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March 31, 2003
The collapse in Argentina
How the IMF's misguided economic policies are wreaking havoc on Argentina:
...the piqueteros are the collateral damage of neoliberalism--a fluke explosion that happened when rapid-fire privatization was mixed with "shock" austerity. In the mid-1990s, hundreds of thousands of Argentines suddenly found themselves without paychecks, welfare checks or pensions. Rather than disappearing quietly into the scavenged shantytowns that surround Buenos Aires, they organized themselves into militant neighborhood-based unions. Highways and bridges were blocked until the government coughed up unemployment benefits; abandoned land was squatted on to build homes, farms and soup kitchens; a hundred closed factories were taken over by their employees and put back to work. Direct action became the alternative to theft and death.But that's not why Vespignani describes life in Argentina as a war. The war is what happens next, after she and her neighbors dare to survive: the visits by armed thugs, the brutal evictions from squatted land and occupied factories, the assassinations of activists by police, the portrayal of piqueteros as menacing terrorists. Last month Buenos Aires police used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear sixty families out of an abandoned building near the trendy Plaza Dorrego.
Posted by Tyrone at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2003
Liberia's civil war
I haven't got the slightest idea who the good guy or bad guy are in Liberia's civil war. Most likely both the government and LURD rebels (what a name) are bad guys; Human Rights Watch reports human rights abuses on both sides.
What I do know is the tiny fraction of air play this war is getting, compared to the Iraq war. I guess if you're black and have no oil, the world doesn't really care what's happening in your country.
Posted by Tyrone at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)
They want liberation, not occupation
An Iraqi opposition group criticizes postwar US plans for Iraq, saying they would rather have a provisional authority under UN auspices than a US military administation.
Posted by Tyrone at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)
The demonization of Islam
I spent quite a bit of time compiling a post on this subject, then accidentally erased it. Oh bother.
The gist of it was: since 9/11 there has been a cottage industry claiming that Islam itself is an inherently violent and aggressive religion, and that a significant percentage of American Muslims are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Authors such as Oriana Fallaci, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer have called for racial profiling, and restrictions on immigration of Muslims. Conservative journals are filled with articles and letters jeering at Islam as primitive and backward, and crowing that its civilization has accomplished little in centuries.
What bothers me about this is the casual sense of superiority conservatives assume. Their culture is superior, in their eyes. All others are inferior, and they'll take whatever facts they can manipulate to support their pseudo-points.
Posted by Tyrone at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2003
India's hidden apartheid
Another massive violation of human rights, on an enormous scale, is the fate of India's nearly 200 million Dalits, or "untouchables".
Indian Dalits are subjected to treatment similar to what blacks in the United States faced a century ago. Brutal lynchings, with the complicity of authorities, merely for being "uppity". Forced to drink water out of dirty wells, segregated public restrooms and facilities. Frequent use of forced labor and indentured servitude.
One shocking example:
A Scheduled Tribe woman, Prakash Kaur, was most painfully murdered in a village in Maharashtra province in May, 1995. Brutes from the Aryan Hindus (l) dragged her to the village temple; (2) shaved her head; (3) beat her with sticks, (4) inserted a stick into her private parts; (5) blackened her face; (6) put her on a donkey and paraded her in the market; and (7) continued to beat her till she died. When the dying woman asked for water, the killers poured hot water and kerosene in her mouth. Her only offence (?) was that her 12-year old son had entered the local Hindu temple. The place where the incident took place is very close to the local police station. The more painful aspect of the incident is that when the Home Minister of the state was contacted by the All India Democratic Women's Association, he refused to take any action in the matter saying that it was not a murder but a "reflection of mob anger".
Resources:
National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights
Dalit Media
Human Rights Watch report
Posted by Tyrone at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2003
Horror in the Congo
This week's Economist (subscription required) reports on how the terrible slaughter in the Congo is continuing, nearly ignored by the rest of the world:
"...this enormous and never stable country fragmented in 1998, when Rwanda and Uganda invaded to topple the Congolese government. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops who saved the regime, but left the invaders in control of much of the country. All parties then proceeded to loot Congo's minerals, as innumerable local militias slaughtered and pillaged. Rwanda and Uganda, once allies, fell out and fought on Congolese soil. Their conflict did not last long, but the two countries remain bitterly at odds. In all, perhaps 3.5m people have died as a result of the war, mostly of disease or starvation. "
3.5 million. That's more than ten times as many as even the most pessimistic estimates for the death toll in the Iraq war.
Both the Left and the Right have neglected Africa and its problems. Both sides are totally focused on the US and its policies. If the US isn't involved, the cause of poor people isn't taken up by the Left. If Western interests aren't involved, the Right doesn't care either. And people die.
I'm not saying that Western countries should send large armies to the Congo; there is no simple solution to this tragedy. But some f---ing press coverage more often than once a year would be nice.
Posted by Tyrone at 03:47 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2003
Leftist arguments for war
A brilliant article outlining the reasons for leftists to support action in Iraq, despite legitimate reasons to distrust American intentions.
Posted by Tyrone at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
France and Germany in the Sudan
Apparently France and Germany have been backing the Sudanese government, which has engaged in brutal killings and slave raids against its southern black population. The article is written from a Rumsfeldian point of view (linking Sudan to Iraq, and babbling about "Old Europe"); but if its allegations about European support for Sudan are true, fierce condemnation is in order.
