Unspeakable grief and horror


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Know them by their fruit:
Did you see any of these images on the BBC?Iran generations, Youth seeking Shopping in Tehran Iran New Year NorouzLast Victim of Hitler Holocaust
US government and Pakistan secret service
— Pakistan's new 9/11
Thursday, April 10, 2008
While the World Wasn’t Watching...
Pakistan Went Straight to Hell
Observers in the West, yours truly included, have been distracted by a series of shiny objects — Hillary! Obama! Tibet! Iraq! — since Pakistan’s elections apparently put that country on the road to democracy by creating a parliamentary majority dominated by a coalition of the two main anti-Musharraf parties, the PPP and the PML-N.
While we were away, however, Benazir Bhutto’s widower and PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari has been working non-stop to remove his political rivals and solidify his place on top of the political heap—and make peace with Musharraf—at the expense of Pakistan’s democracy.
Zardari apparently sees himself as the rightful heir to the deal his wife had made with Washington—that the PPP would form a government after the election that would include Musharraf and his allies, exclude Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, and enjoy US support.
The United States has not been idle, of course.
Once again the United States has found itself in the position of ostentatiously calling for democracy overseas, then energetically undermining it when the results don’t yield the outcome it desired.
At the end of March, National Security Advisor John Negroponte and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Boucher rushed to Pakistan on an unscheduled visit, to meet with the key political players and, presumably, insert America’s guiding hand in Pakistan’s politics.
US has assisted and enabled—if not guided—Zardari’s critical move to reach out to the MQM, the gangsterish party that controls Karachi and holds the key to Musharraf’s political survival.
MQM is responsible for the rioting and murder that convulsed the Karachi yesterday—and provided the first sign that Musharraf and the United States see a road out of their dilemma by fomenting a political crisis, probably with the help of Asif Zardari.
Zardari correctly sees virtually every politician and political force more popular than him as an obstacle and threat to his objective of riding a Musharraf/US alliance to political domination of Pakistan.
That puts a great deal on his plate because the removal of Pervez Musharraf is extremely popular—polling at about 70% — and Asif Zardari himself is not very popular man.
As a result, Zardari’s been working overtime to discredit and marginalize more popular figures like the PPP Old Guard and the lawyer’s movement, led by respected barrister—and PPP member — Aitzaz Ahsan,who is the touchstone for courage and integrity in the battle to democratize Pakistan.
At the same time, Zardari has reached out to anybody less popular than he is, a remarkable slate of despised figures including President Pervez Musharraf, the PML-Q party that the PPP and PML-N routed in the parliamentary elections, the murderous MQM—and the United States — to cobble together a ruling bloc.
Burning and deaths could have been US government and Pakistan secret service caused
At first, Zardari’s moves were almost laughably self-serving.
Despite a pledge to restore the pre-November 3 judiciary (that Musharraf had removed in order to get an unconstitutional second term as president while still in uniform), Zardari eagerly availed himself of the existing courts to get the outstanding corruption and murder charges (relating to highly plausible accusations that he had connived at the murder of his brother-in-law — and Benazir Bhutto’s brother! — black sheep radical politician Mir Murtaza Bhutto) against him dismissed.
Wiping the slate clean with the help of the Musharraf judiciary let the media ironically describe Zardari, the man universally known as “Mr. 10%” for his grafting ways, as “the cleanest man in Pakistan” — and removed the last legal obstacle to Zardari running for parliament in a by-election from his wife’s safe constituency, entering parliament, and becoming Prime Minister.
Zardari promoted a cringe-inducing cult of personality surrounding Shaheed (martyr) Benazir Bhutto while presenting himself as the ordained heir to her sacred nation-saving mission.
He presided over a meeting of the newly-elected PPP members of parliament and, instead of briefing them on the party’s platform for the upcoming session, orchestrated a performance in which Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, a senior PPP official who had once disrespected Zardari while the latter was in prison, now allowed himself to be seated in a chair before the puzzled assembly to recant and acknowledge Zardari was now “my leader”.
Zardari then delayed the calling of parliament to give him a chance to sideline Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the respected functionary who, as head of the PPP organization that contested the election, was both the constitutional and logical choice to be Prime Minister.
Instead, Zardari launched a whispering campaign against Fahim, accusing him of disloyally holding secret meetings with Musharraf—an accusation Fahim indignantly denied.
The accusations reached a surreal pitch—and revealed Zardari’s anxiety about his legitimacy as Bhutto’s political heir—as Zardari’s creatures spread the allegation that Fahim had rushed off to meet Musharraf after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
Fahim, of course, had been at Benazir Bhutto’s side in the Land Rover when she was assassinated — while Zardari was out of the country.
Zardari also addressed the threat from the lawyer’s movement led by Aitzaz Ahsan, flying in the face of history to dismiss the significance of the lawyer’s movement — which had stood up to Musharraf’s extra-legal maneuvers since March of 2007, gutted his popularity, and created the political crisis that forced him to allow Bhutto (and Zardari) and Sharif to return to Pakistan from exile to contest the elections.
Instead, Zardari claimed, the victory of democratic forces in Pakistan was the result of the martyrdom of his wife — and he dismissed lawyers as corrupt and self-serving.
Another meeting, this time of the PPP central committee, was transformed into a prolonged exhibition of Zardari’s pathological self-regard and tender pride as he discussed his resistance to reinstating the pre-November 3 judges as he had promised the PML-N and Nawaz Sharif: Zardari said these were the same judges who had earlier taken oath under the PCO and validated the military rule.
Referring to his jail life, a source quoted him as saying that he was let down by these judges, who had even refused to release him on parole to attend the funeral of his nephew.
He said he was allowed only a two-hour parole despite Farooq H Naek's pleading before the same judges.
He said the then Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed had also refused him a parole.
He termed the same judiciary biased, which he said was responsible for his eight years in jail.   Party sources reported that Asif Ali Zardari was quite emotional while speaking on the judges' issue.
One source said he talked of the restoration of the judges but linked it to a constitutional package.
He said the party was interested in the independence of the judiciary and not in personalities.
A party leader said he was disappointed to hear what he termed the charge-sheet issued by the PPP co-chairperson against the deposed judges.
According to him, almost 60 per cent of the co-chairman's speech was on Aitzaz Ahsan and the judges.
Zardari also went out of his way to widen a rift between himself and Aitzaz Ahsan.
Aitzaz Ahsan, who sought the restoration of the deposed judges, told the meeting that it would be in the interest of the party to get the judges restored.
Zardari, according to sources, came hard on the issue of the judges’ restoration.
According to one source, Zardari snubbed the widely-respected lawyer leader and said he knew the worth of the judges whose restoration was being sought by the lawyers' community.
Zardari also purportedly claimed he feared a return to legal jeopardy for himself if the pre-November 3 judiciary was restored and perhaps decided to revisit the charges that the Musharraf judiciary had so complaisantly dismissed.
In my opinion, a more likely explanation for Zardari’s widely reported insistence on forgoing automatic restoration of the judiciary, replacing it with parliamentary review and control over judicial re-appointments, and under any and all scenarios implementing a “minus one” arrangement that would at the very least block the return of Supreme Court justice and national hero Iftikhar Chaudhry to his original eminence, is that Zardari desires a cowed and compliant judiciary that will not only decline to take the initiative in challenging the Musharraf presidency — it will also decline to dismiss the criminal cases that continue to hamstring Zardari’s main political rival, Nawaz Sharif.
After Amin Fahim capitulated and a more tractable PPP functionary, Yousaf Raza Gillani — regarded by many as merely a place-holder until Zardari entered parliament and became eligible for the PM slot — had finally been elevated to the prime ministership, progressive Pakistani opinion was promptly horrified by a series of events.
Without consulting the coalition partners, Gillani called for and obtained a vote of confidence from Musharraf’s PML-Q — an indication that Zardari was engaged in covert dealings with the despised faction.
Zardari also unilaterally reached out to the MQM, a gangsterish political outfit that runs Karachi, has been an indispensable prop of Musharraf, and is despised by the PPP rank-and-file both for as status as the PPP’s bitter rival in Sindh and for its acts of mayhem and murder against PPP members.
Then Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, the very person who had groveled so gratifyingly before Zardari in the meeting of PPP parliamentarians and had been rewarded with the position of Minister of Defense in the new government, reportedly praised Musharraf as “a national asset”, apparently endorsing Musharraf as the indispensable ATM through which American aid must flow.
It became clear Zardari was assembling an alternative coalition of Musharraf allies against the day that Nawaz Sharif pulled the PML-N out of the coalition.
And it also became clear that PML-N withdrawal was inevitable because Zardari was prepared to break the bargain that had sealed the PPP-PML-N coalition: restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary within thirty days of the formation of the federal government, a move that would almost certainly involve in the removal of Musharraf and a decoupling from the United States on security matters.
