Torture and Minnesota's Congressmen

This letter comes from the hearts of anti-torture activists in T3, or Tackling Torture at the Top. Let's hope our Congressmen hear & act!

Dear Senators Klobuchar and Franken, Representatives Ellison and McCollum:

We are a group of people who met with a staff member of each of your offices between January 5, 2010, and April 2, 2010. Most of us attended more than one of these meetings. Our concern is torture and torture accountability. With three of you, we specifically addressed the issue of investigations of credible claims of torture committed in our names and under color of law since September 11, 2001. We are concerned with investigating, and if necessary prosecuting, not only perpetrators but also those who ordered, authorized, "legalized" or conspired to commit acts of torture. At the fourth meeting, our focus was on military commissions, a "Truth Commission," and raising the torture issue in a public manner, but the issue of prosecutions was also discussed. So far the response from the four of you has been uniform.

Silence.

We are aware of Congressman Ellison's participation in the "Reckoning With Torture" program at Georgetown Law School, where he read from recently released documents on torture, as well as his House Judiciary Committee questioning of John Yoo on the definition of "implement." We also are aware of Senator Franken's raising the issue of regulatory versus treaty standards for rendition at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the implementation of human rights treaties. But none of you has been at all visible in calling for holding accountable those who violated our most fundamental values, our treaty obligations, and several federal statutes.

June has been designated by the United Nations as "Torture Awareness Month." With that in mind:

ARE YOU AWARE that the statute of limitations applicable to the Federal Torture Statute is eight years? We began what Major General Antonio Taguba called our "systematic regime of torture" eight years ago.

ARE YOU AWARE that since 9/11, up to 100 detainees have died in our custody from other than battlefield wounds, suicides, or natural causes? The precise number is not known because our government has ceased releasing the data.

ARE YOU AWARE that secret places of detention are being discovered to this day? One at Bagram and another at Guantanamo have just recently been revealed.

ARE YOU AWARE that we rendition people to countries that we describe in our own State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as having systematically violated the human rights of people held in its prisons? We say we're getting "diplomatic assurances" that torture will not occur. The Convention Against Torture, ratified by the United States Senate in 1994, includes nothing about "diplomatic assurances" in its prohibition against rendition.

ARE YOU AWARE that the Convention Against Torture, in Article 2, says: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture"? Yet we have heard from several government officials, e.g., Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and John Yoo, that we have to understand the times. After all, we had just been attacked.

ARE YOU AWARE that President George W. Bush advocated greater accountability than President Obama advocates with respect to torture? On June 26, 2004, the U.N.'s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, President Bush issued a statement that included the following: "America stands against and will not tolerate torture. We will investigate and prosecute all acts of torture and undertake to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment in all territory under our jurisdiction." In looking forward, President Obama has taken a step backwards.

ARE YOU AWARE that Article 14 of the Convention Against Torture says: "Each State Party shall ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation"? Yet our Justice Department continually argues in court against such redress, invoking state sovereignty and state secrets doctrines.

ARE YOU AWARE that judges, inspectors general, general counsel of the military branches, Pentagon investigators, and F.B.I. interrogators have all said that we have tortured human beings in our custody?

ARE YOU AWARE that the Convention Against Torture, in Article 12, says: "Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction"? Yet President Obama wants to investigate only those who exceeded the standards prescribed by the faulty OLC memos.

ARE YOU AWARE that since the Federal Torture Statute was passed in 1994, only one person has ever been charged and convicted under it? And that was for torture committed for the government of Liberia. His name was Chuckie Taylor, he was the son of the President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, and he tortured people as part of that country's Anti-Terrorism Unit. Torture justified as anti-terrorist. Does that sound familiar?

