Informazione
<< ALBANIA NATURALE >> PARTE PRIMA: SPAZIO VITALE
Koco Danaj, consigliere del primo ministro albanese Sali Berisha, ha
dichiarato ieri al quotidiano Epoka e Re che entro il 2013 tutti gli
albanesi della regione saranno riuniti in un unico Stato. Questa
Grande Albania, che Danaj definisce "naturale" al contrario degli
attuali Stati di Serbia, Macedonia e Montenegro che Danaj definisce
"non naturali", dovrà dunque comprendere pezzi di Macedonia e
Montenegro oltrechè tutto il Kosovo. Ricordiamo però che anche
l'Epiro settentrionale ("Camerija"), ora appartenente alla Grecia, è
rivendicato dagli irredentisti pan-albanesi.
Le dichiarazioni di Danaj seguono di pochi mesi quelle del Ministro
degli esteri Mustafaj (vedi JUGOINFO 17/3/2006 - http://
it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4821 ) secondo cui
la secessione del Kosovo - data per scontata a causa
dell'atteggiamento neo-nazista di NATO ed UE in materia - causerà
immediatamente la messa in discussione dei confini della Repubblica
di Albania.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?
cat=Politics&loid=8.0.332806468&par=0
ADN Kronos International (Italy)
August 22, 2006
BALKANS: OFFICIAL CALLS FOR A 'NATURAL ALBANIA'
Tirana - Albanians living in the Balkan region should
unite and be integrated into a "natural Albania" by
2013, a senior Albanian official said on Tuesday.
Neighbouring Macedonia, with a 25 percent Albanian
population, is likely to be partitioned first, if its
authorities fail to honour the five-year-old Ohrid
peace agreement - which gave Albanians more autonomy
and increased their political representation - Koco
Danaj, political adviser to Albania's prime minister,
Sali Berisha, told Pristina-based Albanian language
daily Epoka e Re.
“In politics it’s easier to face the painful truth,
than the painful lies,” said Danaj. “Therefore, I
emphasise again that disrespect of the Ohrid agreement
would mean partitioning of Macedonia,” he added.
Danaj said the greatest threat to the Ohrid agreement
- which in 2001 ended ethnic Albanian rebellion in
Macedonia - to power of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE,
the Macedonian political party that won the 5 July
general election.
VMRO-DPMNE leader, Nikola Gruevski is expected this
week to form a coalition government with the
Democratic Party of Albanians, triggering protests
from the biggest ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic
Union for Integration [KLA's/NLA's Ali Ahmeti], which
also wants to participate in the government.
With Serbia’s southern Kosovo province seeming to be
moving towards independence, Danaj said that ethnic
Albanians in Macedonia and Montenegro should also have
the right to choose with whom to live.
Instead of having Albanians participate in those
countries' governments, it would be more natural that
they had one government in the Albanian capital,
Tirana, Danaj said.
After Montenegro, with a population of 620,000, voted
for independence and separation from Serbia at a
referendum on 21 May, 500,000 ethnic Albanians in
Macedonia should have the same right, Danaj said.
Neither Serbia, nor Macedonia and Montenegro were
"natural creations," Danaj pointed out.
Giving apparent credence to the fears of Serb and
other Slav politicians in the Balkan countries that
the creation of a Greater Albania is the main threat
to the region, Danaj said all Albanians will be united
“in natural Albania” by 2013.
(Source: Rick Rozoff via stopnato @yahoogroups.com)
http://www.counterpunch.org/herman08222006.html
August 22 , 2006
Michael Ignatieff on Israeli Self-Defense and Serb Ethnic Cleansing
Faith-Based Analysis
By EDWARD S. HERMAN
Michael Ignatieff, now a Canadian MP and contender for a top leadership position in the Liberal Party, was slow in responding to the Israeli war on Lebanon. He told the Canadian media on August 1st that “I’ve been following it minutely from the beginning and watching it unfold and figuring out when was the time when a statement would be important and relevant.” (Linda Diebel, “Rae criticizes liberal rival for delay,” Toronto Star, August 2, 2006). He considered it necessary to give Israel enough time “to send Hezbollah a very clear message” that kidnapping soldiers and firing rockets on Israel will not be tolerated. Of course, Israel was killing mainly civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure while sending this message, and there was the question of whether the world shouldn’t be sending Israel the message that aggression and the commission of war crimes under the pretense of “self defense” is not permissible, but like George Bush and Condoleezza Rice, for Ignatieff the Israeli message was crucial, not any Lebanese civilian casualties or Israeli law violations.