If the PML-N withdrew from the coalition, Nawaz Sharif would become the logical focus of the anti-Zardari forces, which would probably include significant elements of the PPP old guard and supporters of the lawyer’s movement as well as his own party—in other words, the three most popular forces in the country.
Struggle to buy sacks of flour outside government subsidized food store
Sharif — who perhaps had, with an excess of complacency, anticipated that Zardari’s venality and unpopularity would easily redound to the political benefit of the PML-N — is probably now calculating rather anxiously whether Zardari is going to try to neutralize him politically (Gillani’s most salient qualification as prime minister was perhaps that he had defeated Sharif in an election in the 1990s), legally (unlike Zardari, Sharif still has some legal vulnerabilities relating to his previous stint in power) or worse.
I’m not the only one who thinks Nawaz Sharif has to watch his back.
However, the most pressing priority for Musharraf and Zardari is discrediting the lawyers’ movement to restore the judiciary.
The lawyers have promised the embarrassment of renewed nationwide agitation—agitation that would force Zardari to take the profoundly unpopular position of standing with Musharraf against the lawyers — if the judiciary is not restored within thirty days of the formation of the coalition government, as per the Murree Declaration negotiated between Zardari and Sharif in March.
In an interesting illustration of what can happen to a vaguely worded agreement when bad faith is the order of the day, Nawaz Sharif believes that the 30 day clock began ticking when the new National Assembly was sworn in on March 17.
Most people date the kickoff to March 25, when the new prime minister was sworn in.
But the PPP’s Rehman Malik, who has jurisdiction over the matter in his role as Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior,doesn’t even pretend he’s not stalling: he says the clock starts when the cabinet is sworn in — which hasn’t happened yet.
April 16, April 24, whenever, the lawyers are already getting ready to hit the bricks again.
In this unsettled environment, with Musharraf, Zardari, and the PPP digging in to block the lawyers, a truly remarkable event occurred on April 8: Dr. Sher Afgan Niazi, the parliamentary affairs minister in the previous government responsible for some of the more tortured legal justification for Musharraf’s rule, was apparently attacked in Lahore by a gang of...lawyers.
Aitzaz Ahsan went to the scene and tried unsuccessfully to calm the crowd.
People stand in queue to get free food from a restaurant
Instead, the mob pelted Sher Afgan with tomatoes and worse, invaded the ambulance that was trying to drive him away, threw away the ignition key, and pounded him with shoes and shattered the windows as Good Samaritans tried to push the ambulance down the street.
The old man’s ordeal was captured on TV cameras and broadcast to a horrified nation.
Afgan, previously a figure of amused contempt, attracted widespread pity.
As for the lawyers, it was claimed that they had forfeited their claim on the nation’s sympathy.
A mortified Aitzaz Ahsan announced his resignation as head of the Supreme Court Bar Association — the prestigious pulpit from which he had championed the cause of the pre-November 3 judiciary.
Sher Afghan, who was not seriously hurt, returned to his home town of Mianwali, which showered him with rose petals, burned tires on the main roads, blocked the train tracks, held a general strike, and trashed the law offices of his local opponents, all in his honor.
Sher Afghan proclaimed his undying loyalty to Musharraf as the man who brought democracy back to Pakistan and accused the PML-N and the fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami of orchestrating the attack.
Almost immediately suspicions of a government conspiracy began bubbling up.
The PML-N’s parliamentary leader, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi offered accusations of his own :
What happened with Dr Sher Afgan Niazi,it is condemnable, he said "My servants had recognized those who had mistreated Dr Sher Afgan Niazi.   They are intelligence agencies personnel.   This is all brain child of agencies, he added.
The pro-government Daily Times obliged conspiracy theorists with a ham-fisted editorial depicting the lawyers as an out-of-control creature of the media now ready to be poked back in its cage, while significantly praising the PPP:
The power that the lawyers’ movement felt was based on the aggression of the bars, but the courage of its leadership to challenge and threaten the court and government came from the profile they had acquired on the TV channels.
(The channels tended to ignore the early manifestation of violence among the lawyers as a sop to a growing solidarity between the two.)
After the 2008 elections, however unfortunately and incorrectly, most of the channels developed a consensus that the mandate of the people was not in favour of the parties that won but the restoration of the judges and the ouster of President Musharraf.
The two mainstream parties registered this with a slight variation of response.
The PMLN embraced the new situation completely and began to reap media dividends; the PPP felt that it was being pressured too much by the “countdowns” handed down by the lawyers and sought a middle ground.
Another pro-Musharraf outlet, the Pakistan Observer, eagerly entitled its editorial “Is this the Beginning of the End?“(for the lawyers’ movement, that is), opining:
Line up outside subsidized food store
All this shows that the situation was moving in the wrong direction and it is time that the lawyers’ movement and the issue of restoration of judges is brought to a swift closure.
Advisor to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik has already ordered an inquiry, which would fix the responsibility, but it is quite obvious that those behind the unfortunate incident were none else but black-coat wearing lawyers.
Propaganda this crude and arrogantly blatant has all the marks of the Pakistan intelligence services, so I’m inclined to agree with the people who see the attack on Sher Afgan as an initial salvo in the campaign to discredit the lawyers and keep Musharraf in power.
Commenters on Pakistan political comment boards pointed out that it didn’t make sense that the lawyer’s movement, which had showed admirable restraint over the last year in the face of tear gas and baton charges, somehow had lost its discipline at the moment of its greatest triumph.
Also, during this prolonged, agonizing, and televised incident only one policeman showed up, an indication that this incident was allowed to happen.
The Punjab government, it was pointed out, is still in the hands of the pro-Musharraf PML-Q.
The drift of the accusations seems to be that the attack was orchestrated by pro-Musharraf elements to discredit the lawyer’s movement and give Musharraf (and, many posited, Zardari as his silent partner) a pretext for not heeding its demand to restore the pre-November 3 judiciary.
Aitzaz Ahsan subsequently decided that the beating of Sher Afgan had actually been a government provocation.
He withdrew his resignation and described the chaos in Lahore at a press conference:
"I came to know about Sher Afgan incident on Tuesday evening through media.   I rushed there even at the risk of my life.   But no government functionary turned up.   Police did not stop the demonstrators despite my request.   I tried to talk through megaphone from balcony.   Only 40 per cent lawyers were found present there and the remaining were some other people.   I appealed to lawyers to disperse and they did so.   But the other people remained there.
He further said:
"I asked the police officers present over there to call in more contingent of police but it was not done so.
I asked police officers to call police van and bring it close to door so that Sher Afgan could be pulled out from there.   But police did not do so.
I asked the police officers to remove a plain clothed man but they told he was a policeman.
I knew he was not policeman and was some terrorist.
When I brought out Sher Afgan then police disappeared.
When I took Afgan inside van, we came to know driver of the van was not there.
People in plain clothes were found involved in the acts of sabotage.
My friends and I tried to rescue Dr Sher Afgan even at the risk of our lives.
But all happened under a planned conspiracy.
People in plain clothes subjected Dr Afgan to violence".
Things quickly got worse.
The theatrical roughing up of Sher Afghan by pretend “lawyers” was followed up by the genuine murder of real lawyers in Karachi by the MQM.
Downtown Karachi was brought to a standstill by a bizarre and bloody and much more serious incident—another “lawyers riot” — in this case “lawyers” affiliated with the MQM claiming they were attacked while peacefully but rather inexplicably protesting the insult to Sher Afgan, who hails from a distant town in Punjab, not Sindh.
The MQM “lawyers” retaliated by setting fire to an office building and killing five lawyers within.
Subsequent rioting and arson paralyzed the heart of Karachi and claimed several more lives.
Pakistan’s News editorialized:
One is the strange absence of any administrative authority in Karachi...and Lahore, where police and authorities had hours to mobilize themselves and mount a rescue operation to release Dr Afgan and other hostages.
Why did it become necessary for Aitzaz Ahsan to intervene? Why did police not use force when no party or group had owned the siege?
Why were large parts of Karachi engulfed in flames after a minor clash between lawyers?
Whose interests are being served by this chain of tragic events and who is the target? Likewise everyone must see who, if anyone, is benefiting from the turmoil.
The good news is, following the initial dismay of the Sher Afghan incident and Aitzaz Ahsan’s abrupt if temporary resignation, the legal community and educated opinion have closed ranks, repudiated claims that the lawyers’ movement is out of control, and pressed forward with the agenda of complete restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary.
Afghanistan refugee camp, Islamabad Pakistan
The bad news is, these are times of extraordinary danger for the more progressive forces in Pakistan politics.
With the entry of the PPP into the government, international attention has turned away from Pakistan.
Musharraf has the opportunity to put paid to the lawyers’ movement to restore the judiciary with the right combination of violence, slander, American support, MQM terrorism, and political cover from Zardari.
After the shock of the Sher Afghan incident, Aitzaz Ahsan must be viewing his future with a combination of determination and deep disquiet.
Again, from The Post’s report on his press conference:
Aitzaz Ahsan said that he will contest by-elections from constituency NA-55, if Pakistan People's Party (PPP) issued him the ticket.
He said that PPP and Asif Ali Zardari have taken bold steps but there is a hidden power that is intriguing against the democracy.
Dark, dark days, indeed.
 
