The Dominion - 44

Nuclear Haste Makes Waste: Regulators

dru — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:52:39 +0000

Pembroke-based SRB denied license for tritium processing

In a significant regulatory shift, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) recently refused to renew the operating license of tritium-processing firm SRB Technologies in Pembroke, Ontario on the Ottawa River. This departure resulted largely from pressures exerted by a coalition of the Pembroke-based nuclear concern and environmental protection NGO Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Algonquin activists.

The Pembroke Decision was the first in history where CNSC, Canada’s chief nuclear regulator, denied a license application from a major nuclear industry firm. SRB intended to continue operating in Pembroke with tritium, a hazardous radioactive substance purchased from Ontario Power Generation Inc. for incorporation into glow-in-the-dark illuminating devices.
CNSC hearings revealed that SRB long operated in a failed, unfenced Pembroke industrial park with no plant confinement, no containment and no physical security. SRB’s plant lacked a buffer zone, and adjoined a busy Pembroke artery near a heavily used hockey arena, a well-fished river and a residential subdivision.

CNSC’s 31 January 2007 “reasons for decision” document explained: “the licensee has not taken all reasonable precautions to control the release of a radioactive substance within the site of the licensed activity into the environment.”

During the precedent-setting hearings, CNSC encouraged knowledgeable intervenors to separate fact from fiction. These included radiation protection professional Rosalie Bertell, PhD in biometrics, representing the International Institute of Concern for Public Health and Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, and landscape painter Alfred Villeneuve, an Algonquin guardian of the Ottawa River.

Villeneuve is an Algonkin artist living since birth in Renfrew County and has resided in Pembroke for the past twenty-three years. “We have been here since time out of mind,” Villeneuve told the Dominion.

“As our ancestors did, we continue to follow Algonkin Law as it pertains to the outright protection of this Earth, our Mother, and all that exists on it.”

He said that the use of the Ottawa River for the disposal of nuclear waste fits into a long pattern of grave mistreatment and attempted genocide against Algonquin Nations.

“Less than two dozen people escaped and survived, out of an entire nation … First the old men, boys, girls and women at their encampment on what is now known as the Ottawa River, and then the wholesale slaughter of the men that were hunting elsewhere in their territory.

“Even through this horrific act of genocide, our ancestors survived.”

“SRB Technologies,” said Villeneuve, “in order to reduce toxic, nuclear waste contaminating their site, believes it is better to use our river for a nuclear dump.”

“You have no right to pollute the waters of our Spiritual and Historic Heartland … You have no right to dump any garbage … into our waters.”

Villeneuve warned civil servants in Ottawa against allowing further release of nuclear waste.

“While this land and this river is still under dispute with our nation and the governments of Canada and Ontario, we … will do all that is in our power as a nation of people to alert others of any destruction of our homelands including the United Nations.”

CNSC’s decision document created a new class of license, called a “nuclear substance processing facility possession license” for SRB in Pembroke. The firm sought rapidly to amend this license, and CNSC scheduled a hearing on this amendment for 12 April in Ottawa.

Joseph Castrilli, counsel for Canadian Environmental Law Association representing Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County (CCRC) objects to CNSC procedures in “prematurely” scheduling this hearing, at which CCRC has been denied speaking rights. Only CNSC staff and SRB are presently scheduled to speak at the “premature” hearing, and the staff supports the SRB position.

Villeneuve told the Dominion: “We object to any SRB backdoor continuation whatsoever of activities.”

Ottawa River

April Books

dru — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 04:50:32 +0000

Reviews of new work by Windley, Leahy, McOrmond

Home Schooling
Carol Windley
Cormorant Books

The eight stories in Windley's accomplished second collection identify life-altering moments, and the long slow processes of reconciliation which follow. Each story assembles the memories, dreams, wishes and hearsay which comprise the characters' limited self-understanding. In "Sand and Frost," a young woman confronts her great-grandfather's homicides and her own obsessive, unrequited infatuation. In the title story, Annabel longs to escape the isolated alternative school which her father has created, and which he is determined to reopen after a pupil's death closes it down. These plotlines could be morbid, but Windley 's tone stays this side of angst. Quietly compassionate, these are stories that employ deftly suspenseful pacing. We see, as one character did, "how necessary death was to the story; how it moved things forward, how it had to happen the way it did, in ordinary rooms, in landscapes blurred with gentle mists. Without violent death, it seemed, there would be no genuine passion, only ill-tempered, unfulfilled individuals, full of anomie, grating on each other's nerves." Most of the stories present family relationships and refreshingly multi-faceted perspectives on children and young women. Each is set in a west-coast landscape whose evocation is one of Windley's great strengths, and whose shifting shadows are perfectly suited to Windley's unusually serene depiction of survival. --Jane Henderson

Out to Dry in Cape Breton
Anita Lahey
Signal Editions

At first glance, Anita Lahey's debut collection follows all the generally accepted conventions of contemporary Canadian poetry. Most obviously, it takes long, lingering, detailed looks at the ordinariness of domestic life. The book's first set of poems, "Woman at Clothesline," is ostensibly about laundry, but Lahey escapes predictable patterns through humour. For instance: "Things That Might Prevent You from Hanging" reads like a catalogue of modern-day paranoia, from lightning to embarrassment at the "Wham! decal on that t-shirt you wear / only beneath other clothes." Another convention: this book organizes itself neatly into sections with titles and epigrams that could as easily be applied to clean, realist paintings by people with WASPy last names (and indeed, Lahey takes her cue in the middle section from several Canadian artworks, including two by Alex Colville). This careful structure goes a long way; nothing feels extraneous here and Lahey never plays fast and loose with her words. Her precision, instead of constricting, allows verbal quirks to shine without being precious. In "Instructions on Snow," we are told to "beware / self-important flakes." It's a cute play on words, but like most of this collection, it works. --Regan Taylor

Primer on the Hereafter
Steve McOrmond
Wolsak & Wynn

One of the most arresting poems in this collection, "Communion," gives us a line of boys in a schoolyard gripping each others' hands and grabbing at the electric fence. The last boy, the one who absorbs the bulk of the current, is "gripped by a passion/ that takes his grin and shakes, a tongueless/ scream that can overwhelm the heart." McOrmond is to be praised for his eye for original subject matter; while there are a few pieces that treat well-worn poetic tropes (the teenage car ride, leaving home), there are many that look further afield. Some, like the tragic-comic "Armchair," showcase McOrmond's skill with voice experimentation: "My daddy warned me about/ boys like you, no good/ drifter..../ You're just another pickpocket/ after petty change, a girl/ draped across your arm." This noir-inflected voice crops up in several of the poems here, as does McOrmond's propensity for storytelling . The most effective pieces are those in which McOrmond follows a train of thought all the way through, picking the reader up and putting them down somewhere slightly to the left or right of where they started. Despite some lazy lyricism, some slow language , and the many poems that could have been constructively pared down to maintain their energy, Primer on the Hereafter rewards the reader with its gentle humour and its intelligent curiosity. --Linda Besner

Lebanon: Shadows of War

dru — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 04:36:46 +0000

Rawi Hage’s <cite>De Niro’s Game</cite> renders civil war-era Beirut from the Diaspora

Turning the pages of De Niro's Game, one is transported to the war-torn streets of Beirut in the midst of Lebanon's 15-year civil war, a tragic reality of flying bombs and bullets. A debut literary work from Montreal author Rawi Hage, who conveys this era of Lebanon's turbulent history through the experiences of a pair of youths from Beirut, childhood best friends growing to adulthood in the political quagmire of civil war.

"De Niro's Game started as a short-story," Hage explains at a café in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges district. "Initially I wanted to write a piece about an incident that I remember of some kids who started playing Russian roulette after watching The Deer Hunter, which screened in Beirut at the beginning of the war in the 1970s. Guns were available everywhere in Beirut so kids starting playing."

De Niro's Game is a fast-paced poetic novel detailing historical events and the gritty details of life in Beirut during Lebanon's civil war; from the bombs falling erratically on residential districts, to the dirty economy of armed political factions, to the soaring voice of Lebanese diva Fariuz echoing on Beirut streets and the massacre of Palestinian refugees by Israeli supported right-wing Lebanese militias at the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila.

Through the eyes of the novel's main characters, Bassam and George, Hage confronts the existential and pragmatic debate surrounding the question facing everyone living through the civil war era in Lebanon: to remain in mortal danger upon familiar ground, or to flee westward toward hostile nations? Expansive contemplations on forced migration from Lebanon's civil war appear in the first chapters:

Ten thousand bombs had landed, and I was waiting for George. Ten thousand bombs had landed on Beirut, that crowded city, and I was lying on a blue sofa covered with white sheets to protect it from dust and dirty feet.

It is time to leave, I was thinking to myself. My mother's radio was on. It had been on since the start of the war, a radio with Rayovac batteries that lasted ten thousand years. My mother's radio was wrapped in a cheap, green plastic cover, with holes in it, smudged with the residue of her cooking fingers and dust that penetrated its knobs, cinched against its edges. Nothing ever stopped those melancholic Fairuz songs that came out of it.

I was not escaping the war; I was running away from Fairuz, the notorious singer.

De Niro's Game has received broad acclaim in Canada and internationally, nominated for both the Governor General's Award for fiction, the Giller Prize for literature and winner of the Quebec Writers Federation's Prize for Fiction. A national best-seller in Canada, De Niro's Game is a startling success for a first-time author.

Hage, born in Lebanon, lived through nine years of the civil war in the achrafieh district of Christian East Beirut, in which the fictional narrative of De Niro's Game occurs. As a witness to a war that continues to haunt Lebanese politics until today, Hage through fiction offers a biting critique toward the sectarian fighting, foreign intervention and gangster politics which fuelled the civil conflict in Lebanon, resulting in over a hundred thousand dead.

"I grew up with Beirut divided," Hage recounts. "Through this novel I presented a secular element amidst all the sectarian chaos, as I think that Lebanon has maintained an understated, undermined secular element throughout the past 100 years, which is why I presented the main character in the novel as an atheist who doesn't believe in organized religion."

