Military Perpetrators of Sexual Slavery, Rape, and Murder Found Guilty in Guatemala

There were jubilant scenes in court when the verdict was announced
[this AP image is from here]

Mientras exista justicia para el más débil, para el desfavorecido, hay esperanza en un futuro digno para todos. #SepurZarco [translation at the bottom of this post]

"This is historic, it is a great step for women and above all for the victims" -- Rigoberta Menchu, Nobel Peace Prize winner who attended the hearing

From the BBC, 27 February 2016:

Guatemala: Rape sentences in landmark military trial

A Guatemala court has sentenced two former members of the military to 360 years in jail for the murder, rape and sexual enslavement of indigenous women.

Francisco Reyes Giron and Heriberto Valdez Asij were found guilty of crimes against humanity.

The historic ruling is the first successful prosecution for sexual violence committed during Guatemala's military conflict in the 1980s.

There were jubilant scenes in court as the judge read out the sentence.

"This is historic, it is a great step for women and above all for the victims," said Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, who attended the hearing.

Francisco Reyes Giron, who was the commander of the Sepur Zarco military base, was found guilty of holding 15 women in sexual and domestic slavery and for killing one woman and her two daughters.

Heriberto Valdez Asij, a paramilitary who carried out commissions for the army, was convicted for the same enslavement, as well as the forced disappearance of seven men.

The victims have been demanding accountability for the crimes at Sepur Zarco for decades.

For the rest of that story, please go to *this BBC site*. But for more, please also go to Global Voices or Intercontinental Cry for *this report*. From that article, this excerpt:

While international observers praised the efforts of the national courts, a deep reflection came from the national organisation comprising all universities — the CEUG (in Spanish, Coordinadora Estudiantil Universitaria de Guatemala), which has played a crucial role recently in the battle against corruption, summarised in one line why the ruling is vital for the future of the nation:

Mientras exista justicia para el más débil, para el desfavorecido, hay esperanza en un futuro digno para todos. #SepurZarco

[As long as there is justice for the underdog, for the vulnerable, there is hope for a dignifying future for all of us #SepurZarco]

Audre'y Eby could use your support: create justice and fight racism and misogyny by signing this petition

Below please see the Lakota People's Law Project's photo and the compelling justice story that goes with it. The text comes from their websites. Here is one:

https://www.facebook.com/LakotaPeoplesLawProject?hc_location=timeline

A Lakota mother is fighting to regain custody of her disabled sons, who were horribly abused by their white father and his girlfriend. The racism in the family court system works against Indigenous parents and grandparents, breaking up families and exposing Indigenous children to racism and abuse from caregivers. Please sign this petition and help these teens stay with their mother.

[Photo: The teenage sons of Iowa mom Audre'y Eby and a family friend. Eby is a Lakota woman fighting to regain custody of her disabled sons from her abusive ex-husband.]

A ‪#‎Sioux‬ mother in ‪#‎Iowa‬ has rescued her children from abuse, and now faces arrest! Her children are disabled and the Iowa Child Protection Services is aware of the abuse, but the children were still ordered to be placed back with the abuser. Read more here: http://lakota.cc/KKKtRA  

SIGN the petition here: http://lakota.cc/K42dqB

Rape: What Men Can Do About It

photograph is from here

Links at the end of this post were added on 28 May 2011.

I've just finished reading a piece of thoughtful writing about rape, including the rape by a man that she survived, by feminist Suzanne Moore, a British white woman at The Guardian. Please see *here* for that, if you wish. What follows is a response the the men who she sites in her article. And to the men who continue to deny rape is something men must be responsible for ending.

Crafters and protectors of existing rape laws in whitehetmale-dominated countries like England should endeavor to make them more effective in ending rape of all women across class and political conditions (including, for example, being an immigrant, not being in the land of one's upbringing, being poor, being a prostitute, being Indigenous, being a girl in one's own home raped by one's father). But to do this, rape must be framed as a class-based form of gender terrorism and a key part of men's overall war against women.