Capital Crimes: Another Smoking Gun on Terror War Torture
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 10 April 2008
US continues its war on killing children
US taxpayer killing and injuring of children continues
From ABC:
In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News....
Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic...
At the time, the Principals Committee included
Vice President Cheney
Former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of State Colin Powell
CIA Director George Tenet
Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Piece of missile dropped on children
Missile made and paid for by US taxpayers
This is not just a smoking gun — it's a MOAB dropped right on the White House, confirming, yet again, what any sentient being should already know: the illegal torture tactics (yes, they are torture; and yes, they are illegal, no matter what "the Attorney General says") used on George W. Bush's Terror War captives were approved by the highest officials of the government, all of whom knew — in exacting, sickening detail — just what they were inflicting.
These cold-blooded atrocities were not restricted to "high value al Qaeda suspects" — the demure fiction that the ABC report, like most others in the mainstream media that have begun, gingerly, to delve into these crimes, still retains. As mountains of evidence has already shown, these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used throughout the Terror War prison system, from top to bottom:
On prisoners rounded up at random in mass raids in Iraq and Afghanistan
On innocent people sold into captivity by bounty hunters
On innocent people snatched off the streets in Asia, Africa, Europe.
They've been used on "low-level prisoners" in Bagram
Diego Garcia
Guantanamo Bay
Abu Ghraib
In the brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, South Carolina
And all the other "secret prisons" and holding pens of the Terror War regime.
Boy injured by US taxpayer
Four people were killed
12 people were wounded in the US missile attack
All of the atrocities and murders that have thus far come to light from the hellish pit of the Bush gulag are the direct responsibility of the "Principals," the inner circle, the Privy Council, the Star Chamber of the real American government: the "National Security State" that operates outside all law, all oversight, all constitutional legitimacy.
Yet even as the media digs out the workings of this junta, they feel compelled to offer what they believe is a fig leaf that will allow all good and decent folk to retain their sacred faith in American exceptionalism:
"Hey, we're not evil; we only torture the really bad guys, the worst of the worst, the high value al Qaeda scum.
"Torture's too good for the likes of them!"
And the sad fact is, the media mandarins are right.
American society has become so degenerate
American society has become so degenerate that the majority of people — and the entirety of the American Establishment — will now countenance torture, as long as they can convince themselves it is used only against "the bad guys."
At one time, the leaders of this nation condemned and punished the torture even of proven Nazis, on the principle that we must uphold our own humanity, and not descend to the brutish level of the most degraded among us.
But no more.
We are the degraded now.
Ruled by brutes
By deliberate torturers
Military aggressors
Mass murderers who walk the streets freely
Live in wealth and comfort
Receive public honors
Will never face justice
Never have to answer for their crimes against humanity.
If this were not so, these evil counsellors and their leader would already be subjected to the workings of the law:
Child wounded by US attack
April 7, 2008
All killed and injured responsibility of US taxpayer
Impeachment proceedings
Criminal investigations
Arrest
Trial.
The fact that they are not is yet another crime — a crime in which the entire political establishment is deeply complicit.
We'll say it again.
Anyone in public life who accords these criminals the slightest legitimacy is an accomplice to their crimes.
It's really that simple.
You can move toward the light
Or you can hang back with the brutes
6/7: the massacre of the poor that the world ignored
The US cannot accept that the Haitian president it ousted still has support
Naomi Klein
Monday July 18, 2005
The Guardian
When terror strikes western capitals, it doesn't just blast bodies and buildings, it also blasts other sites of suffering off the media map.
A massacre of Iraqi children, blown up while taking sweets from US soldiers, is banished deep into the inside pages of our newspapers.
The outpouring of compassion for the daily deaths of thousands from Aids in Africa is suddenly treated as a frivolous distraction.
In this context, a massacre in Haiti alleged to have taken place the day before the London bombings never stood a chance.
Well before July 7, Haiti couldn't compete in the suffering sweepstakes:  the US-supported coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had the misfortune of taking place in late February 2004, just as the occupation of Iraq was reaching a new level of chaos and brutality.
The crushing of Haiti's constitutional democracy made headlines for only a couple of weeks.
Seven bodies in one house alone
But the battle over Haiti's future rages on.
Most recently, on July 6, 300 UN troops stormed the pro-Aristide slum of Cité Soleil.
The UN admits that five were killed, but residents put the number of dead at no fewer than 20.
A Reuters correspondent, Joseph Guyler Delva, says he "saw seven bodies in one house alone, including two babies and one older woman in her 60s".
Three-quarters women and children
Ali Besnaci, head of Médecins Sans Frontières in Haiti, confirmed that on the day of the siege an "unprecedented" 27 people came to the MSF clinic with gunshot wounds, three-quarters of them women and children.
Where news of the siege was reported, it was treated as a necessary measure to control Haiti's violent armed gangs.  
But the residents of Cité Soleil tell a different story:  they say they are being killed not for being violent, but for being militant — for daring to demand the return of their elected president.
On the bodies of their dead friends and family members, they place photographs of Aristide.
Killed for daring to demand
It was only 10 years ago that President Clinton celebrated Aristide's return to power as "the triumph of freedom over fear".
So it seems worth asking:  what changed?
Accepting a lift home from Charles Manson
Aristide is certainly no saint, but even if the worst of the allegations against him are true, they pale next to the rap sheets of the convicted killers, drug smugglers and arms traders who ousted him.
Turning Haiti over to this underworld gang out of concern for Aristide's lack of "good governance" is like escaping an annoying date by accepting a lift home from Charles Manson.
 