Currently Lebanon's confessional political system enshrines sectarian divisions in the nation's constitution, a fact which many Lebanese point to as a fundamental cause of the civil strife which still frames political life in Lebanon today.

Dating to Lebanon's independence from France in 1943, Lebanon's constitution divides the nation's 128 parliamentary seats equally between multiple Muslim and Christian religious communities. Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990 with the signing of the Ta'if Accord by warring Lebanese factions, an agreement sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia and Syria that reinstated constitutional sectarian political divisions.

"De Niro's Game champions secularism," says Hage, "while illustrating how ugly sectarianism is, and the corruption of organized religion."

Hage's novel provides an essential historical context to current political turmoil in Lebanon, a nation which in the past two years has experienced an Israeli invasion, unprecedented internal political strife and a string of bloody assassinations of national political figures.

"I like to think of the novel as a small slice of the collective memory of Lebanon," explains Hage. "In Lebanon there was no conscious decision from the government to preserve the history of the war, to understand issues that created war in the first place."

"Quickly the entire downtown area of Beirut, where the major fighting took place was eradicated, no monument built, while the civil war is not in the national school curriculum," Hage adds. "Authorities in Lebanon are still not dealing with our history."

"Until now, there has been no governmental project of national reconciliation in Lebanon."

"I think that some of the only people who are attempting to deal with the history of war in Lebanon are independent artists and writers," says Hage. "I am one of those artists, who through writing, is trying to come to terms with and understand the history of war because I think that we have to deal with it, as Lebanese, for future generations."

De Niro's Game renders, in vivid prose, the deadly 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut, in which over 10,000 Lebanese and Palestinians lost their lives. A historical recount of the aerial attack offered by Hage will strike any current reader as a historical shadow to the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon.

Israeli jets flew over Beirut and bombed houses, hospitals and schools. The radios trumpeted from every window on our street. On the west side, people were fleeing for their lives, and on our east side, in the night, we could see flashes of resistance aiming at the skies. I went to the roof and looked at the west. The landscape was lit up under lightning bolts that fell from Israeli airplanes. There was one consistent line of red that reached to the sky. It never ceased, and I wondered if my uncle was shooting at the gods. And I wondered if cheap whisky bottles would turn into Molotov cocktails in Ali's hands.

Today, historical realities of war and conflict are not shades of a violent past but the looming crisis of the future, as political tensions are rife in a nation still recovering from the 2006 Israeli attack which resulted in major damage of the national infrastructure and 1,300 dead Lebanese civilians.

"I was extremely upset during the war this summer," reflects Hage. "It was a different type of war than the one I lived, conducted mainly from the air by a state trying to impose hegemony over the region without regard for the human costs."

Stefan Christoff is an independent journalist based in Montreal, you can contact him at: christoff -at- resist.ca

De Niro's Game, by Rawi Hage

Rawi Hage

Questioning Climate Politics

dru — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 03:45:34 +0000

Denis Rancourt says the “global warming myth” is part of the problem

Denis G. Rancourt is a professor of physics and an environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa. His scientific research has been concentrated in the areas of spectroscopic and diffraction measurement methods, magnetism, reactive environmental nanoparticles, aquatic sediments and nutrients, and boreal forest lakes. He also teaches a popular class about activism, which is currently under attack by the University of Ottawa Administration.

He has written a wide-ranging critique of the science and politics of climate science, which he published on his web site (activistteacher.blogspot.com). Here, the Dominion asks him about his extremely unconventional stand on the science and politics of climate change.

The Dominion has long published articles that accept the overwhelming international scientific consensus that climate change is a fact, and that human-generated carbon emissions play a significant role in that trend. The individual members of the Dominion’s editorial team that have looked at this interview still hold that view. But what we’ve realized in working on the following interview is that our understanding of climate change is based on what scientists tell us, not on knowledge that we can claim to possess. We’ve shown Rancourt’s comments to two scientists, including a climatologist who is an International Panel on Climate Change lead author; they viewed his scientific critique as lacking merit, and as such said they were not willing to engage in a spurious debate.

We are aware that a lot of time has been spent debating climate change, and it’s a fact that the doubt created by this debate has provided some leeway for many damaging activities to continue.

Rancourt’s critique challenges us to consider whether we need a reason like climate change to stop the massive damage being caused by extractive industries, the wildly inefficient and deadly dependence on cars, the wars fought and people killed for strategic control of resources, or the destruction of entire ecosystems. If the world was suddenly 100 per cent commmitted to stopping climate change, would those things stop? As it stands, few prominent climate activists are advancing an analysis of the economic system that lies behind the constant consumption of resources, leading to the humanitarian and environmental disasters described.

As for the science, the Dominion does not endorse Rancourt’s remarks (or any other opinions not expressly signed by our editors). But neither do we think that thought that goes against our common assumptions should be ignored. Ideally, the ensuing discussion will challenge our collective understanding of the science and politics of climate change, and possibly change our perspective. --The Editors

Dominion: You refer to a "myth of a global warming dominant threat," and argue that there are greater threats currently facing humanity. Why have you chosen to advance this argument now?

DGR: I don't argue that there are greater threats. I argue that there are great threats and that global warming is not a threat. I have been researching and writing this article for many years; ever since I decided to switch my teaching and research interests from physics to environmental science. The recent increased mainstream media promotion of the global warming paradigm confirms my hypothesis that this paradigm does not threaten the main financial powers that control the media and that it probably serves power. I therefore made a special effort during the 2006 Xmas break to find time to finish a pedagogical version of the article. After experiencing how editors wanted to censor parts that would frustrate their readers or that were not in line with their publication mandates, I decided to blog it–a very un-academic thing to do.

In your article, you say that the conclusions of a lot of scientists–probably thousands of them–are basically incorrect. How do you explain what you argue is a massive collective error?

Relatively few of the relevant scientific conclusions in individual scientific articles are incorrect because scientists are very careful in drawing conclusions and they qualify and describe the validity limits of the trends that may be contained in their data. What I explain is (1) that advisory boards such as the IPCC are political, consensus-driven, and overemphasize generalizations, and (2) that there is a cultural bandwagon effect in science where many environmental scientists who are not climate experts will accept global warming as a background premise that motivates their specialized studies (in ecology for example). To the layperson (such as Al Gore) reviewing the scientific literature, this can be incorrectly interpreted as a broad consensus among experts. In fact, there is much debate among true climate experts–that I illustrate with many examples and over one hundred references.

You say that global warming is overblown as a threat, and that it doesn't exist as a global trend. What does this mean, exactly? Does it mean that sea levels not continue to rise? Will arctic permafrost not continue to melt? Or are you just saying that there's nothing we can do about these things?

I argue that there is no reliable evidence that the global average Earth surface temperature has increased in recent decades. I argue this by making a critique of how such trends are extracted, inferred and extrapolated from incomplete and artifact-laden data. I explain melting glaciers and receding permafrost as more probably arising from radiative mechanisms, linked to particulate pollution, land use/cover changes, and solar variations, rather than global warming. And I argue that atmospheric CO2 does not control climate, but is at best a witness of global changes. These arguments are technical but I have tried to present them as simply and clearly as possible in the article.
More importantly, I argue that the real threat (the most destructive force on the planet) is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might and that you cannot control a monster by asking it not to shit as much. I argue that non-democratic control of the economy and institutionalized exploitation of the Third World (and all workers) must be confronted directly if we are to install sanity.

Do you think there is any relationship between these threats you name and what climate change activists are asking people to do in terms of reducing their consumption of fossil fuels? Isn't oil one of the main driving factors in the wars that you mention?

Yes I do. Asking people to respond by changing their consumer habits is asking people to turn their attention to their consumer habits. This contributes to siphoning their vision onto their lifestyle choices and removes psychological focus from the person's political dimension. I argue that it is counter productive to stress people's individual choices and that we must find ways to make more political and social justice activists and organizers. I don't care that you emit more CO2 by breathing when you chose a more active lifestyle but I appreciate that you are trying to be the most effective political activist possible and I honour the risk you must take in being an effective social justice activist.

Economic, human, and animal justice brings economic sustainability which in turn is always based on renewable practices. Recognizing the basic rights of native people automatically moderates resource extraction and preserves natural habitats. Not permitting imperialist wars and interventions automatically quenches nation-scale exploitation. True democratic control over monetary policy goes a long way in removing debt-based extortion.
We must not substitute the effect for the cause. All such substitutions can only weaken activism. Presently, power designs and controls the legislative apparatus, just as it constructs the mainstream mental environment. Only justice can give environmental sustainability and only resistance-imposed increased democratic control of land, resources, and the economy can give increased justice. These are lessons of history that no amount of atmospheric science can change.

Of course present imperialism and corporate globalization are based on oil and the associated cheap transportation. But asking governments and corporations to sign onto carbon footprint reduction schemes and to trade carbon credits is not going to change that.

A study from the University of Leeds predicted that habitat destruction caused by climate change could render up to a million species extinct. Are these kinds of predictions subject to the same critique you bring to climate science?

There are many such studies. Ecologists studying bio-diversity are not climate experts and establishing species extinction is a difficult exercise. These are tenuous theoretical scenarios based on hypothetical changes. Natural animal and plant life are threatened by habitat destruction. The way to stop destroying habitat is to stop destroying habitat. Local ownership and control by inhabitants does wonders in this direction, compared to profit-driven corporate exploitation installed by national debt coercion. These are the same corporations that fund Kyoto lobby groups to promote carbon credits and windmills-for-oil schemes.

Weather changes have great impacts on artificially delimited micro-habitats whereas ecosystems have remarkable robustness if migration into neighbouring environments is not inhibited. For example, North America was regularly swept with massive forest fires before continental forest management was implemented and this did not cause species extinction but clear cutting and economic reforestation does reduce bio-diversity.

