognize their culture and traditions."

Hardisty counters: "They always say that and we always tell them it's not happening. We ask them to provide us with proof of this compliance, but they don't. ... There's a huge disconnect."

For many aboriginal families, the lawsuit represents closure.

Once news of Star interest circulated, my phone began to ring with calls for help. Aboriginal adults in their 40s, 50s and older describe a nation of lost souls – Ontario's own "disappeared" – as they search for brothers, sisters and children who vanished into provincial care.

"Can you help me?" asks James Wesley, over a scratchy line from the northern Mountbatten First Nation. One of four kids who were split up, he's still looking for sister, Emma Lulu, and brother, Raymond Randy. "They kept moving me from home to home. ... I pretty much got lost myself."

Nobody places all the blame on Ontario's child welfare system or suggests children should never be removed from parents. Robert Commanda, 49, a plaintiff in the class-action suit living in Peterborough, says CAS officials took him after his mother ran off and left her five little boys alone. The oldest was 5 and kept his siblings, including Robert, 2, alive on chips and pop.

"She left us to die," says Commanda. "I sort of haven't come to terms with that. ... I'm a mess but I'm working on it. I just don't feel I belong anywhere."

The issue, rather, is about ensuring children in foster and adoptive homes don't lose their identity. Aboriginal leaders don't maintain all non-aboriginal families involved are terrible people. But they are fiercely adamant children receive "culturally appropriate" services and argue communities themselves, with their extended families, can best care for children.

MUCH TO her surprise, Martel found an inner strength. It nurtured her through childhood and, in her 20s, periods of homelessness. She says she never drank or took drugs and when, at age 28, her son, now 17, was born, "I realized survival wasn't good enough. My life had to be about happiness too."

She lays two photos on the table. In one, she's a glowing bride in beaded deerskin, shown almost two years ago on a sacred rock near Beaverhouse after she married Raymond Martel. The couple – he a simultaneous translator, she a social worker – live near Kirkland Lake.

In another photo some 40 years earlier at the same site, a plump little girl with glossy hair holds tightly to her pet black cat. It's Sally Susan at 3 with big sister, Doris Lynn. She's smiling with a child's confidence life will be wonderful.

In a roundabout way, that's how it turned out. The Star's Tony Bock photographed Martel against a snowy northern landscape. She's cuddling another pet black cat and looks, well, happy.

She is, she says. Sally Susan Mathias has come home. And the best part? She believes the lawsuit at last shows her meaning in all those rough times.

So Much the "Chosen People" cared about Human Rights !

2009-03-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

US Jewish leaders call for boycott of Beijing Olympics

Group of 175 prominent Jewish leaders in US sign petition urging Jews to boycott Olympic Games, citing China's human rights violations, ties with Iran and Syria
Associated Press

A wide-ranging group of US Jewish leaders plans to release a statement Wednesday urging Jews worldwide to boycott the Summer Olympics in Beijing, citing China's troubling record on human rights and Tibet.

The statement also notes China's close relationships with Iran, Syria and the militant group Hamas.

So far, 175 rabbis, seminary officials and other prominent Jews have signed the declaration, which comes shortly before Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, organizers said.

"We are deeply troubled by China's support for the genocidal government of Sudan; its mistreatment of the people of Tibet; its denial of basic rights to its own citizens; and its provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, and friendship for Hamas," the statement reads.

"Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today."

Awkward issue for Israel

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, past chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, said signers are not alleging that the Chinese government is the equivalent of the Nazi regime, but that China, like Germany in 1936, is trying to use the Olympics as a public relations tool to deflect attention from its record.

The declaration was organized by Greenberg and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of New York — both Orthodox Jews — and the Washington-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

Several representatives of Judaism's major US branches and large Jewish institutions signed on. They include Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Neil Goldstein and Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress; and Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, an association of Conservative rabbis.

The statement seizes on Olympic organizers' plans for a kosher kitchen at the Olympic Village, where athletes stay. Greenberg characterized the move as an attempt to lure Jewish tourists by presenting an image of sensitivity.

"I would say in principle, athletes and tourists and governments should all draw the same conclusion to this," Greenberg said. "Unless the Chinese make some significant corrections, they should not participate."