Rape ought to be seen and responded to as a practice of social-sexual subordination by men of women and girls, as a component of the overall the gross and systematic destruction of women's and girls' social status and of women's and girls' self-esteem, self-worth.

Men's commitment of it and to it ought to be understood as one of many means by which men control female human beings and prevent them from attaining the same status and rights as men. This is to say: rape is not just an interpersonal crime committed by one man or by many men at a given time, or against one woman or many women serially.

We are, by any meaningful comprehension of morality, by basic regard for human life, required to view rape as both interpersonal and institutional, both personal and social, both a singular action and the manifestation of deeply embedded structures of misogynist, male supremacist oppression.

Is rape understood to be a violation of women's human rights or is it viewed solely as a violent crime against her personhood, with both the raper's and the harmed person's "personhood" presumed to not be gendered? Do we hold onto an assumption that rape is one of many other violent interpersonal crimes that "people seriously harm people and there ought to be legal remedies when such serious harm happens"? It is that, but is that all rape is? Which political groups get to define "harm" and "serious" in law, and which political groups determine whether law is the appropriate means through which to end an atrocity--that being not only rape, but the overall social-sexual-economic-religious subordination of women to men, by men?

Let's consider this tidbit from *here*, in a piece not written by Suzanne Moore, also at The Guardian.

Miliband told Clarke at prime minister's questions: "The role of the justice secretary is to speak for the nation on matters of justice and crime. This morning, the justice secretary was on the radio suggesting that there were serious rapes and other categories of rapes.

What is the role of a justice secretary in ending the oppression of men against women? This question seems to elude the questioners. Why? Is that political objective seen as being beyond the scope of someone allegedly empowered to address and end "injustice" and "crime"? Is men's oppression of women seen as either of those? And, if not, what is it in addition to injustice and crime? Can criminal lawyers state this clearly? Can their legal tools and the perspective on society in which these tools are made to work to remedy the problem (occasionally or allegedly, depending on what groups you are part of)? I'd say no, because law is so crafted within a context in which women are presumed to be "just human" or "not quite human" but never as fully human as men, while positioned differently (in an inferior place regarding social status and stigma) in society, structurally, by men--including by men's laws.

Whose interests are represented by people who obtain positions of parliamentary or governmental political power in a country? Are women, as a class of people? Are poor women? Are women who do not have race, ethnic, religious, and citizenship privileges and entitlements, who may not have access to the courts at all? Ought such women have remedies to stop rape? Ought men protect and support such remedies, if men say they are against any form of rape happening at all?

Here are some remedies:

1. The removal of rapists from society is understood to be a social good. Men who breach women's human rights by raping them, by domestically terrorising them, by systematically degrading them, by repeatedly procuring girls and women for sexual exploitation, are understood to not be socially valuable members of society.

Also men are seen to be dangerous, immoral, and engaging in criminal activities if they participate in the protection of any of the following:
--systems or industries of exploitation,
--practices of physical violation,
--cultural, religious, and legal defenses of discrimination,
--policy-making which effectively supports gendered, economic, or raced subordination of women by men, and
--laws refusing to acknowledge rape and other forms of interpersonal terrorism as not just interpersonal terrorism, but also as class-based terrorism, as terroristic and terrifying as any other form of terrorism recognised by law and dominant, pro-status quo society.

2. The oppression (including: discrimination, subordination, exploitation, degradation, violation, and terrorism) of women by men is both recognised and opposed. And whatever women need to do to end it is considered a social good, is considered to be politically necessary, and no men will be allowed to stand in the way of activists seeking an end to such oppression.

3. Whenever rape is discussed publicly or socially, including in reading materials, it is discussed as one of many manifestations of male supremacy and men's oppression of women, globalised across the world. The crafters of educational materials, medical reports, media statements, and news programs, must discuss rape in those terms.

4. When a girl or woman is raped by a man, the woman is presumed to be truthful, rather than the accused raper being presumed to be innocent. Law flows from this presumption, not the one that puts the interests of rapists above those of the raped.

5. Boys--all of them--are required to learn how to not rape or otherwise terrorise and degrade girls. They are taught that rape is part of a larger problem: men's domination of women, and that boys have an important role in ending this.