I argue that the "myth of a global warming dominant threat" serves to sanitize the debate and to turn our attention away from the undressed confrontation that must eventually occur between people and the hydra that exploit people if we care about life and justice. These confrontations are occurring in many parts of the world, while First Worlders debate Kyoto implementation strategies and nurture the illusion that corporations can be cajoled to be good corporate citizens. That is why more and more of my work involves activism.

But the goals of reducing consumption of fossil fuels would seem to be compatible with acting against exploitation and destruction, even if they aren't the same thing. What makes you want to confront the basis for it, and directly undermine it?

Truth and strong commitment to justice are a valid basis for a social movement, not compatible goals. Global warming or atmospheric planetary science is in its early developmental stages, with powerful computers, high-resolution field measurements, and satellite probing having just entered the scene, and at present at best provides tenuous suggestions. I have watched scientists study environmental degradation rather than denounce its most virulent forms for decades. In the 70s an army of government and university scientists tried to detect the relatively subtle effects of acid rain while deforestation, agriculture, mineral and energy extraction, over-fishing, and an exploding cottage industry transformed the boreal forest and its lakes. Most of the research had to be concentrated in a few pristine areas in national parks so that the subtle effects could be studied…

In pedagogy, one learns that the only way to get a student to accept a new paradigm is to enter into authentic discourse and to confront the student's views that are incompatible with the more broadly based model. We are all both teachers and students.

We need to stop listening to scientists, who for societal reasons usually serve and at best do not threaten power, and start seeing what is obvious to inhabitants of the Third World: Finance-driven exploitation destroys and kills. Let us stop trying to manage the planet, stop believing that consumer choices could fix or even improve things in the present corporate marketing regime, and start thinking about how to correctly identify and effectively challenge the instruments of exploitation. The main relevant personal decision is how much risk one is prepared to take, not whether the coffee has a Fair Trade label. Life is risk. Let's join the living.

Tar Pits Processing

Issue #44

dru — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:01:53 +0000

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April 2007

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Events in March

dru — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:52:53 +0000

Protests at Canadian Embassies, Kashechewan, Cité Soleil, Harper's budget and more

With spring floods on the way, leaders from the Kashechewan First Nation renewed calls for the federal government to fulfill its end of an agreement to relocate the northern Ontario community. Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice later officially denied the request. The community of Kashechewan was forcibly relocated to a flood plain of the Albany River in 1957. » 1, 2

Cuban head of state Fidel Castro issued his first editorial since his hospitalization in 2006. Castro warned against massive food shortages in developing countries if rich countries begin to import food crops like corn and sugar cane for the purpose of converting them into fuel. » 1

A general strike that lasted for most of January and February in the West African country of Guinea ended with a deal that appointed a new prime minister and lowered the prices of rice and fuel. Guinea has a full third of the world's known deposits of bauxite, or aluminum ore, but the majority of the population lives in poverty. During the strike, military forces fired on protesters, resulting in 23 deaths. Montreal-based Alcan Aluminum is a major partner of Guinea's state- owned mining corporation. » 1, 2

The corporate lobby group Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) lauded the Conservative government's proposed budget, singling out corporate tax cuts and incentives for praise. In a letter, CCCE President Tom d'Aquino expressed appreciation for "incentives for later retirement" and the "financial incentive for governments to eliminate their capital taxes," among others. The CCCE's membership includes most of Canada's biggest corporations, representing annual revenues of more than $750 billion, and $3.2 billion in assets. » 1

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) panned the 2007 Conservative budget in a report, saying that $18 billion over two years "is a lot of money to spend with such piecemeal results." According to the CCPA's researchers, most Canadians want more money spent on social programs, while a distinct minority want more tax cuts. The report says that new tax credits give "high-income Canadians" the "maximum benefit," while doing little to help those with very little taxable income in the first place. Also criticized were the absence of measures to increase affordable housing and a lack of action to address poverty among First Nations. » 1

In Haiti, protesters gathered at the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince to denounce "hypocrisy" and demand the return of former-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has been in exile since he was removed by US forces in a coup d'état also backed by Canada and France. » 1

Residents of the Haitian slum of Cité Soleil have described what they called a "state of siege" imposed by UN troops. Dozens of people have been injured and killed during recent shooting battles between UN forces and gangs. In one battle last summer, UN troops shot 22,000 bullets. A declassified report revealed that the UN was aware that their fire would strike many "unintended targets" due to the flimsy construction of houses in the slum. Many photographs of Cité Soleil residents killed by UN fire, including women and small children, have been circulating. The killing has sparked debate in Bolivia, which contributes soldiers to the UN forces in Haiti. "How could we oppose similar aggression against Bolivia... if we endorse the military intervention in Haiti," asked Bolivian lawyer, journalist and former cabinet minister Andrés Soliz Rada in a recent op/ed. » 1, 2, 3, 4

Over 100 demonstrators gathered at the Canadian embassy in Mexico City to oppose mining activities by Metallica, a Toronto-based company, which they say are illegal. Demonstrators say that Metallica subsidiary Minera San Xavier is using 25 tonnes of explosives daily in exploratory work. The proposed mine, which has been opposed since the project was initiated in the state of San Luis Potosí in 1995, is on the hill of San Pedro. The hill has deep local significance and neighbours the community of Cerro de San Pedro. Leaders of local resistance movements say the mine would result in cyanide leaching into the regional aquifer, which supplies an estimated 1.5 million people. The demonstrators said that the mining is clearly illegal, but that Canadian and Mexican governments refuse to enforce the law. » 1, 2, 3

A prominent London venture capitalist and major Labour Party donor has warned that the gap between the rich and poor could lead to a "violent reaction from those left behind." In recent remarks, Ronald Cohen said, "I think we're at the top of the cycle. I think the pendulum has swung too far." However, Cohen has also argued that the government has no role to play in wealth redistribution, arguing instead for charitable contributions from the ultra-rich. The Washington Post took note of London's new elite, estimating that $17 billion in bonuses were given to the city's "financial stars" in a matter of weeks, and detailing a story of one $36,000 tab for a "night of cocktails." » 1, 2, 3

On March 17, the fourth anniversary of the most recent US invasion of Iraq, thousands of people protested in more than 37 cities, demanding an immediate end to the US occupation of Iraq. Many groups also demanded that Canadian troops withdraw from Afghanistan immediately and some called for an end to the "US-Canada military partnership." » 1

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that "American, European and Arab officials" he spoke to said that aid money directed to the Siniora government in Lebanon has ended up funding Sunni radical groups. "We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence and we're spreading the money around as much as we can," a senior intelligence official told Hersh. » 1

Health Canada filed a complaint against John O'Connor, a doctor working in Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta who linked acute increases in cancer rates in the majority-native population to arsenic and other chemicals dumped by tar sand development in the area. The complaint has fuelled speculation that O'Connor is being silenced for challenging the Alberta oil industry. Health Canada has not disclosed details of the complaint. The Alberta Medical Association recently passed a resolution supporting O'Connor, and he has received support from First Nations groups. » 1

Herb Norwegian, Grand Chief of the Deh Cho First Nation, called for Alberta's legislators to take immediate action to stop the pollution from tar sands development making its way into northern watersheds. "You're talking about annihilation of people's watershed if it's not done properly, and three years is not soon enough [to take action]," Norwegian said. "You'll probably have a couple hundred people dead from Lord knows what happens from the stuff that's coming out of the tar pits." » 1

Tanya Reinhart, an Israeli linguist and well-known critic of Israel's occupation of Palestine, died on March 17 at the age of 63. Reinhart's contributions to linguistics were described by former thesis supervisor Noam Chomsky as, "original and highly influential." Reinhart's work extended into literary criticism, media studies and most famously, political activism. Reinhart was subject to heavy criticism for supporting a call for an academic boycott against Israel. She called for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and was the author of Israel/ Palestine: how to end the War of 1948, and The road map to nowhere : Israel/Palestine since 2003. » 1, 2

US Democrats have opted for a "slow bleed" strategy in Iraq, which news reports say aims to reduce the number of troops available to the Bush Administration, while providing over $100 billion for the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The decision has opened up a rift between a grassroots American antiwar movement on one hand and Democrats and NGOs on the other. "The Congress that was elected to end the war just voted to fund the war," one commentary begins. Advocacy group MoveOn.org was subject to the ire of many activists when it represented its 3.3 million members as being in support of the Democrats' bill based on a poll that gave members the choice between the bill and doing nothing. » 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Google.com removed satellite images of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from its map site, baffling many who had been using the images to track the state of the city's reconstruction or check on their own homes. The images were replaced with satellite photographs of the city before the hurricane hit. Chikai Ohazama, a Google product manager, told reporters that he "personally" was not asked to change the photos, but that the company gets many requests to update and change images that the company provides. » 1

A restaurant in Toronto's Cabbagetown neighbourhood is fighting an attempt to revoke its liquor licence. Activists fighting the decision with owner Victor Jiang call it part of an effort to drive low-income people out of the neighbourhood. "This is about removing the places where poor people gather socially," the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty wrote in a statement. Activists say that many establishments that are being shut down are operated by immigrant people and point out that many don't have the capital to open up bars and restaurants that cater to "yuppies." » 1

Around 125 Mohawks from the Bay of Quinte community in Ontario seized a gravel quarry and set up a blockade on a small part of a disputed tract of land. They say that 827 acres of land known as the Culbertson Tract was illegally taken from their nation in 1827 and want the gravel pit's operations stopped until land claims are settled. "The quarry is something that strikes at the heart of the issue," said Mohawk activist Shawn Brant. "It's very difficult to have negotiations at a time when they're taking out 10,000 truckloads of our land [annually]. It's an affront to our process." » 1, 2

A Mohawk woman from the community of Akwesasne went into hiding, defying an arrest warrant from the Superior Court of Ontario. Katenies, a grandmother and researcher for Mohawk Nation News, was cited for border violations. She served the courts with a "Motion to Dismiss," insisting that the question of whether Canada has any legal authority over the Mohawk people be resolved. She had crossed from the Canada to the US while inside Mohawk territory to visit her daughter, but refuses to recognize the boundary. » 1, 2

Protest at Canadian Embassy

Fort Chipewyan

Stolen Games

hillarybain — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:47:40 +0000

"No Olympics on stolen Native land" has become the battle cry for Indigenous resistance to the Vancouver Olympics

The official website of the 2010 Olympics touts the "historic" and "unprecedented" participation of First Nations in the Vancouver games. According to the site, the collaboration between the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) and Aboriginals will include increased opportunities to "showcase art, language, traditions, history and culture" and "promote skills development and training related to the games."

