Archive for April, 2005

Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and “Credibility”

Saturday, April 30th, 2005

by Alexander Cockburn
Whatever sour emotions I entertained while reading accounts of the funeral of Marla Ruzicka had nothing really to do with the death on April 16 of a brave young woman in Baghdad. On many accounts and I have had a detailed conversation with a close friend of Marla’s whose judgment I respect she was an idealistic person whose prime political flaw seems to have been the very forgivable one of naivety.

Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, in furtherance of her humanitarian schemes, Marla Ruzicka elected a stance of studious neutrality in ascribing responsibility for the victims of US bombings and ground fire. This pursuit of “credibility” certainly yielded its ironic reward in the political range of those who publicly mourned her.

A US senator Barbara Boxer attended Ruzicka’s funeral in Lakeport, northern California. Bob Herbert of the New York Times poured out an emotional column honoring Ruzicka. So did Robert L. Pollock, a writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page. ” America has lost a peerless and unique ambassador,” Pollock wrote on April 19. “[S]he stood out from the crowd of journalists and self-proclaimed humanitarians–far too many of whom believed their mission was to bear witness to an American misadventure in Iraq that would, and should, fail.”

The sourness in my soul stemmed from a contrast. Almost exactly two years earlier, on March 16, 2003, another brave young woman in a foreign land lost her life, not to a suicide bomber, but under the blade of a 47-ton bulldozer made in America by the Caterpillar company specifically for house demolitions and driven by an Israeli soldier. Maybe, in the last seconds of his life, that suicide bomber in Baghdad never even saw Ruzicka. The soldier in Gaza surely saw Corrie, clearly visible in her fluorescent orange jacket, and rolled the bulldozer blade right over her.

No US senator attended Rachel’s funeral after her parents brought her home to the state of Washington. Both US senators ran in the opposite direction. Later the Corries disclosed that after their return to the US with their daughter’s body, they contacted their US Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, and told them how their daughter had been deliberately murdered while peacefully demonstrating against house demolitions, which are violations of international law. Murray and Cantwell, the Corries recall, were quick with expressions of outrage and promises of investigations. The Corries never heard from Murray or Cantwell again.
Full: counterpunch.org

Fox News vs. Hugo Chavez

Saturday, April 30th, 2005

by Nikolas Kozloff
Given recent friction between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the White House it inevitably was only a matter of time before Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News would start to ratchet up its shrill ideological pressure. Since taking office in 1998, Chávez has had a stormy relationship with his powerful northern neighbor. Chávez, who established close ties with Washington’s anathema, Cuban President Fidel Castro, criticized U.S.-led efforts for a free trade zone in the Americas, which he insisted would primarily benefit the U.S., while opposing the war in Iraq, resulting in no mystery as to why he has long been so reviled by the Bush administration. Tensions have been bristling between the two nations particularly since April 2002 when Chávez, the democratically elected president, was briefly removed from power in a coup which involved U.S. funding.

A maverick politician and former paratrooper, Chávez accused (not without merit) Washington of sponsoring his attempted overthrow as well as supporting a devastating oil lockout in 2002-3. Not one to easily soften his language, Chávez bluntly referred to the United States as “an imperialist power.” What is more, according to the Venezuelan leader, Bush had plans to have him assassinated. In a further rhetorical sortie, Chávez warned that if he were killed the United States would have to “forget Venezuelan oil.”

In a series of recent television reports Fox News has derided the firebrand leftist leader, presenting the current Venezuelan political habitat entirely from the perspective of the country’s conservative middle-class opposition as well as the Bush administration.

In siding with the opposition, Fox News joins the ranks of almost all of the Venezuelan television stations including Radio Caracas TV and Venevision (see Nikolas Kozloff’s Thursday report, “Chávez Launches Hemispheric, “Anti-Hegemonic” Media Campaign in Response to Local TV Networks Anti-Government Bias) which have launched a vitriolic and highly personalized savaging of Chávez over the past few years. In his reports, Fox reporter Steve Harrigan speaks solely with members of the Venezuelan opposition and shows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice critical of Chávez. Of course, Fox News has the right to present the news as distortedly as it sees fit. However, its exclusive adherence to anti-Chávez sources completely caricatures the station’s claim to be “fair and balanced.” In fact, when it comes to Venezuela, it strives to be a propaganda mill.
Full: counterpunch.org

Abduction, Often Violent, a Kyrgyz Wedding Rite

Saturday, April 30th, 2005

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – When Ainur Tairova realized she was on her way to her wedding, she started choking the driver.

