Elsewhere Today (401)
Aljazeera:
Pope apologises for Islam remarks
Saturday 16 September 2006, 18:34 Makka Time, 15:34 GMT
Pope Benedict has said he is sorry for offending Muslims in a speech this week in which he implicitly linked Islam and violence.
The Vatican issued a statement on Saturday saying the pope hoped Muslims would understand the "true sense" of his words.
The statement, issued by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said the pope was "extremely upset" that parts of his speech "were able to sound offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers".
Bertone added that the comments, which led to protests across the globe, had been interpreted in a way "that does not at all correspond to his intentions".
"The pope is unequivocally in favour of dialogue between religions and cultures," he said.
Apology rejected
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, however, said the pope's apology did not go far enough.
"We want a personal apology [from the pope]. We feel that he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," Mohammed Habib, the deputy leader of the organisation, said.
"Has he presented a personal apology for statements by which he clearly is convinced? No," he said.
On Saturday Morocco also recalled its ambassador to the Vatican following the pope's "offensive remarks".
The pope made remarks in a speech on Tuesday at a German university, in which he quoted from a medieval text which said "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
The comments sparked angry protests from the Muslim community.
Demonstrations against the pope were witnessed in the Palestinian territories, Pakistan, India, Egypt and elsewhere.
On Friday thousands marched in the Gaza Strip on Friday waving the green flags of Hamas and chanting praises to "God and his prophet".
Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, criticised the pope's comments, saying: "These remarks go against the truth and touch the heart of our faith".
Two churches in the West Bank and several Christian institutions in Gaza were bombed, causing damage but no casualties.
'Revenge' calls
Leading politicians and several prominent Christian and Muslim leaders also criticised the remarks.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, called on Saturday for the pope to apologise for his "unfortunate, ugly" remarks on Islam.
The Iraqi government has also called for calm after a church in Basra was reportedly attacked.
Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin, a hardline cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist group the Islamic Courts Group, called for Muslims to hunt down and kill the pope for his remarks.
"We call on all Islamic communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," he was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DF1C168D-EA5D-46A2-8138-A435FF186E30.htm
allAfrica:
As Casamance Fighting Continues, Displaced Bed in
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks NEWS
September 15, 2006
Sindian
Thousands of people who have fled fighting between the Senegal army and pro-independence rebels in Senegal's southern Casamance region are bedding in for a long wait to go home.
Fighting in the region started on 16 August, when the Senegalese army started moving north from a base at Sindian in Casamance, locals say. After an initial week of heavy fighting there was a lull until 24 August when more fighting was heard.
Last week, villagers and police in villages IRIN visited in The Gambia, 500 metres from the Senegalese border, reported hearing heavy artillery fire, automatic weapon fire, and explosions in Casamance on a daily basis, and occasionally seeing armed men and Senegal army tanks moving in close to their villages.
And on Tuesday, military sources confirmed an anti-tank mine laid in Boulayor, 80km north of the regional capital Ziguinchor, close to the border with The Gambia, killed a Senegalese soldier.
Senior Senegalese army sources have also confirmed several other skirmishes this week at towns along the border, and at Bignona, just 30km north of Ziguinchor.
There have been no reports of fighting spilling into The Gambia, although people in Siwol village, a small settlement close to the border, said they were forced to flee after several stray bullet shot through the brittle mud walls of their homes last week.
However, surveying by the Gambian Red Cross has identified more than 5,000 Senegalese who have fled into the tiny country since mid-August. Aid agencies in Ziguinchor estimate there may be an additional 10,000 internally displaced in Casamance.
REMNANTS OF INDEPENDENCE
The target of the Senegal government's attacks, according to the deputy governor of Casamance, is a group of pro-independence fighters led by a reclusive rebel leader, Salif Sadio.
"The rebels from the south came to the frontier with The Gambia, so now the Senegalese state is taking its prerogative to secure the zone," he said. "We have redeployed the army there to assure the security of the population."
Sadio's group is one of two wings of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), a pro-independence movement that has been pitched against the Senegalese government since 1982.
Rebels first took up arms because they said the government failed to honour a post-independence agreement to give the region independence in the 1970s, and had neglected the region relative to the rest of the country.
The second wing of the movement, led by another rarely-seen leader, Magne Dieme, signed a peace accord with the Senegal government in December 2004.
Since then, sporadic fighting between the two MFDC wings has been reported throughout Casamance.
According to the region's prefet, Ousmane Ly, based in Sindian, the two factions have been fighting for control of strategic bases in the northern area. Sadio's movement is based directly north of Ziguinchor, while Dieme is believed to be further west.
Locals in Sindian told IRIN that the inter-factional fighting had had little impact on their daily lives. "The fighting between the two groups was not especially concerning because they keep their bases far away from villages," said Abdoulaye Gassama, head of the town school in Sindian.
"The two groups said they were fighting for control of land and bases but told the population 'you can stay here, this is between us," he said. "People heard the fighting but never saw it."
Fears among villagers built up only after the Senegalese came in. Gassana said that this is when people started fleeing their homes.
"People are scared now that all the peace processes are finished. They have gone from here because they are scared the army will come to their villages and accuse them of being rebels and kill them or put them in prison," he added.
HUMANITARIAN FALLOUT
Mamadou Kone, president of Agada, a local NGO in Ziguinchor, estimates there are 35,000 people living in the zone currently affected by fighting, and that half of these might have been displaced since mid-August.
"It's the people who suffer the most because this is the season when cultivation happens, and if there is fighting people will not be able to bring in their harvests," Kone said.
Casamance is rich in cashew nuts, rice and palm oil, but most of its people continue to rely on subsistence agriculture to live.
According to other local assessments - often little more than rough estimates of villages and numbers, drawn on scraps of paper and the back of cigarette packets - at least 15,000 people have fled their homes since mid-August.
Of those, around 5,000 are believed to have spent some time in The Gambia, although many of the villages are close enough to the Casamance for villagers to cross over for the day to tend to their animals and fields, before slipping back across the border for a safe night's sleep.
All the new arrivals are either staying with relatives and friends, or squatting in schools and abandoned buildings. Their presence has more than doubled the size of many Gambian villages, according to the Red Cross figures, stretching health facilities, food, and shelter.
Humanitarian aid is being organized in The Gambia. A consignment of non-food items is on the way to the border, said the UN's refugee agency UNHCR.
UNICEF, the UN's children's agency, is planning to dig latrines and sanitation facilities for the overcrowded villages, and is examining schooling needs, while the World Health Organisation is dealing with vaccinations.
But providing assistance to the 10,000 displaced in Casamance has been impeded by the deteriorating security situation in the region, aid officials said.
On 1 September, a Red Cross (ICRC) car struck a mine in Tandine, around 100km northeast of Ziguinchor, and outside the current conflict area. The explosion killed one international ICRC staff member and wounded three others.
The UN has since moved Casamance to an elevated security level and restricted the movement of aid agency vehicles throughout the region.
THINK TWICE BEFORE RETURN
A senior army officer in Ziguinchor, who asked not to be named because he was speaking without authorisation, confirmed the campaign would continue for at least four months.
According to him, the front could even be extended to include attacks on the second rebel group led by Dieme, or further east if Sadio's faction moves in that direction. "We are the military and we follow the orders of the state authorities. If we are asked to go after Dieme we will do that," he said.
Possibly raising the spectre that the rebels are rearming, news agencies have reported officials in Guinea Bissau, south of Casamance, as saying they intercepted a cargo of machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, anti-tank mines, ammunition and explosives bound for rebels in southern Senegal, last week.
Aid agency officials in Ziguinchor said it is extremely unlikely the displaced villagers will return to their homes until the military campaign is over.
"We have the feeling that the army will not pull back any time soon as it thinks the space would immediately be filled with rebels again," a senior official said. "Refugees and displaced will think twice before returning while they are there, and this raises longer term feeding and shelter concerns."
This concern was echoed by Omar Kolley, the head of a 9 person family IRIN met in the tiny village Kang Jabina, one kilometre inside The Gambia. Having abandoned the family's groundnut, cassava and maize fields in Casamance, the family is scraping by on handouts from relatives and cutting firewood to sell for pennies.
But "until things calm down, we are not going back," Kolley said with a shrug, gazing at the lush forest where his home village is, and he thinks the army and rebels are lying in wait. "If we go back, we will be accused of associating with the rebels, and then who knows..."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Copyright © 2006 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
http://allafrica.com/stories/200609150872.html
allAfrica:
The Impossible Task of Pricing Misery
By Walter Kudzodzi, Accra
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) INTERVIEW
September 15, 2006
For victims of human rights abuse in Ghana, the long wait for some form of restitution may finally be at an end. This follows indications that government will soon begin disbursing about 1.5 million dollars to people identified by the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) as requiring compensation.
The NRC was set up by parliament in 2001 to conduct hearings into abuses perpetrated between independence in 1957, and January 1993 - when lasting democratic rule was restored to the West African country.
This tumultuous period spanned five military regimes, including two headed by Jerry Rawlings. His second time in office as a military leader (1981-1992) is viewed by some as an especially bleak stretch in Ghana's history, characterised by executions, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and confiscation of property.
The NRC's mandate focused on investigating and recording abuses; it was also asked to make recommendations for redress to victims, and for improvement of public institutions to prevent a recurrence of rights abuses.
Ghana's Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), a think-tank dedicated to the promotion of good governance, has been tracking the country's reconciliation process. To find out more about the latest developments with this process, IPS sat down with two representatives of the organisation, based in the capital of Accra: Kojo Pumpuni Asante, governance and legal policy officer - and Daniel Armah-Attoh, the CDD's research programme officer.
An Aug. 24 report in the 'Daily Graphic' (a state-owned newspaper) indicates that recommendations by the NRC for rights abuse victims to be compensated are finally going to be implemented this month. However, this comes about two years after the NRC wrapped up its work, and more than eight months after the deadline government reportedly gave itself for getting a compensation fund up-and-running. Why the delays in bringing compensation to abuse victims?
The National Reconciliation Commission completed its hearings in July 2004 and submitted its final report with recommendations in October 2004. The government responded in April 2005, accepting the recommendation to - among other things - establish a 'Reparation and Rehabilitation Fund' for victims of abuse. The government then decided to use the current 2006 national budget to settle the reparations.
So much work has gone into implementation of the NRC recommendations over the past two years. For instance, concerning the issue of reparations, the Ministry of Finance had to set up a resource fund for the payment of these reparations, while the interior ministry is structuring a system for how the payments should be effected so that they go to the rightful beneficiaries rather than into the wrong hands.
Yes, it has been a long period. But it is better to put the right structures in place before beginning the payments, otherwise you will have a bigger problem on your hands.
Is the amount of some 1.5 million dollars sufficient for what needs to be done? Is government in a position to give more money?
Emphasis ought to be made here on the fact that it was the National Reconciliation Commission and not the government that recommended the amount of 13.5 billion cedis (about 1.5 million dollars). This recommendation was based on the series of interviews it had with the victims of human rights abuses.
If the country had the resources to pay a higher amount of money for reparations, we're sure it would be done. On the other hand, looking at the economic problems confronting the country, we do not think the figure is on the low side.
There is one basic issue we ought to consider as a nation. Are we paying for the suffering that people went through, or are we giving them a symbolic payment to show that the nation shares in the pain and grief that some of its citizens went through during a period in the country's turbulent past?
If this (the latter) premise is accepted, then we believe that education and sensitisation can solve the problem of over-expectation for the amount of reparations to be paid. We have to let people know that we are not paying 100 percent for all the abuses and suffering that victims of human rights abuses went through - and that no amount of money, no matter how large, can really make up for the experiences that some of these people went through.
Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, the executive director of the CDD, was quoted as saying last year that a number of the surviving perpetrators of violations are wealthy, and should be involved in compensation for victims. As appealing as this suggestion may appear to some, is it at all feasible?
We do not recall this statement but let's look at it theoretically from the viewpoint of transitional justice.
Within Ghana's reconciliation process, this was a big issue. A lot of the victims of the human rights abuses came from the 1979 and 1981-1988 periods when the Rawlings-led AFRC (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council) and PNDC (People's National Defence Council) ruled Ghana. These two administrations evolved into the National Democratic Congress, which ruled Ghana successively from 1992 to 2000 and is currently the biggest opposition party in the country.