This kind of “trinket and bead exchange” is beside the point, says Kanahus Pellkey of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation. "We're still fighting for our homeland."

"No Olympics on stolen Native land" has become the battle cry for Indigenous resistance to the Games -- resistance that has found allies in those angered by what they call the devastating social and environmental implications of the Olympics-- and has drawn its resonance from the fact that much of B.C. remains unceded Indigenous territory.

"Right now we're holding onto the very last of what we have," says Pellkey. The Secwepemc's traditional territory covers approximately 145,000 square kilometres in the southern interior of B.C. "Our land up there is mountains and water," says Pellkey, on the phone from Vancouver. "There's an abundance of wildlife and species. It's one of the last places in the world where there's still clean mountain water."

That land, along with an entire way of life is now under threat, says Pellkey. "By them choosing to have the Olympics here, it's going to open up our land, our sacred sites, our medicine grounds. All these big corporations are going to see the potential when they see our untouched land-base. We want investors to know our land is not for sale."

Pellkey is part of the Native Youth Movement, a group that's opposing the Olympics -- which is to take place on St'at'imc and Squamish territories -- and its inevitable ripple effects of increased tourism and development on the surrounding First Nation territories.

One of those ripple effects is the continued expansion of Sun Peaks Ski Resort. "Sun Peaks is pushing a $284 million expansion," says Pellkey. "They're [also] fighting for a road through the backcountry, to open it up to tourists from Calgary."

While tourists flock to British Columbia to experience its "untouched wilderness,” the Secwepemc still rely on the land to live. People depend on the moose, berries, roots and fresh water from underground aquifers, says Pellkey; aquifers that Sun Peaks is draining to make fake snow for skiers. "What Sun Peaks and other corporations and are doing to us is affecting our basic human right to live."

A similar situation is playing out in Vancouver, according to Angela Sterrit, a secretariat member of the International Indigenous Youth Network (IIYN) and member of the Gitxsan Nation. As the Olympics approach, property value is skyrocketing and low-income housing is disappearing. "There's construction everywhere. Everywhere you go, streets are being bulldozed," says Sterrit.

According to an IIYN press release, 512 low-income housing units were lost between June 2003 and June 2005 and almost 300 low-income housing units have been lost to rent increases in the same time period. "Homeless people are everywhere," says Sterrit. "I've lived in this city several years and I've never seen it this bad. You see them on every second corner. People don't have blankets. They don't have shelters to go to."

And as Kat Norris of the Indigenous Action Group points out, First Nations people make up 30 per cent of homeless people in the downtown eastside. The brutal history of residential schools coupled with present day racism and discrimination has meant that "a high percentage of our people rely on services in the downtown eastside of Vancouver," says Norris. Many of these services are facing funding cuts, she continues, "and we're wondering where the money is going to."

According to British Columbia's auditor general, the Games will cost Canadians $2.5 billion, as reported in the Globe and Mail last year, with $1.5 billion of that being picked up by British Columbians.

That's too high a price tag for an event that's "all about profit and collaborating with big business," says Norris. So, will resistance to the Olympics continue? "Without a doubt," she says. "There will be an escalation."

That's not good news for the VANOC. Already, opposition to the games has dogged Olympic organizers who now require visible security at every Olympic-related event along with security fencing separating dignitaries from the public. At a recent Olympic flag illumination ceremony, "The security nearly outnumbered the more than 100 protesters, who in turn outnumbered the spectators watching the ceremony," reported the Vancouver Sun on March 13. This event occurred only a week after the Olympic flag was stolen and the Native Warrior Society released a photo showing that they had it in their possession.

As reported in the same Vancouver Sun article, after an incident where the Olympic clock was defaced, John Furlong, chief executive of the VANOC, responded by saying: "It is not the Canadian way. When you do so [deface the clock], you give up the right to be listened to."

Indigenous People have a long history of “dialogue” with the Canadian government, says Pellkey, but it hasn't inspired confidence in Canada as a negotiating partner. "We have agreements and treaties that have never been upheld," she says. "They [government] go through with whatever they want to anyways."

Despite this history of disregard, in 2002, 76-year-old Secwepemc Elder Irene Billy and Ske7cis Manuel travelled to Switzerland to submit an official request to the International Olympic Committee. The submission described, "All the human rights abuses committed against Indigenous People in Canada," says Pellkey and asked that the committee not choose British Columbia for the Olympic bid. "This big organization never took into consideration what the grassroots people were saying," she says. "They chose to have the Olympics in our territory."

Today, the Indigenous resistance to the games is using other tactics to make sure their voices are heard. "We have found direct action is a way to stand up," says Pellkey. Although disrupting the Olympics and its build-up may not be Furlong's version of “the Canadian way,” according to Pellkey, it's better than letting the other “Canadian way” destroy her people's chance of survival.

"When you here about Indigenous resistance, remember that we're real people," says Pellkey. "We're mothers and aunts and wives and husbands. We have a heart and we care. That's what drives us to fight for what we have: our land, our food gathering grounds; because we care. We care about the land and our children, our great grandchildren and those yet to be born. We love them with all our heart. That's why we're doing this."

"We're not doing this to be a nuisance," says Pellkey, "but because we have love for our land and our territories and our ancestors."

Olympic Construction

First Nations Activist Dies after Release from Jail

hillarybain — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:33:57 +0000

In memory of Harriet Nahanee, age 71

A Vancouver Island community is in mourning following the death of an elder who fought to defend aboriginal rights and the environment. Activist Harriet Nahanee died at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver on Saturday, February 24, one month after she was sentenced to 14 days in jail for protesting the destruction of a wetlands for the Sea-to-Sky highway upgrade in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia.

The woman who once said that natives need an “aboriginal Malcolm X” to restore their pride will be sorely missed by many, including her husband, Ron Perry, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Nahanee, age 71, was weak from the flu and asthma in January when B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown ordered her detained at the Surrey Pre-Trial Centre. She was hospitalized with pneumonia a week after her release from jail. Doctors then discovered she had lung cancer. A news release on Sunday, February 25, briefly announced Nahanee’s death from pneumonia and complications.

Fellow activist Betty Krawczyk, age 78, was among those who attended a prayer vigil for Nahanee the night before her death. The women connected at the Eagleridge Bluffs blockade. “We were the only great-grandmothers there. It was up to us to bring it forward.”

In January, Krawczyk urged Justice Brown not to send Nahanee to jail. “I am very worried about Mrs. Harriet Nahanee,” Krawczyk wrote. “Mrs. Nahanee is not well. She has asthma and is suffering the after-effects of a recent bout of flu that has left her very weak.”

“Harriet believed Eagleridge Bluffs belonged to the Squamish Nation and she felt her band – the elected chiefs – were trading the land away for development,” Krawczyk said on the phone from Vancouver. “She wanted the land preserved for her great-grandchildren. She put her life on the line for that.”
Krawczyk wrote in her blog that Nahanee was “challenging the right of the elected chiefs of the Squamish Nation to negotiate away traditional Squamish Lands off the Squamish Reserve, lands that include Eagleridge Bluffs. This action potentially has serious ramifications for the entire band concerning who has the right to negotiate away traditional Squamish Indian lands.”

Nahanee was born on the Pacheenaht Indian Reserve on Vancouver Island in 1937. Along with the other children on the reserve, she was taken from her parents at age five to live at the Ahousaht Residential School. Five years later she and 300 others were transferred to Alberni Residential School. In 1998 she testified about the horrific abuse she and other native children suffered there, including beatings, rape and murder.

According to Lloyd Dolha, writer for national native publication First Nations Drum, Nahanee reported that children were punished for singing their traditional songs and speaking their own language. They were so poorly fed that they resorted to stealing vegetables from the root cellar. They were consequently beaten.

On December 24, 1946, Nahanee witnessed an altercation between Rev. A. E. Caldwell and a female supervisor at the top of a staircase at the school. They were arguing about a little girl who was running up and down the stairs.

“Mr. Caldwell was always drunk. You could smell the liquor on his breath all the time,” Nahanee recalled.

“He kicked the little girl and she fell down the stairs and died. That’s murder. There were other kids in the infirmary who had their appendix burst. That’s murder. Other children were beaten so badly they died. That’s murder. No one bothered to take them to the hospital.”

“The worst part of it was the loneliness. When you’re a little kid and you can’t reach out to your mom for a hug – it really hurts. It’s a wound for a lifetime,” said Nahanee.
Nahanee disclosed that she was sexually abused for four years in the school.

“I didn’t bring it to mind until 1984, when my daughter committed suicide. Then I began to look at myself. Why was I addicted to alcohol? Why wasn’t I a good parent?” When Nahanee visited a psychiatrist, she told him: “I think the church and the government did this to us deliberately in order to take the land and resources. It was all about keeping us dysfunctional, to keep us dependent.”

On February 23, the day before Nahanee’s death, the Indigenous Action Movement held a rally and prayer vigil for Harriet. Almost 100 people gathered outside the Supreme Court for a ceremonial walk to St. Paul’s Hospital.

The group prayed with drums and sang the Women Warrior’s Song outside Nahanee’s hospital room to give her support and strength. They brought flowers, cards and a large-scale photo of the Larsen Creek Wetlands at Eagleridge Bluffs before the wetlands were demolished.