In our meetings with your staff members, we heard about taking the lead from President Obama, lack of seniority, and a lack of political will in Washington to deal with this issue. We reject these as reasons for inaction. First, we all learned in elementary school that the checks and balances embodied in our Constitution ensure that no one branch exceeds its power. The role of Congress is not simply to ratify executive branch decisions. Second, Hubert Humphrey in his 1948 civil rights speech defied Democratic Party leadership before he was even elected to the Senate. Third, our most courageous leaders have created, not followed, the political will. Hubert Humphrey on civil rights, Eugene McCarthy on the War in Southeast Asia, and Paul Wellstone on the invasion of Iraq were at their best when they opposed the political will in Washington, not succumbed to it.

For one of you to come out and take a leadership role -- if you will, a prophetic role -- on torture accountability might not be politically wise. It is not a unifying issue. You all are politicians, but this isn't about politics. We are asking you to be statesmen and stateswomen. This issue is literally about the soul of our country. Nothing could be more important.

Only recently did we apologize to and compensate those Japanese-Americans we had shamefully incarcerated a half century earlier. Fifty years from now, people will surely ask: "In the time when America tortured people, where was Senator Klobuchar? Where was Senator Franken? Where was Representative Ellison? Where was Representative McCollum? Were they not aware of what was happening?"

Silence.

Rally Friday + Update on the Foreclosure Five

Stop Foreclosures!
Justice for Michael Kidd!

On Friday, April 9, 4:30 p.m., friends, neighbors and other supporters will join the Minnesota Coalition for a People's Bailout at the home of Michel Kidd, 1321 23rd Ave North, in Minneapolis.

Mr. Kidd has been fighting to keep his home for over a year. He has had enough of the mortgage servicer, Aurora Financial, stalling, changing terms, 'forgetting' about past agreements and items faxed and mailed several times and apparently refusing to negotiate in good faith.

Mr. Kidd is an independent trucker. In 2004 he put down $45,000 cash and got a regular, fixed-rate mortgage. Because of the recession, his trucking business slowed. Last year, he tried to renegotiate the terms of his mortgage so his payments would be more affordable - with the expectation, based on the terms of the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), that the home's current value to be taken into account.

In 2004, when Kidd bought the house, it was valued at $190,000. Now it is valued between $65,000 and $90,000. Aurora Financial, in direct contradiction the federal HAMP program, is not offering to refinance the home at its "net present value."

Mick Kelly, of the Minnesota Coalition for a People's Bailout, puts it bluntly: "Michael Kidd is being robbed. Aurora is pressuring him into taking a bogus deal that only makes Aurora richer. They are basically turning his house into an ATM for the banks."

Michael Kidd and many others who have lost homes on the north and south sides of Minneapolis are examples of the racial disparities in home foreclosures and remodifications. As an African American born and raised in North Minneapolis, Kidd says he could have moved away, but chose to stay and build his community. "I won't just be speaking for me, but for thousands in my situation," said Mr. Kidd. "There are empty homes all around this neighborhood. We don't need any more."

The Minnesota Coalition for a People's Bailout will join Michael Kidd in demanding that Aurora Financial come to the table, follow the rules of the HAMP program and renegotiate the mortgage at the home's current value. Give Mr. Kidd a deal he can afford.

Contacts: Mick Kelly 612-715-3280,
Rick Jacobs 612-788-418

The Latest on the Minnesota Five

Leslie Park's bank just issued an ultimatum that she obtain financing to close on buying her home for $100,000 by May 15th. Clearly time is critical. IF YOU KNOW of any lender who would facilitate a fixed-rate mortgage agreement with her even though her good credit rating was ruined as a result of her bank's policies and actions --PLEASE contact us ASAP!

Meanwhile she will be speaking Friday, April 9, 4:30 p.m., on behalf of Michael Kidd (1321 23rd Ave. in North Minneapolis)-see below for details.

Barbara Byrd STILL has not received ANY response from EMC Mortgage. She waits for a call, watches for a letter, and listens every day for a knock on the door, wondering what's going to happen.