We are all aware of the acrimony that erupted in setting up the terms of reference and scope of the National Reconciliation Commission. So in that sense, any attempt to follow prosecutions or ask them (rights abusers) to pay compensation could actually divide the country instead of reconciling it.
Nonetheless, if there was some effort to get perpetrators to pay, who should head the list of those liable for compensation?
Most of the cases handled during the NRC sittings had to do with the AFRC and PNDC, which have now metamorphosed into a major political party. Any attempt to delve into names would be misconstrued as witch-hunting.
Still concerning perpetrators of the abuses, some were military personnel who were indemnified from prosecution by the 1992 constitution. Has this aspect of the constitution undermined the work of the NRC, do you think? After all, it could be argued that reconciliation for victims in the absence of justice for perpetrators is unattainable.
The NRC's mandate did not cover prosecutions and that is the form Ghana's reconciliation process took.
Yes, not everybody who has been victimised will be satisfied with the process. Perhaps in ten years time, we might have to go through another reconciliation process to assess whether the NRC recommendations have been addressed adequately.
Is there, or has there been, talk of altering the constitution to make those accused of violations liable for prosecution?
Liberia is now asking for the prosecution of perpetrators instead of simply walking the reconciliation path. Sierra Leone went the prosecution way.
The question is, does that achieve what reconciliation aims to achieve? Do we think we will achieve what we want to achieve by pursuing persecutions? In our opinion, no, and we think the government also took that into consideration - so that instead of having something in the form of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (which made amnesty for a perpetrator contingent on full disclosure of abuse), we will be better having (a process of) more limited scope.
As in Sierra Leone, the prosecution process can be very expensive and experience delays in finding and trying perpetrators. This can be painful for the victims, and if the perpetrators are eventually acquitted, what are you going to do? It will still be seen as an injustice to the victim. That person might suffer twice.
It appears that certain perpetrators did not provide a full account of their alleged misdeeds - notably in the case involving the 1982 murder of three judges and a retired army major. Is there any hope, now, that the truth of these events will ever be known?
We hope that we will get to know the real facts about the murder of the three judges and the retired army major, and who was responsible for it. Some people were arrested and punished for the murders, notably Amartey Kwei - who led the operation - and was a member of the governing council in the Rawlings PNDC, a position equivalent to that of cabinet minister. He was executed for his crime. But for the victims, it is not all who were responsible who have been punished.
Overall, how would you rate the effect that the NRC has had on Ghanaian society?
Personally, we think the NRC has really helped the nation. Also, based on CDD survey findings, even the victims acknowledged that the NRC did a lot for them. Most of them talked of having a sense of relief after they had made their presentations to the commission. Others felt reconciled, while others also said that having been given a platform to tell their story, they did not expect to receive any form of compensation from the government.
The issue now is what do we do after the NRC has completed its job? This is of greatest concern to us. If we do not see to the implementation of the NRC recommendations in the right way, it can rather create different problems.
Overall, it was not an exercise in futility. If we can implement even half of the NRC recommendations, Ghana will end up being a better nation than before.
Copyright © 2006 Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
http://allafrica.com/stories/200609150871.html
Guardian:
Papal fallibility
Leader
Saturday September 16, 2006
The Pope perhaps did not imagine that an erudite lecture delivered to the university where he once taught that included a reference to a dialogue between a 600-year-old Byzantine emperor and a Persian Muslim would become the latest spark to reignite the tension between Islam and Christianity. But even if Benedict XVI, despite his reputation for meticulous preparation, had failed to appreciate the impact of his thoughts, his advisers should have. Urbane and intellectual as he is said to have been, Manuel II Palaeologus (1350-1425) was hardly an impartial observer of Islam. As a boy, he had been held prisoner by the Turks, and his dialogues took place as his inheritance lay in jeopardy to the Ottoman empire, and his capital under siege. No academic impartiality lay behind the assertion, repeated by the Pope in his lecture in Regensburg earlier this week, that all that was new in Muhammad's thought was "evil and inhuman", citing conversion under threat of the sword as an example. The Pope used this to kick off a discussion of God and reason rather as a parish priest might casually preface his Sunday homily with a reference to the storyline of EastEnders. It is unsurprising that it caused offence.
There might have been less protest had Benedict a clearer record in favour of dialogue with Islam. As a cardinal in the Holy See, he was known to be sceptical of John Paul II's pursuit of conversation. One of his earliest decisions as pope was to move archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, one of the Catholic Church's leading experts on Islam, and head of its council on interreligious dialogue, away from the centre of influence in Rome, and send him to Egypt as papal nuncio. Benedict has spoken publicly of Christianity as the cornerstone of Europe and against the admission of Turkey into the EU. But he has also accepted an invitation from Turkey's president to make the first-ever papal visit in November. That visit, which could have been a symbol of his commitment to the reconciliation and respect between religions of which he has also spoken, may now be at risk. The Pope has lived a cloistered life, rarely exposed to the unholy nuances of world politics. He needs advisers around him who are. However, the Vatican has apologised. That should be enough for what was almost certainly nothing more than an ill-judged remark. For there is a second strand to this argument. There cannot be dialogue without rigor and openness. The Muslim world should also take pains to be thoughtful in its response, and perhaps less quick to take offence.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1873903,00.html
Guardian: After a quiet first year as pontiff,
God's Rottweiler shows his teeth
Pope believes his church should take tougher line on Islam
John Hooper in Rome
Saturday September 16, 2006
The anniversary of Pope Benedict's election in the spring focused a question that had been forming in the minds of Vatican-watchers throughout his first 12 months: "What happened to God's Rottweiler?"
As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican ministry that once ran the Inquisition - Joseph Ratzinger had done a fine job for Pope John Paul of intimidating the thinkers of the Roman Catholic church into sullen conformity.
But since he emerged on to the balcony of St Peter's basilica after his election in April 2005, the guard dog seemed to have become a pussycat - a benign old gent with a harmless taste for anachronistic headgear and a habit of boring his audiences with abstruse theological discourse.
The German commentator Wolfgang Cooper had cautioned before Benedict's election that the new Pope was an academic who "prefers intellectual discussions". And, indeed, by the time the papal jet touched down near Munich last Saturday, Karol Wojtyla's snappy soundbites were no more than a fond recollection in the collective memory of the Vatican press corps.
On the day he uttered the phrases that have prompted such uproar in the Muslim world, Pope Benedict celebrated an open-air mass. How did he try to reach out to the crowd? Initially, by talking about the medieval theological compendiums known as summae - not exactly a topic of burning currency in pious, rural southern Germany.
It is tempting to see the Pope's controversial reference to a 14th century Byzantine emperor in the same light - as the gaffe of an other-wordly intellectual who does not stop to think that his words are going to be seized on by journalists.
However, he more or less apologised in advance for the "startling brusqueness" of the emperor's remark that Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things. That suggests he was fully aware of the impact it could make.
What is more, it is clear from the passage that followed that the Pope fully supports, if not the emperor's language, then certainly his underlying contention - that holy war is at odds with reason.
There are two further motives for thinking Benedict is ready to upset the believers in other faiths rather than shrink from what he believes needs to be said (or not said).
First, he has done it before. At Auschwitz, in May, he appalled many Jews by passing up what they saw as a historic opportunity for a German pope to apologise for the Roman Catholic church's conduct in the second world war. The second factor is that Pope Benedict has signalled clearly that he favours a tougher line in his church's dealings with Islam.
The key word in the Vatican now is "reciprocity". The leadership of the Roman Catholic church is increasingly of the opinion that a meaningful dialogue with the Muslim world is not possible while Christians are denied religious freedom in Muslim states.
One of the Pope's earliest personnel moves was to send Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the Vatican's leading expert on Islam, to Cairo as the Holy See's envoy to the Arab League. The department he left behind, the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, has been absorbed into the Vatican's "culture ministry".
That reshuffle is one of several major changes effected by Pope Benedict. With what, for the Vatican, is uncharacteristic haste, he has put new men in several top jobs including the secretariat of state. He has set a new agenda for the Vatican whose new concerns include not only relations with the Islamic world but also a redoubled attempt to heal the breach with Orthodox Christianity and a drive to assert the role of God in the processes of creation and evolution.
At the same time - and in contrast to the approach of his predecessor - Benedict has begun to deliver on his pledge to drive the "filth" from the church. In May, in a singularly public and humiliating manner, he disciplined one of the church's most influential priests, the head of the Legionnaires of Christ movement, who had been accused of sexual abuse.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873926,00.html
Guardian:
The unmistakable whiff of Christian triumphalism
This was no casual slip. Beneath his scholarly rhetoric, the Pope's logic seemed to be that Islam is dangerous and godless
Giles Fraser
Saturday September 16, 2006
John Paul II's pontificate was largely defined by his relationship with a global conflict between west and east. Last Tuesday evening, in a badly judged speech before a home crowd of Bavarian academics, Benedict XVI may well have set the parameters of his own period as Pope, pitching himself into a debate over Islam that has prompted outrage throughout the Muslim world.
"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." These were not the Pope's words, but those of an obscure Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos, back in the 14th century. And yes, the Pope did make it clear he was offering a quotation. Even so, these words fell from the lips of the spiritual leader of a billion Christians without anything like enough qualification. There was no phrase distancing himself from the claim that Muhammad was responsible for evil. It's little surprise, therefore, that the remarks have roused anger and demands for a personal apology.
Christopher Tyerman's latest book on the Crusades, God's War, argues persuasively that analogies between the Crusades and the present global conflict are often overdrawn and historically dubious. That may be so. But it's an argument that doesn't cut much ice with millions of Muslims. After all, it was one of Benedict's predecessors, Urban II, who first summoned a Christian jihad against Islam. And it's born-again Christians who have been at the forefront of support for the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel, and the whole "reorganisation" of the Middle East - a catastrophe in which many thousands of Muslims have lost their lives.
Any comments by a Christian leader that touch upon this wound are bound to be interpreted from every possible angle. The Pope must have known this. If millions of Muslims were offended by the scribblings of a few unknown Danish cartoonists, it's pretty obvious the enormous potential for harm that might flow from a few ill-judged comments by the vicar of Rome.
Furthermore, the Pope has form on all of this. Just a few months before he was elected, he spoke out against Muslim Turkey joining the EU. Christian Europe must be defended, he argued. It didn't go down well at the time with Muslim leaders. But what makes his comments from Bavaria doubly insensitive is that Munich and its surrounding towns are home to thousands of Gastarbeiter, many from Turkey, who are often badly treated by local Germans and frequently subjected to racism. It won't be lost on them that Manuel II ran his Christian empire from what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul. And reference to that time, in circumstances such as these, has the unmistakable whiff of Christian triumphalism.
For the most part, the Pope's address was a scholarly exercise that sought to challenge the idea that rationality is intrinsically and necessarily secular. We must "overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable", he insisted. Most Christians would agree. But even here there was a sharp criticism of Islam buried beneath the scholarly rhetoric. For the Pope argued that in Muslim teaching, because "God is absolutely transcendent", He is "not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality". In other words, there is no reasoning in or with Islam. Which, surely, is another way of the Pope saying how dangerous he thinks Islam is.
This is why the Pope's remarks look rather more than just a slip or a casual mistake. The speech concludes with a further reference to the views of the Byzantine emperor: " 'Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God,' said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures."
Blog sites have been buzzing with the thought that the Pope may have the president of Iran in mind when he speaks of Manuel's Persian interlocutor. But we don't need to speculate upon a contemporary casting for this speech to recognise its dangers. For in claiming that Islam may be beyond reason, and then to claim that to act without reason is to act contrary to the will of God, is pretty close to the assertion that this religion is godless. And that's not how different faiths ought to speak to each other - especially when we all have each other's blood on our hands.
As it is written: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?"
· Dr Giles Fraser is the vicar of Putney and a lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford
giles.fraser@btinternet.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1873758,00.html
Guardian: Better paid, better armed,
better connected - Taliban rise again
Kandahar under threat, war raging in two provinces and an isolated president. So what went wrong?
Declan Walsh in Ghazni
Saturday September 16, 2006
Reedi Gul is probably dead now. Two weeks ago masked gunmen abducted the 24-year-old on a lonely mountain road in central Afghanistan. The next day his father, Saleh Gul, received a phone call, and realised he was the real target.
"I am an Afghan Muslim Talib," the voice announced. "If you want to see your son alive, listen carefully."