Michael Ignatieff is a skilled trimmer, who has adjusted his principles and thoughts to the demands of the U.S. and Canadian power elite, and advanced accordingly—from academia to preferred commentator on human rights and other political issues in the U.S. mainstream media, and on to becoming a member of the Canadian parliament. He was for some years Carr Professor of Human Rights at Harvard University, and for several years was a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He has always found that what the United States has been doing in the international arena is good—well-intentioned, necessary for international well-being, and inevitable, though occasionally flawed in execution. He was a strong supporter of the U.S. wars in Yugoslavia, objecting mainly to the sluggishness in the application of force. He approved the invasion-occupation of Iraq and has supported the use of torture in the abstract as well as specifically in the Bush administration’s so-called “war on terror,” and as noted he has recently been very understanding of Israel’s need to defend itself against the threats of Hezbollah and its other enemies.
One would have thought it might be problematical for a professor of human rights to vigorously support two wars (Kosovo, Iraq) carried out in violation of the UN Charter and hence “supreme crimes” in the view of the judges at Nuremberg. These two wars of aggression also resulted in serial war crimes, such as the regular bombing of civilian sites and the use of illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, napalm, phosphorus and depleted uranium, that should have been anathema to a devotee of human rights. But these matters didn’t bother Ignatieff, who was troubled only by the lag in initiation of NATO violence in the Balkans and the ineffectiveness and mismanagement of the occupation of Iraq. Similarly, Israel’s long-term ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied territories, and massive human rights violations in the process, have not troubled him in the least, although he is bothered by the failure to bring “stability” and the absence of a quiet occupation and dispossession process.
He gets away with this support for supreme crimes and systematic violations of human rights because he does this only as regards crimes and abuses carried out by the United States and its allies and clients. He is quite passionate about the crimes or alleged crimes of target states such as Yugoslavia and Saddam’s Iraq. As this bias parallels and therefore supports official positions, he is treated well by the Western elite and their instruments such as Harvard University and the New York Times. He can make egregious errors and unverifiable and dubious claims, accept official claims as unquestionably true, and apply double standards across the board, without cost. Treating him well means not only giving him support and access, it also means letting him get away with intellectual murder.
Ignatieff came into prominence during the Balkan wars, where he joined forces with a number of other liberal intellectuals and journalists who took on the cause of Alija Izetbegovic--author of the Islamic Declaration and close ally of Osama bin Laden--and the Bosnian Muslims, and pressed strongly for military intervention on their behalf.1 Ignatieff’s position also aligned him with the Clinton administration, and he established “close relations” with Richard Holbrooke, General Wesley Clark and former Yugoslav Tribunal chief prosecutor Louise Arbour.2 These close links with officials with an axe to grind might be thought to compromise a journalist and human rights activist, but it doesn’t work that way in the United States—as with “embedded” journalists, such links enhance a reporter’s authority. It is only in enemy states that official connections and embedding compromise journalistic integrity, as by assumption our officials don’t lie and manipulate, and/or the linkages do not cause journalists to lose their critical capacity, whereas elsewhere governments lie and embedded journalists become propaganda agents of the state.3
One revealing illustration of Ignatieff’s integration into the propaganda apparatus of the war-making establishment was his November 2, 1999 op-ed column in the New York Times on “Counting Bodies in Kosovo.” By the time Ignatieff wrote this piece, the wilder claims of the State Department that 100,000 or even 500,000 Kosovo Albanians had been killed by the Serbs had collapsed in the wake of the very modest results of the intense forensic searches that followed the NATO takeover of Kosovo after June 10, 1999. The new claim made by Carla Del Ponte, the Yugoslav Tribunal’s prosecutor (who had succeeded Louise Arbour), was that 11,334 Kosovo Albanians had been killed. According to Ignatieff, whether all the 11,334 bodies will be found “depends on whether the Serb military and police removed them.” Possible error or inflation by the Tribunal and its sources was ruled out for no reason but deep bias.