Nahanee’s memorial service at the Squamish Nation Recreation Centre on Feburary 28 was attended by hundreds of friends and supporters. Her casket, adorned with the family regalia, was carried from the centre to begin the journey back to the Pacheenaht reserve.

On March 5, Justice Brown sentenced Krawczyk for her own part in the Eagleridge Bluffs protest. Krawczyk will serve 10 months at Allouette Correctional Centre.

In the weeks since Nahanee’s death, her name has become a rallying cry for justice in the treatment of natives and those who stand up to protect the land. Nahanee inspired generations of people who are determined to carry her legacy forward.

Harriet Nahanee

Growing Insurgencies, Irregular Warfare, part II

dru — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:33:57 +0000

Development Aid as Counterinsurgency Tool

TORONTO, Mar 23 (IPS) - A soon-to-be-completed Canadian Forces counterinsurgency field manual foreshadows the type of interventions that the military in this country is preparing for the coming decades, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS.

Gone is the era of major military powers fighting the tank battles or aerial dogfights that defined warfare during the 20th century.

The new military environment is often urban-based warfare against fighters operating amid, and often with significant support from, local populations.

This type of insurgent warfare has marked the period since the end of the Cold War and has been underlined by attempts to control populations in so-called "failed states" operating without a central government, not the defeat of armies or the strict acquisition of territory.

Insurgencies are animated by "ideas for social change" and therefore the response necessarily "involves much more than simply military action," the manual states.

"It is a multi-agency approach -- military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological and civic actions -- that seeks to not only defeat the insurgents themselves, but the root causes of, and support for, the insurgency," it says.

Increasingly, development aid is being used as a key weapon to advance the military's counterinsurgency campaigns.

As the head of the army Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie recently told journalists in Vancouver, the Canadian Forces work "hand-in-glove with the folks from the Canadian International Development Agency [as well as] reinforce the diplomatic activities and efforts of Foreign Affairs."

In the language of the Department of Foreign Affairs, this integration is known as the "3-D approach" -- defence, diplomacy and development acting together to further Canada's "interests" in the world.

Canada has showcased this new foreign policy posture in Afghanistan, in what MP Michael Ignatieff called "a paradigm shift" and Canada's top soldier, Rick Hillier, has described as "a glimpse of the future."

In a comprehensive policy review tabled before Parliament in 2005, the Department of National Defence boasted that "the ability to respond to the challenge of failed and failing states will serve as a benchmark for the Canadian Forces."

Counterinsurgency is by no means new and the lessons of history's irregular wars -- the United States in Vietnam, the British in the Malay, Canada's Northwest Rebellion -- are as relevant as ever. Yet, according to the manual's lead author, this is the first time that Canada has formally drafted a counterinsurgency field manual for training its soldiers and officers.

In an interview with IPS, Maj. D.J. Lambert, director for army doctrine, described the manual's focus on a "comprehensive approach."

In order to effectively defeat the local uprisings, "the military is working hand-in-hand with other agencies, with a unifying theme and a unity of purpose and, ideally, effort," Lambert said.

The most recent report by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on plans and priorities declares that the agency "will set core policy directions for Canadian development assistance in a manner that is consistent with Canada's foreign policy."

CIDA identifies three "countries of strategic importance for Canada" -- Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq. In each instance, Canada is among the top-five donor countries. Each of the three priority countries is experiencing deepening crises of human security, foreign occupations and -- particularly in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan -- growing insurgencies.

A significant portion of CIDA's funding in each of these countries is earmarked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to assist in training police cadets.

The RCMP's director general of international policing, David Beer, testified before a parliamentary committee late last year that more than 34,700 Iraqi police were trained under the Canada-backed training programme in neighbouring Jordan.

Beer added that, "approximately 10 per cent" of the recruits trained by Canada have been killed in service in Iraq.

The security apparatus in all three countries has been roundly criticised by human rights groups for widespread abuses.

After having received virtually zero Canadian aid during the 1990s, Afghanistan has, since9/11, become Canada's largest recipient of development money.

According to CIDA, by the end of the current fiscal year (2006-2007), "Canada will have invested nearly $600 million [$517,482,000US] since the fall of the Taliban." Over a 10-year period beginning in 2001, Canada will have committed nearly $862 million US in development aid to Afghanistan.

While only a fraction of the military spending, Canada's aid contribution to Afghanistan represents a significant element of CIDA's $2.5billion annual budget.

Canadian Forces have administered dozens of aid projects with CIDA throughout Afghanistan under the auspices of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. The PRTs are units comprised of soldiers, aid workers and civilian contractors.

"The PRT's are very much a realisation of good counterinsurgency principles, with co-operation and shared intent across the different agencies," said Lambert in a telephone interview.

The PRT model was first developed by the US during Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2002. It has since been extended across Afghanistan and was recently applied as a model for the George W. Bush administration's 20,000-troop "surge" in Iraq. The Bush administration has referred to the Iraq PRT's as "powerful tools in achieving our counterinsurgency strategy."

As Canada's draft manual notes: "It is unlikely that the conflict will be suddenly ended with a major military victory against the insurgents." Instead, "typical measures of effectiveness are numbers of violent incidents and the level of popular support for the government."

By all accounts, those benchmarks continue to deteriorate in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A widely cited US intelligence report about Afghanistan released in early 2007 showed a spike in suicide attacks from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. Roadside bomb attacks more than doubled from 783 to 1,677 and direct attacks using small-arms and grenades increased almost threefold to 4,542 from 1,558.

A report this week by the Senlis Council found that support for the Taliban has "rocketed" in the last year and half, while 80 per cent of respondents in southern and eastern Afghanistan -- the heart of NATO's counterinsurgency fight -- expressed worry about feeding their families.

*This story is part two of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions.

Guarding a Meeting

Provincial Reconstruction Team Carrying Bags of Flour

Growing Insurgencies, Irregular Warfare

dru — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:41:39 +0000

Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military's New Face

TORONTO, Mar 22 (IPS) - Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counterinsurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers.

The manual will guide Canadian Forces doctrine and training well into the future, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS.

A 250-page publication, the field manual outlines the principles and practices of fighting the kind of insurgencies that have come to define warfare for the Western powers in the 21st century, in places like Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The manual has been two years in development and is scheduled for release later this year. In it, insurgent wars are characterised by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded US and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, where growing insurgencies have taken a bloody toll on local populations, as well as Western troops, and signs of success are few and far between.

The increased prominence of the doctrine was recently on display when Gen. David Petraeus, author of the United States Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual, took command of US forces in Iraq in early 2007.

While perhaps as relevant as ever, counterinsurgency is not a new phenomenon, as the Canadian manual notes up-front. Indigenous forces battled the Roman Empire in present-day Germany, Scotland and the Middle East two millennia ago. The British Empire fought insurgencies in 19th-century Afghanistan, as did the French in Algeria after the Second World War. The US withdrew from Vietnam in 1975 after a vicious, decade-long counterinsurgency war against Vietnamese guerrillas.

Maj. D.J. Lambert, the Canadian director of army doctrine and lead author of the manual, has cited several examples of historic Canadian counterinsurgencies, including battles with George Washington's US forces and the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel and the Metis in 1885.

Presently, while Canada's Afghanistan mission dominates the attention and resources of the military, according to the manual, Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan, in Haiti and with domestic, indigenous organisations in Canada, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society.

Despite its "specific and limited aims," the First Nations rebellions in Canada are nevertheless insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships both with the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous Reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence," the manual states.

In recent years, Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors, including lethal standoffs with the Mohawk community of Kanehsatake in the 1990 Oka Crisis and with the Ojibway community at Ipperwash in 1995.

Canadian Forces have been present in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, since before the ouster of popularly-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a military coup in February 2004. According to the draft manual, Canadian Forces have been "conducting COIN [counterinsurgency] operations against the criminally-based insurgency in Haiti since early 2004."

Since the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, Canadian Forces have played a key combat role in Afghanistan, both in the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the recent NATO mission to quell the growing uprising against the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai.

Today in Afghanistan, Canadian Forces from the Royal Canadian Regiment in Gagetown, New Brunswick are engaged in NATO's first major offensive of the season against what are broadly labelled as Taliban insurgents. Codenamed Operation Achilles, the mission is characterised by NATO and Canadian officials as a pre-emptive attack on Taliban forces in Helmand Province who are reportedly preparing to launch a "spring offensive" against the presence of foreign troops.

Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, NATO's commander in Southern Afghanistan, said in a statement this week that Operation Achilles is the largest combined NATO-Afghan mission to date, involving 4,500 NATO troops and upwards of 1,000 Afghan National Army forces at its peak.

Meanwhile, an Afghanistan-focused policy group, the Senlis Council, released the "alarming" results of a survey this week which polled 17,000 people in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The survey showed that one-half of respondents believed the Western-led war will fail to defeat the Taliban, and 87 per cent of respondents believed that the tactics used by the Western forces in dealing with the insurgency were "not right."

"The results from the survey are extremely alarming because they indicate that the international community is in serious trouble in Afghanistan," Senlis Council President Norine MacDonald said in a statement Monday. "A return of the Taliban into power would have grave consequences for both the people of Afghanistan and for global security."

The counterinsurgency manual is one part of a significant modernising and restructuring of the Canadian Forces that the DND is billing as an effort to create a more effective force in fighting for Canada's "national interests" in the post-Cold War global order. But the changes are not only doctrinal; the intensity of the combat in Afghanistan is something Canadians haven't seen since at least the 1950s, when Canadian Forces fought in Korea.

"It is a fascinating time to be a Canadian soldier," Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, head of the army, told journalists at a recent policy briefing at the Fraser Institute, a conservative research institute in Vancouver.

"We are no longer a blunt instrument relegated solely to watching from the sidelines or inter-positioning ourselves between two formerly warring factions," Leslie said.

Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the accuracy and utility of the long-fostered national self-image of the Canadian military as a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeeper.