Three weeks earlier Saleh Gul had been appointed governor of an insurgent-infested district in Ghazni province. The Taliban demanded he quit his job, pay a ransom, attack US forces and assassinate local officials.
Mr Gul paid $2,000 and resigned his position, but refused to kill. "I am not a terrorist," he barked down the phone. So the Taliban added an impossible demand: the freedom of an imprisoned commander.
Last Sunday their deadline passed. "Still no news," the anguished father said four days later. "I think they have killed him by now." Mr Gul's face was lined with worry but his voice rang with anger. "I had warned the government this might happen. I told them Taliban was taking over. Why can't they stop them?"
Brazenness
That question is resounding across Afghanistan following a summer of chaos. In the south war has gripped Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where British and Canadian troops are stationed. In the past fortnight Nato has launched a blistering offensive, killing more than 500 Taliban, to stave off an attack on Kandahar city - a previously unthinkable notion.
Elsewhere, suicide bombers are striking with Baghdad-like brazenness. In the boldest attack yet, last week two American soldiers and 14 Afghans were shredded by a huge blast outside the US embassy in Kabul, one of the country's most tightly guarded areas.
Opium cultivation has soared. This year Afghanistan will produce more heroin than western addicts can consume. The main hub of cultivation is British-controlled Helmand. Since August 1 Britain and Canada have each lost 11 soldiers in combat, a high toll for what was originally presented as a peacekeeping mission.
It was not meant to be like this. When American troops started to flounder in Iraq after 2003 President George Bush lauded Afghanistan as a major victory. When presidential and parliamentary elections passed peacefully, his generals wrote the insurgency off. "The Taliban is a force in decline," declared Major General Eric Olson 18 months ago.
Today, to many observers those words look foolish. While northern and western Afghanistan remain stable, President Hamid Karzai is isolated and unpopular. Comparisons of the southern war with Vietnam are no longer considered outlandish. And dismayed western diplomats - the architects of reconstruction - are watching their plans go up in smoke. "Nobody saw this coming. It's pretty dire," admitted one official in Kabul.
No single factor explains the slide. But some answers can be found in Ghazni, a central province considered secure until earlier this year. Now it is on the frontline of the Taliban advance, just a two-hour drive from Kabul.
In the past two months the Taliban has swept across the southern half of the province with kidnappings, assassinations and gun battles. American officials believe Andar district, a few miles from their base in Ghazni town, is the Taliban hub for four surrounding provinces. This week they launched a drive in Andar, searching houses and raking buildings with helicopter gunship fire into a Taliban compound. At least 35 people died including a mother and two children.
"We've warned people they may see soldiers shooting in their villages. I tell them this is the price of peace and freedom," said US commander Lieutenant Colonel Steven Gilbert.
Travel along the Kabul-Kandahar highway that slices through Ghazni - once a symbol of western reconstruction - has become a high-stakes game of power. The Taliban sporadically mount checkpoints, frisking Afghans for ID cards, phone numbers or any other sign of a link to the government or foreign organisations. Those caught are beaten, kidnapped or killed. Foreigners travel south by plane, passing high over the road they once boasted about.
In the surrounding villages people are frightened and angry. In Qala Bagh district bands of 20 to 30 fighters descend at night. They demand food, shelter or a son to join the fighting, said Maulvi Aladat, the new district chief. A judge, a school principal and the local director of education have been assassinated in the past two months. The two girls' schools are closed.
The government offers scant protection. Ghazni's untrained police are outnumbered and outgunned. Huddled inside poorly protected compounds with few radios or vehicles, they are little match for large Taliban squads armed with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. The US-trained Afghan army is curiously absent. Ghazni has just 280 soldiers, according to the governor, Sher Alam Ibrahimi. Although on paper the army has 35,000 soldiers, desertion rates are believed to be high.
Murky background
After his cousin was abducted by the Taliban, Yar Muhammad appealed to the provincial and national authorities for help. None came. Days later the body of his cousin - an education department official who offended by teaching girls - was discovered on a stretch of desert. "The government did absolutely nothing. They didn't even help to find the body," he said bitterly.
Local government is plagued by corruption and weak leadership. Ibrahimi, a former warlord, seems an unlikely candidate for governor with his grindingly slow speech and murky background that includes allegations of war crimes. Many believe Mr Karzai appointed him for his links to a more powerful warlord now in parliament.
Disillusionment with the president, who once promised so much, is high. "We are like a herd with no shepherd," said one elder. In desperation, his government has doubled the number of police through the use of arbikays - untrained tribal fighters paid directly by the governor. They are a mixed blessing. On Wednesday Dawlat Khan, one of the arbikay commanders, stormed into the police chief's office in Ghazni, bursting with anger. "The Taliban attacked my house. My wife and children were inside. What sort of government do we have that cannot protect us!" he yelled.
Mr Khan typifies the compromises Mr Karzai has had to make to maintain law and order. A life-long warrior with a fierce and unsmiling face, he has a reputation for ruthlessness and brutality. Lt Col Gilbert said Mr Khan was "covered in blood" the first time they met. But he is a fierce foe of the Taliban, standing to fight when trained policemen scurry away. "In an environment where peace is the norm, he wouldn't have a place," Lt Col Gilbert said. "But after 30 years of war, famine and fighting, you don't have the luxury of saying I don't want these hard core guys."
Poverty also fuels the fighting. Several elders said the Taliban was offering upwards of 20,000 rupees (£180) a month to local unemployed men. Western officials are beginning to scrutinise the source of the funds.
Mr Khan told the Guardian the militants have bigger guns and more fighters. They have powerful friends. Several times he had collared Taliban fighters only to discover days later they had been released following a call from a powerful politician or influential tribal leader. They also have surprising amounts of money.
Last year, he said, he captured two insurgents, "one of them alive". Mr Khan asked him why he was fighting. The man replied: "You are being paid 5,000 Afghanis (£54). I am making 20,000 Pakistani rupees. So now you tell me why you are fighting."
This year the Taliban formed an alliance with drug kingpins, offering to protect poppy farmers and smugglers in exchange for a cut of the $3bn trade. But diplomats believe most funding comes from fundamentalist sympathisers in Pakistan and the Middle East. Some believe governments may be also involved.
"I would be shocked if the Saudi intelligence service and the Kuwaitis were not trying to find ways to get money to the Taliban," said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA agent with 20 years' experience in the region.
Many Afghans are bewildered by the west's failure to bring the fight to the heart of the problem - neighbouring Pakistan. Maulvi Aladat pointed to the glowing horizon. "It is as clear as the sun is setting," he said. "Everyone knows where they are trained and funded, where the suicide bombers come from. Everyone knows."
Military officers and diplomats also say Pakistan's tribal belt is the engine room of the insurgency. From its remote mountain sanctuaries along the border the Taliban has re-emerged from the shadows as a potent force. Two shuras, or tribal councils, coordinate the attacks - one in the western city of Quetta, the other in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal area that is also a crucible of al-Qaida terrorism.
In an interview published yesterday, a senior Dutch officer estimated that 40% of Taliban fighters come "straight from Pakistan". The steady flow meant that Nato operations, despite their successes, were "like trying to mop with the tap still open", said Colonel Arie Vermeij.
Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, said that after being driven into Pakistan's tribal areas in late 2001 the Taliban "reconstituted their command structure, recruitment networks, and support bases ... while Afghans waited in vain for the major reconstruction effort they expected to build their state and improve their lives".
Sincerity
Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said closing down the Pakistani staging areas was vital. "This conflict will never be more than contained without stamping on the staging posts and sanctuaries in Pakistan."
Western officials are also divided about the sincerity of Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, in combating the Taliban. In Kabul last week he offered his help in defeating the Taliban, later describing them as a "bigger threat than al-Qaida". But that was undermined by a deal with tribal militants in Waziristan. In return for Pakistan soldiers withdrawing to base, the pro-Taliban militants undertook to stop harbouring foreign fighters and to halt cross-border infiltration. Within hours of the deal being inked, some tribal leaders claimed there had never been any foreigners in their area.
Last Sunday - two days after Mr Musharraf left Kabul - a man wearing an explosive vest hurled himself at a vehicle containing Abdul Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Pakita province. The killer is believed to have come from Waziristan.
Friends said Mr Taniwal, a university professor who returned from Australia to serve his country on pay of $200 a month, was the sort of man Afghanistan needs. He had argued for reconciliation with the Taliban and a resolution of tensions with Pakistan. He was a good man among rogues. "Many governors are former commanders involved in drug trafficking, land grabbing and corruption. Why did they kill this one? Because he was completely clean and a wise man of peace," said Mr Rubin. "It is a big blow against peace."
Drug boom
Shutting down the Pakistani sanctuaries would not necessarily end the insurgency. This year the Taliban's strength has been nourished by a new source: heroin. After spurning the opium trade as un-Islamic and immoral, this year the Taliban leadership reversed its position and allied with drug smugglers. The 59% surge in opium production to an unprecedented 6,100 tonnes will swell the Taliban war chest. "This is going to put a lot more money into the pockets of the insurgency," said one drug official.
More ominously, the drugs boom feeds cynicism about the Karzai government. "You can't tell poor farmers not to grow drugs and then you have civil servants driving a luxury car and living in a huge house," said Ms Nathan.
Dismay about the drugs epidemic has given way to arguments about how to tackle it. US and European military commanders, particularly the British, insist their troops should not get directly involved in fighting the trade. This week the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, called on them to wade in. "Counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics efforts must reinforce each other so as to stop the vicious circle of drugs funding terrorists and terrorists protecting drug traffickers," he said, calling on Nato to destroy heroin labs, disband drug bazaars, attack convoys and arrest smugglers.
The speed and scale of this summer's violence has disoriented both Afghans and foreigners. In the south outlandish theories that the US is covertly supporting the Taliban, or that British troops have come to avenge colonial-era defeats, are common.
The underlying factors - cross-border sanctuaries, corrupt governance and drugs - have been in place for years. But what changed is the aggressive Nato deployment. After a difficult start, Nato has scored some successes. With more than 500 Taliban killed in Panjwayi, the Taliban stronghold west of Kandahar, soon the area will be cleared of insurgents, said the British commander, Lieutenant General David Richards. With luck, Nato hopes it will soon revert to its original goal, facilitating aid projects and strengthening the Karzai government.
But others question whether an insurgency can be defeated by death tolls alone. The only durable solution is to talk to the Taliban, said Wadir Safi of the University of Kabul. "Without negotiation this could go on for decades. The government must accept the Taliban as partners in these areas. You can't simply kill them all."
Afghans have a long history of ejecting foreign armies. The good news for Nato is that most still believe the military visitors are a force for good. "People are tired of fighting. Nobody wants to go back to that," said one official in Ghazni, who requested anonymity. "But if the people are disappointed much more, they could unite against the foreign forces. History could repeat itself."