Del Ponte had been vetted by Madeleine Albright before taking her position, the Tribunal had been organized and largely staffed and funded by the NATO powers, and it consistently served as a PR-judicial arm of NATO.4 The Tribunal’s investigator, who recommended dismissing any charges of war crimes against NATO without a formal investigation, stated that he had been satisfied with NATO press releases as an information source on the motivations and results of NATO actions.5 Del Ponte followed his recommendation, implicitly accepting this use of evidence, and expressing satisfation that there was “no deliberate targeting of civilians or unlawful military targets by NATO” (presumably the targeting of the Chinese Embassy and the Serb broadcasting facility, among hundreds of other non-military targets, was lawful). Only an unscholarly partisan would take her number as definitive (and only a partisan newspaper would invite Ignatieff to write on the subject and subsequently bring him on board as a regular). Eventually only some 4,000 bodies were recovered in Kosovo after the NATO takeover, by no means all or even a majority Bosnian Muslim civilians, and 2,398 remain listed by the Red Cross as missing, yielding a total—6,398—substantially below the 11,334, a difference never commented on by Ignatieff or the New York Times.6
During the Kosovo conflict Ignatieff offered a stream of claims and interpretations that make an enlightening contrast with his apologetics for Israeli aggression, ethnic cleansing and structured racism. Commenting on an incident in which the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) murdered six Serb teenagers, Ignatieff wrote that this was “doubtless a KLA provocation, intended to goad the Serbs into overreaction and then to trigger international intervention. Yet it is worth asking why the KLA strategists could be absolutely certain the Serbs would react as they did [he is referring to the “Racak massacre” of January 15, 1999]. The reason is simple…only in Serbia is racial contempt an official ideology.”7
We may note first that for Ignatieff the KLA killings were only a "provocation," not a murderous act to be severely condemned. Note also that although there is compelling evidence that the Racak incident was arranged into a "massacre" following a furious battle, and is therefore of extremely dubious authenticity, Ignatieff takes it as unquestionably valid.8 On the certainty of the Serb reaction, killings such as those carried out by the KLA produce similar responses in civil conflicts everywhere, so that Ignatieff's blaming it on Serb racism is nonsensical for that reason alone. But it also flies in the face of Serb tolerance of Albanians in Belgrade, along with Roma--in contrast with Kosovo Albanian intolerance of both in NATO-occupied Kosovo.
The contrast with Ignatieff’s treatment of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon is also dramatic and revealing. With the June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier in Gaza and at least two other Israeli soldiers in still-disputed circumstances around the Israel-Lebanon border on July 12, minimal consistency with his treatment of the Serbs should cause him to regard these as “provocations” that induced an Israeli “overreaction,” and he should condemn this overreaction, which in Gaza and Lebanon has been far more deadly and murderous than the Serbs’ alleged overreaction at Racak. He might explain this overreaction and this willingness to kill large numbers of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians on the “simple” ground that “only in Israel is racial contempt an official ideology.” Of course he does not do this, although the case that can be made for racial contempt as an official ideology in Israel is vastly greater than the evidence for Serbian racism.9
For Ignatieff, Israel’s legitimate “security needs” justify the Lebanon response (and he evades discussing the reinvasion and attack on civilians and humanitarian crisis in Gaza). Didn’t Yugoslavia’s legitimate security needs justify Racak and other actions of the Serbs, with NATO threatening an attack--that soon materialized--and working in coordination with the KLA? There is of course no hint at this in Ignatieff—his frame of reference is always that of his side (NATO), and the enemy is always wrong and has no right of self defense.
Ignatieff was enraged at the Serb expulsions in Kosovo during the bombing war, claiming that “Milosevic decided to solve an ‘internal problem’ by exporting an entire nation to his impoverished neighbors,” and he also described it as a “most meticulous deportation of a civilian population” and “a final solution of the Kosovo problem.”10 One would hardly realize from these effusions that Yugoslavia was under military attack by NATO, forced to defend itself in a situation where the KLA and NATO were working in close coordination; that proportionately more [ethnic] Serbs fled the bombing war in Kosovo than [ethnic] Albanians; that there was nothing “meticulous” about the flight, induced by the KLA and bombing as well as Serb actions, and that there is no reason whatever to think that Milosevic viewed this as a “final solution,” another dishonest piece of rhetoric that conflates Nazi industrial murder with a war-induced flight of civilians.