Meyers said he hopes the declaration is interpreted as a call for Israel and Jewish athletes worldwide to boycott the games, although he doubts such a boycott will come to pass.

"It would be good if that happened," Meyers said. "(But) I know Israel has political ties to China, and does business with China. It presents a somewhat awkward issue for Israel."

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3537713,00.html

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Steven Spielberg to Hu Jintao on Darfur, Nov. 2007

On Dec. 13, 2007, Steven Spielberg released the text of a second letter to the President of China, Hu Jintao, in which he urgently appeals to China to use its influence at this most critical moment to bring an end to the genocide in Darfur. Spielberg is serving as an artistic director for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Release Date: 12/13/2007

His Excellency Hu Jintao
President of the People's Republic of China
Zhongnanhai, Xichengqu, Beijing City
People's Republic of China
November 15, 2007

Your Excellency,

It has been several months since I last wrote expressing my concerns about the human tragedy in the Darfur region of Sudan, where more than 200,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced. In the intervening months, I corresponded with Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, and traveled to New York to meet privately with Special Envoy Liu Guijin. His appointment and China's support of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1769 were hopeful and appreciated signs that China was willing to use its influence to bring an end to the genocide in the region. I, and much of the rest of the world, felt a sense of optimism and hoped it would bring a lasting peace to the region.

Unfortunately, since that time, the situation in Darfur has deteriorated and while China's earlier efforts were encouraging, its silence in the wake of Sudan's recent actions and the resulting chaos on the ground has been disturbing. Sudan is continuing to defy the international community, creating obstacles to the deployment of peacekeepers, increasing violent campaigns against Darfuris and expelling humanitarian officials essential to the very survival of millions of desperate citizens.

This week the United Nations warned that unless Sudan quickly accepts the hybrid peacekeeping force and key countries contribute critical equipment needed for the peacekeeping efforts, the force will not be prepared for deployment in January 2008 - already two long months away. So I write to you now with a renewed sense of urgency in the hope that China will redouble its efforts to pressure Sudan to join in a fair peace agreement and, at last, bring an end to the genocide.

China's economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide you with the influence and the obligation to press for change. Please urge Sudan to accept - and rapidly facilitate - the United Nations authorized hybrid force and please join with other nations to contribute the much needed helicopters and heavy transport vehicles needed to conduct these peacekeeping missions. Without China's insistence, I fear Sudan will simply "wait out the clock."

I believe the decisive hour for Darfur is now. There must be meaningful and measurable progress on the ground for Darfuris within the next few weeks. The world needs China to lead here. So many lives are at stake.

Most Sincerely,
Steven Spielberg

CC: Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong
Special Envoy Liu Guijin

Contact:
Steven Spielberg's Offices
Andy Spahn, 818-733-7336

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'Israel treated its soldiers as guinea pigs'

Press TV - 2009-03-25

Israel has admitted to developing an anthrax vaccine through a secretresearch project involving tests on unaware army soldiers.

TheIsraeli Defense Ministry revealed on Wednesday that the vaccine wastested on 716 soldiers while they had not been fully informed about thestudy, Ynet reported.

The project, codenamed "Omer 2", washeld during the first part of the 1990s and the subjects were pickedout of a pool of 4,000.

Some of the soldiers, who say that theexperiment has had life-threatening side effects for them, are nowfiling a lawsuit against the Israeli Army, Haaretz reported.

So far, 11 soldiers have sought medical attention due to the side effects sustained as result of the tests.

Israeli Physicians for Human Rights have also filed a lawsuit against the army over the experiments.

Theexperiments were carried out in light of what was then defined as the"strategic threat of a surprise biological attack facing Israel," thereport said.

Meanwhile an official medical committee has published a report, raising doubt over motivations for advancing the experiment.

Thereport which was drafted by a special committee of doctors, a legaladvisor, and a scientist from the Weizmann Institute of Science, wasfinally approved for publication on Wednesday.

The report revealed that even while the experiment was taking place, Israel had already had a stock of anthrax vaccines.

"Anaccelerated effort to produce large quantities of the vaccine wasunderway a year prior to the experiment, and by the time theexperiments were launched, Israel had enough vaccines to cover thecivilian concerns," the report said.