Chronology: From victory to bloody stalemate in five years
2001
March Taliban blow up giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan
September 11 World Trade Centre attack, New York
October US and the UK start air strikes against Afghanistan after Taliban refuse to hand over Osama bin Laden
November Opposition forces seize Mazar-e Sharif and within days march into Kabul and other key cities
December 5 Afghan groups agree deal for interim government and Taliban give up last stronghold of Kandahar
December 22 Hamid Karzai sworn in as head of an interim government
2002
January First contingent of International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) peacekeepers in place
June Loya Jirga, or grand council, elects Hamid Karzai as interim head of state
December President Karzai signs deal to build gas pipeline through Afghanistan, carrying Turkmen gas to Pakistan
2003
August Nato takes over security in Kabul
March Afghanistan secures $8.2bn (£4.5bn) in aid over three years
September Rocket fired at helicopter carrying President Karzai misses
2004
October and November Hamid Karzai declared the winner of presidential elections, with 55% of the vote. He is sworn in, amid tight security, in December
2005
September First parliamentary and provincial elections
December New parliament holds inaugural session
2006
January 4 UK government announces deployment of 3,400 British troops to Helmand province
January 15 Suicide bomber targets Canadian Nato troops in Kandahar, killing a Canadian diplomat and two Afghans
January 16 Two attacks in Kandahar province kill 24 people
March 28 An American and a Canadian soldier are killed in fighting with militants at a base in Helmand province. More than 220 US troops have died in the conflict so far
April 22 Four Canadian soldiers are killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar
June 21 Four US soldiers killed fighting Taliban insurgents in Nuristan province
July 1 Two British soldiers with the 3rd Para Battlegroup are killed by a rocket-propelled grenade in Helmand province
July 22 Eight people, including two Canadian soldiers, are killed in a double suicide attack in Kandahar
August 1 Three UK soldiers killed after an ambush in Helmand the day after Nato forces take over from US troops
August 3 Four Nato soldiers, all Canadian, killed in southern Afghanistan and 21 civilians killed in a suicide car bombing in Kandahar province
August 6 Private Andrew Barrie Cutts of the Royal Logistic Corps killed in Musa Qualeh in northern Helmand
August 11 Suicide car bomber kills a Canadian soldier in the south
August 13 Three US soldiers killed in heavy fighting with Taliban guerrillas close to the border with Pakistan
August 20 One UK soldier and four Americans killed in fighting in the south
August 26 Two French special forces soldiers killed in an insurgent ambush
August 28 Suicide bomb in Helmand province kills 17
September 1 Ranger Anare Draiva of 1 Royal Irish Regiment, who was Fijian, dies in Helmand
September 2 Fourteen UK armed personnel die in a Nato aircraft crash near Kandahar
September 3 Nato and Afghan forces kills dozens of Taliban fighters in an air and ground offensive in the south
September 4 One Canadian soldier killed by friendly fire and several wounded during a major Nato offensive. One British soldier and four Afghans killed by a suicide bomb in Kabul
September 6 One British soldier killed and six injured by a landmine in southern Helmand. Second British soldier killed in another clash in the province and a third dies of injuries sustained in a clash the previous week
September 7 Two US soldiers among 16 killed when a suicide bomber targets a convoy near the American embassy in Kabul
September 9 40 suspected Taliban fighters and one Nato soldier are killed during fighting in Kandahar province's Panjwayi district
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1873769,00.html
il manifesto:
Stranieri in patria, detenuti in casa
Vita vissuta di chi aspetta il permesso di soggiorno
Camilita e gli altri. L'impossibilità di una vita normale e dignitosa, condizionati dal «cedolino», assurda e vergognosa striscia di carta sgualcita da cui dipende tutto. Possibile che non ci sia rimedio?
Maria de Lourdes Jesus
Anche quest'anno la circolare che autorizza gli immigrati in attesa del rinnovo del permesso di soggiorno a recarsi nei loro paesi di origine per le vacanze estive è arrivata all'ultimo momento. Decisamente troppo tardi, per alcuni.
Penso per esempio a Camilita, una donna capoverdiana che vive in Italia da più di vent'anni, coraggiosa e grande lavoratrice. Quando mi ha chiamata al telefono ho cominciato a sudare freddo, prima ancora di sapere di cosa si trattasse. Non mi chiama mai, e quando lo fa è perché si trova veramente nei guai. Ogni volta mette a dura prova il mio stato d'animo, le mie energie e tutte le mie capacità di individuare i canali e le persone giuste per risolvere i problemi sempre più difficili che la condizione d'immigrato c'impone oggi.
Camilita è sposata con tre figli, due minori nati a Roma e un maggiore arrivato da Capo Verde all'età di 10 anni, che gli ha già dato un nipote. L'ultima volta che mi ha telefonato si trattava di un problema che riguardava suo figlio maggiore, Luis, di 24 anni, in attesa del rinnovo del permesso di soggiorno.
Luis aveva ricevuto l'invito al matrimonio del suo più caro amico d'infanzia, emigrato in Olanda. Pensando che all'interno dell'Unione europea si potesse circolare con il cedolino (la ricevuta che attesta che sei in attesa del rinnovo del permesso di soggiorno) il ragazzo è partito tranquillamente e per risparmiare ha deciso di viaggiare in pullman. Arrivato alla frontiera con la Francia il bus viene fermato per il controllo documenti e il viaggio di Luis finisce in un centro di permanenza locale. Con l'aiuto di un avvocato, Luis, spaventato a morte, torna a Roma, ma le disgrazie non si fermano qui. Arrivato a Fiumicino viene trattenuto una notte, senza un vero motivo, e il giorno dopo viene accompagnato in Questura dove gentilmente gli consegnano il foglio di via che lo «invita» a lasciare l'Italia. Chiamiamo subito un avvocato abituato a trattare questi casi difficili (costo 1.500 euro, che Camilita sta ancora pagando a rate). L'avvocato inoltra subito la domanda al Tar per la revoca del foglio di via, ma da allora sono passati più di tre mesi e ancora il problema non si risolve.
Il ragazzo ha ripreso a lavorare, ma il datore di lavoro non lo vuole mettere in regola. Luis è anche un ragazzo-padre e deve mantenere anche il figlio, non può permettersi di rifiutare un lavoro solo perché è in nero... Spera di trovare prima o poi un impiego regolare, e in attesa svolge i lavori che trova.
Con Camilita ci conosciamo da sempre, siamo della stessa isola, S. Nicolau, dove siamo vicine di casa. La sua famiglia abita subito sopra di noi, a Vila da Ribeira Brava, e dalle nostre case dominiamo dall'alto tutta la valle che ospita il centro storico della città (almeno fino a quando un ingombrante albergo per turisti non ci ha oscurato completamente il panorama). Se ci serviva qualcosa siamo sempre state abituate a parlarci dalle nostre terrazze e anche qui manteniamo questo rapporto. Qui però ci tocca risolvere soprattutto problemi creati da una legge che non tiene in nessuna considerazione le esigenze più elementari delle persone e la loro dignità.
Così, quando ho sentito la voce di Camilita al telefono mi sono chiesta: oddio, che sarà successo stavolta? In realtà aveva ricevuto una brutta notizia: il padre stava morendo e la madre chiamava tutti i figli al suo capezzale. Camilita era disperata: doveva partire subito per Capo Verde, ma non aveva ancora ottenuto risposta alla domanda di rinnovo del permesso di soggiorno, inoltrata da più di un anno. Era andata dal commissariato, dove le avevano chiesto di farsi spedire un certificato medico che attestasse lo stato di salute del padre. Allora ha chiamato la madre, ma il medico era in visita fuori città. Camilita è sempre più angosciata dal terrore di non arrivare in tempo. Vuole vedere suo padre prima che muoia. Mi richiama disperata, per sapere se sono riuscita nel frattempo a trovare qualcuno che potesse sbloccare la situazione attaverso la Questura. Malgrado vari tentativi, non sono riuscita a parlare con nessuno. L'unica possibilità rimasta è quella di contattare qualche politico che possa intervenire direttamente, ma ci vorrebbe ancora un giorno. Camilita non ce la fa ad aspettare e parte con la figlia più piccola.
Ho telefonato il giorno dopo a casa di Camilita a Capo Verde, per sapere se era arrivata e come stava il padre. Non c'è stato bisogno di dire nulla, per capire cosa era successo. Come ho avuto la linea, ho sentito un pianto in coro che mi annunciava la morte di Gno João, il padre di Camilita. In famiglia la stavano attendendo per il funerale. Lei si trovava ancora all'isola di Sal, in attesa del volo che l'avrebbe portata a S. Nicolau, per l'ultimo saluto al padre.
Questo di Camilita è uno dei drammi umani che si consumano da anni, qui nella civilissima Italia, sotto gli occhi di tutti. Nessuno fa niente per cambiare questa umiliazione continua, degna di una vera schiavitù, che anche gli immigrati regolarmente residenti sono costretti a subire. La loro vita, la loro sicurezza, il loro progetto di vita è legato a questo «benedetto» permesso di soggiorno, che a sua volta dipende da un lavoro regolare in un mercato che privilegia il nero. Questa situazione attribuisce di fatto ai datori di lavoro un potere assoluto. I lavoratori sono così costretti ad accettare qualunque condizione contrattuale pur di ottenere quel «salvacondotto» che ti permette di avere una vita «regolare», di poter finalmente viaggiare e programmare le tue vacanze, la partecipazione al matrimonio del tuo miglior amico o al funerale di tuo padre...
La circolare che concede la licenza per andare con il cedolino in ferie (a luglio e a dicembre), come ogni anno è uscita all'ultimo momento, troppo tardi perché Camilita potesse arrivare in tempo. Nessun problema invece per i fratelli arrivati da Lisbona e Parigi, dove semplicemente il ridicolo cedolino non esiste.
Questa strisciolina di carta strappata dal foglio del permesso di soggiorno, per di più, ha fortissime limitazioni: puoi uscire e rientrare soltanto dalle frontiere italiane e da quelle del tuo paese, perché il cedolino viene riconosciuto soltanto in Italia. Se non trovi un volo diretto non puoi partire, perché non ti è permesso fare scalo in nessun altro paese. Tutti i capoverdiani, e tutti gli altri immigrati che non hanno il volo diretto, non potranno mai andare in vacanza nel proprio paese e tanto meno partire nei casi di emergenza. Per di più, nei periodi di ferie è difficile trovare posto e per prenotare prima devi conoscere già la data dell'entrata in vigore di quella circolare. Inoltre, quando arrivi nel tuo paese non parli volentieri del cedolino, perché indica una condizione di trattamento piuttosto umiliante, soprattutto se sei emigrato da tanti anni.
Quelli che hanno avuto successo, che hanno riscattato il proprio status sociale, sono in possesso della cittadinanza o di un permesso di soggiorno attestato da una tessera, come tutti quelli che arrivano dal Portogallo o dalla Francia, un documento dignitoso che tengono inserito nel portafoglio insieme alla carta di credito. Fa chic. All'aeroporto di Sal, dove arrivano i voli internazionali, siamo solo noi emigrati in Italia a fare la brutta figura. Insieme a tutti gli italiani... Al controllo dei passaporti i funzionari non sono a conoscenza dell'esistenza di questo cedolino. Sei tu, rosso di vergogna sotto agli sguardi di tutti gli altri che passano, a dover giustificare questa striscetta di carta che dopo una settimana nel portafoglio è già lisa e malandata, tenuta insieme con il nastro adesivo...
Almeno prima, quando si rinnovava il permesso direttamente in Questura, c'era la possibilità di ottenere nello stesso giorno un visto di reingresso, e si poteva partire senza problemi. Ora si aspetta anche più di un anno, senza che venga concesso il permesso di soggiorno. Le persone restano in uno stato di sequestro, perché non lo si può definire diversamente, privi dei più elementari diritti fondamentali sanciti dall'Onu e dalla Costituzione italiana, che prevede la libera circolazione per tutti quelli che non hanno compiuto reati.
Vi sembra questo il modo di trattare persone che vivono regolarmente in questo paese, che lavorano e contribuiscono alla sua ricchezza, che hanno sempre rispettato le leggi e la cultura di chi li ospita?
Viene da pensare che c'è veramente qualcosa che non va, non solo nella testa dei governanti ma anche nella società civile, se ancora si tollera che tutto ciò avvenga nel 2006. Non stiamo parlando di «clandestini», o di persone che hanno commesso reati: parliamo di persone rintracciabili giorno e notte, poiché sono regolarmente residenti e da anni sono ormai cittadini di questo paese. Hanno figli che frequentano le scuole italiane e buona parte di loro pensano, mangiano e si esprimono in italiano, si dichiarano italiani e come tali vogliono essere trattati. Sono cittadini italiani a tutti gli effetti, anche se molti sono ancora legati al permesso di soggiorno che li fa sentire stranieri nel proprio paese. Che tipo di risentimento possono coltivare i ragazzi nel loro intimo verso la società italiana, vedendo come vengono trattate le famiglie? I loro genitori sono stati molto calmi e tolleranti, perché si sentono ancora, almeno in parte, stranieri. Ma loro, i figli, sapranno essere altrettanto pazienti?
Vorrei qui fare un appello al ministro dell'interno Giuliano Amato e al ministro della solidarietà sociale Paolo Ferrero perché siano veramente coraggiosi. Prendano in considerazione questa situazione che ho appena descritta. Fate qualcosa perché gli immigrati si possano sentire a ragione riconoscenti verso questo paese. Risolvete in modo definitivo questo incubo del rinnovo del permesso di soggiorno, che impedisce ad intere famiglie di avere una vita serena, di poter sognare un futuro migliore almeno per i loro figli. Stiamo parlando di persone potenzialmente pronte ad integrarsi in questa società. Create voi le condizioni perché questo progetto si realizzi in tempi brevi. Non ci vuole molto, basta la volontà politica.