Again, the contrast with Ignatieff’s treatment of the forced exit of a million Lebanese by the Israelis is dramatic. Here Israel is justified in “sending a message” to Hezbollah reflecting Israel’s right to defend itself. Yugoslavia had no right to send a message to the KLA and NATO powers in the process of defending itself, although NATO’s war threatened its survival, whereas Israel had only suffered minor losses in a border skirmish with a force that did not threaten its existence. Ignatieff has not even expressed sympathy with the million Lebanese displaced to “send a message” to Hezbollah; and he will clearly not speak of this as a “meticulous” ethnic cleansing and “final solution” via an “export” of Lebanese civilians. Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross (among others) have repeatedly declared the Israeli attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure to be war crimes,11 but Ignatieff has not said a word about anything wrong with Israel’s attacks on civilians or the use of illegal and anti-civilian weaponry like cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and he has never hinted that these frequent and ruthless attacks on Arab civilians could be because of Israel’s racist ideology, although the evidence for such attitudes in Israel is massive (which it is not in Belgrade).
In short, we are dealing here with gross political bias and gross apologetics for aggression, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. Add to this the fact that Ignatieff has swallowed Bush’s claim to be striving to “bring freedom everywhere,” an ideological premise that allows him to rationalize anything the Bush administration does externally because it is in a noble cause—based solely on the fact that Bush says that that is his aim (see his “Who Are Americans To Think That Freedom Is Theirs To Spread?,” New York Times Magazine, June 26, 2005; and my analysis of this apologetics landmark: Herman, “Michael Ignatieff’s Pseudo-Hegelian Apologetics for Imperialism,” October, 2005).
Facts no longer matter for Ignatieff; they are trumped by proclaimed aims and values, but only for the side he favors and that produce benefits—to Ignatieff and some of the elites that underwrite his work. Clearly this is a man worthy of a human rights chair at Harvard, a special place in the Paper of Record, and a bright political future in our close and reliable ally Canada.
Edward S. Herman is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and has written extensively on economics, political economy and the media. Among his books are The Real Terror Network, Triumph of the Market, and Manufacturing Consent (with Noam Chomsky).
Endnotes:
1. For a general account, Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, “Morality’s Avenging Angels: The New Humanitarian Crusaders,” in David Chandler, Ed., Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to International Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 196-216 (as posted to ZNet, August 30, 2005). The New Humanitarians have been members of a network of like-minded people, often friends, who have worked in coordination with government officials and government-linked thinktanks, bonding and hobnobbing among themselves in Sarajevo or at international conferences and being fed information by U.S. and, in the 1990s, Bosnian Muslim officials. Sometimes, they worked together in establishment operations such as the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone, Michael Ignatieff, Mary Kaldor, Martha Minow), the International Crisis Group (William Shawcross), the American Academy in Berlin (Paul Hockenos), George Soros' Open Society Institute (Aryeh Neier), and offshoots of these and similar institutions. The first three groups have been heavily funded by NATO governments, and have had on their boards numerous NATO government officials, past and present.
In a nice illustration of what C. Wright Mills might have called the "social composition of the higher circles" of New Humanitarianism, Timothy Garton Ash wrote back in 1999: "When I arrive in the late evening…[at Hotel Tuzla,]…I step into the lift, press the button for the second floor, and at once subside, powerless, into the cellar. The reception committee in the bar consists of Christopher Hitchens, Susan Sontag, and David Rieff. When I join them, Sontag is just saying to Michael Ignatieff, 'I can't believe that this is your first time here." And he adds that on the very next day, after arriving at an event hosted by the Bosnian Muslim leadership of Tuzla, Mary Kaldor welcomed the group, and the British actress Julie Christie read a poem in homage to Sarajevo, "glowing white…as a translucent china cup." Ash, History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s (New York: Random House, 1999), p.147.
2. The quoted words were used by David Rieff to describe and laud his ally Ignatieff’s connections with the West’s political and military leadership, in “Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 3, 2000.
3. Back at the time of the controversy that followed the May 1981 shooting of Pope Paul II by a Turkish fascist, the mainstream U.S. media relied heavily on the expert Paul Henze, rarely pointing out--and never suggesting any problem based on--lhis 30-year employment as a CIA propaganda specialist and his having been head of the CIA station in Turkey.
4. For a compelling analysis, see Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder (London: Pluto, 2004), pp. 132-46.
5. Ibid., pp. 188-191.
6. "Statement to the Press by Carla del Ponte" (FH/P.I.S./550-e), Carla del Ponte, ICTY, December 20, 2000, par. 16; "Kosovo: ICRC deplores slow progress of working group on missing persons," ICRC News, March 9, 2006.