Privatization and Clinton
A few weeks ago I visited Aristide in Pretoria, South Africa, where he lives in forced exile.
I asked him what was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington.
He offered an explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics — actually, he offered three:  "Privatisation, privatisation and privatisation."
The dispute dates back to a series of meetings in early 1994, a pivotal moment in Haiti's history that Aristide has rarely discussed.
Haitians were living under the barbaric rule of Raoul Cédras, who overthrew Aristide in a 1991 US-backed coup.
Aristide was in Washington and, despite popular calls for his return, there was no way he could face down the junta without military back-up.
Increasingly embarrassed by Cédras's abuses, the Clinton administration offered Aristide a deal:  US troops would take him back to Haiti — but only after he agreed to a sweeping economic programme with the stated goal to "substantially transform the nature of the Haitian state".
Aristide agreed to pay the debts accumulated under the kleptocratic Duvalier dictatorships, slash the civil service, open up Haiti to "free trade" and cut import tariffs on rice and corn.
It was a lousy deal but, Aristide says, he had little choice.
"I was out of my country and my country was the poorest in the western hemisphere, so what kind of power did I have at that time?"
Immediate sell-off of state-owned enterprises
But Washington's negotiators made one demand that Aristide could not accept:  the immediate sell-off of Haiti's state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity.
Aristide argued that unregulated privatisation would transform state monopolies into private oligarchies, increasing the riches of Haiti's elite and stripping the poor of their national wealth.
He says the proposal simply didn't add up:  "Being honest means saying two plus two equals four.   They wanted us to sing two plus two equals five."
Aristide proposed a compromise:  Rather than sell off the firms outright, he would "democratise" them.
He defined this as writing anti-trust legislation, ensuring that proceeds from the sales were redistributed to the poor and allowing workers to become shareholders.
Washington backed down, and the final text of the agreement called for the "democratisation" of state companies.
But when Aristide announced that no sales could take place until parliament had approved the new laws, Washington cried foul.
Aristide says he realised then that what was being attempted was an "economic coup".
"The hidden agenda was to tie my hands once I was back and make me give for nothing all the state public enterprises."
He threatened to arrest anyone who went ahead with privatisations.
"Washington was very angry at me.   They said I didn't respect my word, when they were the ones who didn't respect our common economic policy."
U.S. poured millions into coffers of opposition groups
The US cut off more than $500m in promised loans and aid, starving his government, and poured millions into the coffers of opposition groups, culminating ultimately in the February 2004 armed coup.
And the war continues.
On June 23 Roger Noriega, US assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, called on UN troops to take a more "proactive role" in going after armed pro-Aristide gangs.
In practice, this has meant a wave of collective punishment inflicted on neighbourhoods known for supporting Aristide, most recently in Cité Soleil on July 6.
Still on streets, still being killed
Yet despite these attacks, Haitians are still on the streets — rejecting the planned sham elections, opposing privatisation and holding up photographs of their president.
And just as Washington's experts could not fathom the possibility that Aristide would reject their advice a decade ago, today they cannot accept that his poor supporters could be acting of their own accord.
"We believe that his people are receiving instructions directly from his voice and indirectly through his acolytes that communicate with him personally in South Africa," Noriega said.
Aristide claims no such powers.
"The people are bright, the people are intelligent, the people are courageous," he says.   They know that two plus two does not equal five.
  • Research assistance was provided by Aaron Maté.
    •
    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
    In the below article, elite words have been changed such as the change to hungry people from the BBC's use of mob, the change to UN enforcement instead of peacekeepers, and the subheading change to 'Burning feeling in stomach' instead of 'Gasoline and matches'
    BBC — Tuesday, 8 April 2008
    Hungry people try to attack Haiti palace
    Brazilian UN enforcement stop hungry people from entering the National palace in Port-au-Prince on 8 April, 2008 Brazil UN enforcement keep the hungry protesters back from the palace
    Brazil UN enforcement keep the hungry protesters back from the palace
    Crowds of demonstrators in Haiti have tried to storm the presidential palace in the capital Port-au-Prince as protests continue over food prices.
    Witnesses say the protesters used metal bins to try to smash down the palace gates before UN troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them.
    Several people are reported to have been injured in the clashes.
    At least five people have been killed in Haiti since the unrest began last week in the southern city of Les Cayes.
    The demonstrators outside the presidential palace said the rising cost of living in Haiti meant they were struggling to feed themselves.
    "We are hungry," they shouted before attempting to smash open the palace gates.
    Burning feeling in stomach
    Haiti hungry protesters run for cover from shooting by UN enforcers outside the National palace in Port-au-Prince on 8 April, 2008
    Haiti hungry protesters run for cover from shooting by UN enforcers outside the National palace in Port-au-Prince on 8 April
    In recent months, it has become common among Haiti's poor to use the expression grangou klowox, or "eating bleach", to describe the daily hunger pains people face, because of the burning feeling in their stomachs.
    The protesters demanded the resignation of President Rene Preval, who came to power two years ago promising to restore peace to a country torn apart by fighting between rival armed gangs.
    Mr Preval is believed to have been inside the palace at the time.
    "I compare this situation to having a bucket full of gasoline and having some people around with a box of matches," Preval adviser Patrick Elie was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.
    "As long as the two have a possibility to meet, you're going to have trouble."
    Rising food prices are causing unrest around the globe but in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, the protests threaten to destabilise an already fragile democracy.
    UN envoy Hedi Annabi, who briefed the Security Council in New York on Tuesday, said Haiti's progress was "extremely fragile, highly reversible, and made even more fragile by the current socio-economic environment".
    Violence in Haiti has often been linked to poverty with more than half the population surviving on less than a dollar a day.
    BBC map
    Critics say both Mr Preval and the international community have focused too much on political stability and not enough on helping to alleviate poverty and now growing hunger.
    The protesters are also focusing their anger on the 9,000 or so UN peacekeepers sent to Haiti in 2004.
    Their mission was to quell the chaos that followed the ousting of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's first democratically elected leader.
    March 5 - 11, 2004