The committee also criticized the "shroud of secrecy" which the experiments' directors implemented.

"Thecommittee was unconvinced that the need for a vaccine was dulyconsidered by decision makers. Also, it is not clear who the decisionmakers were who determined the vaccine's necessity," read the report.

The only official document found by the committee about the experiment was written by the deputy Defense Minister.

So much UK cared about Human Rights --- Son's hunt for father exposes betrayal of war heroes

2009-03-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Son's hunt for father exposes betrayal of war heroes

By Ian Herbert North of England Correspondent

Friday, 1 February 2002

Government documents uncovered during a man's search for his lost father have revealed how thousands of Chinese servicemen who served Britain in the Second World War were forcibly repatriated in a climate of anti-oriental racism.

At least 2,000 Chinese, whose seafaring excellence was put to use by the wealthy Liverpool shipping lines, were rounded up by police officers between March and July 1946 and sent back to China, never to see their sons and daughters again.

The Chinese were considered "undesirable" and the city authorities were "anxious to secure the housing accommodation" they occupied, accord-ing to the minute of a Home Office meeting of October 1945 to discuss "repatriation of Chinese seamen", 117 of whom had British-born wives.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the policy, which is also exposed in correspondence between the Ministry of Transport and War and the Liverpool Chief Constable, is its omission from historical analysis of the period.

Professor Tony Lee, a Cardiff University historian, said research had "simply focused on the war" and that the new documents were "a surprise". But he said: "It doesn't surprise me that there's very little in the record. British historians have not really been in interested in the history of small ethnic groups."

The story was uncovered by Keith Cocklin, 55, a retired merchant seaman who began investigating the disappearance of his father, Soong Kwai Sing, just before his own birth in May 1946. Mr Cocklin, whose work is featured in a BBC North West documentary entitled Shanghai'd, was told his father had returned voluntarily to support the new People's Republic in China, which was not established until 1949.

His plea for information through a BBC local radio programme elicited the testimony of Steve Crawshaw, a former fitter who built bunks in cargo holds to sleep the returning Chinese. There were also witnesses to police raids in which the Chinese men were rounded up. "We just saw them getting into the trucks. If they ran, they [the police] ran after them," one witness, Larry Kee, said.

Correspondence with Maria Lin Wong, who had investigated her own father's disappearance, helped to lead Mr Cocklin to Public Record Office documents demonstrating the haste with which the policy was initiated after an end to Japanese occupation of China removed a key impediment. The documents record the acceptance by the Transport and War Office, in correspondence with Liverpool's Chief Constable, that the "undesirable" Chinese seamen "try every device to avoid repatriation but once they see that bribery, corruption and solicitors' letters will not avail, they will accept the inevitable".

Professor Lane said anti-Chinese sentimentflared during the war, when Chinese and Indian merchant seamen took strike action in protest over their pay – a third of that offered to British seamen. "This is the classical outrage of the imperial masters at the imperial subordinates daring to stand up for themselves," Professor Lane said. "The Chinese were very proud of their own culture and very aware of the negative stereotypes and quite scandalous attitudes some people had towards the Chinese."

Documents supporting repatriation list details of 1,000 convictions for opium smoking, 50 for gaming offences and countless cases of venereal disease and tuberculosis.

Mr Cocklin, who said his discoveries had made him want to "declassify" himself as a British citizen, knows his father was shipped to Hong Kong, then onwards to Shanghai on 9 March 1946 on the Ajax. His inquiries have failed so far to locate his father, who would now be in his mid-Eighties.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/sons-hunt-for-father-exposes-betrayal-of-war-heroes-672014.html

So Much UK cared about Human Rights --- A helping hand to Hitler

2009-03-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

A helping hand to Hitler

Fifty years ago, news of the full horror of the concentration camps began to filter out of Germany as invading troops advanced. Henry Maitles reveals the collaboration of Western governments with the Nazi regime and its attacks on Jews

Sweeping up after the pogroms of Kristallnacht

The Second World War was, we are constantly told, a war for freedom and democracy. The truth is somewhat different. In particular, the attitude of the Western democracies before and during the war to the persecution of Jews that culminated in the Holocaust was racist and defined by self interest. Sections of the British establishment from 1929 onwards saw Nazi Germany as the major danger to British interests worldwide. But before then there was a significant pro-German lobby which saw Hitler and the Nazis as a positive feature.