7. Michael Ignatieff, “Only in truth can Serbia find peace: There is racism everywhere in Europe, but only in Serbia is racial contempt an official ideology,” Calgary Herald, June 26, 1999.
8. On questions about Racak, see Mandel, pp. 72-80, 170-73; see also the devastating testimonies of Judge Danica Marenkovic, forensic expert Professor Slavisa Dobricain, Col. Bogoljub Janicevic, and Col. Milan Kotur, during the Milosevic defense period, March 23-24, April 8, 13, and 26, and January 27, 2006. None of this testimony was reported on in the New York Times.
9. Under the subheading “Root Causes,” Israeli analyst Reuven Kaminer says “It is impossible to oppress an entire people for 40 years and not to succumb to the ultimate rationalization for such action. Anti-Arab racism is endemic to Israeli society. This racism is so pervasive that it covers the political landscape like a cloud and infects all the thinking and the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Israelis.” (“Who Won and Who Lost and Why,” Portside, August 17, 2006). See also Edward S. Herman, "Ethnic Cleansing: Constructive, Benign, and Nefarious," ZNet, August 9, 2006.
10. Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000), pp. 86-87, 78-79, 84.
11. See, e.g., Peter Bouckaert and Nadim Houry, Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon (Human Rights Watch, August 3, 2006; and Peter Bouckaert, “For Israel, innocent civilians are fair game,” International Herald Tribune, August 4, 2006.
ALBANIA: GOVERNO, TUTTO A 1 EURO PER GLI INVESTITORI
(ANSA) - TIRANA, 16 AGO - ''L'Albania a 1 Euro''; e' questo lo slogan
col quale il governo albanese del premier Sali Berisha ha battezzato
la sua iniziativa per incentivare gli investimenti, sopratutto quelli
esteri. ''Ci siamo posti come obiettivo di fare dell'Albania il paese
piu' attraente per gli imprenditori e per farlo dobbiamo attuare
pratiche differenti dagli altri paesi, cioe' offrire un'Albania senza
costi'', ha dichiarato oggi il premier nel corso della riunione del
governo invitando tutte le istituzioni a presentare a proposito, idee
concrete ed in tempi brevi. In un anno di governo la destra al potere
ha intrapreso una serie di interventi fiscali che tendono ad
abbassare i costi per l'imprenditoria, tanto da essere qualificato al
primo posto in tutta l'Europa centrale e quella di sud-est, per il
livello della riduzione delle tasse e delle imposte. ''L'incremento
degli investimenti sara' la nostra sfida'' ha ribadito Berisha
offrendo alcuni dettagli sulla sua nuova iniziativa: ''Offriremo ad 1
Euro i terreni, la qualifica per gli operai, il rifornimento con
l'acqua alle industrie, di 1 Euro sara' la tariffa per la
registrazione delle attivita' commerciali ed anche la tassa per
l'entrata in Albania degli stranieri'', ha spiegato il premier
precisando che tanto, sara' il costo anche per molti altri servizi.
Per il governo albanese questa strategia fara' crescere l'economia
del paese, abbassera' il tasso di disoccupazione, e spingera' gli
albanesi a ''non abbandonare il proprio paese per lavorare invece
all'estero e costruire strade, edifici ed industrie degli altri'', ha
detto Berisha. L'Albania e' il paese con il minor flusso di
investimenti esteri diretti che negli ultimi anni hanno appena
sorpassato la sogli dei 300 milioni di dollari annui. (ANSA) COR
16/08/2006 16:57
Due campagne per sanzionare Israele per i crimini di guerra commessi
1. From Ramsey Clark: Join me in the Campaign for Accountability for
U.S./Israeli War Crimes
2. Les crimes de guerre commis au Liban doivent être jugés par la
Cour pénale internationale !
=== 1 ===
August 20, 2006
From Ramsey Clark:
Join me in the Campaign for Accountability for U.S./Israeli War Crimes
Dear Friends,
On August 30, 2006 the International Action Center will launch a
major campaign to require accountability by the United States and
Israel for their wars of aggression and assaults on the equal
sovereignty of nations, which are crimes against peace, and their war
crimes which include excessive force, indiscriminate bombing,
targeting civilians and civilian facilities and collective
punishments of entire populations.