Her marriage was intended to be to a man she had met only the day before, and briefly at that. Several of his friends had duped her into getting into a car; they picked up the would-be groom and then headed for his home.

Once there, she knew, her chances of leaving before nightfall would be slim, and by daybreak, according to local custom, she would have to submit to being his wife or leave as a tainted woman.

“I told him I didn’t want to date anyone,” said Ms. Tairova, 28. “So he decided to kidnap me the next day.”

Such abductions are common here. More than half of Kyrgyzstan’s married women were snatched from the street by their husbands in a custom known as “ala kachuu,” which translates roughly as “grab and run.” In its most benign form, it is a kind of elopement, in which a man whisks away a willing girlfriend. But often it is something more violent.

Recent surveys suggest that the rate of abductions has steadily grown in the last 50 years and that at least a third of Kyrgyzstan’s brides are now taken against their will.

The custom predates the arrival of Islam in the 12th century and appears to have its roots in the region’s once-marauding tribes, which periodically stole horses and women from rivals when supplies ran low. It is practiced in varying degrees across Central Asia but is most prevalent here in Kyrgyzstan, a poor, mountainous land that for decades was a backwater of the Soviet Union and has recently undergone political turmoil in which mass protests forced the president to resign.

Kyrgyz men say they snatch women because it is easier than courtship and cheaper than paying the standard “bride price,” which can be as much as $800 plus a cow.

Family or friends often press a reluctant groom, lubricated with vodka and beer, into carrying out an abduction.

A 2004 documentary by the Canadian filmmaker Petr Lom records a Kyrgyz family – men and women – discussing a planned abduction as if they were preparing to snatch an unruly mare. The film follows the men of the family as they wander through town hunting for the girl they had planned to kidnap. When they do not find her, they grab one they meet by chance.

Talant Bakchiev, 34, a graduate student at the university in Bishkek, the capital, said he helped kidnap a bride for his brother not long ago. “Men steal women to show that they are men,” he said, revealing a row of gold-capped teeth with his smile.

Once a woman has been taken to a man’s home, her future in-laws try to calm her down and get a white wedding shawl onto her head. The shawl, called a jooluk, is a symbol of her submission. Many women fight fiercely, but about 80 percent of those kidnapped eventually relent, often at the urging of their own parents.

The practice has technically been illegal for years, first under the Soviet Union and more recently under the 1994 Kyrgyz criminal code, but the law rarely has been enforced.

“Most people don’t know it’s illegal,” said Russell Kleinbach, a sociology professor at American University in Bishkek whose studies of the practice have helped spur a national debate.

The few prosecutions that do occur are usually for assault or rape, not for the abductions themselves. There are no national statistics on how many kidnappings go awry, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that some end in tragedy.

Four days after the sister of one of Mr. Kleinbach’s students was kidnapped a few years ago, her body was found in a river. The family that abducted her was never charged with murder.

In Mr. Lom’s film, a family mourns a daughter who hanged herself after being kidnapped; they too were unsuccessful in bringing the abductors to trial.

Families use force to keep the women from leaving or threaten them with curses that still have a powerful impact in this deeply superstitious land. Once a girl has been kept in the home overnight, her fate is all but sealed: with her virginity suspect and her name disgraced, she will find it difficult to attract any other husband.

Brutal as the custom is, it is widely perceived as practical. “Every good marriage begins in tears,” a Kyrgyz saying goes.
nytimes.com
(more…)

O.A.S. to Pick Chile Socialist U.S. Opposed as Its Leader

Saturday, April 30th, 2005

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr. 29 – In a rebuff to the Bush administration’s efforts to press Latin America to take a tougher stance on Cuba and Venezuela, a Chilean Socialist emerged Friday as the consensus choice to become secretary general of the Organization of American States.

The O.A.S. is scheduled to convene in Washington on Monday to formally elect the Chilean, Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza, 62. His opponent, Luis Ernesto Derbez, the Mexican foreign minister and Washington’s favored candidate, withdrew Friday afternoon after negotiations in Santiago, Chile, that involved Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and several of her South and Central American counterparts.