Why did more Jews not flee from the persecution in Central Europe when they still had the chance? Some historians claim that there were tremendous ties of homeland and family which meant that 'abroad for the great majority of the population was a remote and vague landscape.' But this ignores the experience of Central and Eastern European Jewry in the 20th century, which was one of mass emigration. Some 4 million Jews left Central Europe between 1880 and 1930.

The main reason why Jews did not flee in greater numbers was the attitude of the Western democracies and their immigration controls. The atmosphere of hostility towards Jewish immigration was central to creating a feeling of hopelessness for potential migrants. Britain sent a number of refugees back to Germany where it was Nazi government policy to put returnees in concentration camps. The British government's own figures are quite startling. A total of 484 were sent back in 1933, 378 in 1934, 365 in 1935, 412 in 1936, 438 in 1937, 489 in 1938 and 191 in the first six months of 1939. When a small number of Jews fled by air to Britain after Germany occupied the city of Memel in March 1939, those without the necessary papers were put on the next plane back to Europe.

The signals given out were clearly designed to discourage Jews from fleeing west. The British government wanted to bring to Britain those Jews 'eminent in science, technology, art, music etc' and not 'persons likely to seek employment, agents and middlemen, minor musicians, commercial artists, the rank and file of doctors, lawyers, dentists: The test for admission was 'whether or not the applicant is likely to be an asset to the UK: In July 1939 a foreign office official claimed that 'a great many...are not in any sense political refugees... Many are quite unsuitable as emigrants and would be a very difficult problem if brought here.'

British policy dovetailed nicely with some of the extremist statements in the House of Commons by the strident anti-immigration lobby. As early as March 1933 there was a Commons debate on Jewish immigration. Conservative MP Edward Doran asked the prime minister if he would be taking any extra measures to prevent alien Jews from Germany entering Britain. Doran claimed that:

'Hundreds of thousands of Jews are now leaving Germany and scurrying from there to this country when other countries are closed to them... May I ask whether it is the declared policy of this country to allow aliens to come in from every country in the world while we have 3 million unemployed. If you are asking for a Hitler in this country you will soon get him.'

Doran returned to this theme a month later. He asked whether the home secretary was aware that 'this invasion of undesirable aliens is causing resentment and grave concern in this country, and can he see his way to give them notice to quit before serious trouble develops?' In May 1935 Lord Winterton said there were certain 'vocal and influential sections of opinion in this country, such as trade unions, Jewish organisations and the Labour Party' which kept criticising Hitler and the Nazis, despite the fact that he believed the German people were going from strength to strength.

There was pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic and antiimmigration sentiment among many of the British establishment. Admiral Sir Barry Domville was very sympathetic to Hitler. In 1935 he wrote:

'I am very far from adopting the sloppy sentimental attitude towards the Jewish race which is so popular in this country. Because we ourselves are tolerant of the aliens and Jews in our midst to the point of stupidity, that is no reason for being intolerant with the policy of others: Jewish ways are not our ways.'

One of Stanley Baldwin's advisers, Thomas Jones, was of the opinion that the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Eric Phillips, should be replaced by a man able, 'to enter with sympathetic interest into Hitler's aspirations'. Possibly his advice was taken when Neville Henderson was appointed ambassador to Germany in May 1937. He wrote in the Times that, 'far too many people have an erroneous conception of what the National Socialist regime really stands for. Otherwise they would lay less stress on Nazi dictatorship and much more emphasis on the great social experiment which is being tried out.'

Lord Halifax visited Hitler on behalf of the British government in November 1937 and told him that there were certain people in Britain, such as the Church and the Labour Party, who criticised the Nazis, but they 'were not fully informed', and that Hitler had performed, 'great services...by preventing the entry of communism' into Germany, thus barring, 'its passage further west.'

