| My brief documentary, an update on the Rainforest Action Network's campaign against Sinar Mas palm oil, will soon air on Minneapolis cable: Channel | Day | Date | Time |
| 16 | WED | 12/29 | 8:00AM |
| 16 | THUR | 12/30 | 4:00PM |
| 16 | TUE | 1/4 | 11:00PM |
| 16 | WED | 1/12 | 7:30AM |
Monday, December 13, 2010
Rainforest Action campaign Update
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
World Bank President Zoellick and the Slippery Currency
On the day that gold hit $1385.50/ oz, the Twin Cities community packed the Humphrey Center auditorium to hear of "Challenges Facing Global Economic Development."
On Wednesday December 1, the President of the World Bank Group, Robert Zoellick, faced the Twin Cities community and addressed global development issues in the format of a guided conversation with his friend, Vin Weber.
Weber, the senior fellow at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs for many years, had pulled some strings to make this conversation free, public, and catered, promoting both the University of Minnesota and the World Bank.
The public wanted to know-- among other things written on pre-screened question cards-- what effect the Wikileaks site would have on banking. He said that it would have no effect, but Zoellick criticized the new releases from Wikileaks, saying that they make it harder for the US to do business with other countries.
[TC Indymedia video: Zoellick on Wikileaks:
http://tc.indymedia.org/videos/2010/dec/world-bank-president-robert-zoellick-slams-wikileaks]
--
More: Upcoming Event: Striking Blows in Defense of the Earth @ U of M - Dec 11th - Ongoing: Indymedia live coverage of Cancun COP16 Climate Conference - LINK http://mobilebroadcastnews.
The World Bank's claim is to work towards a world free of poverty. But time and again, its policies have eased up on the destructive practices of multinational corporations.
President Zoellick will soon face this easing of standards, as Sinar Mas, a palm oil company, fights its sanctions. Recently, as the Rainforest Action Network and scores of its allies have pressured multinationals like Cargill to stop using palm oil from old rainforests & end deforestation of the rainforests of Indonesia, the World Bank proposed changes to its own palm oil policy.
According to Climate Action's blog of November 22,
"The World Bank’s proposed easing off on its palm oil strategy [of no funding to palm oil companies] has roused relief for corporations worldwide whilst attracting mixed reactions to its plan to finance only firms pursuing green standards....
Robert Zoellick was responsible for freezing World Bank Group funding worldwide in the palm oil sector, pending the social and environmental concerns. It is now his responsibility to ensure safeguards are in place to protect all stakeholders."
Will he go forward with the green standards, which will be contested in early 2011?
Questions abounded and a few pre-screened questions were brought from the audience to facilitator Vin Weber.
Weber brought up the pointed question of Zoellick's piece in the Financial Times
(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
that briefly mentioned a gold standard. It's the sort of thing that gets everyone worrying, and for good reason. "Gold is a signal of no confidence in the currency policies," Zoellick replied, betraying a hint of self-doubt. He advised a successor to the Bretton Woods II agreement, not an international gold standard but neither a rapidly shifting exchange rate like in China. He predicted that there will be flexible currencies with none predominant-- and no longer a dominant dollar -- but he had most faith in the Chinese Renminbi, "which needs to join the club and have an open capital account," he said, so that foreigners can finally invest in their currency.
The Bank President is surely picking up on the Gold Signal, and seeing its troubling signs not only for his job but for America.
"If you have a banking crisis, you'll have a sovereign debt crisis next," he warned. "Either debasing the currency, clipping coins, or inflation!" Both tactics are currently in use, of course, by America's money-maker, the Federal Reserve. His criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was subtle: "I should be very careful what I say about certain institutions, like the Federal Reserve."
The World Bank Group is diverse, but not a democracy, in that its members' votes don't have equal weight. Zoellick commented that nothing in the WBG's charter requires it to be a democracy or to work with democracies.
One audience member asked, Why does the World Bank Group provide capital to dictatorships, like that of Ethiopia? Doesn't that border on complicity?
Zoellick responded that the needs of humans can still be addressed by World Bank funding & shouldn't be neglected for the sake of politics. He expressed an interest in working with Ethiopia for its leadership in addressing climate change. Many WBG members are not democracies, he noted, but still worth working alongside-- but to what (greenwashed) end?
The US has the greatest voting power among the 187 members (each representing a country) of the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development, one institution in the World Bank Group. The WBG, though a resource for international investment & settlements, is based in Washington, and customarily headed by an American. The International Monetary Fund, which also is based in Washington DC & came out of the historic Bretton Woods conference, is customarily headed by an European. This industrial Western bias has led to controversy over its approach to the Global South, a top-down approach that gives a uniform answer to development and aid while burdening developing countries with top -priority debt.
One question from the audience urgently asked about Structural Adjustment Programs, referring to the process of lending to poor countries with strict conditions for streamlined national economies, insisting on "free markets" that allow foreign companies access to resources.
Zoellick answered that there are no more Structural Adjustment Loans, and that the World Bank Group rather emphasizes Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Such plans are intended to be led by the governments of the recipient countries, but they tend to look quite similar to the terms of the Structural Adjustment Loans because the World Bank still advises heavily.
Zoellick spoke of a hip, green, transparent new trend in investing, but however hip it may seem, it will still be top-heavy.
He spoke of an upcoming Post-Conflict Development Group to emerge from WBG's work in Rwanda and Afghanistan, which would join the other complicated institutions in this alphabet soup: ICSID, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, IFC, the International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency for insurance, the prerequisite IBRD, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the group for the poorest countries, IDA, the International Development Association.
It all seems very humanitarian at first glance.
"How can we help Africa?" Zoellick asked. He sees the emerging powers of the world as developing countries, some of them ahead of the curve of renewable energy, and wants to bring them in as stakeholders in a typically condescending institution.
"The basic lesson of development, no matter how well-intentioned, is --if the local guy doesn't own it, it's not going to work." He went on to say that "there are not just solutions from the West," but a "common interest" to be heeded.
That common interest, according to Zoellick, is localization and transparency. He said he wants to start a Corruption Hunters group in Washington, with investigators from 132 countries looking into political and financial corruption. "There are not just people who take bribes, but also people who give bribes..."
This won't be the first time Zoellick's long career in finance helpes him dip into politics. With the World Bank, he claims to be uninvolved in politics.
But they say, the business of America is business.
His biography, as distributed at the event, reveals friendly jaunts through the "revolving door":
"From 1985 to 1988, Zoellick served in various positions at the Department of Treasury, including Counselor to Secretary James Baker, Executive Secretary of the Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy. In August 1992, Zoellick was appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to President G.H.W. Bush. Mr. Zoellick was also appointed Bush's personal representative for the G7 Economic Summits in 1991 and 1992.
From 1993 to 1997, Zoellick served as an Executive Vice President of Fannie Mae. Zoellick was appointed as the John M. Olin Professor of National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy (1997–98), Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Senior International Advisor to Goldman Sachs. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Zoellick served as U.S. Trade Representative and from 2005-2006, he served as Deputy Secretary of State. He then took office as President of the World Bank on July 1, 2007", succeeding a very different President, Paul Wolfowitz.
What's next for the Development Aid Crusade?
The World Bank has proposed to collect climate taxes in the Copenhagen 2009 proposal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Meanwhile, as the COP16 met to hash out the details, hundreds of protesters in Cancun demonstrated, upset about the World Bank controlling the global climate fund:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Friday, November 26, 2010
World Bank President to address the Global Economy
Next week, the President of the World Bank will visit Minneapolis to address challenges in the global economy before a large public audience-- free admission.
The World Bank's claim is to work towards a world free of poverty. But time and again, its policies have eased up on the destructive practices of multinational corporations.
Recently, as the Rainforest Action Network and scores of its allies have pressured multinationals like Cargill to stop using palm oil from old rainforests & end deforestation of the rainforests of Indonesia, the World Bank proposed changes to its own palm oil policy.
According to Climate Action's blog of November 22,
"The World Bank’s proposed easing off on its palm oil strategy [of no funding to palm oil companies] has roused relief for corporations worldwide whilst attracting mixed reactions to its plan to finance only firms pursuing green standards....
Robert Zoellick was responsible for freezing World Bank Group funding worldwide in the palm oil sector, pending the social and environmental concerns. It is now his responsibility to ensure safeguards are in place to protect all stakeholders."
Will he go forward with the green standards, & make the right decisions? Come listen & pose your questions this Wednesday:
Challenges Facing Global Economic Development with the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey Institute
301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis
From tensions over trade balances and currency valuations to the sharp economic disparities between rich and poor countries, global economic development continues to face enormous challenges. One of the country's most important figures in the global economy, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, will discuss the current policy response to these challenges. Former Congressman Vin Weber will moderate the discussion.