Gli italiani sono nella strangrande maggioranza disponibili, lo dicono i sondaggi. È la classe dirigente che finora non ha saputo cogliere questa opportunità di ridare dignità e restituire una immagine positiva al mondo dell'immigrazione.
L'Italia può trarre solo dei vantaggi da una politica che riconosca negli immigrati dei cittadini di questo paese. Chi ha conquistato dei diritti sa come valorizzarli, sa come difenderli, sa essere riconoscente e può rappresentare un esempio di buona condotta per tutti coloro che arriveranno in futuro.
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/Quotidiano-archivio/15-Settembre-2006/art86.html
Página/12:
CONSTRUCCIONES
Por J. M. Pasquini Durán
Sábado, 16 de Septiembre de 2006
“En los 681 años transcurridos desde la fundación del imperio azteca (1325 D.C.) hasta nuestros días, México ha vivido 196 bajo una teocracia indígena, 289 bajo la monarquía absoluta de España, 106 bajo dictaduras personales o de partido, 68 años sumido en guerras civiles o revoluciones y sólo 22 años en democracia”, escribió el intelectual mexicano Enrique Krauze, discípulo de Octavio Paz y enemigo jurado de Andrés Manuel López Obrador, jefe de los campamentos cívicos que obstruyen el tránsito en algunas vías centrales del multitudinario Distrito Federal (DF) en protesta porque consideran que hubo fraude en las elecciones presidenciales del último 2 de julio, aunque hasta el momento las denuncias no prosperaron en las instituciones oficiales de control. Vale recordar que el proclamado vencedor Felipe Calderón, del oficialista PAN, obtuvo una diferencia de 240 mil votos sobre más de 42 millones emitidos, por lo que esa enorme nación, construida por la historia que describió Krauze, vive hoy una situación inédita, impredecible, que la mantiene en vilo, mientras que el jueves el Senado norteamericano aprobó la erección de una valla fronteriza de 2100 kilómetros de extensión. Desde allí, hacia el Sur, quedarán México y el resto de América latina.
En casi toda la región, incluida la Argentina, hoy se viven las tensiones de los climas electorales. Además de la situación mexicana, en octubre Brasil deberá decidir sobre la reelección presidencial de Lula da Silva, y en diciembre será el turno de Hugo Chávez en Venezuela, sin mencionar que en octubre también se renuevan los turnos legislativos en Estados Unidos y no son pocos los que vaticinan, o auguran, que Bush perderá la mayoría en las dos cámaras, justo cuando está pidiendo una modificación de la Ley Patriótica antiterrorista, por la cual los interrogadores y torturadores de presuntos enemigos quedarán eximidos de los procedimientos humanitarios de la Convención de Ginebra, violada ya en las cárceles clandestinas que desparramó Washington por el mundo y también desconocida por todas las dictaduras que devastaron los países de América latina a lo largo del siglo XX. El recuento histórico mexicano no es singular ni exclusivo en la región: la democracia estuvo ausente por mucho tiempo en esta zona y su construcción en la actualidad es una de las tareas más intensas y difíciles, de una densidad tal que por momentos más parece una ciénaga.
Las oligarquías dominantes son principales responsables de estas intermitentes pero prolongadas ausencias democráticas y en la actualidad sus herederos siguen tratando de voltear las precarias construcciones que se intentan en el área. Durante décadas las campañas anticomunistas sirvieron de estandarte para atacar los regímenes democráticos que no eran fieles a los privilegios de las elites, pero desde la implosión del campo liderado por la Unión Soviética, el argumento descalificador es el populismo, combinado con la amenaza terrorista que agita la Casa Blanca. Esto es visible a diario en Bolivia y en Venezuela, pese a que ambos gobiernos son el producto indiscutible de las respectivas mayorías ciudadanas. La experiencia moderna prueba que el instrumento desestabilizador más corrosivo, desaparecida la posibilidad de golpes de Estado militares, es la megacorrupción: el patético relato de lo sucedido con el PT en Brasil es la muestra de los resultados de semejantes prácticas. Vaciado el Estado de sus principios y recursos como moderador de la equidad y promotor de la justicia social, la pobreza se extiende en la sociedad como una charca fangosa en la que se hunden las mejores expectativas de las mayorías en la democracia. Los gobiernos elegidos en las urnas, debilitados por los ataques de sus enemigos y quebrados por los vicios de sus integrantes, recurren a la demagogia, al clientelismo y a otras prácticas, que incluyen a veces la represión directa, para calmar las ansiedades populares y controlar a los sectores más combativos.
En el precoloquio Cuyo de IDEA, una de las tribunas más conservadoras del empresariado, el director ejecutivo del Consejo Empresario Argentino para el Desarrollo Sostenible presentó una proyección para el año 2050 sobre la condición económico-social de la población a partir de los datos de la actualidad. Sobre 100 personas, 44 no tendrían acceso a facilidades sanitarias adecuadas, 22 vivirían con menos de un dólar por día, 20 sufrirían de malnutrición, 23 mayores de 12 años no sabrían leer ni escribir y sólo dos personas habrían alcanzado educación universitaria. Este tipo de proyecciones supone que las democracias habrían fracasado en modificar la realidad y que serán las empresas, o sea el capital, las que tendrán que hacerse cargo de semejantes sociedades. Nadie duda que existe una responsabilidad social empresaria, pero la tarea central debe ser guiada por el Estado democrático y, por ende, hace falta la política y quien la lleve adelante. De lo contrario, hay dos variables alternativas: o la sociedad subordinada a las leyes del mercado o la revolución social. Dado que las experiencias de ambas opciones, por distintos motivos, por ahora no seducen a la voluntad social, en esta etapa todos los datos indican que la mayor parte de ciudadanos en la región, en especial en la Argentina, prefiere la república democrática. Si es así, las calidades del Estado y de la política son determinantes para satisfacer esa elección.
El Gobierno actual está acusado de autoritarismo con una campaña similar, que los radicales deberían recordar muy bien, a la que denostaba por la razón contraria, extrema debilidad, a la administración de Arturo Illia. En ambos casos, los argumentos hostiles fueron abonados por una mezcla de malicia y de conductas oficiales, y si bien con diferente sentido estaba de por medio la actitud hacia el peronismo. En el caso de Illia, la proscripción del justicialismo no sólo ubicaba a este movimiento en la vereda opuesta a la del gobierno sino también debilitaba la calidad de la representación democrática, ya que la mayoría del electorado quedaba excluida. Si bien Néstor Kirchner surgió de una fracción del peronismo, en porcentajes originales tan débiles como los de Illia pero sin proscriptos, debido a los éxitos económicos y su propia voluntad de construcción política, a la mitad de su mandato había superado esa mengua inicial hasta el punto de que hoy en día son pocos los que se atreverían a dudar de la posibilidad de su reelección a fines del próximo año. Pese a que su programa reformista trató de alejarse de la simbología tradicional del peronismo (la Marcha, el escudo, las constantes invocaciones a Perón y Evita, etc.), su personal concepción del poder está abonada por la cultura política peronista y tiende a formar un movimiento gregario con una conducción verticalizada, pero en las condiciones del siglo XXI, o sea cuando las fuerzas políticas procuran coaligarse en bloques multipartidarios (“concertación plural”), cuya distinción principal las separa entre conservadores y progresistas antes que por sus emblemas parciales.
La derecha conservadora no está acostumbrada a la competencia electoral ni a las prácticas partidarias, porque durante casi todo el siglo XX apeló a los llamados “factores de poder” para deshacerse de los contrarios. Las Fuerzas Armadas en bloque y algunas férreas alianzas episcopales le alcanzaban para hacer política, pero esos instrumentos ya no prestan la misma utilidad. Los militares perdieron prestigio social por su adhesión al terrorismo de Estado y por el fracaso guerrero en el Atlántico Sur, y la propia Iglesia, aunque no es aliada del Gobierno, está preocupada por temas de este siglo. El reciente estudio de cuatro comisiones episcopales sobre la injusta concentración de la propiedad de la tierra y el agua y su extranjerización, preocupación que parecía un exabrupto del secretario del Hábitat, Luis D’Elía, demuestra que existen espacios en la democracia, como la defensa de los recursos naturales y el derecho campesino y aborigen, que ponen distancias con la opinión más conservadora. Al mismo tiempo, los intentos de organizarse como fuerza político-electoral no pasan todavía de relativos avances distritales, sobre todo entre los porteños, pero sin un peso específico unificado en el ámbito nacional.
Obligada a determinar nuevos cursos de acción, la derecha está ensayando dos vías paralelas: una incentiva los sentimientos de inseguridad urbana en la población de los mayores centros poblacionales y otra trata de hacer pie en los grupos económicos sembrando miedo a la “inflación reprimida”, a la “crisis energética”, a los desbordes del ministro de Planificación Julio De Vido, a la brusca desaceleración del crecimiento económico, al “abuso” de los derechos laborales, al malhumor del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) con la economía nacional y a las represalias gubernamentales, entre otras posibilidades inquietantes. Tragedias como la de Blumberg o la aparición de consignas antisemitas que no son novedad, todo es aprovechado para espesar los temores. En la reciente reunión de IDEA, el diputado Francisco De Narváez afirmó que “el miedo al Gobierno se apoderó de la dirigencia empresarial”, aunque no es el único en divulgar la sentencia. El razonamiento es circular y típico del rumor: Como hay miedo, nadie habla y por lo tanto no se pueden presentar evidencias ni testigos que confirmen el juicio lapidario. En IDEA lo negó el titular de Impsa, Enrique Pescarmona, pero otra vez: lo niega por miedo o quizá por codicia personal. La estrategia de la tensión es un clásico de la derecha extrema: George W. Bush aseguró ayer, en rueda de prensa, que si el Congreso no autoriza a los carceleros a violar las normas de la Convención de Ginebra sobre respeto a prisioneros políticos, Estados Unidos quedará expuesto al riesgo de nuevos atentados terroristas. Son falsas las oposiciones gobierno vs. orden o gobierno vs. caos, que en la más benigna de las interpretaciones son argucias electoralistas. Hoy en día, como siempre, el ciudadano sigue parado frente a las opciones verdaderas: libertad y justicia, que son la materia prima con la que se construyen futuros de bienestar general.
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Kofi Annan visitó a Fidel Castro
LA CUMBRE DE LOS NO ALINEADOS SIRVIO DE TRIBUNA PARA CHAVEZ
Con la llegada del secretario general de la ONU se completó la lista de invitados estelares en la cumbre de La Habana. A falta de Fidel, que no participó de las reuniones pero recibió a varios líderes, los presidentes de Venezuela e Irán coparon la parada.
Sábado, 16 de Septiembre de 2006
El equipo de los no alineados está completo. Más de 55 mandatarios se reunieron ayer finalmente en La Habana para iniciar el primer día de las reuniones presidenciales. El último en llegar fue el secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, Kofi Annan, que antes de empezar con sus obligaciones en la cumbre pasó a saludar a Fidel Castro. Nuevas fotos mostraron al veterano líder cubano de pie, en su ya tradicional pijama. “Puedo asegurarles que su salud mejora muy bien”, aseguró Annan, quien rehusó un encuentro con disidentes en la isla. El presidente iraní, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, siguió buscando apoyo para su cuestionado programa nuclear y acusó a Estados Unidos de ser la verdadera amenaza atómica. En un tono similar, su par venezolano –y según muchos la gran estrella de la cumbre a partir de la ausencia de Fidel–, Hugo Chávez, denunció las continuas agresiones de Washington a su gobierno y al cubano.
El nuevo líder provisional de la isla, Raúl Castro, fue el encargado de abrir esta última etapa de la cumbre. Como ayer, el veterano dirigente cambió su tradicional saco militar por un impecable traje oscuro y corbata roja. En una clara señal de respeto, comenzó su discurso recordando a su hermano mayor. “Todos hubiéramos querido que estas palabras inaugurales fueran pronunciadas por el presidente Fidel Castro, quien por las razones que conocemos no nos acompaña en esta sala”, dijo el anfitrión. Y luego se metió de llenó en el mensaje que, desde el primer día de la cumbre, Cuba ha querido imprimirle al Movimiento de No Alineados: “¡Unámonos todos estrechamente, concertemos las crecientes fuerzas de nuestro vigoroso Movimiento en las Naciones Unidas y en todos los foros internacionales para exigir justicia económica para nuestros pueblos, para que cese el dominio sobre nuestros recursos y el robo de nuestro sudor!”