It is the first time in the organization’s history that a candidate initially opposed by the United States will lead the 34-member regional group. Until it became clear that the numbers were not in its favor, the United States sought twice to block Mr. Insulza, by first supporting a Salvadoran and then Mr. Derbez.

The selection process was dogged by contention and deadlock for months. It finally came to balloting on April 11, but five rounds of voting all ended in a 17-to-17 tie between Mr. Insulza and Mr. Derbez, split largely along North-South lines.

American officials traveling with Ms. Rice, who was in the Chilean capital, described her as having brokered the deal that allowed Mr. Insulza to claim victory.

But some South American diplomats suggested Friday that the shift in the United States position was a calculated retreat in response to warnings to Ms. Rice in Brazil and Colombia earlier in the week that Washington was risking a potentially embarrassing loss.

“Secretary Rice has supported a consensus, and therefore the candidate of the United States is now me,” Mr. Insulza said at a news conference with Ms. Rice and Mr. Derbez on Friday. “For that reason, nobody should feel defeated.”

Mr. Insulza also said the organization must broaden its mission and begin to “hold governments that are not governed democratically accountable” for their actions. Aides to Ms. Rice said she had insisted on such language, which is clearly aimed at President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, the most outspoken South American critic of the Bush administration.
Full: nytimes.com

In what sense is Venezuela ‘not governed democratically’?

The $6.66-a-Gallon Solution

Saturday, April 30th, 2005

OSLO, April 23 – Car owners in the United States may grumble as the price of gasoline hovers around $2.25 a gallon. Here in Norway, home to perhaps the world’s most expensive gasoline, drivers greeted higher pump prices of $6.66 a gallon with little more than a shrug.

Yes, there was a protest from the Norwegian Automobile Association, which said, “Enough is enough. “

And a right-wing party in Parliament, the Progress Party, once again called for a cut in gasoline taxes, which account for about 67 percent of the price.

But “those critics are but voices in the wilderness,” said Torgald Sorli, a radio announcer with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation who often discusses transportation issues. “We Norwegians are resigned to expensive gasoline. There is no political will to change the system.”

Norway, the world’s third-largest oil exporter, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, has been made wealthy by oil. Last year alone, oil export revenue surged 19 percent, to $38 billion.

But no other major oil exporter has tried to reel in its own fuel consumption with as much zeal as Norway. These policies have resulted in Norwegians consuming much less oil per capita than Americans – 1.9 gallons a day versus almost 3 gallons a day in the United States- and low car ownership rates. On city streets and rural roads, fuel-efficient Volkswagens and Peugeots far outnumber big sport utility vehicles.
Full: nytimes.com

White farmer found guilty of throwing black worker to lions in South Africa

Friday, April 29th, 2005

A white South African farmer and one of his black labourers were found guilty yesterday of murdering a black former employee and throwing him to a pride of lions.
Mark Scott-Crossley and Simon Mathebula, who both pleaded not guilty and blamed each other for the murder, tied up Nelson Chisale, beat him with machetes and dumped him in an enclosure for rare white lions in northern Limpopo province.

Investigators found little more than a skull, a few bones and a finger

…South Africa has been gripped with morbid fascination by the case, which has inflamed black anger against white farmers in a country still coming to terms with its apartheid past.

…Much of the testimony revolved around whether Scott-Crossley, 37, ordered the killing – as his workers claimed – and whether Chisale was still alive when he was thrown to the lions.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Happy Valley heir on murder charge
The heir to one of Kenya’s biggest white-owned estates was charged yesterday with the murder of a game warden on the family’s Rift Valley farm. The Hon Thomas Cholmondeley, 37, scion of the most prominent British settler family in Kenya, pleaded not guilty to the fatal shooting of a plainclothes warden.

Police claim that Cholmondeley opened fire with a Luger pistol on a Kenya Wildlife Service warden, Simon Ole Stima, who was sitting in an unmarked car while two of his colleagues investigated a farm slaughterhouse suspected of preparing illegal game meat.

…The murdered warden was a Masai, and the case has stirred up fresh tension between white landowners and the Masai, who are campaigning to reclaim land occupied by white settlers in the colonial era.
Full: guardian.co.uk

Pope, Reviving Weekly Audience, Stresses Europe’s Christian Roots

Friday, April 29th, 2005

ATICAN CITY, April 27 – The normal rhythms of the Vatican began returning Wednesday as Pope Benedict XVI held the traditional weekly papal audience, using the moment to express what may become a central theme of his papacy: the Christian roots of Europe.