Robert Zoellick is the current president of the World Bank, a position he has held since July of 2007. Mr. Zoellick has served in various positions throughout his career, including Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, and U.S. Trade Representative. From 1985 to 1988, Zoellick served in various positions at the Department of Treasury, including Counselor to Secretary James Baker, Executive Secretary of the Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy. In August 1992, Zoellick was appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President. Mr. Zoellick was also appointed Bush's personal representative for the G7 Economic Summits in 1991 and 1992.
>From 1993 to 1997, Zoellick served as an Executive Vice President of Fannie Mae. Afterwards, Zoellick was appointed as the John M. Olin Professor of National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy (1997–98), Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Senior International Advisor to Goldman Sachs. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Zoellick served as U.S. Trade Representative and from 2005-2006, he served as Deputy Secretary of State. He then took office as President of the World Bank on July 1, 2007. Mr. Zoellick graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College in 1975. He earned a J.D. magna cum laude from the Harvard Law School and a MPP (focusing on public management and international issues, especially economics) from the Kennedy School of Government in 1981. He lived in Hong Kong on a fellowship in 1980.
Vin Weber is a senior fellow at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He is also actively involved in the Humphrey Institute Policy Fellows program. He served in Congress from 1981 to 1993, representing Minnesota’s Second Congressional District. He is a partner at Clark & Weinstock, a consulting firm that provides strategic advice to institutions with matters before the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Prior to opening Clark & Weinstock’s Washington office in 1994, Weber was president – and co-director with Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Bill Bennett – of Empower America, a public policy advocacy group. From 2001-2010, he served as chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private, nonprofit organization designed to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. Weber is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and is often sought as a political analyst for network programs such as CNN’s Capital Gang.
This event is free and open to the public, however, registration is required. Please RSVP at http://robertzoellick.eventbrite.com/ .
For parking and directions please go to http://www.hhh.umn.edu/contact/parking.html . To request disability accommodations, please call 612-625-2530 or e-mail cspg@umn.edu.
The World Bank's claim is to work towards a world free of poverty. But time and again, its policies have eased up on the destructive practices of multinational corporations.
Recently, as the Rainforest Action Network and scores of its allies have pressured multinationals like Cargill to stop using palm oil from old rainforests & end deforestation of the rainforests of Indonesia, the World Bank proposed changes to its own palm oil policy.
According to Climate Action's blog of November 22,
"The World Bank’s proposed easing off on its palm oil strategy [of no funding to palm oil companies] has roused relief for corporations worldwide whilst attracting mixed reactions to its plan to finance only firms pursuing green standards....
Robert Zoellick was responsible for freezing World Bank Group funding worldwide in the palm oil sector, pending the social and environmental concerns. It is now his responsibility to ensure safeguards are in place to protect all stakeholders."
Will he go forward with the green standards, & make the right decisions? Come listen & pose your questions this Wednesday:
Challenges Facing Global Economic Development with the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey Institute
301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis
From tensions over trade balances and currency valuations to the sharp economic disparities between rich and poor countries, global economic development continues to face enormous challenges. One of the country's most important figures in the global economy, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, will discuss the current policy response to these challenges. Former Congressman Vin Weber will moderate the discussion.
Robert Zoellick is the current president of the World Bank, a position he has held since July of 2007. Mr. Zoellick has served in various positions throughout his career, including Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, and U.S. Trade Representative. From 1985 to 1988, Zoellick served in various positions at the Department of Treasury, including Counselor to Secretary James Baker, Executive Secretary of the Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy. In August 1992, Zoellick was appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President. Mr. Zoellick was also appointed Bush's personal representative for the G7 Economic Summits in 1991 and 1992.
>From 1993 to 1997, Zoellick served as an Executive Vice President of Fannie Mae. Afterwards, Zoellick was appointed as the John M. Olin Professor of National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy (1997–98), Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Senior International Advisor to Goldman Sachs. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Zoellick served as U.S. Trade Representative and from 2005-2006, he served as Deputy Secretary of State. He then took office as President of the World Bank on July 1, 2007. Mr. Zoellick graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College in 1975. He earned a J.D. magna cum laude from the Harvard Law School and a MPP (focusing on public management and international issues, especially economics) from the Kennedy School of Government in 1981. He lived in Hong Kong on a fellowship in 1980.
Vin Weber is a senior fellow at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He is also actively involved in the Humphrey Institute Policy Fellows program. He served in Congress from 1981 to 1993, representing Minnesota’s Second Congressional District. He is a partner at Clark & Weinstock, a consulting firm that provides strategic advice to institutions with matters before the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Prior to opening Clark & Weinstock’s Washington office in 1994, Weber was president – and co-director with Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Bill Bennett – of Empower America, a public policy advocacy group. From 2001-2010, he served as chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private, nonprofit organization designed to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. Weber is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and is often sought as a political analyst for network programs such as CNN’s Capital Gang.
This event is free and open to the public, however, registration is required. Please RSVP at http://robertzoellick.
For parking and directions please go to http://www.hhh.umn.edu/
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Stolen Lives Ceremony, One Month Later
Every October 22, concerned citizens across America march against police brutality & remember the many lives stolen by police shootings, tasers, & chemical weaponry over the years.
Nationally, there have been well over 2000 Stolen Lives in the last 10 years.
This year, Communities United Against Police Brutality led a large group down to the Fifth Precinct Police station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gaining the support of everyone who drove by and honked, & who stopped and listened as all the names of the Minnesota dead were read aloud.
Victims of fatal police brutality were honored by having their names & life dates placed on the police station steps, like rows of tombstones. Regrettably, several of them were nameless, unidentified homeless people who police killed without documenting them or giving much thought.
The officers inside watched & did nothing; the officers outside watched from their cars and cautiously followed the march of Minneapolitans along blocks parallel to their route.
Since the march last month, the nights have gotten longer, colder and lonelier in Minnesota. Minneapolis police have not responded in any way to the demands of the people-- probably they have their hands full now that the False Reporting on Police Brutality statute has been overturned, & lawsuits are being brought against them by black cops over racism and abuse, as well as by citizens demanding that Police Chief Dolan follow the law and punish abusive officers.
To see the list of those we remember, the victims we speak out for:
See this List & Memorial.
Nationally, there have been well over 2000 Stolen Lives in the last 10 years.
This year, Communities United Against Police Brutality led a large group down to the Fifth Precinct Police station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gaining the support of everyone who drove by and honked, & who stopped and listened as all the names of the Minnesota dead were read aloud.
Victims of fatal police brutality were honored by having their names & life dates placed on the police station steps, like rows of tombstones. Regrettably, several of them were nameless, unidentified homeless people who police killed without documenting them or giving much thought.
The officers inside watched & did nothing; the officers outside watched from their cars and cautiously followed the march of Minneapolitans along blocks parallel to their route.
Since the march last month, the nights have gotten longer, colder and lonelier in Minnesota. Minneapolis police have not responded in any way to the demands of the people-- probably they have their hands full now that the False Reporting on Police Brutality statute has been overturned, & lawsuits are being brought against them by black cops over racism and abuse, as well as by citizens demanding that Police Chief Dolan follow the law and punish abusive officers.
To see the list of those we remember, the victims we speak out for:See this List & Memorial.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Martial Law Blueprint - Leaked!
National Level Exercise 2011 docs found on Army Corps fileserver prove upgrade for Secret 'Civil Disturbance Operations CONPLAN 3502' the Master Pentagon Blueprint for RNC/G20 Lockdowns, Policing Disasters & More
By Twin Cities Indymedia — Digital presentations posted on an Army Corps of Engineers server, about military operations in a giant FEMA-simulated earthquake drill called National Level Exercise 2011, inadvertently reveal crucial new info about another 'Secret' Pentagon plan, Northcom CONPLAN 3502, including the “trigger” for domestic military 'Civil Disturbance Operations.' CONPLAN 3502 and CONPLAN 3501, 'Defense Support of Civil Authorities,' are the two main military plans used to design the Pentagon's 'footprint' at National Special Security Events like the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Exactly as the Pennsylvania National Guard took over the G20 protester jail operation, other docs show 'Secret' CONPLAN 3502 specifically plans for military-operated detention and search operations within our country. In context, the new material is the most troubling I have ever discovered, and proves anew that underneath Constitutional limited government, a more brutal martial framework is secretly, constantly, extending its reach. DHS/FEMA doesn't like it at all when NLEs get publicized so check it out right away. Full URLs below.