The author of a book titled I Know These Dictators called for more understanding of Hitler who he claimed had a 'human, pleasant personality... Fondness for children and dogs is regarded by many as evidence of good nature. This is a strong trait in Hitler's character.'

The British government could not publicly endorse these views but privately did all it could to ensure that not too many Jews were encouraged to leave central Europe.

Jewish refugees looking for a safe haven

Western governments used the Evian Conference of 1938 to send an unmistakable message to Eastern European governments and the Jewish populations that Jewish immigrants and refugees would not be accepted by Britain, France or the US. The British delegation to Evian was told that it would be 'desirable that the results of the meeting should not act as an incentive to these [Central and Eastern European] governments to increase the pressure on their Jewish minorities.' There was to be no welcome for refugees. The Australian delegate, TW White, stated that, 'as we have no racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one.'

Britain was not alone in this policy. For the US, with the added barrier of the Atlantic Ocean, tight immigration policy between 1932 and 1938 led to a net outflow in migration. Immigration statistics reveal a dramatic change in policy in the 1930s. Between 1820 and 1933 more than 37 million immigrants entered the US. From 1933 to 1943 only 341,567 citizens (Jewish and non-Jewish) from Germany and its allies were permitted to enter.

The Jewish vote had switched dramatically to the Democratic Party from 1928 onwards and by the mid-1930s the bulk of America's 4,770,000 Jews were loyal to Roosevelt and the New Deal. During the Depression the Roosevelt administration steered a course between strong restrictions on refugees and liberalism. This might be strong on rhetoric yet it offered little in real help. A bill which would have eased the harsh immigration laws by allowing in an extra 20,000 German-Jewish children failed in Congress in 1939. Less than 500 German Jewish children were allowed in to the US between 1938 and 1939.

France was the obvious haven for refugees before the war. But during 1938 the French government passed a series of laws imposing harsh restrictions on immigrant entry. Following the Kristallnacht pogroms of November 1938 in Germany the French border police sent back escaping Jews to a destination of concentration camps in Germany. France was the only major Western government not to publicly criticise Germany for the pogroms. When Von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister, visited Paris in 1938, two Jewish ministers were not invited to the state banquet, presumably in case they were an embarrasment to this leading Nazi.

It is easier now to see why more Jews did not flee westwards--there was no country willing to take them. Finland, for example, introduced stringent controls after the Evian Conference, refusing transit to Austrian Jews with the necessary papers for US immigration and ordering the ship back to Germany. Three refugees committed suicide by throwing themselves overboard rather than return to the waiting arms of fascism.

Even during the war the attitude of hostility to Jewish refugees was evident. In 1943 there was a proposal from Sweden that, if Britain and the US were willing to pay the costs and agree to looking after them after the war, there was the possibility of 20,000 Jewish children being released from Central Europe to Sweden. Private money was available but the State Department in the US was not enthusiastic. One official noted that, 'any rescue concentrating on Jewish children might antagonise the Nazis and prevent other possible cooperative acts.' The US did not want to antagonise the Nazis in the middle of the war! The proposal was dropped.

As the war went on and the Holocaust intensified, the Western Allies refused repeated requests to bomb either the crematoria in the death camps or the railway tracks leading to the camps. For the ruling classes of the Western democracies dead Jews were better anti-German propaganda than live ones.

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr182/maitles.htm

So Much Norway cared about Human Rights - Norway expeled China Firm because the firm sell arms supplies to military-ruled Burma.

2009-03-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

Norway set up rules in 2004 to ensure the fund doesn’t invest in companies involved in human rights abuses, environmental damage, or the production of some weapons.
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Norway Oil Fund Expels China Firm
By VOA News 13 March 2009

Norway has barred its oil fund from investing in China's Dongfeng Motor Group because the firm sell arms supplies to military-ruled Burma.

Norway's finance ministry says the Chinese company sells military trucks to Burma.

Finance Minster Kristin Halvorsen said Friday Norway cannot finance companies that support the military dictatorship in Burma through military sales.

Norway's oil fund, officially called the Government Pension Fund-Global, invests the country's oil and gas wealth in foreign stocks and bonds. The fund is meant to save money for the future when Norway's oil supply runs dry.