    Operation Sweatshop
    Jean-Bertrand Aristide's move to raise Haiti's minimum wage was the last straw for American corporations and elitist U.S. factions.
    By Chris Floyd
    This week, the Bush administration added another violent "regime change" notch to its gunbelt, toppling the democratically elected president of Haiti and replacing him with an unelected gang of convicted killers, death squad leaders, militarists, narcoterrorists, CIA operatives, hereditary elitists and corporate predators — a bit like Team Bush itself, in other words.
    Although the Haiti coup was widely portrayed as an irresistible upsurge of popular discontent, it was of course the result of years of hard work by Bush's dedicated corrupters of democracy, as William Bowles reports in Information Clearinghouse.
    Funded opposition, smuggled guns, cut aid, forced to pay dictatorship debts
    Protests against rising food prices
    Les Cayes, Haiti
    Bushist bagmen funded the political opposition to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, smuggled guns to exiled Haitian warlords and carried out a relentless strangulation of the county, cutting off long-promised financial and structural aid to one of the poorest nations on earth until food prices were soaring, unemployment spiked to 70 percent and the broken-backed government lost control of society to armed gangs of criminals, fanatics and the merely desperate.
    Meanwhile, Haiti was forced to pay $2 million per month on debts run up by the murderous U.S.-backed dictatorships that ruled the island for decades after the American military occupation of 1915-1934.
    The ostensible reason for Bush's deadly squeeze-play was Haiti's disputed elections in 2000.
    That vote, only the nation's third free election in 200 years, was indeed marred by reports of irregularities — although these were not nearly as egregious as the well-documented hijinks which saw a certain runner-up candidate appointed to the White House that same year.
    There was no question that Aristide and his party received an overwhelming majority of legitimate votes; however, out of the 7,500 offices up for grabs, election observers did find that seven senate results seemed of dodgy provenance.
    So what happened?
    The seven disputed senators resigned.
    Aid would not be released due to opposition boycott, while paying opposition not to participate
    New elections for the seats were called, but the opposition — two elitist factions financed by Washington's favorite engines of subversion, the Orwellian-monikered "National Endowment for Democracy" and "International Republican Institute" — refused to take part.
    The government broke down because the legislature couldn't convene.   When Bush came in, he tightened the screws of the international blockade of the island, insisting that $500 million in desperately needed aid could not be released unless the opposition participated in new elections — while he was simultaneously paying the opposition not to participate.
    The ultimate aim of this brutal pretzel logic was to grind Haiti's destitute people further into the ground and destroy Aristide's ability to govern.
    His real crime, of course, was not the Florida-style election follies or the reported "tyranny."
    Bush loves that stuff — witness his eager embrace of the nuke-peddling dictatorship of Pakistan, the human-boiling hardman of Uzbekistan, the torture-happy tyrant of Kazakhstan, the drug-running warlords of Afghanistan and so forth.
    Tried to raise minimum wage
    Protests against rising food prices
    Port-au-Prince, Haiti
    No, Aristide did something far worse than stuffing ballots or killing people — he tried to raise the minimum wage to the princely sum of two dollars a day.   This move outraged the American corporations — and their local lackeys — who have for generations used Haiti as a pool of dirt-cheap labor and sky-high profits.
    It was the last straw for the elitist factions, one of which is actually led by an American citizen and former Reagan-Bush appointee, manufacturing tycoon Andy Apaid.
    Apaid was the point man for the Reagan-Bush "market reform" drive in Haiti.   Of course, "reform," in the degraded jargon of the privateers, means exposing even the very means of survival and sustenance to the ravages of powerful corporate interests.
    Destroyed local market
    For example, the Reagan-Bush plan forced Haiti to lift import tariffs on rice, which had long been a locally grown staple.   Then they flooded Haiti with heavily subsidized American rice, destroying the local market and throwing thousands of self-sufficient farmers out of work.
    With a now-captive market, the American companies jacked up their prices, spreading ruin and hunger throughout Haitian society.
    The jobless farmers provided new fodder for the factories of Apaid and his cronies.   Reagan and Bush chipped in by abolishing taxes for American corporations who set up Haitian sweatshops.
    Precipitous drop in wages
    The result was a precipitous drop in wages — and life expectancy.   Aristide's first election in 1990 threatened these cozy arrangements, so he was duly ejected by a military coup, with Bush I's not-so-tacit connivance.
    Protests against rising food prices
    Port-au-Prince, Haiti
    Bill Clinton restored Aristide to office in 1994 — but only after forcing him to agree to, yes, "market reforms."
    In fact, it was Clinton, the privateers' pal, who instigated the post-election aid embargo that Bush II used to such devastating effect.
    Aristide's chief failing as a leader was his attempt to live up to this bipartisan blackmail.
    As in every other nation that's come under the IMF whip, Haiti's already-fragile economy collapsed.
    Bush family retainers like Apaid then shoved the country into total chaos, making it easy prey for the warlords whom Bush operatives — many of them old Iran-Contra hands — supplied with arms through the Dominican Republic, the Boston Globe reports.
    When the terrorist warlords attacked last month, Bush flatly refused Aristide's plea for an international force to preserve Haiti's democracy.   Instead, he sent armed men to "persuade" Aristide to resign.   Within hours, the Bush-backed terrorists were marching through Port-au-Prince, executing Aristide's supporters, the NY Times reports.
    Guess they won't be asking for two dollars a day now, eh?
    Mission accomplished!
    Thus, just like his father, Bush has overthrown Aristide, and for the same reason: He represented a threat to their "natural order" — unchecked rule by pampered, protected elites.
    Terrorism, despotism, torture, WMD trafficking: All of this can countenanced, even embraced.
    But Aristide's alternative — democratic, capitalist, but with "a prejudice for the poor," as enjoined by the Gospels — this evil can never be tolerated.
    Annotations
    Private Interests and U.S. Foreign Policy in Haiti
    Contested Social Orders, Vanderbilt University Press, 1997
    U.S. Political Maneuvering Behind Aristide Ouster
    Newsday, March 1, 2004
    Why They Had to Crush Aristide
    The Guardian, March 2, 2004
    Tear gas canister fired over town of Petio-Ville, Haiti
    Protests against rising food prices
    The Fire This Time in Haiti was U.S.-Fueled
    Taipei Times, March 1, 2004
    Veterans of Past Murderous Campaigns are Leading Haiti's Rebellion
    New York Times, Feb. 29, 2004
    Caught Between a Rock and a Bush
    Information Clearing House, June 3, 2003
    Is the U.S. Funding Haitian Contras?
    Dissident Voice, February 2004
    The United States in Haiti: Harvest of Hunger
    Food First, Fall 1996
    Aristide Backers Blame Bush Administration for Ouster