The Big Break: FEMA NLE Regional Readiness Workshop files (indexed on Google)
The NLE2011 presentations & material show a domestic military command system that's accelerated quite a bit since the 1960s. The new documents are in these directories & URLS - all from a planning meeting in March called the Regional Readiness Workshop (RRW).
Google "USARNORTH CONPLAN 3501" and it should take you directly to http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=usarnorth+conplan+3501
...This is the key presentation! https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/NewMadrid/Document%20Library/1/11.%20FINAL%20ARNORTH_Dovey_NMSZ%20RRW.ppt
You have to 'accept security certificate' i.e. bad encryption, for your browser to connect to it. [I think this is one reason no one has noticed!] The rest of the files can be located at URLS like
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/NewMadrid/Document%20Library - The whole filestash for the New Madrid Seismic Zone National Level Exercise 2011 Regional Readiness Workshop. This has the index for the other RRW presentations. (All interesting)
The notes in here portray a FEMA & emergency management system in confusion, overall an alarming state of earthquake preparation for a New Madrid Seismic Zone event. The 11th presentation, from US Army North, was apparently never given due to time constraint (See 'After Action Report'). Don't miss the presentation which maps out which fiber optic cables that would snap in a New Madrid epic heartland earthquake!
Presentation #11 is about CONPLAN 3501, the sunny-faced all-sized military program working between FEMA and NORTHCOM to set up joint commands. It's the same plan as the Gulfwater Horizon Joint Command (more below). They put out a happy 400-page DSCA handbook recently to lay out the nice Joint Task Force / Northcom disaster civil support logistics stuff. No riot control gear suggested in 3501. No checkpoints, etc.
But seemingly accidentally, an entirely different intro notes annotation or text was left in the Army's title slide.
Chilling stuff / details below: the notes show incremental updates to the ultimate “bad cop” Northcom mega-plan, CONPLAN 3502, with the apparent approval of US 5th Army Chief of Staff Richard Francey. CONPLAN3502 is the replacement for the post 1960s Army lockdown plan, GARDEN PLOT. So this note gives us a new totally concrete view of the Army's recent 'Changelog' of the same damn plan that's been there all along – yeah, it includes military detention centers for US citizens, other official material proves.
The rest of the URLS worth checking out, besides the RRW folder:
Reference materials here:
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/EmergencyManagement/default.aspx
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/EmergencyManagement/Shared%20Documents/Forms/DOD%20and%20Army%20Regulations%20and%20Directives.aspx
1994 version of domestic ops (dod 3025.1) manual here, not seen elsewhere?
Calendar has training events etc :
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/Lists/Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=479&Source=https%3A%2F%2Feportal%2Eusace%2Earmy%2Emil%2Fsites%2FRSC%2FLists%2FCalendar%2FCalendar%20RSC%2Easpx%3FCalendarDate%3D12%252F18%252F2010
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/trainingexer/Civil/level1/default.aspx
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/RSC/trainingexer/Civil/level1/Pages/ConOps.aspx
Some files are like this - in segments, you can get them together with a ZIP app
Check into these folders - they have FEMA reportbacks - the Senior Leadership Seminar 2010:
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?
Local emergency managers freakin out over giga-planfail. For Public Safety concerns this is just grim :
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2fENGLink%2fSLS2010%2fShared%20Documents%2fBO1&FolderCTID=
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2fENGLink%2fSLS2010%2fShared%20Documents%2fBO3&FolderCTID=
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/ENGLink/SLS2010/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2fENGLink%2fSLS2010%2fShared%20Documents%2fBO2&FolderCTID=
I think that covers all the interesting folders.
To understand where CONPLAN 3502 & the new info fits, we have to briefly go back to its roots, back to Kent State and the riots of the 1960s - now these plans are core to the domestic military system's new generation.
Quick History - From GARDEN PLOT & Kent State to (S)ecret 3502, NORTHCOM & More
The US Northern Command, NORTHCOM, near Colorado Springs & the post-Cold War NORAD command center, was set up in 2002 as a Department of Defense counterpart to the Department of Homeland Security. NORTHCOM is a global 'combatant command' with responsibility for all of North America, like CENTCOM handles the Middle East, EUCOM Europe, AFRICOM Africa, etc. (By the way, PACOM, the Pacific Command, has 'CONPLAN 7502' setup for Asian Civil Disturbance Operations - i.e. almost certainly ready-to-go on US bases during the Seoul G20).
CONPLANs are Concept of Operations Plans, basically abstract templates, around 200 to 300 pages long in some cases, which can be turned into OPLANs, specific local operations plans. Other operations like exercises (exercise orders or EXORDs) can be generated from CONPLANs as well. CONPLANs are numbered in sets for each combatant command - NORTHCOM got the 2500s and 3500s, PACOM the 7500s etc.
Before NORTHCOM, the US military labeled its plans differently. The urban riots of the 1960s prompted the blue-ribbon Kerner Commission to recommend a more coherent approach for the military to intervene in domestic emergencies. So the Pentagon secretly drafted and deployed 'GARDEN PLOT,' also known as Plan 55-2.
Four versions of GARDEN PLOT have been released recently via FOIA. (More @ globalsecurity.org) At the US Social Forum this summer, an activist attorney who's been dealing with west coast military ops said to me that they thought GARDEN PLOT was 'just a conspiracy theory' all those years, but of course it turned out to be very real.
GARDEN PLOT laid out the National Guard plan at the Watts Riots, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the LA Riots and Kent State. Just like 3502, it kept getting revised after every 'lab test' on Americans. It's really the main foundation, and in the 1980s infamous Oliver North-related tests like REX84 and in California, Louis Guifrida's CABLE SPLICER were essentially GARDEN PLOT type exercises, with Pentagon & FEMA-based communications & control.
An early-1990s domestic operations manual was also on USACE server, so it shows the pre-NORTHCOM/DHS way the Pentagon & FEMA were connected.
Once tiny authorities & connections have grown into bureaucracies with thousands of operatives & staff. GARDEN PLOT was last modified in 1996, and in 2002 it was replaced with CONPLAN3502. That's the main idea-what's new here is the latest revision info & the “trigger”.
CONPLAN 3502 = GARDEN PLOT For 21st Century Military Control Ops in America
NORTHCOM has now set a whole series of CONPLANs. One particularly creepy one, CONPLAN 3591, the master plan for Influenza Pandemic operations, (PDF) has already been published but heavily redacted. Skimming 3591 illustrates the deeply spooky and exhaustive nature of CONPLANS – not to mention the bulk, more than 250 pages with many annexes!
CONPLAN 3502 is, at a minimum, the classified (S)ecret NORTHCOM replacement for GARDEN PLOT – this means it replaces the major secret Army domestic crackdown plan of the 20th Century. Careful comparison of all official CONPLAN 3502 references with the GARDEN PLOT editions – dating from the 1960s to 1996 – proves that certain features like “Civil Disturbance Conditions” or CIDCONs are in both. CIDCONs are a stages of readiness for an Army units with Civil Disturbance gear to fly out to US cities. (Like this set of Army gear eerily advertised right now on the Metrodome - a pic from the 2008RNC!)
GARDEN PLOT lists Army staging areas or 'bases' for domestic military operations such as the military fields by the Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport, which is exactly where they staged to crush the Highway 55 Coldwater resistance protest camp in 2002. The 'bases' are key to understanding what turned up.
There they were, already indexed on Google for “NLE 2011” and “USARNORTH CONPLAN 3501” etc - files on the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) server. Inside the NLE2011 Powerpoint slides from US Army North, the 5th Army under NORTHCOM, supposed to just be about CONPLAN 3501, 'Defense Support of Civil Authorities' which includes all big disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.
Instead the title slide's 'notes' or annotation field has a whole bunch of explanation about CONPLAN 3502 including Army revisions and 'base' changes! This must have been accidentally left within the PowerPoint - as almost nothing else references 3502. It proves the 5th Army Chief of Staff is approving refinements to 3502, apparently (by the date) after they deployed it in Pittsburgh.
This proves beyond the shadow of a doubt a Colonel Francey, i.e. Chief of Staff (CofS) Richard Francey of the US 5th Army, influenced the revisions to CONPLAN 3502 - it proves where this thing is getting tweaked.
Why is this here? The military is choked by transmitting all its material in PowerPoints, and soldiers are constantly throwing presentations together from existing slides, so it's no surprise the presentation about approving revisions to CONPLAN 3502 leached into the CONPLAN 3501/NLE2011 Earthquake presentation. According to meeting notes this presentation was never actually given as they ran out of time – the actual National Level Exercise 2011 planning conference process seemed quite messy in execution.