Linda Norenberg is PREPARING to celebrate her victory--but NOT until papers are signed on a rate that she can afford to keep her family home in Robbinsdale. Hats off to Linda, her family and supporters...and especially to her generous lawyer Kelly for keeping up the pressure for so many months on the bank, holding out for an acceptable outcome.

Ann Patterson is tired of making trial payments -several months past the "trial period"-to Wells Fargo that were not paying down principal. Rather than continue living in limbo indefinitely, she has taken initiative and informed Wells Fargo that she will not give her house back to the bank on a short sale-a sale that only would benefit the bank, yet still slam her credit rating. She hopes to move her family into rental housing as early as next month. Watch for details and date for likely yard-sale. Meantime, the bank keeps asking for her current payment! Apparently they still don't get it.

Rosemary Williams started out today from New Orleans on the PPEHRC caravan and March to Fulfill the Dream
http://www.ussf2010.org/node/68
-- from the Delta to Detroit in time for the U.S.Social Forum (USSF) being held June 22-26. She has been making preliminary contacts with activists in the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement in cities en-route like Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery. Many of us from Minnesota will be joining the caravan and/or attending the USSF. She plans on returning to Minneapolis briefly in mid-April, then rejoining the marchers as she continues inspiring others along the way with her message of resistance.

Health Care Reform needs another push-- and another.

This week in March, Americans note that federal health care reform has been in the works for a whole year.
Bills have been written and amended; support has been promised and at times withdrawn.
As time went on, progressives pushed again and again for a strong single-payer health care system to emerge from federal law or their state legislatures. As time went on, a resurgence of conservative activists grew more fearful and vocal about the dangers of such change. President Obama started out the year speaking on the bright shining idea of a public option, or state-funded insurance plan that could cover any citizen who chooses it. The President's stance grew weaker and more beholden to private insurance companies as the debates dragged on, from summer to fall.
We lost Senator Ted Kennedy in this last fateful year, and still his long fight for reform, including meaningful health care reform, is impressed upon us. But what will actually be done?

Can Americans get beyond the scary rumors, spun out by lobbyists and paid provocateurs, that pit us against each other? Can members of Congress stop the filibusters and see the truth of the thousands of lobbyist-written pages in the bills on their docket?

If a health care reform bill is passed this year, with the help of petitions and protests and citizen-funded ad campaigns, will it be enough to dig us out of our hole of debt and poor health? Or will new laws be enacted to restrict consumers as well as health care industries, to make abortions more costly than ever, and to tax the people at rates higher than inflation?
It's hard to tell, when no single person has the time to even read the grossly lengthy bills written in legal-ese.
Still, progressives keep on pushing for what they want: single-payer health care for all, not a weak public option, not a government take-over of medicine.

IndyMedia volunteers recently released a compilation of the actions and advice of the local health care reform movement. The Health Care Reform Movement: Rumors and Facts includes the expert analysis of Dr. Joel Albers, active with the Universal Health Care Action Network of Minnesota, and Dr. Lisa Nilles, active with the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition.

This short documentary should clarify the issues and propel us to pass meaningful reform. It can be viewed online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc8aMQi6H6E

Eye on Justice to air locally, online

In metropolitan Minnesota, Comcast pays a price for its media monopoly. The internet, cable, phone, and billboard company's contract monopolizing the cable TV running throughout the Twin Cities mandates opening several cable channels to locally produced PEG-- Public, Education, and Government programming.
In Minneapolis, only 3 of these channels are utilized by busy volunteer media-makers: cable channels 16, 17, and 75. Anyone can submit TV shows as long as they are non-commercial. Check out the guidelines at www.mtn.org
Groundbreaking new shows are being prepared to air on Minneapolis Television Network and St. Paul Network, like a news/talk show about police brutality and local politics: Eye On Justice. This project is an effort of the entirely volunteer-driven grassroots group, Communities United Against Police Brutality, to reach out to the public and open people's eyes to some famous cases of police misconduct.
You can keep your eye on justice (and injustice) by sneaking a peek at the first three shows by CUAPB TV, online:
eyeonjustice.blip.tv
Each is about 45 minutes. Upcoming shows will explore more famous and shocking true cases of law enforcement out of control, illustrating that nationwide trend. They will draw on reporting done by Twin Cities IndyMedia Collective and footage from CopWatch shifts, when CUAPB members tape actualities of police conduct out in the streets.
If you have such a story to tell, please contact this group of Cop and Court Watchers:
www.cuapb.org
Their 24-hour hotline is 612-874-STOP