Reparations are required for more than a thousands deaths, many
thousands of injures and an estimated $10 billion for destruction of
civilian facilities in Lebanon in one month alone; and thousands of
deaths and injuries in Palestine since the Oslo Accords, the
systematic destruction of the government of Palestine, the
kidnapping of half the cabinet and the speaker of the Palestinian
Parliament, the assassination of leaders and indiscriminate killing
of others, and the destruction of the offices of President Arafat,
the Foreign Ministry and civilian facilities throughout Gaza and the
West Bank.
If the present ceasefire does not hold, bolder action must be taken.
There must be absolute assurance from the U.S. and Israel that they
will honor the equal sovereignty of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran and
recognize and honor the sovereignty of the State of Palestine,
cruelly delayed for 58 years.
Individuals in the U.S. and Israeli governments must be held
accountable by prosecution for their criminal acts, and responsible
leaders must be removed from office by impeachment in the U.S. and
appropriate legal action in Israel.
The new tragedy of Lebanon has brought death to hundreds of
civilians, children, women and men. Hundreds of thousands,
approaching one-fourth the population of four million, are fugitives
from their homes within and outside of their country. Destruction of
the infrastructure will require decades to rebuild, if and when peace
comes. Rage at Israel and the U.S. dominate all other emotions in
Lebanon and throughout the Muslim world. New anger is spreading over
every continent.
If the capture of two soldiers, or one in the case of Palestine,
justifies assaults against whole nations and peoples, as Israel has
done, then there is no law, no alternative to war, no hope for peace.
Only a person with a memory no longer than three weeks could believe
the capture of three Israeli soldiers began the present violence. Was
not cross-border violence between Israel and Lebanon commonplace for
decades? Had not Israel kidnapped half the Palestinian cabinet,
destroyed its Foreign Ministry offices and other government buildings
and engaged in summary executions throughout Palestine, the West Bank
and Gaza, since the elections this year of the Hamas majority in the
Palestinian parliament? Was there not a continuum of assaults at will
against the Palestinian people over decades?
We must ask whether the forced withdrawal of Syrian peacekeepers from
Lebanon earlier this year by the U.S., and Israeli political pressure
after the murder of former Lebanon Prime Minister Hariri, were the
preludes of a plan for Israel to assault Lebanon and reoccupy
territories up to the Litani river in Southern Lebanon. While Syrian
forces were present in Lebanon, such an assault did not occur.
And we must ask whether the fierce assault on Lebanon and Palestine
are the prelude to broader actions against Syria and Iran. President
Bush has made it abundantly clear that he would like nothing better
than regime change in Iran and Syria and has attempted to lay
responsibility for violence in Lebanon and Palestine at their door.
As Iraq descends into uncontrollable sectarian war, President Bush
needs new threats to distract the attention of people in the U.S.
from what his Shock and Awe policy has brought for Iraq, for us, and
for the world. War in Lebanon helps divert attention temporarily and
may serve to widen the conflict to include Syria and/or Iran. If not,
there are always Cuba, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela and
others to act against.
As with Iraq, in Lebanon we have seen a war of aggression, the
supreme international crime; an attack on the equal sovereignty of
Lebanon, violating the First Principle of the United Nations Charter;
excessive force of a major magnitude, with Israeli planes striking a
nation defenseless against aerial assaults; indiscriminate bombing;
targeting of civilians; and collective punishment, in which everyone
in Lebanon suffers.
The future of Palestine remains the central issue for peace in the
Middle East. That future is more endangered than at any time since
the Oslo Accords. Everyone in Palestine suffers from the violence
unleashed on its people by Israel’s renewed Roadmap to War.
President George Bush supports every act of Israel, every strike
against Lebanon and Palestine, alone among international heads of
government. And Condoleezza Rice congratulates the Prime Minister of
Lebanon for his courage while telling him there must be further
destruction of his nation and government--an insult to every human
being who cares about peace and understands that the world cannot be
made safe for hypocrisy.
By permitting President Bush to pursue his policy of domination
through threat and lawless force, we risk ever widening international
violence.
I hope to see you at the UN Church Center on August 30th . This
historic meeting will be the first in a series of national and
international mass public gatherings in a Campaign for Accountability
for U.S./Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon. We need your
support, participation, and donations.
I hope that you will lend a hand to this campaign as best you can. We
must persevere until peace prevails.
Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark
P.S. By making a donation, you will support the August 30th event
and the ongoing work of the Campaign of Accountability, including
videos and podcasts, international dissemination of testimony given
at that event and other information giving the truth about U.S./
Israeli war crimes.