Another major CONPLAN 3502 fact was included to be presented, no less than the “TRIGGER” condition itself. A slide with very pixellated layout (via MS Paint?) shows the “3502 TRIGGER = CDO EXCEDES T32 CAPIBILITIES” [sic]. Civil Disturbance Operations exceed Title 32 Capabilities, it seems likely, a reference to the different sections of US Code delineating domestic military operations authorities.
There it is, one heck of a droid many have been looking for. But let's look for further reference hooks to codes of martial law-like behavior. Turns out there are plenty.
Cross Reference: CONPLAN 3502 Outlining Domestic Searches, Crowd Control & Detention Facilities Match Pittsburgh G20 Terrors
The frightening dimension of what must be contained in the full version of CONPLAN 3502 is indicated by footnotes in a manual for Judge Advocate Generals and military lawyers - Chapter 5 of the Domestic Operational Law Handbook. (PDF 3MB)
The entire JAG manual is frightening, really, for anyone that assures themselves the Posse Comitatus Act really restricts domestic military operations.
A series of footnotes authoritatively point to USNORTHCOM CONPLAN 3502 as containing everything from handling insurance claims to domestic military-controlled detention facilities, and domestic military searches and seizures. Yes, really. (And no one seems to have noticed!)
The same conditions described in JAG manual sections footnoted to CONPLAN 3502 happened in the 2009 G20 Conference in Pittsburgh, in particular military detention operations at the Allegheny County Jail, and fully armored-up riot control style crowd control.
For the rest of the article, see:
http://tc.indymedia.org/2010/nov/tc-indymedia-exclusive-secret-trigger-blueprint-emergency-domestic-military-crackdown-plan-
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
UPDATE: War Powers addressed at University of St. Thomas Law
On October 7, students and community members gathered for the Journal of Law and Public Policy Forum on Presidential Powers at University of St. Thomas Law School.
A report from Tackling Torture at the Top and Colleen Rowley:
There was a protester presence the entire day, and two separate rallies during the day. In addition 10 or 11 T3 supporters went in to hear the symposium. Also inside were 30 Delahunty students apparently assigned to come, and around 30 students who looked in or stopped in passing, up in the balcony area.
The symposium was tightly controlled. At the door, attendees were told they couldn't even carry a single flyer in. All questions were handed in and only one question from T3 was selected (that only happened because of T3 insistence).
There were five speakers arguing that presidential powers override all other branches of government and one speaker opposed, but she was not given an opportunity to debate the other speakers. Three were solidly pro-presidential powers (Yoo, Delahunty, and Stokes-Paulsen), while one (Amar) claimed to be a proponent of “Unitary Executive” but only spoke on the President’s power to fire agency heads. He disagreed on some details with his former student, John Yoo. Amar was also one who admitted the war on terror is PERMANENT.
And then Kitrosser argued, in her separate half-hour, for some restraints on illegal actions of a President, while Schultz seemed to be against the extreme ramifications of the theory of presidential power. He confined his remarks to the political analysis of how Obama had not departed from Bush’s stances and therefore had not played to his own base of support which in Schultz’s view was not going to serve him well in the upcoming elections.
The issue of torture was not specifically mentioned in relation to executive branch power.
A report from Tackling Torture at the Top and Colleen Rowley:
There was a protester presence the entire day, and two separate rallies during the day. In addition 10 or 11 T3 supporters went in to hear the symposium. Also inside were 30 Delahunty students apparently assigned to come, and around 30 students who looked in or stopped in passing, up in the balcony area.
The symposium was tightly controlled. At the door, attendees were told they couldn't even carry a single flyer in. All questions were handed in and only one question from T3 was selected (that only happened because of T3 insistence).
There were five speakers arguing that presidential powers override all other branches of government and one speaker opposed, but she was not given an opportunity to debate the other speakers. Three were solidly pro-presidential powers (Yoo, Delahunty, and Stokes-Paulsen), while one (Amar) claimed to be a proponent of “Unitary Executive” but only spoke on the President’s power to fire agency heads. He disagreed on some details with his former student, John Yoo. Amar was also one who admitted the war on terror is PERMANENT.
And then Kitrosser argued, in her separate half-hour, for some restraints on illegal actions of a President, while Schultz seemed to be against the extreme ramifications of the theory of presidential power. He confined his remarks to the political analysis of how Obama had not departed from Bush’s stances and therefore had not played to his own base of support which in Schultz’s view was not going to serve him well in the upcoming elections.
The issue of torture was not specifically mentioned in relation to executive branch power.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Do We have the Worst Police in the Midwest?
Does Minneapolis have the Worst police in the Midwest? What are the problems that the community can address without the police? When do we need them? What are they doing right?Come discuss these issues, crucial to our community, at Walker Community Church on the evening of Thursday, October 14.
There's a lot more to do than discuss-- the small organization Communities United Against Police Brutality has successfully filed suits against the city before, changed ordinances, shamed officers, and mobilized community members for Cop Watch and much more. Find out how you can get involved, this Thursday!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Yoo & Delahunty to face the University of St. Thomas community
Journal of Law and Public Policy Forum on presidential powers to take place at University of St. Thomas Law, October 7 2010.
John Yoo, and Prof. Robert Delahunty, former lawyers for the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel, will be there as advocates for strong presidential powers. Heidi Kittrosser from the University of Minnesota and Akhil Amar of Yale University – one of this country’s leading law professors -- will support the position for limiting presidential powers. It should be a robust debate.
Anti-torture advocates like Tackling Torture at the Top will be there before the arrival of the registrants to the symposium with orange ribbons, flyers, and banners. People will boycott, people will attend, people will demonstrate outside & raise awareness, others will listen to the speakers and hopefully submit questions. There are speakers that do not support Yoo/Delahunty and there are other speakers that need to answer some pertinent questions.
At the lunch hour, 11:30 -12:30, and at 4:00, there will be demonstrations on the sidewalk outside the building. Everyone could wear an orange ribbon for torture awareness.
John Yoo speaks at 2:15 for 45 minutes. Some people may shun him by leaving the room, or standing
with their backs to him, or may choose to confront him with questions, or a sign. It is not choreographed.
Robert Delahunty is on the panel but not given a time to present an argument.
We need everyone, every body, every mind, to protest the presence of John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. Everyone is welcome to participate in demonstrating our disgust for Robert Delahunty and John Yoo's misuse of the law giving way to the crime of torture. And we believe that accountability is the only way that we can stop this despicable crime.
The use of enhanced presidential powers in time of war would allow the president to negate the laws and treaties that would protect the prisoners from abuse and torture. This is what happened by the memos written by John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. This goes against our laws and our morals. It would be good for UST to refresh their memory to their mission statement at the Law School:
The University of St. Thomas School of Law, as a Catholic law school, is dedicated to integrating faith and reason in the search for truth through a focus on morality and social justice.
On the same day, a different university in nearby St. Paul is making quite a different point of human rights issues.
My Sister's and Brother's Keeper?
Human Rights in the Era of Globalization
This year's theme of the 2010 Macalester International Roundtable is "My Sister's and Brother's Keeper?: Human Rights in the Era of Globalization."The Macalester International Roundtable will take place on October 7, 8, & 9, 2010 at Macalester College 1600 Grand Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota
All sessions will be held in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall.
The discussions will revolve around such questions as:
What are the main human rights concerns of the 21st century?
What are the primary forces (and contexts) responsible for these issues, and why?
In what specific ways could human rights be advanced, and by whom?
Free and open to the public.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Community Response to FBI Raids across the Nation
Statement of Solidarity with Activists Raided and Subpoenaed on 9/24/10
The raids and grand jury subpoenas against antiwar and international solidarity activists on the morning of Friday, September 24, 2010 are not just an attack on particular activists, but on our movements for social justice as a whole. With a united voice, we condemn this repression; we demand the federal government cease its investigation and withdraw the subpoenas immediately; and we vow to continue our work for true justice.
We reject the allegation that the government's investigation into our movements is based on "material support for terrorism" in any form. This allegation is particularly ludicrous considering the terror tactics the U.S. government engages in on a daily basis, both globally and domestically. Aimed against valued members of our community, the raids against activists on Friday morning were particularly offensive to us. However, we recognize that they are unexceptional instances of repression when compared to the daily crimes against humanity carried out by U.S. imperialism.
We refuse to let the accusations of a notoriously untruthful, repressive government divide us in any way. Because an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, we resolve to set any ideological or other political differences aside and respond in solidarity with one another. Our struggle will continue.
Signed,
Becca at the Persistent Press
and-- you!
If you would like to add your name and/or organization to this list, please email ActivismIsNotTerrorism@gmail.com
Monday, September 6, 2010
Complicit in Torture: University of St. Thomas defends its star Law Professor
Law students headed to class Monday morning at the University of St. Thomas School of Torture-- so called by anti-torture activists waiting outside.