A pesar del enérgico discurso de 25 minutos que dio Raúl, el timón lo llevó otro. Dueño de un carisma que el dirigente cubano no posee, Chávez fue el centro de todas las miradas. El presidente venezolano volvió a utilizar fórmulas conocidas como sus referencias al libertador Simón Bolívar y sus ataques a la política exterior de la Casa Blanca. En su discurso ante los 118 miembros del movimiento, llamó a la unidad, no sólo para enfrentar a los países más ricos, sino también para solucionar los problemas de los más pobres. “No esperemos soluciones a nuestros problemas en el Norte, están aquí entre nosotros mismos, tenemos que ser capaces de llevarlas a la práctica”, instó Chávez. “Unámonos de verdad en el Sur y tendremos futuro, tendremos vida, tendrán vida nuestros pueblos.” Las palabras de Chávez tuvieron dos objetivos. El primero, más a largo plazo, es sumar apoyos para su iniciativa para crear un Banco del Sur, que nuclee a los países subdesarrollados y los ayude con créditos para obras de infraestructura. El otro es a cortísimo plazo. En 72 horas, la Asamblea General de la ONU comenzará su sesión anual, donde Venezuela espera lograr un asiento en el Consejo de Seguridad con el apoyo de los No Alineados. En su edición anterior, el presidente venezolano logró dominar la atención al mantener una fuerte polémica con su principal rival, George W. Bush. La cita en Nueva York genera mucha expectativa, ya que ahí se verán las caras el mandatario iraní, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, y sus detractores, Estados Unidos y las potencias europeas.
La delegación iraní llegó el jueves a La Habana en busca de aliados. “¿Por qué los pueblos del mundo deben vivir bajo la sombra de las amenazas atómicas de Estados Unidos?”, cuestionó Ahmadinejad en su discurso ante el plenario ayer. “¿Qué espera el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU para reaccionar a tales amenazas?”, agregó. Teherán espera poder partir para Nueva York –previa visita fugaz a la tierra de su aliado venezolano– con una declaración de apoyo contundente de los 118 países no alineados. Aunque no es en la Asamblea General donde se decidirá la suerte de Irán, es decir, si sufrirá o no sanciones, será el foro ideal para poder enfrentar a sus acusadores.
Mientras se escuchaban los grandilocuentes discursos antiimperialistas, en un muy segundo plano, se debatían otros conflictos. Por ejemplo, la oportunidad histórica para la India y Pakistán –ambos miembros del movimiento– de poder acordar una reanudación de las negociaciones. Estas fueron las palabras del propio presidente paquistaní, Pervez Musharraf, que ayer parecía mostrarse dispuesto a sentarse a dialogar con su par indio sobre su histórico conflicto por la región de Cachemira. El otro mandatario que también llevó su agenda a la cumbre fue Evo Morales, que espera conseguir apoyo en su lucha por recuperar una salida al mar.
Hoy ya se comenzarán a conocer las declaraciones finales de la cumbre. Los 118 tomarán posición sobre temas como la guerra en el Líbano, la crisis humanitaria palestina y la continuidad de la ofensiva militar israelí sobre los territorios ocupados. También tendrán su lugar destacado la crisis nuclear iraní y las agresiones –económicas, políticas o verbales– de Estados Unidos contra países de América latina, entre ellos Venezuela, Cuba y Bolivia. Los discursos de los últimos días ya dejan prever el tono que tendrán estos documentos, en los que sin dudas Washington será el denominador común de todas las críticas.
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Página/12:
Europa se despega de los manejos de Bush
APOYO LA UNIDAD PALESTINA Y CRITICO LAS CARCELES SECRETAS DE LA CIA
Por Andreu Missé y Ana Carbajosa*
Desde Bruselas, Sábado, 16 de Septiembre de 2006
La Unión Europea (UE) y Estados Unidos no son los viejos amigos de antes. El Consejo de Ministros de Asuntos Exteriores de los Veinticinco –los países miembros anteriores a la entrada de las diez nuevas naciones de Europa central y oriental– alentó ayer la formación de un gobierno de unidad nacional palestino para retomar las negociaciones del proceso de paz en la región, a pesar de los recelos de Washington. Además, la UE resolvió que es ilegal la red de cárceles secretas que Estados Unidos reconoció tener repartidas por todo el mundo y en las que sospechosos de terrorismo permanecen encerrados sin acusación ni garantías jurídicas. La declaración de Bruselas llegó nueve días después de que el presidente George Bush admitiera la existencia de estas prisiones.
El ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Italia, Massimo D’Alema, fue el primero en manifestar el compromiso explícito de los Veinticinco: “Estamos de acuerdo en apoyar al nuevo gobierno palestino, que supone un cambio decisivo para la situación de Medio Oriente”, señaló. El jefe de la diplomacia italiana añadió que Javier Solana, el alto representante de la UE, había explicado a los ministros que el nuevo gobierno palestino tenía el propósito de cumplir los compromisos asumidos por la Autoridad Nacional Palestina y en consecuencia reconocer a Israel. Para Erkki Tuomioja, titular de Asuntos Exteriores de Finlandia, que ostenta la presidencia de turno de la UE, el acuerdo sobre el nuevo gobierno “es como un rayo de esperanza” que “permitiría reanudar el diálogo”. En su opinión “hay una situación nueva que debemos utilizar para volver al proceso de paz”.
Los ministros europeos también reiteraron las exigencias al gobierno de Israel para que libere a los ministros y diputados palestinos que mantiene detenidos. Como expresión de apoyo explícito al nuevo gobierno palestino, los Veinticinco acordaron ampliar durante tres meses más las ayudas económicas a través del Mecanismo Temporal Internacional. La UE y los Estados Miembro ya han proporcionado a la Autoridad Palestina en lo que va del año 330 millones de euros. Estados Unidos no quiere saber nada de “gobierno de unidad” hasta que Hamas, la organización que encabezaría dicho gobierno, reconozca a Israel y condene la lucha armada.
Pero ése no fue el único revés en Bruselas para Washington. Ayer, a petición de Holanda y España, los Veinticinco emitieron una escueta declaración en la que indicaron que los centros de detención de la CIA “no están en conformidad con el derecho humanitario y ni el derecho penal”. La semana pasada, el presidente estadounidense reconoció oficialmente el programa de cárceles fantasmas que la prensa de su país llevaba meses aireando. Según las pesquisas periodísticas, al menos dos países europeos habrían albergado estas cárceles. “No consideramos aceptable la existencia de cárceles secretas”, dijo al término del consejo europeo el jefe de la diplomacia española, Miguel Angel Moratinos.
Moratinos explicó además que ningún país europeo se planteó pedirle explicaciones a Bush.
* De El País de Madrid. Especial para Página/12.
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Página/12: Cavarán trincheras
alrededor de Bagdad para frenar las matanzas
Ante la escalada de violencia, que creció en número pero también en grado de crueldad, el gobierno iraquí anunció un plan para rodear la capital con un anillo de trincheras. El jueves pasado se encontraron cuarenta cadáveres con señales de tortura.
Por Anne Penketh*
Sábado, 16 de Septiembre de 2006
El gobierno iraquí anunció esta semana un plan para cavar trincheras alrededor de Bagdad en un intento por detener las feroces matanzas que han conducido a las muertes con torturas de 200 personas. El conflicto alcanzó nuevos niveles de violencia esta semana, con descubrimientos casi diarios de docenas de iraquíes, cuyos cuerpos mutilados y torturados han sido tirados en y alrededores de Bagdad. Entre los últimos descubrimientos truculentos estaba el de un cadáver sin cabeza ni piernas flotando en un río en Mussayab el jueves por la noche. El Ministerio del Interior dijo ayer que más de 50 cuerpos se habían encontrados en las últimas dos semanas. Muchos tenían un tiro en la cabeza y señales de haber sido atados y torturados.
“Es brutal pero lamentablemente nos hemos ido acostumbrando”, dijo un funcionario del Ministerio del Interior. “Cuarenta cuerpos, 50 cuerpos, se ha convertido en una rutina diaria.” El número de cuerpos que mostraban señales de torturas alcanzó su pico el jueves, cuando se encontraron 60. Pero los iraquíes dicen que del recrudecimiento repentino de las matanzas no puede culparse sólo al creciente sectarismo de la guerra y a los “escuadrones de la muerte” dirigidos por las milicias sunnitas y chiítas. “Como ustedes, estamos tratando de entender”, dijo uno de los funcionarios iraquíes. Parte de la violencia puede ser el trabajo de bandas criminales que llevan a cabo secuestros y extorsión.
Pero el sello de la última violencia ha sido su ferocidad. Los analistas dicen que los asesinatos podrían haber sido obra de los partidarios del derrocado dictador Saddam Hussein o que los “jihadistas” extranjeros podrían estar involucrados. “Los asesinatos comunes son corrientes ahora”, dijo Robert Lowe, un analista de Medio Oriente en el think tank británico Chatham House. “Muestra que la contrainsurgencia no está funcionando.”
Cuando se le preguntó si el pico de las muertes significaba que Irak estaba ahora en medio de una guerra civil, Lowe añadió: “No es totalmente una guerra civil, pero la semántica no importa realmente ahora, porque lo que está pasando es tan espantoso”.
Las trincheras se construirán con puestos de control alrededor de los 80 kilómetros de circunferencia de la ciudad para evitar la entrada de los insurgentes en ella. Podría llevar meses construirlas. Bajo este plan se cerrarían cientos de caminos menores, dejando sólo 20 puestos de control para el acceso a la ciudad.
Aunque la mayor parte de los horribles ataques ha ocurrido en el área de Bagdad, las muertes sectarias se han desparramado a las regiones relativamente tranquilas del sur de Irak. El embajador estadounidense en la ONU, John Bolton, dijo el jueves que la violencia étnica y sectaria era “una de las amenazas más significativas para la seguridad y estabilidad de Irak”. Dijo que en los últimos tres meses, el promedio de ataques semanales había aumentado un 15 por ciento, mientras que las bajas iraquíes habían aumentado un 51 por ciento comparado con los tres meses previos. De acuerdo con el ejército estadounidense, la violencia se intensificó en áreas que no están todavía cubiertas por el barrido de seguridad conocido como Operación Juntos hacia Adelante, que compromete a 12.000 soldados estadounidenses e iraquíes.
* De The Independent de Gran Bretaña. Especial para Página/12.
Traducción: Celita Doyhambéhère.
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Página/12:
Basura
Por Sandra Russo
Sábado, 16 de Septiembre de 2006
La revelación de que Juan José Alvarez fue agente de la SIDE durante la dictadura, y que fue incorporado a ese organismo recomendado por el ex general Albano Harguindeguy, sigue rebotando de un modo curioso en la clase política. Absorbidos por su propio juego electoral, se limitan a traducir los hechos a una sola lengua, a un solo dialecto, el único que parecen entender: se saltean a Alvarez-agente de la SIDE y avanzan directamente sobre el mecanismo que hizo que esa verdad saltara a la luz pública.
No se los notó lo suficientemente asqueados, acaso porque no sintieron asco o porque ya estaban al tanto, quién sabe, son tan raros. Están tan lejos, vuelan tan bajo, respiran un aire tan viciado.
Se supone, suponen ellos y denuncian, que esto es una maniobra del Gobierno para desarmar políticamente a ex duhaldistas y lavagnistas. Y dejan entrever que la revelación de que Alvarez supo entrar y salir de la SIDE en aquellos años, en los que en la SIDE entraban y salían asesinos, es nada más que la punta de un iceberg que les parece tremendo: que empiecen a llover carpetas con pasados roñosos. Eso es lo que les parece tremendo. Vaya dirigencia, amigos: hasta llaman “cultura del miedo” a la posibilidad, inminencia o posibilidad de que más mugre sea colgada al sol.
Uno no es ingenuo, y no ignora que esta revelación viene de la mano de una coyuntura política, y si hay algo indignante es que sean las coyunturas las que hagan salir a flote estas cosas, y no la sencilla práctica democrática, que también supondría (ay, los potenciales) un ánimo filtrador de trazos gruesos y pasados bochornosos. Pero en fin, si es la coyuntura política la que nos hace saber que Juan José Alvarez, ese duhaldista hábil y especialista en seguridad, se entrenó sobre este tema en los despachos tenebrosos de la SIDE de la dictadura, deberemos concluir que la democracia por sí sola no alcanza para filtrar la roña, pero que al menos nos ofrece las coyunturas políticas, en las que saltan los fusibles y puede verse en lo oscuro.