    Boston Globe, March 1, 2004
    Looters Step Over the Dead as Haiti Collapses Into Anarchy
    The Independent, Feb. 29, 2004
    Throttled by History

    Counterpunch, Feb. 24, 2004
    Haiti Rebel Says He's in Charge, Political Chaos Deepens
    New York Times, March 3, 2004
    In Haiti, Past is Prologue
    Findlaw Legal Commentary, March 1, 2003
    Bush Accused of Supporting Haitian Rebels
    UPI, Feb. 27, 2004
    An Insurrection in the Making
    Madre Backgrounder, February 2004
    Haiti as Target Practice
    Counterpunch, March 1, 2004
    © Copyright 2004, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.
           Haiti UN massacres continue      
           Aid would not be released due to opposition boycott, while paying opposition not to participate     
           Precipitous drop in wages    
     
    The time is coming when our food fails to arrive
    Then, though it will likely be too late, we are going to have to decide which side we are on, folks
    The enforcers of the elite, or the people, those who seek to take back that which has been taken away
    We are going to have to live with the decision we make, even after we give up this human body
     
    BBC — Monday, 7 April 2008
    Is India facing a food crisis?
    Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
    By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
    Indian economy analyst
    Having to beg in India Inflation hurts the poor most
    Having to beg in India
    Inflation hurts the poor most
    Is India, the world's second most populous nation, facing a food crisis?
    This question is vexing policy makers and analysts alike even as creeping inflation — around 7% now — is sending jitters through the Congress party-led ruling coalition.
    To be sure, India has not yet experienced riots over rising food prices that have hit other countries like Zimbabwe or Argentina.
    But what is worrying everybody is that the current rise in inflation is driven by high food prices.
    In the capital, Delhi, milk costs 11% more than last year. Edible oil prices have climbed by a whopping 40% over the same period.
    More crucially, rice prices have risen by 20% and prices of certain lentils by 18%. Rice and lentils comprise the staple diet for many Indians.
    Rice being sold in India shop Food prices have risen sharply in the past year
    Rice being sold in India shop
    Food prices have risen sharply in the past year
    Tax on the poor
    Inflation, economists say, is akin to a tax on the poor since food accounts for a relatively high proportion of their expenses.
    All of which is bad news for ruling politicians because the poor in India vote in much larger numbers than the affluent.
    Roughly one out of four Indians lives on less than $1 a day and three out of four earn $2 or less.
    The rise in food prices, the government says, is an international phenomenon.
    But this argument is unlikely to cut much ice with the people.
    At the crux of the crisis is the tardy pace at which farm output has been growing in recent years.
    The Indian economy has been growing rapidly at an average of 8.5% over the last five years.
    This growth has been mainly confined to manufacturing industry and the burgeoning services sector.
    Agriculture, on the other hand, has grown by barely 2.5% over the last five years and the trend rate of growth is even lower if the past decade and a half is considered.
    Consequently, per capita output of cereals (wheat and rice) at present is more or less at the level that prevailed in the 1970s.
    Indian farmer Growth in the farm sector has been sluggish
    Indian farmer
    Growth in the farm sector has been sluggish
    The problem acquires a serious dimension since farming provides livelihood to around 60% of India's 1.1 billion people even though farm produce comprises only 18% of the country's current gross domestic product (GDP).
    On the other hand, the services sector — that includes the fast-growing computer software and business process outsourcing industries — constitutes over 55% of GDP with the remainder being taken up by industry.
    The crisis in farms is exemplified by the state of the country's cereal stocks.
    Vulnerable farmers
    Six years ago, the stocks were at record levels.
    Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen had said if all the bags of wheat and rice with the state-owned Food Corporation of India were placed end to end, they would go all the way to the moon and back.
    Stocks have come down over the past three years because of low production and exports.
    The problem has been compounded by the fact that whenever India has imported wheat in recent months, world prices of wheat have shot up.
    Rice being sold in India shop Food prices have risen sharply in the past year
    Rice being sold in India shop
    Food prices have risen sharply in the past year
    Government pays twice as high for imports as pay its own farmers
    There is also considerable resentment over the fact that the price of wheat that the government imports is often twice as high as the minimum price the government pay its own farmers for domestically grown wheat.
    60% of cropped area not irrigated
    Indian farmers are particularly vulnerable since 60% per cent of the country's total cropped area is not irrigated.
    They are also dependent on the four-month-long monsoon during which period 80% of the year's total rainfall takes place.
    The crisis in agriculture has been manifest in the growing incidence of farmers taking their own lives.
    Mass suicide of farmers
    At least 10,000 farmers have committed suicide each year over the last decade because of their inability of repay loans taken at usurious rates of interest from local moneylenders.
    Famine of Bengal 1943
    ... an acute shortage of food in India ...during the infamous famine in Bengal in 1943 in which more than 1.5 million people are estimated to have died of starvation.
    Pulses sold in a India shop Rising food prices has made the government jittery
    Pulses sold in a India shop
    Rising food prices has made the government jittery
    The problem then — and now — is entitlement or access to food at affordable prices.
    Given the low purchasing power of India's poor, even a small increase in food prices contributes to a sharp fall in real incomes.
    The current crisis in Indian agriculture is a consequence of many factors — low rise in farm productivity, unremunerative prices for cultivators, poor food storage facilities resulting in high levels of wastage.
    ...The government has announced a $15bn waiver of farmer loans and extended a jobs scheme — ensuring 100 days of work in a year entailing manual labour to every family demanding such work at the official minimum wage — to all over the country.
    None of these populist initiatives will really work until India's rulers begin giving its ignored farms the importance they deserve.
    MMVIII
         Vandana Shiva  — India resistance and corporations     
          Coca-Cola and Plachimada — India photos      
    Every missile has a home. Photo: Alaska Image Library
    Every missile has a home
    (No Mortgages to Worry About)
    Image: Natasha Mayers
    It's kind of a fun game
    You see the aim of those inner forces who guide the Elite —
    For them the real agenda is depopulation
    To kill off you
    your children
    your grandchildren
    It is to have fun watching our stupidity as we allow the destruction of our planet
         — but most haven't figured this out yet!
    If we stop them with the nuclear and biological weapons
    then it's the 400+ MPH, KPH wind
    the increase in UVB, UVC, UVA rays due to loss of stratospheric ozone.
    It's the climate!
    It's the reduction and elimination of food coming from all levels of cunning
    World Elite — tools and servants of Lucifer
    The fall of Lucifer, Gustave Doré's illustration for Paradise Lost by John Milton. Photo: wikipedia.org/
    The fall of Lucifer
    Gustave Doré's illustration for Paradise Lost by John Milton
           The Dark Side Initiates — Click here      
           Dark path initiates depend on the denial      
           The five-percent manipulator class is composed of those on the dark path      
           Agent Orange Dioxin — Vietnam      
           Cleft palate, Canoe footed, Clawed fingers continue in births    
           I didn't know what it was then, but it was white    
     
           "A time comes when silence is betrayal."      
           Dr. Martin Luther King — War and Militarism    
    US continues to kill
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
    A primary school headmaster
    his three children
    22 and 10 year old sons
    20 year old daughter also killed
    ISOF, Iraq Special Forces
    trained by US special forces
    did the killing
    'Iraqi Special Forces
    the silent professionals'
    poster brags
    Western Elite militarism. Western Elite Terror States. A man holds a poster found in the home of Mohammed Rijab, a primary school headmaster. His three children, 22 and 10 year old sons and a 20 year old daughter were killed by gunmen riding Iraq Army Humvees. The US Special Forces gunmen broke into the home in Basra, Iraq, Saturday, March 29, 2008, leaving a poster at the scene of the killing. The poster reads: 'Iraqi Special Forces, the silent professionals.' ISOF stands for Iraqi Special Operations Forces, a US puppet unit advised and trained by U.S. Special Forces. U.S. forces said they launched multiple air strikes on Sadr City on Friday. Five civilians were killed and four others wounded in a US air strike in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 28, 2008. A US attack kills four women and wounds fourteen people by air strike in Baghdad, March 27, 2008. A U.S. airstrike killed five Iraqi civilians, including a judge, and wounded 10 in the northern town of Tikrit on Wednesday. Many people are killed and wounded by the U.S. airstrike in Hilla south of Baghdad on Wednesday. The air strike attacked their homes. The people were in their houses. U.S. forces confirmed the air strike massacres. Picture: AP/Nabil al-Jurani    		US killing elite
    The air strike attacked their homes
    The people were in their houses
    US Elite killing. Western Elite Terror States. A man inspects the damage to his home after a US air strike in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 28, 2008. Five civilians were killed and four others wounded in the attack. U.S. forces said they launched multiple air strikes on Sadr City on Friday. Five civilians were killed and four others wounded in a US air strike in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 28, 2008. A US attack kills four women and wounds fourteen people by air strike in Baghdad, March 27, 2008. A U.S. airstrike killed five Iraqi civilians, including a judge, and wounded 10 in the northern town of Tikrit on Wednesday. Many people are killed and wounded by the U.S. airstrike in Hilla south of Baghdad on Wednesday. The air strike attacked their homes. The people were in their houses. U.S. forces confirmed the air strike massacres. Picture: AP/Karim Kadim

    (left)
    US Elite killing.
    Western Elite Terror States.
    A man holds a poster found in the home of Mohammed Rijab, a primary school headmaster.
    His three children, 22 and 10 year old sons and a 20 year old daughter were killed by gunmen riding Iraq Army Humvees.
    The US Special Forces gunmen broke into the home in Basra, Iraq, Saturday, March 29, 2008, leaving a poster at the scene of the killing.
    The poster reads: 'Iraqi Special Forces, the silent professionals.'
    ISOF stands for Iraqi Special Operations Forces, a US puppet unit advised and trained by U.S. Special Forces.
    U.S. forces said they launched multiple air strikes on Sadr City on Friday.
    Five civilians were killed and four others wounded in a US air strike in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 28, 2008.
    A US attack kills four women and wounds fourteen people by air strike in Baghdad, March 27, 2008.
    A U.S. airstrike killed five Iraqi civilians, including a judge, and wounded 10 in the northern town of Tikrit on Wednesday.
    Many people are killed and wounded by the U.S. airstrike in Hilla south of Baghdad on Wednesday.
    (right)
    A man inspects the damage to his home after a US air strike in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 28, 2008.
    Five civilians were killed and four others wounded in the attack.
    The US air strike attacked the homes.
    The people were in their houses.
    Photos: AP/Nabil al-Jurani, AP/Karim Kadim
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
     