At 10:30 am on August 30, Professor Robert Delahunty taught his first class of the school year at the School of Law, but not without facing the protesters on his way to work. An activist group called Tackling Torture at the Top was there to educate the public about Delahunty's role in the Bush administration, paving the way for CIA and military torture as a tool against terrorists.
See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rwq6-Pc8Y
Delahunty, as a member of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote legal memos supporting presidential war powers under the Constitution is a higher law than any treaty, intimating that the president can use his Constitutional war powers to override treaties.
"As the Nation's representative in foreign affairs, the President has a variety of constitutional powers with respect to treaties, including the powers to suspend them, withhold performance of them, contravene them or terminate them."
-Yoo and Delahunty, Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.
His legal opinion denies that the Geneva Conventions apply to non-state actors or enemy combatants. His legal memos built upon other legal decisions and memos, and they in turn were expanded upon by the John Yoo/Jay Bybee legal memos. Those explicitly permitted torture and water-boarding by redefining torture as anything that pushes the body to organ failure or death.
For a physical act to constitute torture, "It must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure."
-Bybee, Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 USC SS 2340-2340A
After the Obama administration released the "torture memos" for the world to see in April 2009, anti-torture activists and law students alike read them in horror. Thousands of Americans pressed Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute the officials who allowed for torture, through petitions, calls and demonstrations. However, the Obama administration would not go forward with prosecutions, claiming that they had to "look forward" and not back.
As the T3 activists waved their flags outside the law school, they talked to several passers-by who expressed their familiarity with the torture memos.
The activists have brought their concerns to Delahunty as well as to the University of St. Thomas' Law School Dean Mengler and its Board of Governors.
Delahunty went by without comment, today as usual, but the Board of Governors did respond to the group's complaints and letters and protests of the past few years. Last week, the Chair of the University Law School's Board of Governors, Laurence Fl LeJeune, wrote to the group with full awareness of the controversy around Delahunty, and in full support of him as a law professor at this Catholic, ethics-centered University.
Mr. LeJeune noted that they have been very well advised by Dean Dr. Mengler and others of the facts about Delahunty and they are very satisfied with him as an employee. As has been noted by Dean Mengler, they feel that Delahunty has served "four presidential administrations, and other institutions with distinction. His impressive academic and professional record can be found on the School of Law website.” He noted too how "the graduating class of 2010 selected Professor Delahunty as its Professor of the Year - for his excellence as a teacher and scholar, and for the many ways in which he works with and supports our students."
Individuals on the Law School Board of Trustees have also been contacted. Neither the Board of Governors nor the Board of Trustees will meet with T3. These individuals influence not only the University but the larger community and economy as well: among the highest paid CEO's in Minnesota in 2008 were two UST Board of Trustees members. The Star Tribune then listed Stephen Hemsley of United Health Group as 5th highest paid, and George Buckley of 3M as 13th highest paid.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Natl. Park Service Cracks Down on ColdWater Spring Use
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Prepare for the enforcement of permits in the area of ColdWater Spring in Minneapolis, like never before.
For years the land surrounding the historic and sacred Cold Water Spring and well house has sat idly. Cold War-era research facilities of the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Mines as well as old FEMA offices have been abandoned, broken into, and boarded up time and time again.
The land used to be guarded by a barbed wire fence and gate that closed at night. In 2008, the spring and the nearby field were occupied by Mendota Dakota people and the American Indian Movement, who boldly claimed native sovereignty of the land during the dark days of the Republican National Convention that was hosted in St. Paul. They set up teepees and a sweat lodge; law enforcement tore them down; the occupying activists set them up again. In the end, they won 24-hour access for all-- the gates to the land came down.
(see press conference, interviews: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/09/05/18533493.php)
In January 2010, the land was transferred to the National Park Service from the federal Dept. of the Interior.
Steve Johnson works at the National Park Service office in St. Paul. He's the one you see for a free permit to use part of the land for events, or building or placing something there. The need for such permits has not been strictly enforced until this month of June-- after local movements raised the issue of sovereignty again with the Take Down Fort Snelling rallies of May 29 and 30, 2010.
(see some clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFYRuZD4js)
At an informal meeting last week, Johnson said that the Park Service wanted to give the land to the city of Minneapolis, but they didn't want it. They wanted to give it to the Mendota people, but their tribe isn't recognized by the US, and all government entities have to make transactions with government-recognized entities. According to Johnson, other tribes, like the Shakopee, wanted the land but the Park Service didn't want to play favorites amid such deep factionalism.
According to George Spears of First Nations United, the Park Service has been invited to meetings around the fire by Cold Water Spring, multiple times. Mendota Dakota people and First Nations United meet at the spring every other Sunday at 5 pm, for a brief council. They want to work out something with the Park Service so it would recognize the land as sacred; something similar to the Park Service's deal with native people over Bear Butte. However, no Park Service representatives have showed up to these ongoing council meetings.
In these last weeks of June, the Park Service is clearing brush and buckthorn from the land and seeks volunteers.
Paul Labovitz, National Park Service superintendent of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), wrote that the earliest the run-down buildings could be removed is spring of 2011.
Speaking out about El Salvador; New documentary slated for this summer
MINNEAPOLIS, SATURDAY JUNE 12 – “One of my three addictions is El Salvador,”
Said Wayne Wittman, to those gathered at the Resource Center of the Americas to commemorate the life of Archbishop Romero. Wittman, Steve Boyer and Duane Krohnke spoke about their many visits to El Salvador in delegations with Augsburg College Center for Global Education, Peter Yarrow, Veterans for Peace, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, and others.
Their most recent visit brought them to the massive marches commemorating the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, on March 24, 2010. Romero was one of the world’s great champions for the poor and oppressed, constantly speaking out against violence until 1980, when he was shot in the chest at the conclusion of Mass.
The American visitors to El Salvador saw "Monseñor: The Last Days of Oscar Romero” at its world premiere in El Salvador, and this summer the documentary about his life will be released in the U.S.
Many who gathered had visited El Salvador and shared insight on the causes of conditions there, including poverty, crime, & the impunity of war criminals, as well as the responsibility that Americans have—
to stop our military aid to Central America, change America’s policies of aggressive free trade, and shift immigration issues into the light of macro-economic crises rather than that of individual morality.
The U.S.’ Involvement in El Salvador
The US has been involved in El Salvador’s affairs at least since Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, when Roosevelt reached out to Central America with a paternal attitude.
What the US accomplished by military force in the past, it now attempts to accomplish through trade agreements like CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement.
Before 1980, the US used Low Intensity Conflict to protect its interests (corporations) in Central America. Oscar Romero was one of few in the Catholic Church who spoke out against Low Intensity Conflict strategies used in El Salvador: torture, rape, and cycles of indiscriminate assassinations & selective assassinations.
According to the 1989 volume War Against the Poor,
“US low-intensity conflict strategy in El Salvador utilized generalized terror against civilians in order to sow fear and shape the collective memory of the people. It was hoped that once terrorized the people could be intimidated into silence with lesser amounts of violence, that is, through selective terror. If over time selective terror proved an insufficient deterrent to the 'crimes of the poor,' then violence escalated accordingly.”
Between 1980 and 1992, the Salvadoran Civil war was fought in the context of the global Cold War, with Cuba and the USSR backing the Marxist-Leninist rebels and the United States backing the right wing military Salvadoran government. It was not just a proxy war of superpowers, but also an economic & psychological war against poor people's movements & their ability to organize from the bottom up.
The military fought the rebels with American guns and helicopters, paid itself with American aid money, and sent its officers to the School of the Americas in the state of Georgia, where they graduated with degrees in torture, assassination, mass murder and mass intimidation. Every November Americans protest this training at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia—though now the School is renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney remarked that El Salvador was our model of democracy. His ominous remark hung over the debate at the Resource Center of the Americas like a shadow. How many more countries will we spread democracy to, if democracy looks like civil war, impunity, kidnappings, and the endless intimidation of civilians?
This sort of democracy came to Nicarague as well as El Salvador, where Father Miguel D’Escoto told Minnesotan Professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, years ago,
“A nation that wages war against the poor in Nicaragua will ignore the needs of its own poor. A country which in the name of ‘democracy’ fights wars against the self-determination of other peoples cannot remain a democracy. I have felt for a long time that the U.S. people will one day be the most repressed in the world.”
(War Against the Poor, Nelson-Pallmeyer, 1989)
President Mauricio Funes
On March 15, 2009, Mauricio Funes, a television journalist, became the first president from the FMLN party. Like President Obama, he is a center-left politician who decided to resume relations with Cuba in 2009. Also like Obama, his platform was transparency and revealing the corruption of past governments, but his popularity has declined throughout his first year in office.