Addressing thousands of pilgrims on a brilliant morning in St. Peter’s Square, he explained that he had chosen the name Benedict for several reasons, among them the role that St. Benedict of Norcia in Italy, the sixth-century author of the monastic “Rule” that led to the founding of the Benedictine order, had on spreading Christianity in Europe. Benedict is one of the patron saints of Europe.

“He represents a fundamental point of reference for the unity of Europe and a strong reminder of the unrenounceable Christian roots of its culture and civilization,” the pope said in Italian, one of at least six languages he used on Wednesday.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he was chosen pope last week, he wrote often of his worries that Europe had forgotten its Christian roots and therefore was in danger of losing its identity and spiritual grounding.
Full:nytimes.com

ha.

Pope, Reviving Weekly Audience, Stresses Europe’s Christian Roots

Friday, April 29th, 2005

ATICAN CITY, April 27 – The normal rhythms of the Vatican began returning Wednesday as Pope Benedict XVI held the traditional weekly papal audience, using the moment to express what may become a central theme of his papacy: the Christian roots of Europe.

Addressing thousands of pilgrims on a brilliant morning in St. Peter’s Square, he explained that he had chosen the name Benedict for several reasons, among them the role that St. Benedict of Norcia in Italy, the sixth-century author of the monastic “Rule” that led to the founding of the Benedictine order, had on spreading Christianity in Europe. Benedict is one of the patron saints of Europe.

“He represents a fundamental point of reference for the unity of Europe and a strong reminder of the unrenounceable Christian roots of its culture and civilization,” the pope said in Italian, one of at least six languages he used on Wednesday.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he was chosen pope last week, he wrote often of his worries that Europe had forgotten its Christian roots and therefore was in danger of losing its identity and spiritual grounding.
Full:nytimes.com

ha.

Zimbabwe’s Role in U.N. Rights Panel Angers U.S.

Friday, April 29th, 2005

UNITED NATIONS, April 27 – Zimbabwe was re-elected Wednesday to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, a panel that Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed abolishing because of its practice of naming known rights violators to its membership.

Zimbabwe’s selection as one of the 15 countries winning three-year terms drew protests from Australia, Canada and the United States, with William J. Brencick, the American representative, saying the United States was “perplexed and dismayed by the decision.”

In a speech to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Mr. Brencick said Zimbabwe had repressed political assembly and the news media, harassed civil society groups, conducted fraudulent elections and intimidated government opponents.
Full:nytimes.com

Sounds like they would fit right in, doesn’t it?

Blair is More of a Devil Than Mugabe
Full: allafrica.com

Doomsayers Say Benedict Fits World End Prophecy

Friday, April 29th, 2005

ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s ascent to the papacy took a conclave of 115 cardinals, four rounds of voting and followed a lifetime of service to the Vatican.

But ask Internet doomsayers eyeing a 12th century Catholic prophecy and they’ll tell you it was all stitched up more than eight centuries ago and that judgment day is nigh.

The prophecy — widely dismissed by scholars as a hoax — is attributed to St. Malachy, an Irish archbishop recognized by members of the Church for his ability to read the future.

Benedict, believers say, fits the description of the second-to-last pope listed under the prophecy before the Last Judgement, when the bible says God separates the wicked from the righteous at the end of time.

“The Old Testament states: ‘believe his prophets and you will prosper’ — so believe it. We are close to the return of the Judge of the nations. Christ is coming,” wrote one Internet post by the Rev. Pat Reynolds.

“Thank God for the witness of St. Malachy.”

St. Malachy was said to have had a vision during a trip to Rome around 1139 of the remaining 112 Popes. The new pope would be number 111 on that list, and is described in a text attributed to St. Malachy as the “Glory of the Olive.”

To connect Benedict, a pale, bookish German, to anything olive takes some imagination. But Malachy-watchers point to the choice of the name Benedict — an allusion to the Order of Saint Benedict, a branch of which is known as the Olivetans.

“When (he) chose the name Benedict XVI, this was seen as fulfilling the prophecy for this pope,” wrote one entry on www.wikipedia.org.
Full: news.yahoo.com

psy-ops