                              To rebel is right, to disobey is a duty, to act is necessary !
    twenty
    twenty
    Mass media television and radio is propaganda
    The Feudal Serf System in Tibet Before 1959
    A Society Based on a Regime that Combined the Political and Religious Powers, and Divided People into Three Strata and Nine Grades Tibet before 1959 had a society of feudal serfdom.
    Students raise Tibet flag
    Kolkata, India
    Along with the general characteristics of feudal serfdom, there were many remnants of slavery.
    This social system was more cruel and reactionary than serfdom in Europe in the Middle Ages.
    The serf-owners’ economic interests were protected by a political system that combined political and religious powers, ruling over the Tibetan people spiritually as well as politically.
    The local government of Tibet (in Tibetan, Kashag, and meaning "the institute that issues orders") was composed of powerful and influential monks and aristocrats.
    It upheld a series of social, political and legal institutions that rigidly stratified society.
    The Thirteen Laws and The Sixteen Laws divided the Tibetan people into three strata in nine grades according to their family background and social status.
    The Feudal Lords’ Ownership of Means of Production
    The monasteries, officialdom and the aristocrats owned all the arable land and pastures as well as overwhelming majority of livestock.
    These means of production were granted to them by the Dalai Lama.
    They had the right to govern and inherit the land.
    The Feudal Lords’ Ownership of Their Serfs
    Tibetan Hunger Strike
    Dharamsala, India
    Serfs and slaves accounted for 95 percent of the Tibetan population (peasants 60%, herdsmen 20%, and lower-class monks 15%).
    They were owned by serf-owners, just like the means of production.
    They had no political rights or personal freedom.
    They and their children were freely given away as gifts of donations, sold or exchanged for goods.
    Their marriages had to be approved in advance by their manorial lords.
    Serfs who married out of the manorial estate had to pay ransom money to their lords.
    Those who could not perform corvee or went out to seek a livelihood elsewhere should pay “corvee taxes” to show their dependence on the lords.
    If a serf lost his ability to work, his thralkang field, livestock and farm tools for those who died without issue was confiscated.
    The Serfs’ Economic Burden
    Taxes and levies in Tibetan areas included land rent, stock rent, corvee and taxes.
    The main form of land rent was forced labor. In addition, there was a mixed form of land rent, which was paid in kind, forced labor and cash.
    The manorial lords generally kept 70 percent of their land under their own management and rented out the rest to their serfs as thralkang land.
    Police in Nepal baton charge and drag away exiled Tibetan monks, nuns and people as Tibetans continue their protest against China
    The serf tenants of the thralkang land also had to till the land managed by the manorial lord, using their own farm animals and tools.
    The entire harvest on land managed by the manorial lords belonged to them alone.
    The serfs had to do corvee for manorial lords and local government and pay taxes in kind and cash.
    Corvee duties were allotted by the local government.
    There were two kinds of stock rent: paid in animal products to the manorial lords according to the original number of livestock rented from them, or in products according to the actual number of livestock.
    Other taxes included land tax, corvee tax, and countless others.
    The Oppression of the Serfs by Manorial Lords
    In Tibet under the serfdom, not only did the local regime at various levels, set up judicial institutions, but the big monasteries, manorial lords and tribal chieftains could also judge cases and had their own private prisons.
    If the serfs stood up against the manorial lords, violated the law or could not pay rent or taxes in time, the lords would punish them according to the Thirteen Laws or other laws.
    They used such inhuman tortures as gouging out the eyes, cutting off the feet or hands, pushing the condemned person down from cliff, drowning, beheading, etc
    The Serfs’ Miserable life
    The wealth of the society was highly concentrated in Tibet before 1959.
    More than 80 percent was possessed by the manorial lords and less than 20 percent belonged to the serfs, who accounted for 95 percent of the population.
    The masses of serfs lived in extreme poverty.
    Some statistics about serfdom in Tibet
    Many statistics and data show that in Tibet before 1959:
    Production stagnated.
    The population of the Tibetan nationality diminished.
    Epidemic diseases prevailed.
    The people lived in misery and society as a whole developed very slowly.
    The facts cited above give a broad outlines.
    Posted: Sunday March 23 2008
    TheWE.biz does not accept the Tibetan people's rulership by the government entity known as Chinese
    Each person born on this planet has sovereign rights
    These rights cannot be nullified by any grouping, be it a nation state, government entity and 'officials' or army and police of that nation state, nor a 'World Government'
    In freeing their bondage, the Tibet people, as all people, do need to ask why elites have ruled and controlled for decades, centuries, millenia, multi-millenia and beyond...
    It is for us to choose, folks!
    Freedom, or slavery to another
    This is always our choice!
     
           We are change      
                9/11 lies have sustained the ruling terrorism-threat paradigm          
           The “why” is obvious: To justify an unjust war to serve corporate interests and greed       
           9.11 Truth New York City      
          Decades long history of political disruption the US has been responsible for          
               9/11 is part of a long series of criminal, imperialist conquests          
               Another major highlight was surprise appearance of Cynthia McKinney       
     
           Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth      
                A solid convincing case which architects & engineers will readily see: that the 3 WTC high-rise buildings were destroyed by both classic and novel forms of controlled demolition          
           These buildings were professionally demolished with explosives       
    Archives only for We The People Radio Network
           Truth Action LA Branch      
                We are in the midst of a mass awakening          
           9/11 is the foundational myth upon which the entire agenda has been triggered for our generation       
     
           Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice      
                High Velocity Bursts of Debris From Point-Like Sources in the WTC Towers           
           Why Did the World’s Most Advanced Electronics Warfare Plane Circle Over The White House on 9/11?        
     
           Iran generations      
                Youth seeking Shopping in Tehran          
           Iran New Year Norouz       
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
     
    Western Elite militarism
    Western Elite Terror States
    Western Elite War Crimes
     