Social-political solutions ought not place the burden on women and girls to prevent or curb men's violence against women as by modifying girls' and women's behavior. Rape is understood to be a problem of what men and boys do that is wrong, dangerous, and shameful, not what girls and women do that is wrong, dangerous, and shameful.

Rape ought to be understood as an  intimate and intricate reinforcer of several forces, not only male supremacist war on women. Also: heterosexism, white supremacy, globalised capitalism, genocide of Indigenous People, and gross destruction of non-human animals and other Life, including the Earth. And it ought never be viewed as not male supremacist, regardless of the gender of the abused and abusers.

Now, men: get busy ending rape and all the other manifestations of men's global war against women. And stop pretending the war doesn't exist to benefit your social status as men-not-women, preserve your entitlements as men-not-women, and protect your material well-being as a member of a gendered class of people: men, not women.

See also these posts and readings:
http://www.xyonline.net/content/where-men-stand-men%E2%80%99s-roles-ending-violence-against-women

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2009/12/100-male-privileges-checklist.html

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2009/11/pop-quiz-on-dishonesty-deception-and.html

Noam Chomsky on the Death of bin Laden

photo of Noam Chomsky is from here

I like and respect Noam Chomsky. It is not an accident that he's a Jew. Jews in Amerikkka, due entirely to social-structural location, not genes, have a long history of radical social protest and for being outspoken in a drowning sea of white Christian silence and white Gentile acquiescence. The voices of Jews media most promotes are usually liberal and almost entirely Ashkenazi, but there are Jews of color--Sephardi and Mizrahi, within and beyond the US, who also share in the traditions of radically speaking out against injustice.

What I hope is that Noam increasingly incorporates radical feminist and pro-Indigenist political analysis into his work. When I hear Noam speak out against patriarchal abuses of women and girls, as such, and against Western Civilisation's assault against Indigenous People and people of color worldwide, as such, I'll respect him even more.

All that follows is from ZNet and ZCommunications.org.

There is Much More to Say

By Noam Chomsky
Friday, May 20, 2011

After the assassination of bin Laden I received such a deluge of requests for comment that I was unable to respond individually, and on May 4 and later I sent an unedited form response instead, not intending for it to be posted, and expecting to write it up more fully and carefully later on. But it was posted, then circulated. It can now be found, reposted, at http://www.zcommunications.org/my-reaction-to-osama-bin-laden-s-death-by-noam-chomsky.

That was followed by a deluge of reactions from all over the world. It is far from a scientific sample of course, but nevertheless, the tendencies may be of some interest. Overwhelmingly, those from the “third world” were on the order of “thanks for saying what we think.” There were similar ones from the US, but many others were infuriated, often virtually hysterical, with almost no relation to the actual content of the posted form letter. That was true in particular of the posted or published responses brought to my attention. I have received a few requests to comment on several of these. Frankly, it seems to me superfluous. If there is any interest, I’ll nevertheless find some time to do so.

The original letter ends with the comment that “There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.” Here I will fill in some of the gaps, leaving the original otherwise unchanged in all essentials.

Noam Chomsky

May 2011



On May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in his virtually unprotected compound by a raiding mission of 79 Navy Seals, who entered Pakistan by helicopter. After many lurid stories were provided by the government and withdrawn, official reports made it increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law, beginning with the invasion itself.

There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 79 commandos facing no opposition - except, they report, from his wife, also unarmed, who they shot in self-defense when she “lunged” at them (according to the White House).

A plausible reconstruction of the events is provided by veteran Middle East correspondent Yochi Dreazen and colleagues in the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/goal-was-never-to-capture-bin-laden/238330/). Dreazen, formerly the military correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, is senior correspondent for the National Journal Group covering military affairs and national security. According to their investigation, White House planning appears not to have considered the option of capturing OBL alive: “The administration had made clear to the military's clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions. A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive.”