Desde este mismo espacio se ha observado muchas veces que, en el mundo político, todo aquel que se aferra al latiguillo “miremos para adelante”, es porque guarda un muerto en el ropero. Es una metáfora, pero desgraciadamente en la Argentina roza una verdad literal. Y es en sí mismo escandaloso que ahora cunda el pánico de que se ventilen trapos íntimos manchados, porque nada tiene que ver la intimidad con el hecho de habernos desayunado, tantos, de que Juanjo Alvarez supo ser uno de aquellos misteriosos agentes de anteojos negros que hacían inteligencia contra enemigos internos.
Suena como una desproporción que sólo puede proporcionar cierta vaga desesperación en muchos dirigentes. ¿De qué cosas todavía no nos habremos enterado? ¿Cuántas aberraciones más nos dispensará la coyuntura política? ¿Cuántas reacciones delirantes más tendremos que presenciar? ¿Un trabajo? ¿Alvarez dijo que trabajó en la SIDE de la dictadura porque necesitaba dinero? ¿Desde cuándo ser miembro de la SIDE en tiempos de la dictadura más sangrienta de la historia argentina puede ser equiparado a un “trabajo”?
Se habla de “polución de la clase política”, se le pedirán informes a la SIDE para saber cómo se filtró esa información secreta. ¡Ahora todos parecen celosos guardianes de la confidencialidad de la SIDE! Corren el bulto de lugar... ¿por si salpica?
¿Y el escalofrío? ¿Y la náusea? ¿Y la sorpresa? En la dictadura, todos los que no nos fuimos, trabajamos de algo. Hubo incluso algunos que hoy son funcionarios o dirigentes que trabajaron para el Estado. Pero una mínima cuota de sentido común separa sin ninguna dificultad a esa gente que por diversas circunstancias trabajó en juzgados o dependencias estatales de quienes anidaron en el intestino fino de la masacre. No sólo no se podía no saber: en la SIDE se apuntalaban las desapariciones. Se colaboraba con ellas. ¿Qué resorte mental ridículo pretende hacer creer que es lo mismo haber servido en la SIDE que en cualquier otro lado?
Cómo se filtró la información es la pregunta de los que retroceden para adelante o de los interesados en sostener a Alvarez, incluso a la luz de su pasado. Y sostener a un hombre con ese prontuario es minimizar de una manera extrema la desgracia colectiva que, como las desapariciones, no termina de pasar. Sigue pasando.
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http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-73082-2006-09-16.html
The Independent:
Darfur: Waiting for the slaughter
300,000 have died already. Now there are fears Sudan is preparing a brutal 'final solution' in Darfur
By Paul Vallely
Published: 16 September 2006
Rasha Ibrahim Adam and her children may be about to die - just as she thought they had all escaped to safety.
The 38-year-old mother of four children is one of the latest to flee the bombs from the Sudanese government that have dropped on their homes. Today, she finds herself in one of the dusty, benighted refugee camps that litter the region of Darfur. She sits in her once bright red tob - a wrap-around dress - that has been faded by the sand-laden wind that blows across al-Salaam camp on the edge of the town of el-Fasher.
She was one of the 50,000 people who swelled the scorched camps for the "internally displaced" in the past month - bringing to about 2.5 million the number of children, women and men now homeless in a conflict that has dragged on for three years without an end seemingly in sight. Until now, that is. Because an end is in sight for the Darfur camps - where at least 300,000 black African farmers have been slaughtered by the Khartoum government and its Arab proxies, the Janjaweed militia, whose name means "devils on horseback". One of those who died was Rasha's husband, Adam.
It could be an end so terrifying, it defies the imagination.
The fear is that the rest of Adam Ibrahim Adam's family - and many of the two million people of the Fur, Massaleit or Zaghawa tribes in the camps - may soon perish too.
The 7,000 troops of the African Union, who have been desperately trying to protect the camps, have been told by Khartoum they must leave Darfur at the end of this month when their mandate runs out. Sudan has defied a UN resolution that mandated an improved 20,000-strong blue-hatted UN force to take over.
Instead, it is sending 10,000 of its own troops to the region for what human rights observers fear will be a brutal "final solution".
In a situation already described by the UN as the "world's worst humanitarian disaster" the genocide so long denied by the Arab government in Khartoum may be about to happen.
"We're on the brink of a massive catastrophe," said one senior Western diplomat yesterday. "If there is no Plan B for Darfur, all-out genocide is highly likely," said James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, which is co-ordinating a worldwide protest that will take place in 32 countries tomorrow.
About 7,000 Sudanese troops have already arrived in Darfur, with the avowed aim of crushing those rebel groups who failed to sign up to the Darfur Peace Deal agreed in the Nigerian capital of Abuja in May. Aid workers throughout those parts of the province that are still accessible say the signs are that a major new offensive will start in the next three weeks.
Government troops and military ordnance have been pouring into el-Fasher airport for seven weeks now. Preliminary attacks have already begun. Yesterday, there were reports of the bombing of Dobo Madrasa, and another unnamed village, to the east of the Jebel Marra mountains.
The day before, the government bombed seven villages south of Tawilla town, including Tabarat and Tina, after which about 45 vehicles carrying government troops swept into the area. Local people fled the villages to hide in the mountains.
The tall and dignified Rasha - her name has been changed to protect her identity - described what happened when the government attacked her village near Kulkul. "I was feeding my two-year-old son when I heard the plane. I knew immediately what it meant," she said. "I started to run but didn't know where to go.
"Then the bombs dropped and soon everybody was running and my boy was screaming. The bombing didn't last long but to me it felt like days, and I didn't know where my other children were or what happened to them. Eventually, they came running to me - they'd been hiding with friends near the mosque.
"Two people were killed but we knew the bombers would be back, so nearly the whole village decided to leave. All around us is fighting but to the north the fighting is the worst so we headed south to el-Fasher.
"We walked for days and arrived here in al-Salaam camp. We all walked together to try and keep safe - it was very slow with young children and old women and some of the children were abducted on the way. We still don't know what's happened to them. Now I'm here with all my children and I thank Allah that we are safe and alive."
But for how long? The Sudanese government is making its preparations, brazenly, before the eyes of the world. On Tuesday, the EU's special envoy, Pekka Haavisto, on a three-day visit to the region, witnessed Antonov-20 planes loading bombs in el-Fasher, the regional capital of North Darfur, in preparation for an attack. The Sudanese military roll bombs from the doors of these cargo planes; rights observers saw a woman and seven children injured near Kulkul when a bomb was rolled from the back of an Antonov.
Khartoum is flagrant in its flouting of the authority of the African Union mission in Darfur. This week, the government seized a tanker full of AU jet fuel in el-Fasher and used it to fill its own aircraft which are arriving daily there delivering troops and arms.
Last Saturday, villagers who had earlier been attacked by the Janjaweed gathered near the ruins of their homes in South Darfur to speak to AU investigators; as they waited for the AU helicopter to arrive, the Janjaweed attacked again, killing 18 of the survivors of the earlier assault.
All across Darfur, people are on the move again in the face of intensified combat. The rebel forces, many of which have fragmented in disagreements over the Abuja peace deal, are causing mayhem.
The region is descending slowly into warlordism and banditry. In the lawless wild west of Sudan, where every group now seems out for itself, aid agencies, the UN and even the African Union force are being ambushed and robbed of supplies and vehicles. Rebels who once rode camels and horses and carried AK47s are now in 4x4s with rocket-propelled grenades obtained from Chad and Eritrea.
South Darfur, which had been quiet since the peace deal, has seen militia attacks on many villages in the past few weeks. Gerida refugee camp south of Nyala, which previously housed 20,000, is now the biggest camp in Darfur with 120,000 inhabitants.
Guerrillas from the rebel Justice & Equality movement (JEM) have split from the National Redemption Front (NRF) - an alliance of rebels who did not sign the Abuja peace deal between the Khartoum government and the main rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) - and are moving into West Darfur.
The region is in deepening chaos. Of its six million population, two million are in internal camps and 200,000 in camps in neighbouring Chad. Some 3.4 million are dependent on food aid - but of them, an Oxfam spokesman, Alun McDonald, said, 4 out of 10 people are not receiving the assistance they need because aid agencies cannot reach them.
Mr McDonald said: "Our movement in Darfur is greatly restricted because the roads are simply too dangerous to use. Where possible, we access places by helicopter but most rural areas are almost completely out of bounds."
Things will get much worse if the African Union is forced to leave. But yesterday Khartoum was intransigent on that point.
After a meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa, the Sudanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Al-Samani Al-Wasila, insisted the AU troops, who were due to begin a "rolling transition" to a UN peace mission, must withdraw on 30 September.
"The government of Sudan will not accept UN peace-keepers," he said. It has also told the AU it will allow no further troop rotations. Instead it proposes its own stabilisation plan which will move 10,500 more Sudanese troops into Darfur to combat "outlaws and terrorists" there.
The signs of what that force will do are not encouraging. In addition to the new wave of bombings, an assault has been launched on the NRF rebels in the town of Um Sidir, 70km north of el-Fasher. The town has changed hands several times in the past few days.
The government has told the few aid organisations who have not pulled out that it wants to disperse the entire camp population by the end of September. It wants agencies, including Oxfam, to set up services in rural areas so people can be enticed back despite the lack of security. If that does not happen one state governor has spoken of putting barbed wire around camps "for their own protection" - in effect ,making them prison camps.
To intimidate aid agencies, Khartoum harasses them. The Norwegian Refugee Council, the main NGO at Kalma camp in South Darfur, was barred from the camp last week. Aid workers have been detained for gathering information on rapes and sexual violence. Eight aid workers have been killed in the past few weeks.
Many aid agencies, such as Save the Children UK, have pulled out of the region entirely. And Oxfam has shut two offices near Kebkabiya. "It's got a lot more unstable," said one worker. "It's extremely difficult to operate."
It will get even worse if African Union troops pull out. In one area where the AU used to provide three patrols a week rapes increased from four a month to 200 when the patrols had to be reduced to one a week.
Back in Rasha's camp at al-Salaam, an old lady named Fatima looked on, bent-backed. She opened her gap-toothed mouth and, gesturing around the wind-swept camp with its pitiful shelters of bent branches, she cried: "I'm far too old for this. But I will go home - I am not going to die here, far away in a strange camp."
Sadly, she could prove to be horribly wrong.
Anwar Bakar, MASSACRE SURVIVOR:
"They want to kill us because we are black'
"The problem of Darfur began with Arabs coming and attacking villages.
"When you were going to school, they would stop and ask you: 'Where are you going?' I would say: 'I am going to school.' They would say: 'We are going to stop you. Why do you need to go to school?'
"Since I was a child, they have been asking: 'Are you Fur? Fur is abid [slave].'
"They say we are like slaves, that they need to remove the Fur. They want to kill us because we are black.
"This land belonged to the Fur tribe or other minority peoples in Darfur before but they say no, this Fur land is Arab land."
Jamila Bochra Mohammed, RAPE VICTIM:
"When the Janjaweed attacked our village, they came shooting and burning from all directions. I tried to run away, but they told me to stop or they would kill me. I was raped by five armed men. I saw other women raped and many people killed, including my mother and my mother-in-law. They were thrown into a fire while they were still alive, right in front of me. I was later attacked again by the Janjaweed, in a refugee camp in Chad. This time I was shot in the leg. Today, I am a failed asylum-seeker in the UK.
Abdirahman Abdulla, ZAGHAWA SURVIVOR:
"I was in el-Fasher and saw the head of a man being played with by policemen like a football. They had accused him of being a thief. There was no proof.
"They had killed him because he was Zaghawa, nothing else. The whole city witnessed this. All the Arabs were celebrating.
"They carried his head around. They said, 'Zaghawa is the enemy, Zaghawa is the enemy,' all over the city. It was something strange."
Name withheld, Murder witness:
"I witnessed several girls raped right in front of my eyes. They were aged between 15 and 21. We took cattle out to pasture together frequently, so I knew them.
"They were raped by 60 or 70 Janjaweed in April 2004. We were tied to trees as they raped the girls.