Small Foundation plans to take on World

Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity:
A small land restoration foundation prepares to expand and take on its share of land and community restoration in the world.

Because of the persistence of Ray Tricomo and other board members of a growing organization called Kalpulli, vegetables are growing at a SPROUTS community garden in St. Paul and 100 new trees are being planted at Nature Conservancy sites along the Amazon River. Between SPROUTS, a Hamline University club, the Nature Conservancy, and the donations that made these projects possible, are the expanding webs of activist support and education spun by the little Kalpulli network. It intends to reach and support like-minded people across all the Americas, or Turtle Island, as natives have called this land mass for centuries, hence the organization's title.
For years, Green Party expatriate Ray Tricomo has been pulling together people and ideas to form a new learning center and support system called Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity. After a failed run for office and many efforts to reach out to the people of the Twin Cities by teaching free college-level classes, Tricomo is pouring his abundant energy into working as Kalpulli's founder, rather than as a politician or part-time professor.
Kalpulli, an Aztec word meaning community, should become a household word among everyone seeking real community support and not the distanced, passive-aggressive, Minnesota nice 'community' that we're used to in our loosely supportive but highly structured society. The Kalpulli Board of Directors doesn't pretend that the typical role of 501(c)3 non-profit is going to cut it, when people of the Americas are facing species depletion, droughts, warming oceans, hyper-security states, hyper-surveillance, 'free' market economic coercion, and possible currency collapses.
Rather, they're trying to build a foundation that can connect and economically support the work of volunteers working for real change in real sustainable ways, like teaching people to garden and feed themselves and their neighbors, or like learning college-level skills for free through the Twin Cities Experimental College. Eventually they'll find the money to support low-power radio and stream relevant news on Radio Kalpulli, open a Kalpulli alternative library, and address the United Nations to support fundamental changes. Everyone in this foundation can have a unique yet equal, governing role, so everyone has a stake in its success. There is always room for more Board members, or Kalpullistas.
One of Tricomo's mottos is, "If Mr. and Mrs. Indigenous aren't at the table, I'm not at the table." The importance of indigenous people's voices to Kalpulli, and to anything aiming for sustainability, is paramount. Everyone, indigenous or not, is welcome to come brainstorm at monthly meetings, the next one being in St. Paul on Wednesday December 16.
www.kalpulli.net

COPBUSTERS

When there's something strange in the neighborhood...
Who ya gonna call?
COPBUSTERS-- volunteers who bust open police and court misconduct in their community. In Minneapolis, volunteers are busting open police brutality cases for all of Minnesota through a group called Communities United Against Police Brutality.
They staff a 24-hour hotline for anyone to call and document cases of police brutality.
612-874-STOP
They listen to victims' stories at weekly meetings, held Saturday afternoons at Walker Community Church in Minneapolis, and refer them to good lawyers. They do CopWatch: shooting and gathering footage of police activity outside of homeless shelters and in Northeast Minneapolis. According to volunteer and board member Darryl Robinson, "Sometimes it's needed down at the shelter, where there's a strong cop presence, or needed in Northeast, where there's a strong cop presence." He noted that incidences of brutality "pick up in the warmer months."
Every October 22nd, they organize demonstrations as a part of the national day against police brutality. The group hands out information and raises policy issues, like that of taser use in the Twin Cities.
In the colder months, grassroots organizing is crucial preparation.