While the Canadian Forces’ commitment in Afghanistan is currently slated to end in February 2009, "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone, he said, adding: "It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity."

This story is part one of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions. With additional reporting by Anthony Fenton in Vancouver.

Provincial Reconstruction Team, Kandahar

Training Facility

Reclaiming the Forbidden Forest

hillarybain — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:59:51 +0000

Roundtable discusses community forestry

“Where are the voices of the First Nations, woodlot owners, ecologists and the public at the decision-making level?” asks Andrew Clark. “This governance model is key in getting a forest managed for the net benefit of the communities and not just for a few people.”

Clark, woodlot owner and director of the Carleton-Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board, crowded into Renaissance College in Fredericton with other woodlot owners, First Nations, community forestry proponents and those studying community forestry in New Brunswick and across Canada for the Conservation Council of New Brunswick’s public roundtable on “Reclaiming the Forbidden Forest: The Practice, Challenges and Opportunities of Community Forestry in New Brunswick.”

According to those attending, the current forestry model in New Brunswick is only benefiting a select few. Six multinational corporations currently hold licences over all of New Brunswick’s public forest. Seventy-two per cent of this forest is managed solely for wood production. J.D. Irving, with rights to 26 per cent of all wood originating from this forest, is leading a forestry industry lobby to secure more wood from public land.

David Coon, policy director at the Conservation Council is worried by the corporate control of New Brunswick’s forests. “Communities should have priority access to adjacent resources in order to build their local economy.”

Sarah Teitelbaum, a PhD candidate studying community forestry at the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management at the University of New Brunswick, sees hope in the model of community forestry, which aims to bridge the gap between sustainable livelihoods and healthy forests. She lists the characteristics she uses to define community forestry thusly: “a public forest area; Crown land but also municipal land; managed by the community; more than 50 per cent decision-making by the community; a working forest, with timber harvesting as one of the activities, for the benefit of the community.” Teitelbaum found 116 community forests across Canada that conform to this definition.

Many of these community forests are found in Southern Ontario and Quebec. Teitelbaum also found a vibrant community forestry movement in British Columbia with active community forestry pilot projects.

Teitelbaum’s survey results show that the bulk of community forests are mostly small-scale and relatively young; 74 out of the 116 community forests are five to 10 years old. “From my experience, community forestry is not a simple enterprise. There is room for success but there is also room for failure,” she says. “They have to work under the same market conditions as forest companies, but often they are smaller.”

While New Brunswickers are ineligible for a license to cut wood from public land, private woodlot owners struggle to compete against the public wood cut by private multinationals. “To make a living, we need stable access to markets,” says Clark. “In 1982, a social contract was struck between woodlot owners, the wood-using industries and the government that said private woodlot owners would get first access to markets before Crown wood. In 1992, Frank McKenna betrayed that trust and took away our right to sell wood to the sawmills first.”

Clark proposes changing the licensing system to provide first access to public wood to companies with more employment per cubic-metre harvested. A 'low value, high volume' forestry vacuum has sucked away jobs in the forests of New Brunswick. Community forestry has the potential to turn the tide in New Brunswick with more people employed in the business of diverse forest products of high value, but with a smaller ecological footprint on the forest.

Rural communities in New Brunswick are desperate to revitalize their economies after waves of job losses in traditional sectors such as forestry and fisheries. Dr. Susan Machum, a professor in the Department of Sociology at St. Thomas University and Canada Research Chair in Rural Social Justice, stresses the need for communities to develop a vision for their future. “What kind of rural communities do we want?” she asks. “Do we want them [only] to be places where people sleep? [Because] this seems to be the vision of the Self-Sufficiency Task Force that tells us we need good superhighways to get people out…Or do we want communities where people are both able to live and work?”

The village of McAdam and six other municipalities in southwestern New Brunswick had a vision for the future. Guided by this vision, they developed the St. Croix community forest plan with a 51-member advisory board that included representatives from local government, conservation groups, recreational groups and industry. “That plan was an opportunity for us to make money,” says Frank Carroll, mayor of McAdam. “It was also an opportunity for the province of New Brunswick not to spend any.” The plan did not ask for any capital assets, but only for a $1 million loan guarantee to support the $2 million already committed by the local communities. Despite this, the plan was rejected by the provincial government and now collects dust on the mayor’s shelf.

A recent Supreme Court decision that unanimously upheld the Aboriginal right to log Crown lands for domestic purposes may open the door for a new model of forest management in New Brunswick. “In the upcoming months, I anticipate our community meeting with the government to discuss next steps,” said Brad Paul, a councillor at St. Mary’s First Nation.

Andrea Bear Nicholas, a Maliseet historian and professor in the Department of Native Studies at St. Thomas University notes: “It was ridiculous to win the right to use wood off land we never sold. We really did not win anything. We never took any of these cases to court. We were taken to court.”

Low Impact Forestry

Revival House

hillarybain — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:20:12 +0000

The many lives of Toronto rep cinemas

If it had happened in a movie, it would have felt contrived. Like some second-rate screen metaphor, the marquee of the Revue, Toronto’s oldest movie theatre, came crashing to the ground on February 18, 2007 — a theatrical climax to the real-life recent death-spiral of repertory cinema in Toronto. It started in the city’s north end with the closing of the Capitol (1998), the York (2001) and the Eglinton (2002), all subsequently converted into corporate event theatres by an “entertainment consortium” of four Toronto investors. Next came the literal collapse of festival favourite the Uptown in 2003. And in July 2006, the trend moved south with the closing of four of downtown Toronto’s best-known rep theatres, all owned by Festival Cinemas, including the Revue.

Yet the crowd of locals that gathered the following day to pocket souvenir bulbs provided an equally potent symbol for an encouraging twist to the story of rep cinema in Toronto. It turns out that the recent spate of closings has had positive repercussions. Since June 2006, the Save the Revue committee has been galvanizing the High Park-Roncesvalles community and it’s just one example of several initiatives that have been popping up around the city to perpetuate alternative, independent cinema. Through projects that focus on community-based support, localized initiatives, alternative programming and a belief in Canadian filmmakers and audiences, Torontonians are turning water into wine and making the most of the closures, determined as they are to keep alive vintage movie houses and the appreciation for classic, indie films they promote.

Repertory cinemas, also known as “revival,” “art-house” or “second-run” cinemas, are generally older, single-screen, independently-run movie theatres that provide alternatives to the fare offered by corporate, multi-screen and, more recently, “megaplex” theatres, which predominantly specialize in first-run, blockbuster, Hollywood movies.
Indeed, strength of programming is traditionally what has kept rep theatres going. Cinematheque Ontario, situated in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, is an institution of Toronto alternative cinema because of its “carefully curated retrospectives” specializing in vintage and foreign films. Regular speakers also do much to provide an historical and artistic context, and thus boost appreciation for more challenging films. Scott Gilbert and Bre Walt, who recently reopened the Poor Alex, expect that a similar commitment to programming will turn this former cabaret theatre, located in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, into a successful documentary film house. The plan for the “student-owned and operated worker co-op” is to have a program that focuses exclusively on documentaries dealing with political, social and environmental issues.

But at a time when a whopping 73per cent of North Americans prefer watching movies at home over going out to the cinema (according to a 2005 poll conducted by the Associated Press), meaty programming alone is not necessarily enough to keep a rep cinema open. Theatre D Digital, a post-film production company dedicated to promoting Canadian cinema, is leading the way when it comes to giving rep theatres a new lease of life by recognizing the creative ways they can be used to give a vital boost to Canadian cinema. In 2002, they bought — and saved — the Regent, a 1920’s theatre on Mount Pleasant Road, converting it into post-production space for Canadian filmmakers. They have added state-of-the-art digital audio and high-definition video projection to a classic cinema space while keeping the original 45-foot screen. As a result, not only is the company preserving the Regent’s heritage and physical space, it’s also invigorating the filmmakers who, as Theatre D co-founder Dan Peel told the Toronto Star, “love working with the happy ghosts.” And they didn’t stop there. In June 2006, the company added the 68-year-old Royal, a former Festival Cinemas theatre in the heart of Little Italy, to their post-production roster. Another Art Deco gem, the Royal reopened in December 2006 after extensive renovations and now provides local filmmakers with facilities for everything from editing and sound mixing, to public screenings. Best of all, both the Regent and the Royal have reopened as rep cinemas at night, with a focus on home-grown features.

For Terry Burrell, such neighbourhood cinemas are not only the places to go to see interesting movies, but also familiar faces. Since June 8, 2006, Burrell and the other members of the Revue Film Society have been getting hundreds of people to sign petitions and donate money through their Save the Revue campaign. The community has responded with gusto, producing more than $30,000 and negotiations are currently underway between the Revue’s owners and a nostalgic, Liverpool-born local who plans to lease the space to the society upon purchase of the theatre. Burrell’s vision for the reopened Revue is as: “a community space on par with Roncesvalles Village’s best community centres, public schools and churches.”

While the fate of the Revue remains in limbo, the only alternative for west-end cinephiles is the Queensway. Run by Cineplex Odeon, it’s an exemplar of the modern “megaplex” cinema. Visible from the highway, accessible via two service roads, the theatre has a sprawling parking lot and houses 18 screens. Arcades, movie merchandizing and fast-food signs blitz moviegoers with flashing lights as soon as they enter the monumental foyer. Though a single megaplex like this one can seat some 5,000 people, it is oddly a place both of anonymity and security — the endless distractions allow for mental escape and the coliseum-style seating works to isolate individuals from any sort of shared experience.

The alternative focus on a communal experience sets rep theatres apart. And it could be what ultimately determines their fate. Scott Gilbert, who has recently opened the Poor Alex as a community centre during the day, says the doc film house has little hope of surviving without local support.