The authors add: “For many at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency who had spent nearly a decade hunting bin Laden, killing the militant was a necessary and justified act of vengeance.” Furthermore, “Capturing bin Laden alive would have also presented the administration with an array of nettlesome legal and political challenges.” Better, then, to assassinate him, dumping his body into the sea without the autopsy considered essential after a killing, whether considered justified or not – an act that predictably provoked both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

As the Atlantic inquiry observes, “The decision to kill bin Laden outright was the clearest illustration to date of a little-noticed aspect of the Obama administration's counterterror policy. The Bush administration captured thousands of suspected militants and sent them to detention camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration, by contrast, has focused on eliminating individual terrorists rather than attempting to take them alive.” That is one significant difference between Bush and Obama. The authors quote former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who “told German TV that the U.S. raid was ‘quite clearly a violation of international law’ and that bin Laden should have been detained and put on trial,” contrasting Schmidt with US Attorney General Eric Holder, who “defended the decision to kill bin Laden although he didn't pose an immediate threat to the Navy SEALs, telling a House panel on Tuesday that the assault had been ‘lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way’.”

The disposal of the body without autopsy was also criticized by allies. The highly regarded British barrister Geoffrey Robertson, who supported the intervention and opposed the execution largely on pragmatic grounds, nevertheless described Obama’s claim that “justice was done” as an “absurdity” that should have been obvious to a former professor of constitutional law (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-03/osama-bin-laden-death-why-he-should-have-been-captured-not-killed/). Pakistan law “requires a colonial inquest on violent death, and international human rights law insists that the ‘right to life’ mandates an inquiry whenever violent death occurs from government or police action. The U.S. is therefore under a duty to hold an inquiry that will satisfy the world as to the true circumstances of this killing.” Robertson adds that “The law permits criminals to be shot in self-defense if they (or their accomplices) resist arrest in ways that endanger those striving to apprehend them. They should, if possible, be given the opportunity to surrender, but even if they do not come out with their hands up, they must be taken alive if that can be achieved without risk. Exactly how bin Laden came to be ‘shot in the head’ (especially if it was the back of his head, execution-style) therefore requires explanation. Why a hasty ‘burial at sea’ without a post mortem, as the law requires?”

Robertson attributes the murder to “America’s obsessive belief in capital punishment—alone among advanced nations—[which] is reflected in its rejoicing at the manner of bin Laden’s demise.” For example, Nation columnist Eric Alterman writes that “The killing of Osama bin Laden was a just and necessary undertaking.”

Robertson usefully reminds us that “It was not always thus. When the time came to consider the fate of men much more steeped in wickedness than Osama bin Laden -- namely the Nazi leadership -- the British government wanted them hanged within six hours of capture. President Truman demurred, citing the conclusion of Justice Robert Jackson that summary execution ‘would not sit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride…the only course is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times will permit and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear’."

The editors of the Daily Beast comment that “The joy is understandable, but to many outsiders, unattractive. It endorses what looks increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination as the White House is now forced to admit that Osama bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot twice in the head.”

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In June 2002, FBI head Robert Mueller, in what the Washington Post described as “among his most detailed public comments on the origins of the attacks,” could say only that “investigators believe the idea of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon came from al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, the actual plotting was done in Germany, and the financing came through the United Arab Emirates from sources in Afghanistan…. We think the masterminds of it were in Afghanistan, high in the al Qaeda leadership.” What the FBI believed and thought in June 2002 they didn’t know eight months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence. Thus it is not true, as the President claimed in his White House statement, that “We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

There has never been any reason to doubt what the FBI believed in mid-2002, but that leaves us far from the proof of guilt required in civilized societies – and whatever the evidence might be, it does not warrant murdering a suspect who could, it seems, have been easily apprehended and brought to trial. Much the same is true of evidence provided since. Thus the 9/11 Commission provided extensive circumstantial evidence of bin Laden’s role in 9/11, based primarily on what it had been told about confessions by prisoners in Guantanamo. It is doubtful that much of that would hold up in an independent court, considering the ways confessions were elicited. But in any event, the conclusions of a congressionally authorized investigation, however convincing one finds them, plainly fall short of a sentence by a credible court, which is what shifts the category of the accused from suspect to convicted. There is much talk of bin Laden's “confession,” but that was a boast, not a confession, with as much credibility as my “confession” that I won the Boston marathon. The boast tells us a lot about his character, but nothing about his responsibility for what he regarded as a great achievement, for which he wanted to take credit.