The growing group helps survivors of police brutality by doing CourtWatch: showing up in large numbers at hearings to watch judges and prosecutors, keeping an eye on the fairness of trials. According to Robinson, this is "stopping misconduct in the courtrooms," because judges and prosecutors look more closely at evidence and due process when people are watching than when someone comes into the courtroom alone.
The community group is extending this vigilance by beginning its own TV show: Eye on Justice. Its premier episodes will soon air on Minneapolis' and St. Paul's public access channels, MTN and SPN. Its host, Darryl Robinson, said, "It's just a way to hear what the community has to say, see what's happening to the community, and it would be the voice of the community."
More volunteers are always welcomed, as long as cases are kept confidential.
Stolen Lives ceremonies are held to honor those killed by police, and rallies are organized so the cases are not forgotten. CUAPB's actions take place even in the unlikeliest places, like Newport City Council and downtown Hastings. In July, they showed up at Hastings' first demonstration, during an antique car show and Rivertown Days. This demonstration protested the Medals of Valor that were given to two Hastings police officers who had killed a young man, Brandon Rodriguez, one year earlier. Rodriguez had had a mental health crisis and police arrived, though they had no training in dealing with mental health crises. The police chased Rodriguez into the cemetery behind his house, where he held a sword and "refused their commands," according to the police report. The four officers used a taser, but it didn't work, so Sgt. James Galland then shot Brandon several times, killing him.
Please see the video below for an example of CUAPB's work.

"Police Murder of Brandon Rodriguez: One Year Later"

www.cuapb.org

Condoleezza Rice speaks about Iraq, Iran, Israel at Beth El Synagogue

Former Sec. of State speaks to high-paying audience in St. Louis Park, MN
(see video : http://twincities.indymedia.org/2009/nov/condi-chat-beth-el-brings-secret-permit-first-amendment-area-dissing-goldstone-anti-torture)
On Sunday night, November 8, Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park hosted Condoleezza Rice as this year's speaker in its National Speaker Series. She was National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State to the Bush administration, and was notably the first White House official to approve the torture, or 'harsh interrogation,' of 'enemy combatants' in 2002.
Anti-torture activists and dismayed Beth El congregants gathered on the sidewalk for a candle-lit vigil, remembering the victims of U.S.-sponsored torture. They chanted "Shame on Condi," waved anti-war signs and called for Condoleezza Rice's arrest for violating federal laws against torture. FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley was there to hand out the letters calling for Rice's arrest or questioning by the FBI. She tried to deliver this petition for arrest to local police who were monitoring protests, but they wouldn't take it.
Inside, Don Shelby, local news anchor, introduced Ms. Rice, drawing on his recent experience as a WCCO reporter embedded with the 34th Infantry Red Bull Division of the Minnesota National Guard. He spent 12 days in Iraq and kept an online blog for readers back at home. At the Beth El podium, he said that just 50 hours ago he was standing at the place where Abraham was born. He acknowledged Iraq as a holy place as well as the cradle of civilization, worth protecting-- militarily.
He then brought Ms. Rice to the stage facing a standing ovation in the packed sanctuary.
Ms. Rice said a special hello to "her friend" Norm Coleman, sitting in the third row, in the acknowledgment part of her speech. Coleman, a Republican who narrowly lost the race for U.S. Senator, was there with his wife, answering questions for the student press before the event began.
High school students from St. Louis Park, Minneapolis and the private Benilde-St. Margaret's schools filled two rows in the student section in the back. Best Buy's @15 program paid for their seats, as Elliot Badzin announced at the very beginning of the event.