Movements like Save the Revue attest to our desire for the sense of community that these small neighbourhood theatres offer. So does the analogous outcry heard in cities across Canada when such theatres close. The response that erupted after the July 2006 closing of Montreal’s famous English-language Cinéma-du-Parc, since reopened, is one well-publicized example. Perhaps the situation in Canada’s moneyed-Calgary represents another trend in alternative theatre. The western boomtown is home to what looks like the Cadillac of Canadian art-house cinemas: the Uptown, another recently renovated Art Deco-style treasure.

The Revue Cinema

Megaplex Theatre

Haiti: the Damage Done

hillarybain — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:00:03 +0000

Part I of an Interview with Brian Concannon

Brian Concannon is the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). He founded IJDH after the 2004 Canada-US-France coup d’état that ousted Haiti’s democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Concannon formerly co-directed the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) , the most prominent legal group prosecuting human rights cases in Haiti, and worked for MICIVIH, a UN human rights mission in Haiti. Darren Ell interviewed him in the offices of the BAI in Port-au-Prince on February 28, 2007, the third anniversary of the 2004 overthrow of democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

For a timeline documenting Canada’s involvement in Haiti since 2000, read this.

Darren Ell: Why did you create the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti?

Brian Concannon : We started the IJDH because -- despite painstaking progress made by the Bureaux des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the UN and the Haitian justice system from 1995 to 2004 -- when the US, Canada and France threw out Haiti’s elected leader, they also threw out all our progress: everyone we had convicted was let out of jail; they packed the courts with new judges; appointed new prosecutors; put pressure on existing judges; and then systematically reversed everything else. Good judges and prosecutors were pushed out and replaced with people willing to do what the regime asked them to do.

It became clear to me that there was no point in painstakingly constructing a justice system if powerful nations in the international community -- like the US, France and Canada -- could just throw it all out the window, which is what they did in February 2004. I then felt that after nine years in Haiti, my place was in the US, trying to make the US, France and Canada safe for democracy in Haiti. So the role of the IJDH is really to carry the fight for justice in Haiti to the international community.

Talk about the importance of the BAI in Haiti.

Between 2004 and 2006, they were the only group standing up for victims in court. Their success at getting people out of jail at the time was not great. That’s the nature of a dictatorship. We only saw real progress after the Latortue dictatorship was voted out of office [in 2006]. Despite the initial failures, however, Mario Joseph’s [manager of the BAI] work gave activists the knowledge that someone would be there for them when they got arrested. Many activists have since told us that BAI’s presence helped them stand up for democracy. It gave people more confidence to go out and vote in 2006. Although it didn’t reverse the oppression, it limited it because the interim government knew that if it went beyond a certain point, BAI would represent people in court, get the word out, [by connecting] with groups like the Canada-Haiti Action Network and solidarity groups in the US that bring pressure to bear in their own countries. It didn’t reverse the coup, but it was part of the solution.

You’re trying to ensure that criminal regimes know they will be pursued once out of power.

That’s a lot of the work we were doing from 1996 to 2004: trying to break the cycle of coup d’états. In 2000, we thought we had succeeded with the Raboteau Massacre Trial, where we convicted all the top military and paramilitary leadership. They were all given life sentences. Three of the members of the high command were deported from the US, including a major-general, the highest ranked soldier ever deported from the US to face human rights charges. So it looked like we had finally established a deterrent. Then the US, France and Canada overthrew the government and all these people got out. But we continue to put in people’s minds that there is a cost to this. Gerard Latortue, for example, has some very well founded worries right now. He will soon be in legal trouble. We are using the International Tribunal on Haiti and pressuring the UN. We filed complaints with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against Latortue and the UN. Unfortunately, they aren’t taking a lot of the cases. However, a lot of law students in the US are working on ways of going after MINUSTAH [UN mission in Haiti] and the political leaders. We won’t stop until there is accountability and justice.

Anything you want to add about the legal and judicial impact of the 2004 coup d’état?

The reversal of developments within the justice system will have an impact for years. The judges were appointed illegally. Until now, Préval [current president of Haiti] has not chosen to legalize the judges. This is very problematic. Latortue named half the Supreme Court on his whim. Many people continue to be in place for reasons other than their ability to impartially decide a case. That will be there for a long time, and it sets a horrible precedent. The fact that people can take power illegally impacts the justice system. Many lawyers said during the Latortue regime that it was the worst time for the Haitian justice system since well before the Duvaliers, because not even the Duvaliers would go so far as to fire half the Supreme Court. [Francois Duvalier and later his son Jean-Claude Duvalier ruled Haiti by dictatorships that were known for violence and corruption. Jean-Claude was overthrown during a popular uprising in 1986]

But there’s another legal problem now at the level of the Constitution. One of the things Haiti is missing is a tradition of regular legal transfers of power. During the democratic interlude from 1994 to 2004, Haiti began developing that tradition. We saw in 1996 the first ever transition from an elected president to another elected president. 2001 saw the first time an elected president had ever served out his entire term in office and left voluntarily at the end. There were still problems in the legislature with contested elections, but you finally had one branch of government doing the types of things Canadians and Americans take for granted. People in Haiti finally felt like we do; that no matter how little you like a government, you will have the chance to vote them out. You cannot overestimate the benefits of this to Haitian stability. Ministers could finally make longer-term plans for the country. This is what Haiti needs in order to develop economically.

This was all thrown out the window in 2004, returning the country to the old precedent of “might makes right.” As before, once the president gets into power -- and this is happening with Préval -- his opponents do what they can to shorten his term. He spends a lot of time and energy fighting this, energy he isn’t putting into providing clean drinking water, food and education for Haitians. I think this return to the precedent of “might makes right” could in the long-term be more damaging than the legal issues. It has happened so often in Haitian history that there is a proverb for it: “Constitution, c’est papier; baionnette, c’est fer.” [Constitutions are made of paper and bayonets are made of steel.] That was reinforced three years ago today.

In the press, we’ve heard the term “dictator” used to describe Aristide and the Duvaliers. But we’ve never heard it used in the press to describe Latortue.

Aristide was the first person in Haiti’s history to leave voluntarily at the end of his term, yet he was called a dictator. The press was so free in his term that in the lead up to the coup d’état of 2004 you had the press openly calling for the overthrow of the government. In the US, that would not be tolerated. That would be beyond free speech. My expectation is that it would be illegal in Canada as well. There was immense freedom of assembly. There were assemblies that would definitely have been controlled in the US or Canada because they were violent and illegal. But because they were done by the opposition, the Aristide government didn’t touch them. So it’s curious that someone like that is called a dictator.

Then you get someone like Latortue who was a dictator in a very real sense. He had no parliament. He abolished what was left of it. He took over the justice system, completely illegally naming people to it. Aristide never did that. He named people by the regular channels through a fair process.

And then Latortue's violent attacks on Artistide's party, Lavalas.

That was the worst of it, the police killing people. There were hundreds of political prisoners, which you never had with Aristide. There were some arrests that looked political and some spent a week in jail without respect for their rights. It shouldn’t have happened and we denounced it at the time, but there’s no comparison between a couple of people spending a week in jail and hundreds of people spending two years in jail. Then there’s the thousands mowed down by police and their paramilitary allies.

Talk to us about the international connection to justice issues in Haiti. What should concerned people living in the countries that pulled off the coup – Canada, the US and France -- be thinking about?

They should consider that Haiti should be given the same chance as their own countries to develop a justice system. No country becomes independent then immediately has a great tradition of justice. In the early stages of the US, there were problems even though there was time to develop it, even though the transfer to independence was relatively peaceful compared to what happened in Haiti.

Canadians should be worried about wasting their money. I believe it was in 1996 when the Canadian government started building really nice courthouses all over the country. It made a difference. It allowed the justice system to function much better than it previously had. All those courthouses were burned down in 2004 with the coup. Canada and the US invest a lot of money into the administration of justice, into filing cabinets and training, which are all good and necessary. But it’s an absolute waste of money if you’re going to defy the constitution and replace the government when you don’t like it.

But there’s something more important, and I say this as someone who has worked with the UN, worked within the justice system on behalf of victims, worked side-by-side with people from the US and Canadian embassies and the UN: everyone keeps telling people in the Haitian justice system, “You need to respect the rule of law. You need blind justice.” But it’s very hard for judges to rule correctly when their lives are being threatened. It’s hard for them to pass up bribes – they don’t have enough money to live – if you yourself aren’t setting a good example yourself. You have also to convince them that they’re working for something sustainable. In the Raboteau Massacre case, we convinced judges to do a fair job, to not take money and to rule based on the facts. Those judges got beaten up after the coup d’état. It’s very easy for a Canadian or an American to go in and say, “You have to obey the rule of law.” But they’re going to reply, “Where were you three years ago when our constitutional government was overthrown, when we got beaten, when the good judges got kicked out?” That’s a very good question. The Americans, Canadians and French have very low credibility telling Haitians they have to sacrifice when they wouldn’t stand up for Haiti in its hour of need.

Are there precedents in place for the prosecution of government officials from foreign governments involved in coup d’états? I’m thinking of officials from Canada and the US.

We filed a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) against the Dominican Republic, the Interim Government and the United States for the overthrow of democracy in Haiti. We were working with some Canadian lawyers to get a similar complaint against Canada, but before we could file the Canadian complaint, the IACHR threw the case out. The problem is that the wealthy countries don’t sign onto human rights treaties that can hold them accountable. It’s something the human rights movement is starting to recognize. Groups like Amnesty International have traditionally pursued human rights abusers in poor countries, which is very important, but in many cases, such as Haiti, the strings are pulled by wealthy countries. Amnesty didn’t stand up for democracy in Haiti, but I’m confident they will do a better job next time. This is what the solidarity movement needs to do; ensure there are structures in place so that when the next coup d’état is being planned – it’s already happening in Haiti and other countries may already be planning to remove Préval – so when that process comes to light, we need to have structures in place to stop them.

You’re talking about a deterrent. I’ve discussed impunity with people, but you’re talking about stopping crimes before they happen.

We’re not there yet, but there are promising historical cases like Germany, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Chile. Now there are also cases against Rumsfeld in Germany and the US. We’re exploring options for Haiti.