"Afterwards, they also tied them and put cotton in their mouths. The cotton was soaked in fuel. Then they lit the cotton and burned them to death."
Adam Hessen, DARFUR SURVIVOR
"We have a saying in Darfur: 'The dog barks, but it makes no difference to the camel.' We are the dogs. The world is the camel."
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1603856.ece
ZNet | U.S.
In praise of the 'subversive' documentary
by John Pilger; The Guardian ; September 16, 2006
The political documentary, that most powerful and subversive medium, is said to be enjoying a renaissance on both sides of the Atlantic. This may be true in the cinema but what of television, the source of most of our information? Like the work of many other documentary film-makers, my own films have been shown all over the world, but never on network television in the United States. That suppression of alternative viewpoints may help us understand why millions of Americans display such a chronic ignorance of other human beings.
It was not always like this. In the 1930s, the Workers' Film and Photo League, based in New York, produced a dazzling series of "neighbourhood documentaries" that presented the world in decidedly non-Hollywood and non-stereotypical terms, including the United States, where epic documentaries such as The Scottsboro Boys and The National Hunger March accurately recorded America's "lost period" - the incipient revolution of working people suffering the Depression and their brutal repression by the police and army. Shown in trade union halls and workers' clubs, and at open-air meetings, these films were very popular. Thanks to George Clooney's recent, superb movie Good Night and Good Luck, we know of Edward R. Murrow's See It Now, which in the 1950s gave millions an unsentimental and truthful view of their nation, stirring and angering and empowering rather than pacifying, which is the rule today.
I learned my own lessons about the power of documentaries and their censorship when in 1980 took two of my films, Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia and Cambodia Year One, to the United States in the naive belief that the networks would want to air these disclosures of Pol Pot's rule and its aftermath. All those I met were eager to buy clips that showed how monstrous the Khmer Rouge were, but none wanted the equally shocking evidence of how three US administrations had colluded in Cambodia's tragedy; Ronald Reagan was then secretly backing Pol Pot in exile. Having bombed to death hundreds of thousands of Cambodian peasants between 1969 and 1973 - the catalyst for the rise of the Khmer Rouge, according to the CIA - Washington was now imposing an economic blockade on the most stricken country on earth, as revenge for its liberation by the hated Vietnam. This siege lasted almost a decade and ensured that Cambodia never fully recovered. Almost none of this was broadcast as news or documentary.
With the two films under my arm, my last stop in Washington was PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, which has a liberal reputation, rather like the BBC. During a viewing with a senior executive, I discerned a sharp intake of breath. "Great films, John," he said, "but …" He proposed that PBS hire an "adjudicator" who would "assess the real public worth of your films". Richard Dudman, a Washington journalist with the rare distinction of having been welcomed to Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, was assigned the task. In his previous Cambodia dispatches, Dudman had found people "reasonably relaxed" and urged his readers to look "on the bright side" as Pol Pot had started "one of the world's great housing programs". Not surprisingly, the author of this apologia turned his thumb down on my films. Later, the PBS executive phoned me "off the record". "Your films would have given us problems with the Reagan administration," he said. "Sorry."
I offer this charade as a vivid example of the fear and loathing of the independent documentary's power to circumvent those who guard official truth. Although its historical roots are often traced back to the work of Robert Flaherty, the American director who made Nanook of the North in 1922, and John Grierson, the British documentarist whose first film was premiered at a London double bill with Battleship Potemkin in1929, in Britain the modern documentary's political power is often measured against a specious neutrality invented by John Reith, founder of the BBC, while he was writing and broadcasting anti-trade union propaganda during the 1922 General Strike. The stamina and influence of this pervasive BBC myth are reflected in the rarity of truly independent political documentaries.
Some remarkable films are made, however, testaments to a faith in the docudmentary form that never fails to inspire. One comes readily to mind: A Letter to the Prime Minister: Jo Wilding's Diary from Iraq. Jo Wilding, a young trainee lawyer and human rights worker in Iraq, produced some of the finest frontline reporting of the war online from Fallujah, then under siege by the US Marines. Living with families and without a flak jacket, she all but shamed the embedded army of reporters in her description of the atrocious American attack on an Iraqi city Her documentary, directed by Julia Guest, presents the evidence of a crime and asks Tony Blair to take his share of the responsibility: a basic question now asked by millions of Britons. The film was offered to television, and rejected. It has been shown at festivals around the world, but "painfully little" in Britain, says Guest, apart from single screenings at the Barbican and a forthcoming screening on October 15 at the Curzon Soho in London.
One problem facing political documentaries in Britain is that they run the risk of being immersed in the insidious censorship of "current affairs", a loose masonry uniting politicians and famous journalists who define "politics" as the machinations of Westminster, thereby fixing the limits of "political debate". No more striking example currently presents itself than the relentless media afforded the infantile scrapping of the political twins, Blair and Gordon Brown, and their tedious acolytes, drowning out the cries of the people of Iraq and Gaza and Lebanon - countries where the BBC has effected its false equilibrium and waffled about "two narratives" as if truth and justice are taboo concepts. Similarly, the fifth anniversary of September 11 proved a lost opportunity to rest the reverential and the ghoulish and describe how George W Bush and his gang used the tragedy to violently renew their version of empire and world domination.
Like the best of commercial television, cinema does offer hope for the political documentary, although film-makers who believe they can follow the success of Michael Moore beware. Moore's work is very popular, and makes money: the two vital ingredients for distributors and exhibitors. To get into cinemas, documentaries need to have at least a hope of repeating something of Moore's success. That said, there is no doubt in my mind that outstanding serious documentaries, if promoted imaginatively, can attract huge pubic interest. When this has happened on television, the reward has been not so much ratings as a "qualitative" audience: that is, people who engage with the work. (When Death of a Nation, the film I made with David Munro about East Timor, was shown on ITV late at night, it was followed by 5,000 phone calls a minute from the public).
What we need are more "citizen" documentary-makers, like Jo Wilding and Julia Guest, who are prepared to look in the mirror of our "civilised" societies and film the long rivers of blood, and their ebbing truth. It took Peter Davis's Oscar-winning 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds to make sense of the mass murder that was the invasion of Vietnam. Two sequences brilliantly achieved this. There was General William Westmoreland, the American commander, declaring: "The Oriental doesn't put the same price on life as the Westerner," while a Vietnamese boy sobbed over the death of his father, murdered by GIs. And there was a naked Vietnamese girl, running from a Napalm attack, her body a patchwork of burns, and followed by a woman carrying a baby, the skin hanging off its body. Thanks to Hearts and Mind, they are now unforgettable evidence of the barbarity of that war.
There is a hunger among the public for documentaries because only only documentaries, at their best, are fearless and show the unpalatable and make sense of the news. The extraordinary films of Alan Francovich achieved this. Francovitch, who died in 1997 , made The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie. THIS destroyed the official truth that Libya was responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Instead, an unwitting "mule", with links to the CIA, was alleged to have carried the bomb on board the aircraft. (Paul Foot's parallel investigation for Private Eye came to a similar conclusion). The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie has never been publicly screened in the United States. In this country, the threat of legal action from a US Government official prevented showings at the 1994 London Film Festival and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. In 1995, defying threats, Tam Dalyell showed it in the House of Commons, and Channel 4 broadcast it in May 1995.
To make sense of the current colonial war in Afghanistan, I recommend Jamie Dorian's Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death, which describes how the country's liberators oversaw the secret killing of 3,000 Afghans – the number killed in the Twin Towers. To begin to make sense of the news, I recommend Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and to understand one of the major reasons Bush and Blair invaded Iraq, I recommend Greenwald's latest, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers. All are available on DVD. In these dangerous times, with countries about to be attacked and many innocent lives already condemned, we urgently need more documentaries like these, for the simple reason that the public has a right to know in order to act.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=10974
ZNet | Mexico
Comunicado of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine
Committee-General Command (CCRI-CG) of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)
Sixth Commission of the EZLN
by Subcomandante insurgente Marcos; September 16, 2006
To the Adherents to the Sixth and the Other Campaign:
To the People of Mexico:
Compañeros and Compañeras:
During the past months of July and August, the EZLN's Sixth Commission has carried out a series of contacts and consultations with different organizations, groups, collectives, families and individual adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and the Other Campaign.
With that obtained from this consultation, we sent an evaluation and a proposal to our EZLN indigenous comandante Compa~eros.
The authorization from the CCRI-CG now received, the Sixth Commission will begin to announce, in the next days, a series of analyses, considerations and proposals. In several texts, the EZLN's Sixth Commission will do a recap of the history which gave origin to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, a balance of "la Otra" at one year from its beginning, an analysis of the electoral fraud which culminated in the imposition of Felipe Caldero'n of the PAN as president of Mexico, our critical position before the mobilization against that rascality, as well as a proposal to the adherents to the Other Campaign for the next stages of the struggle which we have started together.
Now we communicate to you a first resolution taken based on that consultation and our evaluation.
First. With the demand of freedom and justice for our Atenco prisoner companer@s, the EZLN's Sixth Commission will reinforce its solidarity presence in the country's capital and, simultaneously, will again take up the tour which has been suspended, that way visiting the eleven (11) northern states of the Mexican Republic in which we have not yet arrived, to listen to the companer@s of those lands.
Second. For that, a group of comandantes and comandantas from the CCRI-CG of the EZLN/Sixth Commission will move to Mexico City, as a way of relieving Delegate Zero so that he can finish the tour not concluded.
While Delegate Zero travels to the country's North promoting the struggle for freedom of our compas and listening to the word of the Otra in those places, the comandant@s will stay in Mexico City and its surroundings, pending the situation of the prisoners, and participating, as possible, in the activities which may be carried out demanding their release.
Third. In the tour which is being reinitiated, meetings with adherents and with Indian peoples from the states and regions will be attended to first, although participation in public acts which are agreed on among the adherents and the EZLN's Sixth Commission is not dismissed. The aggression against Atenco and the prisoners' situation will be broadcast everywhere.
Cuarto. In broad strokes, the tour will be resumed on October 9 of this year with the following itinerary:
Sinaloa (Escuinapa, Mazatla'n, Culiaca'n y Los Mochis); afterwards on the ferry to Baja California Sur (La Paz and, perhaps, Los Cabos); later by highway towards Baja California Norte (Ensenada, Tijuana, Mexicali, meeting with "la Otra en el otro lado" and visiting at some point the compas of the National Indigenous Congress-Northeast: los Indian peoples kumiai, cucupa', triquis and mixtecos); from there to Sonora (Santa Ana, Hermosillo, Guaymas-Empalme, Ciudad Obrego'n and, on the trajectory, we will meet with the Indian peoples pa'pagos, seris, mayos, yaquis and pimas, also from the CNI-Northeast); then, from Los Mochis, by train to the Sierra Tarahumara, in Chihuahua, to meet with the Rara'muri compa~ero members of the CNI; afterwards continuing by train to arrive in Chihuahua, continuing on by highway to Ciudad Jua'rez and Parral; afterwards to the lakes region in Coahuila and Durango; then to several points of the state of Zacatecas; from there to San Luis Potosi', the capital the high plateau; later to Monterrey y Linares, in Nuevo Leo'n; then Saltillo, Monclova and Pasta de Conchos, in Coahuila; afterwards Matamoros, Ciudad Victoria and the southeast of Tamaulipas, and from there travel to the Huasteca of Potosi' to end there national tour, and to return to the Distrito Federal [Mexico City] (tentatively the end of Noviembre).
Fifth. The itinerary is made based on the adherents in each state or region, and on the activity proposals which we had done before the shameful events in San Salvador Atenco, May 3 and 4 of this year. The details of dates and routes will be announced at their opportunity, due to the fact that we are still looking at the routes and the condition of the roads, and will be in communication with adherents in the states of Northern Mexico and of "la Otra en el otro lado."
Sixth. This decision of the CCRI-CG and its Sixth Commission has already been consulted with and approved by the companer@s of the Peoples Front in Defense of Land, attacked, together with other companer@s of the Oher Campaign, on May 3 and 4 2006, by the forces of the federal government and the government of the state of Mexico. The Atenco companer@s have indicated agreement.
Comite' Clandestino Revolucionario Indi'gena-General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
Sixth Commission of the EZLN
Subcomandante insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September 13, 2006.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=59&ItemID=10972
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