Again, all of this is, transparently, quite independent of one’s judgments about his responsibility, which seemed clear immediately, even before the FBI inquiry, and still does.

It is worth adding that bin Laden’s responsibility was recognized in much of the Muslim world, and condemned. One significant example is the distinguished Lebanese cleric Sheikh Fadlallah, greatly respected by Hizbollah and Shia groups generally, outside Lebanon as well. He too had been targeted for assassination: by a truck bomb outside a mosque, in a CIA-organized operation in 1985. He escaped, but 80 others were killed, mostly women and girls, as they left the mosque – one of those innumerable crimes that do not enter the annals of terror because of the fallacy of “wrong agency.” Sheikh Fadlallah sharply condemned the 9/11 attacks, as did many other leading figures in the Muslim world, within the Jihadi movement as well. Among others, the head of Hizbollah, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, sharply condemned bin Laden and Jihadi ideology.

One of the leading specialists on the Jihadi movement, Fawaz Gerges, suggests that the movement might have been split at that time had the US exploited the opportunity instead of mobilizing the movement, particularly by the attack on Iraq, a great boon to bin Laden, which led to a sharp increase in terror, as intelligence agencies had anticipated. That conclusion was confirmed by the former head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 at the Chilcot hearings investigating the background for the war. Confirming other analyses, she testified that both British and US intelligence were aware that Saddam posed no serious threat and that the invasion was likely to increase terror; and that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had radicalized parts of a generation of Muslims who saw the military actions as an “attack on Islam.” As is often the case, security was not a high priority for state action.

It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.

To say that all of this is uncontroversial, as it is, is not to imply that it is not denied. The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat. Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Stalin and Hitler were responsible for horrendous crimes, though loyalists deny it. All of this should, again, be too obvious for comment, and would be, except in an atmosphere of hysteria so extreme that it blocks rational thought.

Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Bush and associates did commit the “supreme international crime,” the crime of aggression, at least if we take the Nuremberg Tribunal seriously. The crime of aggression was defined clearly enough by Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg, reiterated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An “aggressor,” Jackson proposed to the Tribunal in his opening statement, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as “Invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State….” No one, even the most extreme supporter of the aggression, denies that Bush and associates did just that.

We might also do well to recall Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg on the principle of universality: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” And elsewhere: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”

It is also clear that alleged intentions are irrelevant. Japanese fascists apparently did believe that by ravaging China they were laboring to turn it into an “earthly paradise.” We don’t know whether Hitler believed that he was defending Germany from the “wild terror” of the Poles, or was taking over Czechoslovakia to protect its population from ethnic conflict and provide them with the benefits of a superior culture, or was saving the glories of the civilization of the Greeks from barbarians of East and West, as his acolytes claimed (Martin Heidegger). And it’s even conceivable that Bush and company believed that they were protecting the world from destruction by Saddam’s nuclear weapons. All irrelevant, though ardent loyalists on all sides may try to convince themselves otherwise.

We are left with two choices: either Bush and associates are guilty of the “supreme international crime” including all the evils that follow, crimes that go vastly beyond anything attributed to bin Laden; or else we declare that the Nuremberg proceedings were a farce and that the allies were guilty of judicial murder. Again, that is entirely independent of the question of the guilt of those charged: established by the Nuremberg Tribunal in the case of the Nazi criminals, plausibly surmised from the outset in the case of bin Laden.