Posted by Tyrone at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)
Money for war, pittance for peace
The United States is spending $75 billion on the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, it and other rich countries are ignoring appeals for help from African countries devastated by famines and AIDS:
Two million people in Eritrea face starvation from drought. The UN has asked for $163 million in emergency food aid; it has received $4 million, or just 2.5 percent of what was requested. Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan, and DR Congo have received similarly small percentages.
The United States spends $12 billion a year on military operations in Afghanistan to hunt down the remnants of Al Qaeda, but only $300 million a year in humanitarian aid, and even that was only after pressure from Congress.
It's good to see where our priorities are.
Monbiot's article in the Guardian
Posted by Tyrone at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2003
Zimbabwe's descent into hunger
As the war in Iraq seizes the world's attention, there is another, worse crisis going on in Zimbabwe.
More than 7 million people face starvation, the BBC reports. The root cause? A fascistic president, Robert Mugabe, who would literally rather destroy his country than relinquish power, and who has shamelessly played the race card to delude his neighbors into silence.
I have to state in general I am turning increasingly sour on South African President Thabo Mbeki. He has claimed that the AIDS virus is not caused by HIV, dragged his feet on getting AIDS treatments out to the millions dying of the disease, and now he is effectively supporting Robert Mugabe's brutality. The promise and hope that greeted the end of apartheid is turning into a bitter disappointment.
Posted by Tyrone at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2003
Undecided about war
For a liberal, the Iraq war poses a dilemma.
It is not difficult to debunk most of the pro-war arguments. Saddam has no link to Al Qaeda. He has supplied money and sanctuary to other terrorists, but never actual weapons. His nuclear program was dismantled by 1998 and he is not even close to a workable chemical or biological weapon; and there is no reason to believe continued aggressive inspections cannot prevent him from ever acquiring them.
But one pro-war argument is harder to refute; that of human rights. Pro-war propagandists have taken advantage of this, putting up gut-wrenching photos of children gassed by Saddam; graphic human rights reports of people being tortured; bitter remarks by Iraqi expatriates at the peace movement's apparent lack of concern for them.
The left's argument against this - that Saddam was considered a US ally during his worst atrocities - is true, but doesn't make a case against war. The US was wrong to support Saddam during the 1980s, but that is no reason to support, or even tolerate, him now. One can even regard the present war as an act of atonement on America's part for its earlier support of Saddam.
On the other hand, most leftists find it hard to believe that the likes of George W. Bush have any genuine concern for human rights beyond propaganda shock value. Hasn't America backed brutal dictators, including Saddam, time and time again? Doesn't it continue to support Israeli savagery in the occupied territories? Would it really give a rat's ass for human rights if Iraq didn't have large oil reserves? These are legitimate points, but they are not arguments against ousting Saddam.
We have to look at the practical side of things here. Is the world a better place with a war or without one? A war, even in the worst-case scenario, is unlikely to last more than a few months. Saddam is 65 years old; if left alone he might survive in power another 20 years. For most of the last decade, his regime has killed 3,000 political prisoners a year; over a 20-year period that would be 60,000 dead, nearly all civilian. That's assuming he doesn't engage in another Anfal campaign, or attempts another war.
What would be the alternative to war? Maintaining the sanctions is not an option; as leftists have been the first to point out, the death toll from the sanctions exceeds 500,000. But lifting the sanctions would give Saddam the funding he would need to rebuild his armed forces. What would happen then? Quite aside from fears over WMDs, we could expect Saddam to slowly but surely chip away at the no-fly zones. His troops would attempt to retake Kurdistan, and he might continue airstrikes against restive Shi'ites in the south. What then? Should Saddam be permitted to retake Kurdistan, and probably engage in another round of mass killings? To stop him would probably require the use of military force - in other words, war.
The left's only real argument against war is that it would cause massive civilian casualties, more so than would die if Saddam held on to power. But so far that doesn't seem the case. Even the Iraqi government gave a casualty figure of only 200 for the first three days of "shock and awe" bombing. Military casualties have been less than 100 on the US side; even if the Iraqi side were ten times that, that is still less than 1,000. Any war Saddam were to fight against the Kurds would easily have a much higher civilian death toll.
Ultimately, the real reason most leftists oppose the war is not really about Iraq, but about America. Leftists, remembering Vietnam, remembering Nicaragua, remembering Angola, remembering Chile, cannot trust the United States to be the policeman of the world. A world where the US intervenes anywhere it sees fit, accountable to no one, is a spectre that is driving the street protests. Today it is Saddam's regime, despicable and impossible to sympathize with. But tomorrow it may be Iran. The day after that, Cuba. The humanitarian argument can be used again and again to justify the armed overthrow of any regime ideologically unacceptable to America. The Right will continue to win these arguments as long as it can wrap itself in the mantle of humanitarianism. In order to defeat it, the Left must come up with an alternative other than the status quo.
International law already states that genocide is a matter of international concern. It has usually been the Left that has responded in outrage to the great powers' willingness to tolerate cruel and despotic regimes. Leftists have supported wars that overthrew regimes like that - the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979, the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda in 1982, the RPF's overthrow of the genocidal Rwandan regime in 1994. In all three of these cases, the regime carrying out the liberation was far from a saint and had committed their share of human rights abuses. But because there was no risk of their establishing a global hegemony, they didn't provoke the ire the US is provoking.
Genocide is already a matter of international concern, and foreign military intervention is justified if it is happening. What we should do here is broaden the definition of genocide. Acts of extreme cruelty, carried out by a state authority without a democratic mandate, are enough justification for foreign intervention. This should require the permission of the Security Council, but without veto power, which would otherwise paralyze it.
Posted by Tyrone at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)