How you can help:
Donate - http://www.iacenter.org/acctabilitydonate.shtml
Download Fliers and help get the word out - http://iacenter.org/
images/aug302006.pdf
Endorse - http://www.peoplejudgebush.org/acctabilityendorse.shtml
### AUGUST 30 - Wednesday 6 - 9 pm
United Nations Church Center
777 UN Plaza - 44th St. & 1st Ave, NYC ###
=== 2 ===
http://www.protection-palestine.org/article.php3?id_article=3406
Israël doit être jugé !
publié le samedi 26 août 2006.
Les crimes de guerre commis au Liban doivent être jugés par la Cour
pénale internationale ! Appel lancé par Jean-Claude Lefort (député
français) pour rassembler toutes les individualités et sensibilités
respectueuses des droits humains afin de saisir la Cour pénale
internationale. Nos signatures valent plaintes ...
Communiqué de presse, 16 août 2006
Les crimes de guerre commis au Liban doivent être jugés par la Cour
pénale internationale ! Citoyennes et Citoyens du monde, attachés aux
valeurs universelles qui fondent la civilisation et au respect absolu
de la Charte de Nations unies ainsi qu’à d’autres Conventions
internationales qui énoncent les principes majeurs qui doivent
impérativement être respectés par tous les Etats de la planète sous
peine d’un recul tragique des droits humains, nous exprimons notre
vive condamnation contre les crimes perpétués par l’armée israélienne
à Cana, qui ont entraîné la mort volontaire de dizaines de civils
libanais, en particulier d’enfants et de bébés. Ces crimes,
qualifiables de « crimes de guerre », ne peuvent et ne doivent pas
rester impunis pas plus que d’autres qui se révéleraient. Il en va du
respect de la justice humaine sur cette planète et de l’avenir des
relations internationales.
Citoyennes et Citoyens du monde, nous considérons comme un devoir et
un droit imprescriptibles de traduire les responsables de ces crimes,
en particulier le Premier ministre israélien, M. Ehud Olmert, devant
la Cour pénale internationale absolument qualifiée pour en juger. La
Cour pénale internationale peut être saisie de diverses manières et
non pas seulement sur décision du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. En
particulier, le Procureur de la Cour pénale internationale peut en
décider sur la base et au vu des plaintes déposées qui lui sont
transmises.
Estimant que les autres voies de saisine de la Cour pénale
internationale se révèlent actuellement bouchées du fait d’un blocage
prévisible de la part de certaines grandes puissances et de
l’impossibilité pour le Liban de la faire actuellement, alors qu’il
n’est pas partie du traité instituant cette Cour, nous décidons de
prendre fermement le relais des défaillances des institutions
actuelles et de rassembler, au niveau mondial, toutes celles et tous
ceux qui ont à cœur et veulent défendre la justice et le droit mais
aussi porter un coup d’arrêt aux politiques de force aveugle et
brutale en les sanctionnant.
Cet « Appel de Paris » est lancé à travers le monde. Il se veut
rassembleur de toutes les individualités et sensibilités
respectueuses des droits humains et décidées à apporter leur
contribution à leur pleine réalisation sur terre. Pour que l’avenir
ne répète à l’infini pas ce triste et insupportable passé, qui s’est
déroulé à Cana mais aussi à Gaza, la Cour pénale internationale doit
être saisie et doit juger.
Nos signatures valent plaintes. Elles seront déposées et transmises
au Procureur de la Cour dès que leur nombre sera significatif pour
que notre démarche citoyenne soit efficace.
Il y a urgence. Sans attendre nous décidons de former une chaîne
humaine sur les cinq continents pour exiger justice et réparation.
Justice et droit pour le Proche-Orient !
P. S : cet Appel sera traduit en 10 langues. Il est suggéré de le
reproduire et de le faire circuler le plus largement possible sous
forme papier ou électronique. Les signatures, avec les noms, prénoms,
coordonnées, titres de chaque signataire et le pays d’origine de
chacune et chacun sont nécessaires.
Elles doivent être rassemblées à l’adresse électronique suivante
solidariteliban@...
Un site Internet global sera ouvert et porté à la connaissance de
tous. Des sites nationaux peuvent aussi voir le jour. Chacun
s’organisera comme il souhaitera. Un maximum d’initiatives
individuelles ou collectives s’impose pour aboutir.
Jean Claude Lefort (Député français)