A few days before the bin Laden assassination, Orlando Bosch died peacefully in Florida, where he resided along with his terrorist accomplice Luis Posada Carilles, and many others. After he was accused of dozens of terrorist crimes by the FBI, Bosch was granted a presidential pardon by Bush I over the objections of the Justice Department, which found the conclusion “inescapable that it would be prejudicial to the public interest for the United States to provide a safe haven for Bosch. ”The coincidence of deaths at once calls to mind the Bush II doctrine, which has “already become a de facto rule of international relations,” according to the noted Harvard international relations specialist Graham Allison. The doctrine revokes “the sovereignty of states that provide sanctuary to terrorists,” Allison writes, referring to the pronouncement of Bush II that “those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves,” directed to the Taliban. Such states, therefore, have lost their sovereignty and are fit targets for bombing and terror; for example, the state that harbored Bosch and his associate -- not to mention some rather more significant candidates. When Bush issued this new “de facto rule of international relations,” no one seemed to notice that he was calling for invasion and destruction of the US and murder of its criminal presidents.

None of this is problematic, of course, if we reject Justice Jackson’s principle of universality, and adopt instead the principle that the US is self-immunized against international law and conventions -- as, in fact, the government has frequently made very clear, an important fact, much too little understood.

It is also worth thinking about the name given to the operation: Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound that few seem able to perceive that the White House is glorifying bin Laden by calling him “Geronimo” -- the leader of courageous resistance to the invaders who sought to consign his people to the fate of “that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty, among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement,” in the words of the great grand strategist John Quincy Adams, the intellectual architect of manifest destiny, long after his own contributions to these sins had passed. Some did comprehend, not surprisingly. The remnants of that hapless race protested vigorously. Choice of the name is reminiscent of the ease with which we name our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Blackhawk. Tomahawk,… We might react differently if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes "Jew" and "Gypsy".

The examples mentioned would fall under the category “American exceptionalism,” were it not for the fact that easy suppression of one’s own crimes is virtually ubiquitous among powerful states, at least those that are not defeated and forced to acknowledge reality. Other current illustrations are too numerous to mention. To take just one, of great current significance, consider Obama’s terror weapons (drones) in Pakistan. Suppose that during the 1980s, when they were occupying Afghanistan, the Russians had carried out targeted assassinations in Pakistan aimed at those who were financing, arming and training the insurgents – quite proudly and openly. For example, targeting the CIA station chief in Islamabad, who explained that he “loved” the “noble goal” of his mission: to “kill Soviet Soldiers…not to liberate Afghanistan.” There is no need to imagine the reaction, but there is a crucial distinction: that was them, this is us.

What are the likely consequences of the killing of bin Laden? For the Arab world, it will probably mean little. He had long been a fading presence, and in the past few months was eclipsed by the Arab Spring. His significance in the Arab world is captured by the headline in the New York Times for an op-ed by Middle East/al Qaeda specialist Gilles Kepel; “Bin Laden was Dead Already.” Kepel writes that few in the Arab world are likely to care. That headline might have been dated far earlier, had the US not mobilized the Jihadi movement by the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, as suggested by the intelligence agencies and scholarship. As for the Jihadi movement, within it bin Laden was doubtless a venerated symbol, but apparently did not play much more of a role for this “network of networks,” as analysts call it, which undertake mostly independent operations.

The most immediate and significant consequences are likely to be in Pakistan. There is much discussion of Washington's anger that Pakistan didn't turn over bin Laden. Less is said about the fury in Pakistan that the US invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor had already reached a very high peak in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it.

Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth, also the world’s fastest growing nuclear power, with a huge arsenal. It is held together by one stable institution, the military. One of the leading specialists on Pakistan and its military, Anatol Lieven, writes that “if the US ever put Pakistani soldiers in a position where they felt that honour and patriotism required them to fight America, many would be very glad to do so.” And if Pakistan collapsed, an “absolutely inevitable result would be the flow of large numbers of highly trained ex-soldiers, including explosive experts and engineers, to extremist groups.” That is the primary threat he sees of leakage of fissile materials to Jihadi hands, a horrendous eventuality.

The Pakistani military have already been pushed to the edge by US attacks on Pakistani sovereignty. One factor is the drone attacks in Pakistan that Obama escalated immediately after the killing of bin Laden, rubbing salt in the wounds. But there is much more, including the demand that the Pakistani military cooperate in the US war against the Afghan Taliban, whom the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis, the military included, see as fighting a just war of resistance against an invading army, according to Lieven.