     
    Alex Jones End Game. Photo: prisonplanet.tv
    Alex Jones End Game. Photo: prisonplanet.tv
    Alex Jones End Game. Photo: prisonplanet.tv
    Alex Jones End Game. Photo: prisonplanet.tv
    Click on image to help Alex and for high quality video
    EndGame — Alex Jones, you have done the world a great favor
    It has taken me until now to view this great masterpiece that chronicles the planet's true history
    But I am glad for this delay as my awareness of reality, and the events that seemingly must unfold to educate humankind, have come from sentience off planet — now with this movie the circles merge
    A movie par excellence, it will likely be considered the most significant in the downfall of the rich and powerful who control the world and rising politicians already in their pocket — the imprisonment of all those who seek to bring forth this horror, this enslavement of 'New World Order'
    Kewe
    Alex Jones End Game. Photo: prisonplanet.tv
    The aim of TheWE.biz is to make us all aware that the most murderous violence and terror by far, committed by anyone, is done by The West
    Violence and terror is the footprint and modus operandi of Western Government and the shadow power that operates from behind these 'elected officials'
    This film helps us to focus on that reality
    Indonesia's 9/11 — Exposing US government operations in the Bali Bombing
    Kewe
    For Film: Fool me twice
    — Click Here
    Film: Fool me twice
    — Official release
    BALI BOMBINGS /East Timor
    Archives only for We The People Radio Network
    Listen to WTPRN radio
    Questioning War, Organizing Resistance
    — Carol Brouillet
    We The People Radio Network
    Click here for archives, mp3 download of shows.
    Glen Clancy, from Victoria, Australia, created "Fool Me Twice" described as 'A documentary about the Australian government's lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali Bombings and subsequent anti-terror laws.'
    The 25 year old, Clancy is Australia's Dylan Avery (of Loose Change fame).
    The work was originally created to be viewed online, but Clancy is working on improving the resolution for larger screen and theatrical viewing.
    Glen wrote (at the Fool Me Twice Blog on December 4, 2008)
    To all,
    After discovering 911 was an inside job, through such movies as Loose Change, Terrorstorm and Zeitgeist, I decided to investigate the Bali bombings.   The evidence was overwhelming.   There had been a cover-up.
    As shocking as the truth may be, please keep an open mind while viewing this documentary.   FOOL ME TWICE is 100% sourced.   Please see reference list below.   I tried to produce a documentary as true to the genre as possible, limiting opinion and simply documenting the facts.
    I believe that 911 Truth is one of the most important movements of our time and exposing the cover-up of the 2002 Bali bombings can help destroy the "911/War on terror/Al-CIAda" myth.
    Please help spread this information.
    Kind regards,
    Glen
    To listen to the March 10, 2008 interview of Glen Clancy by Carol Brouillet broadcast on:
       We The People Radio Network
    — Right Click Here    (Save Target As, Link As, File)      MP3 1 hour
    For:   We The People Radio Network
    — Click Here
    For Film: Fool me twice
    — Click Here
    Film: Fool me twice
    — Official release
    BALI BOMBINGS /East Timor
    [This is a most excellent presentation — Kewe]
    9/11
    By all accounts, the unprecedented events of September 11th, 2001 changed the way our country functions, and in turn, the world.
    It is therefore critical that conscientious Americans, as well as people around the globe, understand these events in detail.
    Unfortunately the official reports, including The 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST WTC Report, written by those working under the direction of the Bush Administration, have been proven to be elaborate cover-ups.
     Film: 9/11 Revisited
    September 11th Revisited is perhaps the most riveting film ever made about the destruction of the World Trade Center.
    This is a powerful documentary which features eyewitness accounts and archived news footage that was shot on September 11, 2001 but never replayed on television.
    Featuring interviews with eyewitnesses & firefighters, along with expert analysis by Professor Steven E. Jones, Professor David Ray Griffin, MIT Engineer Jeffrey King, and Professor James H. Fetzer.
    This film provides stunning evidence that explosives were used in the complete demolition of the WTC Twin Towers and WTC Building 7.
    For Film: 9/11 Revisited
    — Click Here
    Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
    An excellent documentary about the families of the victims of 9/11 and their fight to uncover and expose the truth about what happened that day.
    For Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
    — Click Here
    Film: 9/11 Mysteries
    90 minutes of pure demolition evidence and analysis, laced with staggering witness testimonials.
    Moving from “the myth” through “the analysis” and into “the players,” careful deconstruction of the official story set right alongside clean, clear science.
    The 9/11 picture is not one of politics or nationalism or loyalty, but one of strict and simple physics.   How do you get a 10-second 110-story pancake collapse?
    'Oh!   You don't believe the 9-11 official version,' they say.
    'You mean where they want you to accept the buildings were not blown up from below.
    'Plane fuel!   Substance never burns higher then a gas stove!   That it caused the inner core steel to melt!
    'Steel melting!
    'Concrete vaporizing!
    ' 'No!   I don't believe that conspiracy theory.
    'Cheney!   Bush!   Rudy Giuliani!   HA!  HA!
    'Tower 7 that never had a plane hit — just came tumbling down!
    'You believe that, eh!
    'Ever think it had to be blown up because the plane scheduled to fly into it was off getting shot down.
    'Thermite in Tower 7's walls, you see — incriminating evidence — impossible to get out without people watching!
    Had to be blown up!
    'Next you'll be saying Obama is not a Wall Street Illuminati banker stooge?
    'Take your pick:   The partner in a comedy team who feeds lines to the other comedians.
    'Him who allows himself to be used.
    'Oh!   I can't really blame you,   Television it turns minds to pulp.
    'Turn off the television.   It's the only way.'
    'Turn off the television?'
    'Get rid of it really.   I mean what else is there to do!'
    'Get rid of the television?'
    'Don't forget all radio garbage is propaganda, even the songs.
    'Then those five minute propaganda hits they send you every hour!
    'The ones they refer to as News
    'Get rid of all the propaganda from your brain, the only way to do it.'
    'Stop being hooked on those Hollywood movies — even those that make you think they are making you think'
    'All paid performers to make your brain dead.
    'You turn the brainwashing off, you'll begin to become yourself.
    'It really is the only way!'
    'Oh!'
    Kewe — TheWE.biz
    Humankind as we know it at the 'End Point' Don't forget: Behind it all is the desire for depopulation — by those rich enough to have their islands for temporary residence while depopulation takes place. Doesn't matter if it is killing in the fight for food when the trucks no longer arrive at your local supermarket. Doesn't matter if it is tribe against tribe. Or thermobaric bombs — environmentally friendly compared to nuclear.   Bombs that send ultra-sonic shock waves and searing fireballs to destroy everything in their dropping wake. Or those special bombs that do not destroy the infrastructure — kill only you and those you love. You are in the way, folks! There are too many of you! This is the plan. Photo: Internet

    Humankind as we know it at the 'End Point'
    Don't forget:
    Behind it all is the desire for depopulation — by those rich enough to have their islands for temporary residence while depopulation takes place.
    Doesn't matter if it is killing in the fight for food when the trucks no longer arrive at your local supermarket.
    Doesn't matter if it is tribe against tribe.
    Or thermobaric bombs — environmentally friendly compared to nuclear.   Bombs that send ultra-sonic shock waves and searing fireballs to destroy everything in their dropping wake.
    Or those special bombs that do not destroy the infrastructure — kill only you and those you love.
    You are in the way, folks!
    There are too many of you!
    This is the plan.
    Kewe
           Twenty Questions Radio/TV interviewers avoid asking about Israel      
           Which parts of the Declaration of Human Rights and Geneva Conventions don't Israelis understand?      
           Why is Israel still stealing Palestinian land for more illegal construction?      
           Israel, chemical weapons and phosphorous bombs       
           New and unknown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces      
           Undetectable poison-needle gun for 'clean' assassinations       
           The Negative Return Economy — a discourse on America’s black budget      
           Fascinating and lucrative    
           Black Budget?   What Black Budget?    
    Unspeakable grief and horror
    ÇáäÊÇÆÌ ÇáÃæáíÉ ááÍá ÇáÃãíÑßí ÇáÍÐÑ ááãÞÇæãÉ ÇáÚÑÇÞíÉ Ýí ÇáÝáæÌÉ (ÇáÌÒíÑÉ)
                            ...and the circus of deception killing continues...
    Most recent 'Circus of Killing' click here
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    Circus of Torture   2003 — now
    He says, "You are quite mad, Kewe"
    And of course I am.
    Why, I don't believe any of it — not the bloody body, not the bloody mind, not even the bloody Universe, or is it bloody multiverse.
    "It's all illusion," I say.   "Don't you know, my lad, my lassie.   The game!   The game, me girl, me boy!   Takes on interest, don't you know.   T'is me sport, till doest find a better!"
    Pssssst — but all this stuff is happening down here
    Let's change it!
    To say hello:     hello[the at marker]Kewe.info
    For Kewe's spiritual and metaphysical pages — click here
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