Those marching on March 24 demanded an investigation of Romero’s death, the end of impunity, and refusal of amnesty to the perpetrators of the massacre, though many of them are dead.
First Recognition of Romero by Salvadoran Government
Today a mural with images of Romero hangs in the departure zone of the San Salvador International Airport. It was the government’s first recognition of Romero’s assassination as a tragedy. When his life was commemorated this year, the government recognized him as the country’s Spiritual Guide.
Roberto D’Aubuisson
The speakers' delegation passed a notable statue in San Salvador: a monument to Roberto D’Aubuisson, unmarked but for a plaque in remembrance of D’Aubuisson's son. Roberto D’Aubuisson founded the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which he led from 1978 to 1985. He was behind the paramilitary death squads and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero in 1980.
They saw a demonstration against D’Aubuisson at the monument, and a counter-demonstration. They saw a man in black spray-painting swastikas and epithets on the sidewalk near the monument; police stood by and later cleaned up the spray paint. The delegates noticed that police tended to avoid confrontation in the open.
The US embassy recognizes this as a culture of impunity. The embassy told the delegates that only 5% of common crimes result in convictions in El Salvador, corruption and impunity prevail, and there is a greater fear of crime in cities now than there was fear in the countryside during the Civil War.
CAFTA
The speakers spoke about the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by CAFTA when they projected their photos of shanty towns and cardboard homes in El Salvador.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement is a force of globalization acting on not only the imports & exports of economies, but the farms, villages, and towns of Latin America. It frees the flow of capital from country to country, but restricts the flow of people. Foreign companies are free to set up shop in countries where they can use up the natural resources, offer goods at prices that kill local competition, and bust unions mercilessly. When governments try to impose regulations for environmental protection or worker safety, they are often hindered by the free trade agreements, and multinational corporations can actually sue them for denying their rights to invest however they like.
Liberation Theology
Brazilian Archbishop Dom Helder Camara once said that when he gave food to the poor they called him a saint, but when he asked why people were poor they called him a communist. This association with communism is the main accusation made against Romero's sort of liberation theology, which still divides religious people in El Salvador.
The American delegates who spoke had noticed a sharp struggle between the rich, powerful, and very real Opus Dei and liberation theology. One encourages bodily suffering and endurance of suffering on earth for the rewards in heaven; the other wants to end the suffering of the poor.
Upcoming Trips to El Salvador
Americans continue to visit El Salvador to learn Spanish, listen and join in solidarity with people's movements. Minneapolis' Holy Trinity Lutheran Church is taking a delegation there this summer, and the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad is taking a special delegation there in November.
http://www.cis-elsalvador.org/
Gold Mining Controversy
The American delegates learned of a fight over potential gold mining in the Department of Cabanas. The Canadian mining company Pacific Rim opposes El Salvador's ban on gold mining for environmental reasons. Pacific Rim is prospecting for what it calls the El Dorado Project.
Three anti-mining activists from the Cabanas Environment Committee have already been killed in 2009: Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera, and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto. Their murders fit the pattern of Low Intensity Conflict: mysterious, unidentified killers go after the opponents of the Church, the government and foreign companies, then the government says that guerrilla fighters are responsible and denounces their terrorist tactics.
Journalists and staff of the independent Radio Victoria have also received death threats for their coverage of this controversy in Victoria, Cabanas.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Send appeals to authorities:
calling on them to order a prompt, full and independent investigation into the threats against Radio Victoria staff, and the recent killing of Ramiro Rivera and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, environmental activists in Cabañas department, and to bring those responsible to justice
requesting that they ensure that full protection is provided to all Radio Victoria staff and volunteers, and to members of the Cabañas Environment Committee and their relatives who have received threats
APPEALS TO:
Presidente Mauricio Funes
(President)
Casa Presidencial
Alameda Dr. Manuel Enrique Araujo, No. 5500
San Salvador, El Salvador
Fax: +503 2243 9947
Fiscal General
(Attorney General)
Fiscalía General de la República
Final 4a Calle Oriente y 19a Avenida Sur, Residencial Primavera
Santa Tecla, La Libertad
San Salvador, El Salvador
Fax : +503 2523 7170
E-mail: astor.escalante@fgr.gob.sv
E-mail: cc: radelgado@fgr.gob.sv
Comisionado Carlos Asencio Girón
Director de la Policía Nacional Civil
(National Police Director)
Policía Nacional Civil
6ta. Calle Oriente entre 8va y 10ma
Ave. Sur, # 42 Barrio La Vega
San Salvador, El Salvador
E-mail: carlosascencio@pnc.gob.sv
Please send copies and messages of support to:
Radio Victoria
Av. José Matias Delgado #47
Victoria, Cabañas, El Salvador, C.A.
E-mail: radiovictoriapopular@yahoo.es
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Peter Erlinder Jailed for Helping Rwandan Opposition
KIGALI, RWANDA – As President Paul Kagame’s regime faces elections,
as well as the International Criminal Tribunal proceedings about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, his administration has jailed opposition leaders and used other repressive tactics.
Things are heating up in Rwanda, and they’re starting to in St. Paul as well, where concerned Americans are pushing back.
St. Paul’s Peter Erlinder, law professor at William Mitchell Law School, long time human rights lawyer and Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda,
was arrested by Rwandan Authorities the morning of Friday, May 28.
Background
Erlinder had traveled to Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on May 23 to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Umuhoza was jailed in April, and released on bail one day later. According to Erlinder, her lawyer, “Ingabire was arrested on trumped-up, political thought-crimes, including: association with a terrorist group, propagating the genocide ideology, genocide denial, revisionism and divisionism, all arising from the “crime” of publicly objecting to the Kagame military dictatorship, and Kagame’s version of the Rwandan history.“
Erlinder is being held in a Rwandan prison and was recently denied bail. He is reportedly being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force's Kacyiru headquarters.
In the run-up to the national election, the administration of President Kagame has engaged in increasing repressive tactics including shutting down independent media and jailing opposition candidates and their supporters under a vague charge of "genocide ideology" ¬the same charge Professor Erlinder is now accused of.
The Genocide Ideology Law is vaguely worded, requires no link to any genocidal act, and can be used to criminalize a wide range of legitimate forms of expression. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced it as a tool of political repression. The Kagame administration has used it widely to target political opponents.
The Obama administration has done little to address Professor Erlinder's situation. This is because the US backs the Kagame regime.
According to The Guardian, Erlinder’s arrest prompted other defense lawyers at the UN tribunal to refuse to participate in proceedings.
In a joint statement to the court and the UN security council, seen by the Guardian, more than 30 defense lawyers said they fear for their own safety, demanding Erlinder's release.
"We hereby resolve to postpone all activities, other than those which strictly conserve the interests of our mandates, until such time as the minimum conditions or the normal exercise of our missions have been restored by the removal of threats," the statement says. "[We are] aware of the dangers which immediately and directly threaten most of our number."
The People Push Back
Sarah Erlinder, Arizona attorney and NLG member said, "My father has made a career defending unpopular people and unpopular speech -- and is now being held because of his representation of unpopular clients and analysis of an historical narrative that the Kagame regime considers inconvenient. We can help defend his rights now by drawing U.S. government and media attention to his situation and holding the Rwandan government accountable for his well-being."
On the evening of Tuesday, June 8, Minneapolis groups rallied in support of Peter Erlinder, at the Federal Building behind Minneapolis City Hall. Communities United Against Police Brutality and Women Against Military Madness brought their message to the people downtown and the government workers as they were leaving work for the day. St. Paul supports are now planning a benefit event for Peter Elinder. They’ll meet on Sunday, June 13 at 1:00pm, in Room 105 at Hamline University School of Law, 1536 Hewitt Avenue, Saint Paul.
Though local universities don’t want to touch the issue, several organizations want to hold an event to raise awareness of Peter’s arrest, the role of defense attorneys, or a benefit to raise money for his defense. Representative Betty McCollum responded to pressure and introduced a bill in the House calling for the Government of Rwanda to release Peter Erlinder. Representative Keith Ellison has agreed to co-sponsor the bill. According, to Minnesota Public Radio, McCollum said the Rwandan embassy in Washington D.C. hasn't responded to repeated inquiries from her office. She said that pattern could eventually jeopardize the partnership between the two countries.
Only two representatives have commented on voting for House Resolution 1426.
Minnesotans continue calling their Congressmen and Secratary of State Hilary Clinton. This is not a local issue but a State Department issue. When an aide answered the phone this week, they said, "Minnesota? You must be calling about Peter Erlinder!"