Ms. Rice said that, now that she's out of office, she likes to pick up the paper every day and not have to worry about doing something about the headlines. She said we all need to pay attention to work that's important, not just urgent. She said we need to consider history's judgments more than the latest headlines.
She admitted historic mistakes that the US has made in the Middle East, pushing for stability in the Middle East instead of democracy-- and the world saw neither develop in the Middle East. She referred to Saddam Hussein, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Muslim radicals in her condemnation of tyrants around the world who make the world less secure. She said that countries could not hate on Hussein while hugging Hezbollah, which she regarded an illegitimate, though democratically elected, government of Lebanon. She expressed faith that Hezbollah will lose in coming elections, as will any regime that doesn't deliver for its people. I couldn't help drawing parallels to our own American regime...
Ms. Rice called the U.S.A. the greatest and most compassionate nation of all time, unique for its fairness to immigrants, melting pot, and social mobility, and said how fortunate it is that it's also the most powerful nation. She told of travels to countries that don't like the U.S.; how those that resented its wealth were later glad for that wealth when people were hungry and AIDS needed fighting; how those that resented its military were later glad for protection from the 'bad guys.' It was strange to hear the term 'bad guys' in the middle of such intelligent, confident rhetoric. When Rice asked "What if the bad guys win an election?" she was being no more specific than Bush when he defined 'terrorists' as anyone using violence for political means.
She talked about right and wrong being cut and dry in regards to the violent tragedies of terrorism. Later she talked about the military's work in Afghanistan as shifting between war and peacework: "war and peace are a continuum."

She demonstrated an awareness of Palestinian, Israeli, Iraqi and Afghan people who do want to live in peace and cooperation. She addressed old stereotypes that have kept U.S. policy from encouraging democracy abroad, saying that there was a time when Latin America was deemed not yet ready for democracy-- as if the people preferred juntas. She said there was a time when Africa was considered not ready for democracy, because its people were 'too tribal,' and there was a time when black Americans weren't considered ready for democracy, because they were 'too childlike.' She came across as pro-democracy when she declared such stances condescending, but didn't recognize how condescending it is for the U.S. to make such foreign policy decisions about which people are ready for what.
She rallied the applauding audience around her idea of a 'step up' that has happened in Iraq: a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian government on the horizon for the new Parliament that even includes four women. She described U.S. troops' work as reinforcing Iraq's security forces, fostering opportunities for governance, and building bridges and roads, as Mr. Shelby had described the Army National Guard unit he observed as humanitarians.

She spoke out against human rights abuses, yet she said that there is no place in the civilized world for suicidal terrorists. This was consistent with the former Bush administration's treatment of terrorists as 'enemy combatants,' a separate sort of people, sub-human, worth imprisoning and torturing and abusing after taking away their human rights.
She said that Iran does have nuclear ambitions beyond nuclear power, for acquiring the nuclear bomb option. She also said that it's important for the U.S. to keep all options on the table, including its own nuclear program.

She called Israel America's most important ally, appeasing the audience of AIPAC members and others who view Israel as religiously important and vindicated. Ms. Rice noted that visiting Israel as an official had felt like going home to a place she'd never been. Clearly, her relevance to the Synagogue was in her expertise in Middle East policy and politics, which directly impacts Jewish people who live there and their families here.
Ushers passed out note cards to the rows of audience members, and accepted a few of them as questions to present to Ms. Rice.
The first question that Don Shelby, the moderator, read was that of whether or not war on Iraq was really part of the war on terror initiated by September 11 terrorist attacks. She quickly dived into her defense of targeting Iraq as the source of hate that fueled organized terrorist attacks, and her condemnation of Hussein as the main problem with Iraq. She said that she regretted that no WMDs were easily or quickly found there, as expected.
Other questions were just as pointed: Did she believe in the Human Rights Council's report on Israel's genocidal tactics, or was that report just another slam against Israel? ("I don't believe in anything the Human Rights Council does.") Did she think that China would eclipse America as an economic power? (No, but America "might eclipse itself.")

After an hour the speech and questions were over, the audience headed out to the parking lot, past chanting protesters, and VIP guests filed into the ballroom for private dinner with Ms. Rice.