The fund is currently worth around $300 billion. Norway is a major exporter of oil and natural gas.

Some information for this report was provided by Bloomberg, AP and Reuters.

挪威禁主权基金投资中国公司

Mar 13, 2009

挪威禁止其主权石油基金对中国的东风汽车集团公司进行投资，原因是该公司为军人统治的缅甸提供武器。挪威财政大臣哈尔沃森说，东风集团向缅甸出售了军用卡车。哈尔沃森星期五表示，挪威不能向以军售支持缅甸军人独裁统治的公司提供资金。

挪威石油基金的官方名称是“政府环球养老基金”，该基金负责把挪威的石油和天然气收入投资于外国股票和证券市场，以保证未来挪威石油资源枯竭后国家依然有储备资金。目前该基金有大约3000亿美元。挪威是世界石油和天然气出口大国。

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INFLAMED: A Muslim woman in Oslo burned a hijab on International Women's Day to protest the garment's symbolism.

AFP/Newscom/FILE

Hijab debate lifts veil on limits of Norway's tolerance

A Muslim woman's request to wear a hijab with her police uniform has sparked national controversy.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0320/p07s03-wogn.html

OSLO - Norway's biggest headache right now is not the financial crisis. Rather, the predominantly Christian nation is plagued by a religious dilemma over the right of a Muslim woman to wear a hijab as part of her police uniform.

As the controversy has escalated, the country has seen the physical collapse of the justice minister, the public burning of a hijab, and a substantial rise in the popularity of Norway's anti-immigrant opposition party just six months before general elections.

This is odd for a country known for religious tolerance, generous international development aid, and peace efforts worldwide. But the controversy highlights the latent fears of a nonpluralistic society, where 91 percent belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Norway.

The dilemma began last fall when a Norwegian Muslim woman petitioned for permission to wear her hijab, the traditional head covering for Muslim women, as part of her police uniform. Norway's justice ministry originally decided in February to allow it, but revoked the permission a few weeks later after loud criticism from the police union, which argued it breached the neutrality of the uniform.

"A change of uniform regulations, with an allowance for covering hair, has never been a goal in itself. It has always been thought of as a possible means to increase the recruitment of police from minority groups in society," said Justice Minister Knut Storberget, in defense of his decision to revoke the initial permission.

Amid the heightened media attention and political backlash from his flip-flopping, the minister collapsed and subsequently announced a two-week sick leave, which was then extended.

The hijab debacle comes on the back of the minister's other religious-related political defeat over a now-defunct blasphemy law. Mr. Storberget initially tried to replace the law with a new paragraph that would have protected individuals from defamatory religious statements. But after much political opposition, the law was repealed and no paragraph introduced.

This has provided political fodder for the opposition Progress Party, which has stoked fears among Norwegians over "sneak Islamization." Progress Party leader Siv Jensen spoke out strongly at the party's national meeting last month against granting special permission for special groups. She pointed specifically to the case of a largely Muslim neighborhood in Malmö, which she claimed had been partly overrun by Islamic law.

A March poll by Norstat for Norway's national broadcasting station NRK showed that Progress Party soared 8.5 percentage points to 30.1 percent in the polls from a month earlier. Three government coalition partners, Labor, Socialist Left, and Center Party, all lost ground.

The center-left coalition holds 87 out of 169 parliamentary seats, while the Progress party holds 38 seats, the second largest after Labor. A continuing shift to the right could pose a threat to reelection chances in September for Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's Labor prime minister.

"If they continue to spin these irrational fears, I'm afraid it could lead to a lot of commotion," said Thorbjørn Jagland, Norway's parliamentary leader and former Labor prime minister, during a highly-attended religious debate in Oslo this week.

Some 500 people lined up around the block to hear Mr. Jagland, religious professor Torkel Brekke, the bishop of the Church of Norway, and leader of Norway's Muslim Student Society discuss why religion is suddenly a hot topic.

The panelists discussed the recent media focus surrounding the hijab debate and blasphemy paragraph, the provocation caused by the burning of a hijab on International Women's Day on March 8 by a Norwegian Muslim woman in protest of the garment, and fears among "religious nationalists" and "secular intellectuals" toward Norway's Muslim minority.