Call and demand the immediate release of Professor Peter Erlinder:
Senator Al Franken
(202) 224-5641
Or send an email at franken.senate.gov/contact/
Senator Amy Klobuchar
202-224-3244
Or send an email at klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm
Representative Keith Ellison
202-225-4755
Or send an email at forms.house.gov/ellison/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Representative Betty McCullom
(202) 225-6631
Or send an email at
forms.house.gov/mccollum/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Write to: publicaffairs@panet.us.state.gov
---Many thanks for the contributions of National Lawyers’ Guild Minnesota, Women Against Military Madness, The International Humanitarian Law Institute & Communities United Against Police Brutality to this article & cause. ---
as well as the International Criminal Tribunal proceedings about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, his administration has jailed opposition leaders and used other repressive tactics.
Things are heating up in Rwanda, and they’re starting to in St. Paul as well, where concerned Americans are pushing back.
St. Paul’s Peter Erlinder, law professor at William Mitchell Law School, long time human rights lawyer and Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda,
was arrested by Rwandan Authorities the morning of Friday, May 28.
Background
Erlinder had traveled to Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on May 23 to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Umuhoza was jailed in April, and released on bail one day later. According to Erlinder, her lawyer, “Ingabire was arrested on trumped-up, political thought-crimes, including: association with a terrorist group, propagating the genocide ideology, genocide denial, revisionism and divisionism, all arising from the “crime” of publicly objecting to the Kagame military dictatorship, and Kagame’s version of the Rwandan history.“
Erlinder is being held in a Rwandan prison and was recently denied bail. He is reportedly being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force's Kacyiru headquarters.
In the run-up to the national election, the administration of President Kagame has engaged in increasing repressive tactics including shutting down independent media and jailing opposition candidates and their supporters under a vague charge of "genocide ideology" ¬the same charge Professor Erlinder is now accused of.
The Genocide Ideology Law is vaguely worded, requires no link to any genocidal act, and can be used to criminalize a wide range of legitimate forms of expression. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced it as a tool of political repression. The Kagame administration has used it widely to target political opponents.
The Obama administration has done little to address Professor Erlinder's situation. This is because the US backs the Kagame regime.
According to The Guardian, Erlinder’s arrest prompted other defense lawyers at the UN tribunal to refuse to participate in proceedings.
In a joint statement to the court and the UN security council, seen by the Guardian, more than 30 defense lawyers said they fear for their own safety, demanding Erlinder's release.
"We hereby resolve to postpone all activities, other than those which strictly conserve the interests of our mandates, until such time as the minimum conditions or the normal exercise of our missions have been restored by the removal of threats," the statement says. "[We are] aware of the dangers which immediately and directly threaten most of our number."
The People Push Back
Sarah Erlinder, Arizona attorney and NLG member said, "My father has made a career defending unpopular people and unpopular speech -- and is now being held because of his representation of unpopular clients and analysis of an historical narrative that the Kagame regime considers inconvenient. We can help defend his rights now by drawing U.S. government and media attention to his situation and holding the Rwandan government accountable for his well-being."
On the evening of Tuesday, June 8, Minneapolis groups rallied in support of Peter Erlinder, at the Federal Building behind Minneapolis City Hall. Communities United Against Police Brutality and Women Against Military Madness brought their message to the people downtown and the government workers as they were leaving work for the day. St. Paul supports are now planning a benefit event for Peter Elinder. They’ll meet on Sunday, June 13 at 1:00pm, in Room 105 at Hamline University School of Law, 1536 Hewitt Avenue, Saint Paul.
Though local universities don’t want to touch the issue, several organizations want to hold an event to raise awareness of Peter’s arrest, the role of defense attorneys, or a benefit to raise money for his defense. Representative Betty McCollum responded to pressure and introduced a bill in the House calling for the Government of Rwanda to release Peter Erlinder. Representative Keith Ellison has agreed to co-sponsor the bill. According, to Minnesota Public Radio, McCollum said the Rwandan embassy in Washington D.C. hasn't responded to repeated inquiries from her office. She said that pattern could eventually jeopardize the partnership between the two countries.
Only two representatives have commented on voting for House Resolution 1426.
Minnesotans continue calling their Congressmen and Secratary of State Hilary Clinton. This is not a local issue but a State Department issue. When an aide answered the phone this week, they said, "Minnesota? You must be calling about Peter Erlinder!"
Call and demand the immediate release of Professor Peter Erlinder:
Senator Al Franken
(202) 224-5641
Or send an email at franken.senate.gov/contact/
Senator Amy Klobuchar
202-224-3244
Or send an email at klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm
Representative Keith Ellison
202-225-4755
Or send an email at forms.house.gov/ellison/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Representative Betty McCullom
(202) 225-6631
Or send an email at
forms.house.gov/mccollum/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Write to: publicaffairs@panet.us.state.gov
---Many thanks for the contributions of National Lawyers’ Guild Minnesota, Women Against Military Madness, The International Humanitarian Law Institute & Communities United Against Police Brutality to this article & cause. ---
Thursday, June 3, 2010
May 29 Marches to Take Down the Fort
On May 29 and 30, protesters gathered outside historic Fort Snelling by Minneapolis, Minnesota. They protested the state & the maintenance of the Fort by the state, entering the grounds without paying the admission fee, by invitation from Dakota activists who passed freely by their rights under the Treaty of 1805.
Please read more about this long-running campaign at
http://www.takedownthefort.com/
Here I present the reflections of an observer.
There is a cycle to oppression and resistance. A cycle of give and take.
The cycle is like the oscillations of sound waves when people chant, sing, and pray together.
If it is steady, it has an effect; if the singers are disciplined, their song will grow and resound; if resistance continues no matter what sets it back, it will influence the whole world. Though oppression has been normalized, resistance is a part of all of us too; it speaks to each of us with relevance too.
It speaks even louder than fear to the wild core of our souls. It speaks with actions, and here I meekly summarize with words the way of human determination that will win back the world.
We will win because we must. Because the ecosystems must be restored, we must win back the planet with paradigms of Mother rather than of Lord.
he environment demands equilibrium again. This doesn’t come easy in the city, but suddenly the heat of the day is breezy as Dakota people gather and pray.
There was a prayer in the parking lot of St. Peter’s Church, before a group of Minnesota’s indigenous activists took up their signs and their staff, before they marched in a line over Mendota Bridge.
There was a prayer and a song that lifted their spirits and thanked Wakan Tanka for the day and their lives.
It was always said that Native American spirituality is incorporated in every aspect of life, like tobacco smoke permeating the smells of labor and cooking and cars and clothes.
It’s still true. Ceremonies and spirituality are still as important to culture as water is to the trees.
Yet I find myself in a culture somewhat drained, among the white American Left, a spectrum of people who shed religious and spiritual heritages, teachings, and hierarchies, like a porcupine sheds quills.
That is to say, we carry around both emotional baggage and spiritual confusion, though we don’t see it; when we feel threatened we do see it as our quills stand up, our baggage is apparent, and we throw off the spiritual and emotional inklings we carry like weapons against attackers. Our critiques of the spiritual and metaphysical are sharp and stinging.
The Left believes in hard work for justice, and when it sees neighbors pause to pray, it asks where divine justice was when we needed it.
Where was the Creator during the American genocide? Where was the Savior throughout over 500 years of colonization of the African and American continents? Where were the Spirits during China’s Great Leap Forward?
The refrain goes, ‘No, no, it’s not enough to pray. There’s a lot of work to do before justice has its day.’
So many arguments flit back and forth over this issue, which appeal to critical thinkers on an intellectual level but often surface because of the deep wounds where we stung ourselves.
The anarchist, anti-theist arguments drift away as smoke billows over the heads of activists and lifts up their prayers.
Today, May 29, 2010, a hot parking lot filled up with intention and power as indigenous people and allies came together: intentions to set things right, to remember injustices of the past, to let nature take its course with Fort Snelling.
The old military post at the confluence of Mississippi and Minnesota crumbles; large white families pour in for opening day of tourist season; the legislature allocates money to the Minnesota Historical Society for renovation and restoration of a most violent racist period.
Today white children picnicked in the shade of the Visitor Parking Lot with George Washington stickers on their T-shirts-- and observed native children carrying banners and clapping and shouting along with Dr. Waziyatawin
at the megaphone, in the shade outside the Fort.
Wandering white adults enjoyed Memorial Day weekend with a cigarette atop the Fort’s reinforced rotunda, looking down over the cheering and chanting brown people who came to meet them. Their stickers bearing dead presidents showed their casual monetary support for the Fort that was once the military’s defense of traders and settlers, against the Dakota people in its concentration camp downhill.