And Rumsfeld just lost his job. It didn’t take years to pursue him, only a few months.

This is a great development. Historically, we waited 10 or 20 years before going after the guy. The time for pursuit has shortened. We haven’t convicted Kissinger or Rumsfeld yet, and even Pinochet sort of got away with it. But at least he was legally harassed until his death. That is the next step; going after these people. It’s not easy because they made the rules, but we’ll find a way.

Read Part II of this interview

Haiti 2006 Elections

Redefining the Middle East

hillarybain — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:58:56 +0000

The US must change its direction in the Middle East

It may be convenient to perceive the Middle East as a politically charged, fractious region, rife with conflicts and disputes, and void of many prospects, save those leading to even further uncertainty and turmoil.

While history is indeed rich with instances that would effortlessly validate such a notion, only disinterested minds would fail to appreciate the immense role played by great European and now American powers in painting such a grim portrait of a region that once served as the cradle of great civilizations.

The seemingly innocent classification of the Middle East as this cohesive, yet inherently violent entity is consistent with utterly militaristic and chauvinistic views constructed by numerous Western scholars, diplomats and military men, whose attempt to reduce a vast, diverse and intricate region has been compelled primarily by their countries’ imperialist drive and hunger for territorial and political control.

This imperialist view of the world is understandably simplistic. Appreciating the depth and beauty of a potentially exploitable region can lead to costly hesitation, a recipe for a loss that empires, by definition in need of growth and expansion, cannot afford. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the historic Israeli view of Palestinians -- either the total denial of their existence, or at best the recognition of a far inferior breed of human -- was more or less shaped around the same theme applied in a variety of global historic contexts: Native Americans as “uncivilized,” Central American natives as “heathens,” Australian Aboriginals as “wild dogs” and so forth. Perhaps Palestinians, Native Americans, Mayans and Aboriginals did not have a great deal in common, but their conquerors certainly did: infinite interest in the land and utter disinterest in its indigenous inhabitants.

But why is this notion more relevant today in the Middle East than ever before? Perhaps because some Western powers, led by the United States and Britain, insist on ignoring valuable lessons provided by history and refuse to accept that the world around them is changing; that classic imperialism has already demonstrated its remarkable failure and ineffectuality.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, they still speak of a looming victory in Iraq; they still hope for a submissive Palestinian populace who would be forced to surrender to Israel’s dictates; of a sheepish Iran who would beg for mercy at the first threat of being referred to the Security Council; and of a gullible Arab populace eager to throw flowers at the feet of the conquerors. Not only are such fantasies unlikely to actualize, but they are also utterly condescending and reek of racism.

In the American case, the over-simplification, thus the undermining of the complexities of the Iraqis, the Iranians and countless other nations, exhibits an appalling level of foolishness that continues to expose itself in the perpetual war in Iraq and the recent conflict with Iran. The American public was simply fed the original lie that created false links between the terrorist attacks of September 11 with various countries across the Middle East; the Pentagon was entrusted in a perpetual military drive, as self-serving, detached and inexperienced neoconservative clusters were told to lead a mindless campaign that has already proven to be an unmatched historic liability.

As some neocons are now distancing themselves from the Iraq disaster and are lining up for teaching jobs at prestigious American universities-- the latest being Douglas Feith-- others are pushing unreservedly for yet another crusade in Iran, accusing the military of mishandling the Iraq venture and ignoring the real menace to the east. Iran, not Iraq is the real danger, parrot pro-war pundits tirelessly.

If it’s too much to expect American experts to appreciate the disastrous British experience in Iraq a century ago, is it too much to expect the US to draw its lessons from Iraq before igniting another costly conflict in Iran? Seemingly it is. In fact, according to some “leading experts” in the very influential American Enterprise Institute, the Iraq war has already been won. One of their leading figures, Danielle Pletka, said in an interview that many Iranians keep complaining to her: "It’s not fair that you liberated the Iraqis and not us."

Pletka is credited by some for bringing dissident Iraqi figure Ahmad Chalabi into the spotlight after exaggerating his political clout. Chalabi fed the neocons with the lies they needed to make their drive for war possible. Yet when the war proved disastrous, all fingers pointed to Chalabi for misleading the US government.

The US government may wish to carry on with its fantasies and Blair’s new government may trod along as well. The fact of the matter is, the Middle East is eager to define itself according to its own terms and aspirations. It’s neither middle, nor an east and is not destined to eternal violence and chaos. The imperialist West needs to appreciate the complexities of this region, its richness and its growing potential. It needs to abandon the old Israeli view that "Arabs only understand the language of violence."

If the US government wishes to escape its miserable fate in that region, it must redefine its relationship with the Middle East: replacing militancy with diplomacy, coercion with dialogue and racism with partnership. Either that, or uncertainty and chaos will continue to define the region and define those foolish enough to perceive the Middle East through trite clichés and meaningless slogans.

Arab American journalist Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Australia’s Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia Campus. He is the author of Writings on the Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle.

Road Signs in Palestine

Les crimes du «développement» au Guatemala

hillarybain — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:38:10 +0000

Part 1 : Skye Resources et la réoccupation des terres au Guatemala

Connu pour avoir accueilli le projet de mine de nickel de INCO des années soixante jusqu’à la moitié des années quatre-vingt, El Estor, au Guatemala, est de retour sur la scène médiatique. Il y a trois ans, Skye Resources, une compagnie minière canadienne basée à Vancouver, a racheté des concessions en promettant le développement économique de la région grâce à la création d’emplois locaux. Pourtant, sur le terrain, la compagnie se livre à des expulsions violentes par vagues successives.

Dans le village surpeuplé de Chichipate, situé à l’ouest d’El Estor, les habitants vivaient depuis plusieurs années sur des lots de terre chacun occupé par au moins cinq familles. À la mi-septembre 2006, 400 familles divisées en six groupes se sont installées sur les terres appartenant à la filière guatémaltèque de Skye Resources, la Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel (CGN).

La grande majorité des gens ayant pris part à ce que certains ont nommé « l’invasion des terres » sont des paysans Maya Q’eqchi. Leur désir principal est d’avoir assez de terre pour subvenir aux besoins de leur famille avec une agriculture de subsistance.

Barrio Revolución est l’une des six nouvelles communautés de la région. Elle est apparue rapidement au cours des derniers mois sur les terres inutilisées ou improductives du concessionnaire minier. Face aux expulsions répétées, dont l’une forcée le 12 novembre 2006, les membres de la communauté ont construit et reconstruit des maisons au toit de chaume, monté un abri pour les rassemblements et commencé à semer du maïs et des fèves.

Lors d’une visite début décembre, après la première expulsion, les gens me montraient leurs maisons dont plusieurs étaient encore en construction. Leur lieu de rassemblement était composé d’un large toit de feuilles de palmier hissées sur des poutres et d’un plancher lisse de terre où ils avaient installé des bancs faits à la main. Malgré les difficultés de la dernière expulsion, un regain d’espoir était palpable dans la communauté.

Doña Fidelia, une aînée vivant à Revolución, me rappela un fait important de leur histoire : « Nous récupérons nos terres, nous ne les envahissons pas. Certains d’entre nous sont nés sur ces terres avant l’arrivée de la compagnie minière. EXMIBAL n’était pas la première ici, nos parents y étaient ». Dans les années soixante, EXMIBAL, une compagnie d’exploitation de nickel, fut introduite dans la région par le géant minier canadien INCO. En 2004, Skye Resources acheta EXMIBAL et commença l’exploration sous le nom « Fenix Project », puis CGN.

Dans le cimetière de la communauté, au cœur de Revolución, des pierres tombales datant des années 20 viennent appuyer la thèse de la terre d’origine. Quand EXMIBAL a commencé à acheter et nettoyer les terres dans les années 1960, les habitants de la région furent soit soudoyés, soit forcés de partir. Certains furent même assassinés.

D’une voix franche, Fedelia explique que ses parents « payèrent de leur vie la défense active et physique de leur terre ». Les histoires comme celle de Fedelia ne sortent pas de l’ordinaire pour la population paysanne de la région. Beaucoup ont perdu des amis, des membres de leur famille et leurs meneurs dans ce conflit qui a tourmenté le Guatemala pendant 36 ans.

Même si les conditions de vie se sont sans aucun doute améliorées depuis les accords de paix de 1996, un climat de peur et d’incertitude règne depuis le début de la réoccupation des terres en septembre 2006. Les personnes rencontrées en décembre ont évoqué les survoles bihebdomadaire d’hélicoptères et les rencontres sans résultat avec des porte-parole de la compagnie où la communauté n’est pas autorisé à faire appel à des représentants légaux ou des traducteurs. Ils ont également parlé d’une nuit horrible en novembre où des centaines de militaires et de policiers sont venus pour chasser les gens des terres.

La première expulsion a été effectuée le 12 novembre sous un mandat signé par un juge, comme le requiert la législation guatémaltèque. Dans des déclarations rappelant l’époque de EXMIBAL, des témoins oculaires de la nuit des expulsions expliquèrent que des groupes de policiers et de militaires furent déployés à l’intérieur des frontières de la propriété de la compagnie – certains utilisèrent même les véhicules de la compagnie – pour expulser les gens de leur maison.

Revolución a fait face à un autre ordre d’expulsion le 27 décembre dernier, pendant la période de Noël. En suivant les procédures d’expulsion spécifique à la loi sur l’occupation d’une terre privée, CGN-Skye Resources désirait suivre une démarche « légale ». Le matin du 27, les habitants de Revolución étaient organisés et s’attendaient au pire. C’est en écoutant la radio locale qu’ils ont appris l’annulation de l’intervention policière.

Alors qu’un sentiment de soulagement planait, un nouvel avis d’expulsion fut annoncé pour le 8 janvier 2007.

Traduit par Projet Accompagnement Québec-Guatemala

À lire: Partie II : Skye Resources incendie des maisons

Skye Resources 1

Skye Resources 2