"We could very well live with the mosques because they stayed in them. But when this began to affect our cultural values, then it became a conflict, and then it became politicized," Jagland told the crowd. "But Islam is not a threat to Norway."

"I don't see Norway as a tolerant society at all, partly based on these debates and how they react to people coming to Norway," said Professor Brekke, from the University of Oslo. "It's tolerant in that you can practice any religion, but you have large sections of Norwegian society that react strongly to alien cultures."

Immigrants make up 9.7 percent of Norway's 4.8 million inhabitants. Norway has granted permission to about one-fourth of the 328,000 immigrants who arrived from non-Nordic countries between 1990 and 2007 to stay as refugees. The largest immigrant population is Polish, who are traditionally Catholic, followed by Pakistani. Islam accounts for 20 percent of the 9 percent of the population belonging to religious communities outside the Church of Norway.

Sweden has a more liberal policy in accepting refugees than Norway and allows hijabs in its police uniform, as does Britain. France has banned the use of hijabs and other ostensible religious items in its state schools since 2004.

The religious debate has overshadowed the economic one in Norway, which has been relatively shielded from the financial crisis thanks to its vast petroleum resources as the world's third largest gas exporter.

Norway has a large budget surplus to help fund its financial stimulus packages and relatively mild unemployment – 3 percent, compared to 8.1 percent in the US. Moreover, it has invested its oil revenues in a $329 billion Government Pension Fund.

盖头引起的挪威人情绪紧张

(编译者按语：本文译自2009年3月20日美国《基督教科学箴言报》专题报道，标题是“盖头的辩论揭开了挪威宽容的极限”Hijab Debate Lifts Veil on Limits of Norway‘s Tolerance。专题作者是瓦勒利亚·克雷斯科因。全文很长，以下是节译。)

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奥斯陆消息：位于北欧的挪威，今日所担忧的问题不是席卷全球的金融危机，而是穆斯林妇女的盖头。这个以基督教为主流传统文化的国家，在讨论是否允许女警察制服戴盖头时，触动了挪威人对外来信仰容忍的极限。

在面临全国大选之前的六个月里，关于穆斯林妇女戴盖头问题不同派别的辩论不断升温，冲击加剧，出现了许多前所未闻的事件，例如司法部长累垮了身体﹑游行示威的群众燃烧盖头表示愤怒﹑坚持反移民的在野党支持率直线上升。这些都是不同寻常的怪异现象，因为挪威人一直在外人印象中是最温和好客的民族，容忍国内出现的各种宗教﹑对国际援助一向慷慨大方，在全世界致力于和平运动。在历史上，挪威人是一个信仰单一的民族，至今有91%的人口信奉路德宗的福音派基督教，有挪威基督教的地方特色。

这场辩论是从去年秋季开始的，当时有一名穆斯林女警察向法庭提倡控诉，要求获得戴盖头值勤的法律权利。大法官在今年二月开庭时宣布判决，根据挪威宗教信仰自由的原则，对穆斯林女警察的要求给予准许。这个事件在几个星期之后爆发成全国大辩论，批评者们坚持说，警察属于公教职务，服饰应当表现中立，不应当表现个人信仰特色。司法部长克努特·斯托伯盖特在袒护大法官判决中说：“警察制服稍有变通，允许增加一片头巾，不是改变警察体制。他说，这只不过是表现挪威政策的宽容，可以吸引更多的少数民族加入公共服务系统。”在他的表态之后，社会反对势力加大了攻势，司法部长难以承受沉重的社会压力，积劳成疾，请病假两个星期，但根据医嘱，病假还将延续。司法部长原有计划通过一项反宗教亵渎法，在这个民族主义膨涨的时机，他的提案遭到否决。后来他又设法在原有宗教信仰自由原则的基础上，增加一个附件说明，防止个别人对不同信仰的公民有侮辱性的行为，再次遭到失败。