Tax-payer funding was challenged and, in a way, so was the entire consumer routine of our lives. Why continue rebuilding this model of the original foundation of Statehood? So that future generations can reenact settler life in elementary school, reenact the Civil War in middle school, tour Cold War sites in high school, and then enlist against the War on Terror??
Someone waved a sign that read, ‘They don’t have reenactments at Auschwitz.’
I’ve been to Auschwitz.
Rather than historical reenactments, I saw the words of Churchill greeting tourists: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
In that way, history too has a wavelength. History is a turning oscillation of similar events. Only by learning—by Consciousness – do we get to higher planes called the future.
It takes discipline to learn, to open your mind, to change the song sung by the generations, in the same way it takes discipline to chant, to sweat, to endure these afternoons with messages for the masses while staying on your toes between barricading Sheriff cars and plain-clothes police.
How will Mnisota’s wheel turn now?
Will the big wheel of fear turn and grind us down, or will we switch gears like equal peers, leaving behind the racist fears?
Latinos and allies met the native marchers at the Fort to protest all the steps backward our nation takes. The Arizonan law against illegal immigration, SB1070, was heavy on the hearts of those who walked from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building to Fort Snelling.
As speakers related at the megaphone, already their friends and family down south were being harassed & pulled over by cops in the state where brown skin is probable cause for suspicion of illegal immigration. The northern blue states would not be immune to this case of racial profiling; in the past legislative session a similar law was proposed for Mnisota. It had just a few sponsors—Congress people who we will not vote for again—but next year it will be reintroduced as if it made sense.
How will the wheel turn? When will we find the frequency of harmony and peace?
Maybe it can’t be found in this world of well-funded violence and state-supported ignorance—but it can be created by people, powerhouses of conscious energy that we are.
The sacred staff touched the Fort’s stone wall. The cheers rose up for one and all. People harmonized in solidarity: Dakota people, SEIU, MIRAC, First Nations United, and CUAPB. The chants grew louder:
‘Take Down the Fort!’
By their rights native people entered, presented the treaty of 1805, and invited everyone gathered to invade the Fort and educate from inside.
Within the visitor center and ‘historic’ re-creation, no marker mentions the imprisonment of displaced native people or the hanging of leaders.
With history preserved in a supposed moral vacuum, with costumed actors firing canons every day on site, dark days are ahead in the land of the free and the home of the hidden mass graves.
In spite of it all, these people standing up for their rights have an attitude of gratitude towards the spirits they thank. It sounds so cliché, but it’s what we need to have strength to fight another day:
an attitude of gratitude, humility, disciplined persistent positivity.
That’s how we can influence history’s waves so that they do indeed arc towards justice in the end.
Please read more about this long-running campaign at
http://www.takedownthefort.com/
Here I present the reflections of an observer.
There is a cycle to oppression and resistance. A cycle of give and take.
The cycle is like the oscillations of sound waves when people chant, sing, and pray together.
If it is steady, it has an effect; if the singers are disciplined, their song will grow and resound; if resistance continues no matter what sets it back, it will influence the whole world. Though oppression has been normalized, resistance is a part of all of us too; it speaks to each of us with relevance too.
It speaks even louder than fear to the wild core of our souls. It speaks with actions, and here I meekly summarize with words the way of human determination that will win back the world.
We will win because we must. Because the ecosystems must be restored, we must win back the planet with paradigms of Mother rather than of Lord.
he environment demands equilibrium again. This doesn’t come easy in the city, but suddenly the heat of the day is breezy as Dakota people gather and pray.
There was a prayer in the parking lot of St. Peter’s Church, before a group of Minnesota’s indigenous activists took up their signs and their staff, before they marched in a line over Mendota Bridge.
There was a prayer and a song that lifted their spirits and thanked Wakan Tanka for the day and their lives.
It was always said that Native American spirituality is incorporated in every aspect of life, like tobacco smoke permeating the smells of labor and cooking and cars and clothes.
It’s still true. Ceremonies and spirituality are still as important to culture as water is to the trees.
Yet I find myself in a culture somewhat drained, among the white American Left, a spectrum of people who shed religious and spiritual heritages, teachings, and hierarchies, like a porcupine sheds quills.
That is to say, we carry around both emotional baggage and spiritual confusion, though we don’t see it; when we feel threatened we do see it as our quills stand up, our baggage is apparent, and we throw off the spiritual and emotional inklings we carry like weapons against attackers. Our critiques of the spiritual and metaphysical are sharp and stinging.
The Left believes in hard work for justice, and when it sees neighbors pause to pray, it asks where divine justice was when we needed it.
Where was the Creator during the American genocide? Where was the Savior throughout over 500 years of colonization of the African and American continents? Where were the Spirits during China’s Great Leap Forward?
The refrain goes, ‘No, no, it’s not enough to pray. There’s a lot of work to do before justice has its day.’
So many arguments flit back and forth over this issue, which appeal to critical thinkers on an intellectual level but often surface because of the deep wounds where we stung ourselves.
The anarchist, anti-theist arguments drift away as smoke billows over the heads of activists and lifts up their prayers.
Today, May 29, 2010, a hot parking lot filled up with intention and power as indigenous people and allies came together: intentions to set things right, to remember injustices of the past, to let nature take its course with Fort Snelling.
The old military post at the confluence of Mississippi and Minnesota crumbles; large white families pour in for opening day of tourist season; the legislature allocates money to the Minnesota Historical Society for renovation and restoration of a most violent racist period.
Today white children picnicked in the shade of the Visitor Parking Lot with George Washington stickers on their T-shirts-- and observed native children carrying banners and clapping and shouting along with Dr. Waziyatawin
at the megaphone, in the shade outside the Fort.
Wandering white adults enjoyed Memorial Day weekend with a cigarette atop the Fort’s reinforced rotunda, looking down over the cheering and chanting brown people who came to meet them. Their stickers bearing dead presidents showed their casual monetary support for the Fort that was once the military’s defense of traders and settlers, against the Dakota people in its concentration camp downhill.
Tax-payer funding was challenged and, in a way, so was the entire consumer routine of our lives. Why continue rebuilding this model of the original foundation of Statehood? So that future generations can reenact settler life in elementary school, reenact the Civil War in middle school, tour Cold War sites in high school, and then enlist against the War on Terror??
Someone waved a sign that read, ‘They don’t have reenactments at Auschwitz.’
I’ve been to Auschwitz.
Rather than historical reenactments, I saw the words of Churchill greeting tourists: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
In that way, history too has a wavelength. History is a turning oscillation of similar events. Only by learning—by Consciousness – do we get to higher planes called the future.
It takes discipline to learn, to open your mind, to change the song sung by the generations, in the same way it takes discipline to chant, to sweat, to endure these afternoons with messages for the masses while staying on your toes between barricading Sheriff cars and plain-clothes police.
How will Mnisota’s wheel turn now?
Will the big wheel of fear turn and grind us down, or will we switch gears like equal peers, leaving behind the racist fears?
Latinos and allies met the native marchers at the Fort to protest all the steps backward our nation takes. The Arizonan law against illegal immigration, SB1070, was heavy on the hearts of those who walked from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building to Fort Snelling.
As speakers related at the megaphone, already their friends and family down south were being harassed & pulled over by cops in the state where brown skin is probable cause for suspicion of illegal immigration. The northern blue states would not be immune to this case of racial profiling; in the past legislative session a similar law was proposed for Mnisota. It had just a few sponsors—Congress people who we will not vote for again—but next year it will be reintroduced as if it made sense.
How will the wheel turn? When will we find the frequency of harmony and peace?
Maybe it can’t be found in this world of well-funded violence and state-supported ignorance—but it can be created by people, powerhouses of conscious energy that we are.
The sacred staff touched the Fort’s stone wall. The cheers rose up for one and all. People harmonized in solidarity: Dakota people, SEIU, MIRAC, First Nations United, and CUAPB. The chants grew louder:
‘Take Down the Fort!’
By their rights native people entered, presented the treaty of 1805, and invited everyone gathered to invade the Fort and educate from inside.
Within the visitor center and ‘historic’ re-creation, no marker mentions the imprisonment of displaced native people or the hanging of leaders.
With history preserved in a supposed moral vacuum, with costumed actors firing canons every day on site, dark days are ahead in the land of the free and the home of the hidden mass graves.
In spite of it all, these people standing up for their rights have an attitude of gratitude towards the spirits they thank. It sounds so cliché, but it’s what we need to have strength to fight another day:
an attitude of gratitude, humility, disciplined persistent positivity.
That’s how we can influence history’s waves so that they do indeed arc towards justice in the end.
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