在全国形成大辩论的形势下，代表反对政治势力的进步党连连在国会辩论中获胜，支持率直线上升，进步党在各种宣传中向民众暗示，联合起来抵制“伊斯兰化的潜入”挪威。进步党领袖丝福·杰森女士上月在国会做了慷慨激昂的发言，反对助长挪威穆斯林居民的社会影响。她举例说，在马尔默市是穆斯林居民最集中的城市，那里进行伊斯兰化改造，开始实行伊斯兰法制，挪威的传统文化受到排挤。进步党利用排外情绪获得更多的支持，在今年九月的大选中有可能获胜，争取到国会中的多数席位，取代执政的工党。在公共媒体上，已举行多场公开大辩论，许多宗教学者﹑教堂牧师和清真寺伊玛目应邀出席发表观点。曾经担任工党前总理的现任国会议长索布吉恩·贾格兰说：“如此利用非正常的手段煽情，假如继续下去，我担心，我们的国民将变得更加激烈的情绪化，失去正常的理智。”

奥斯陆大学的宗教学教授布赖克说：“法律上的定义承认各种信仰自由，但是挪威是一个传统的基督教文化国家，从感情上难以容忍外来宗教的迅速发展。”他说，挪威人对穆斯林集中在清真寺中祈祷和礼拜，不表示反对，而他们走上街头表现信仰的文化，多数挪威人感受到是一种文化侵略，难以忍受，例如穆斯林妇女在三八妇女节头戴盖头游行。穆斯林女警察戴盖头值勤，已在许多欧洲国家成为合法行为，如瑞典和英国，并没有出现什么冲突，而法国通过限制盖头的法律，激情穆斯林广泛不满，他们说法国破坏了民主自由，压迫少数民族。他说：“这些辩论，暴露了挪威的宗教信仰自由不真实，是虚假的宽容，实际上，并不存在伊斯兰对挪威社会的任何威胁。”

So Much they cared about Human Rights

So Much the UK cares about Human Rights - Life with a Control Order : A wife's story

Life with a control order: a wife's story

So Much the US cared about Human Rights : Citizens held as illegal immigrants

AP IMPACT: Citizens held as illegal immigrants

So Much Germany cared about Human Rights - Children from across Eastern Europe are being sold for sex, mostly to Germans, in a network of sex "bazaars

Paedophiles, Cheb sex capital of Europe

Captive market:The sexual slave traffic in children

So Much Australia cared about Human Rights - Aborigines letter to the UN

World's governments being asked to help the Aborigines

So Much the UN cared about Human Rights - Tamil Links in UN, Terrorism, bogus refugees and terrorist funding from UK

Open Letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon UN

Ben Silva UK

So Much EU cared about Human Rights - demanded Cuba to release political dissidents while passed a law to jail illiegal immigrants for up to 18 mths

So Much the US cared about Human Rights - OBAMA BOWS TO PRESSURE: Drops U.S. from Major Anti-Racism Conference

So Much the West cared about Human Rights - Sinking the Boat People

So much the UK cared about Human Rights in Sudan - Failed asylum seeker murdered after returning to Darfur

Summary :

UK and UN 'committed' to poor nations (26/03/2009)

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Failed asylum seeker murdered after returning to Darfur

A failed asylum-seeker who returned to Darfur from Britain under a government repatriation scheme was later murdered by Sudanese security officers, it has been reported.

So much the UK cared about Human Rights in Zimbabwe - UK sending 11 000 Mugabe refugees back

US and Britain: Mugabe's Zimbabwe 'not legitimate'

UK sending 11 000 Mugabe refugees back

UK condemnation as Russia and China veto sanctions on Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime

So much Canada cared about Human Rights !

So Much the "Chosen People" cared about Human Rights !

Awkward issue for Israel

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Steven Spielberg to Hu Jintao on Darfur, Nov. 2007

'Israel treated its soldiers as guinea pigs'

So much UK cared about Human Rights --- Son's hunt for father exposes betrayal of war heroes

Son's hunt for father exposes betrayal of war heroes

So Much UK cared about Human Rights --- A helping hand to Hitler

A helping hand to Hitler

So Much Norway cared about Human Rights - Norway expeled China Firm because the firm sell arms supplies to military-ruled Burma.

Hijab debate lifts veil on limits of Norway's tolerance

A Muslim woman's request to wear a hijab with her police uniform has sparked national controversy.

Captive market:
The sexual slave traffic in children