The bin Laden operation could have been the spark that set off a conflagration, with dire consequences, particularly if the invading force had been compelled to fight its way out, as was anticipated. Perhaps the assassination was perceived as an “act of vengeance,” as Robertson concludes. Whatever the motive was, it could hardly have been security. As in the case of the “supreme international crime” in Iraq, the bin Laden assassination illustrates that security is often not a high priority for state action, contrary to received doctrine.

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about. 

Was Osama bin Laden Born in the U.S.A.? His birth certificate reveals a surprising answer...

image is from here

What if Osama bin Laden was a U.S. American, from birth? What would the fanatical Christian White Right-wing do with that information? Would he become statused, post-mortem, as 'not such a bad guy after all'? Would he move out of the ranks of Adolph Hitler and join the ranks of Timothy McVey?

How much longer will U.S. media focus on bin Laden, rather than the real terrorists of the last ten years: the white het male rich folks who control media, public policy, foreign policy, and government?

When will we see CEOs and corrupt mass murdering politicians hunted down by Navy Seals, for example, with cities and towns across Amerikkka cheering wildly into the night when their bodies are reported dumped into an ocean?

I realise that any "good' Amerikkkan wants to see the bloody body--photos, video please!! "Can you show us the Navy Seals actually killing bin Laden?", many across this perverse country are asking--or demanding.

Meanwhile, there's that debt and deficit, and all that trafficking and raping going on, and all crimes of the white rich against poor people and people of color that broadcasters and reporters never wish to discuss honestly or in any systemic detail. We've got an increasingly white supremacist country, an oligarchical one now more than ever.

We have a death-adoring, murderer-worshipping society, folks. That's what it is and that's who we are. We cheer at assassination, unless it's of our own leaders. Otherwise, bring it on. From here: When asked whether she was glued to the television after the dramatic news, Kirstie said it was not worth her time, although she was glad to hear that the military finally got bin Laden. "No, he's dead. Ding dong the witch is dead. What else do we want? He's dead -- on to the next one."

She probably doesn't mean any of these usual suspects:

But, Seals, they're also hiding in plain site.

U.S. Amerikkkans are a blood-thirsty mob--we want more al Qaeda leaders murdered because we actually think al Qaeda is harming or threatening us more than rich white men--born in the U.S.A., with the long-form birth certificates to prove it.

Here's what the world's worst and most blood-thirsty enemy forces look like, in case you didn't know:

image is from here at Cracked.com

CNN is letting us know how many trillions of dollars bin Laden cost the US, as if rich white men in the US haven't cost us far more than that--the loss of millions of homes, for example, the loss of social programs, the failure of the public school system, allowing men to leave this country, rape girls, and return unarrested--how much money are those girls' lives worth? The U.S. also makes a "medical practice" of stealing medical experts born, raised, and working in Third World countries. The "good" U.S. knowingly lets people in the Third World die unattended by appropriate levels of care while we use their professionals medical knowledge here. And, how callous can an article be as the one linked to from CNN? How much money are the lives of hundreds and thousands of Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani lives worth--those snuffed out by U.S. military rulers and the soldiers they train to want to kill? "At any price: freedom" makes a good slogan to allow the rich scumbags to get richer because they're so tied to the military industrial complex, but it doesn't make for anything resembling a humane society. Not that the rich and powerful care about anyone but themselves.

Indigenist Action Alert: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties don't apply to All People: PROTECT GLEN COVE (Vallejo, CA).

Photo Corrina Gould. Photo is from here

Tribal members fulfilled their part of what was thought to be an interim agreement, including taking down tents used for sleeping during the around the clock ceremonies. GVRD however has now refused to do anything they had agreed to do, while stepping up the police presence and monitoring of the ceremony.

Support for the efforts of tribal members to protect the site continues to grow. Last night over 50 people gathered for ceremonies and to welcome Mohave and Chemehuevi visitors from the Colorado River Indian Tribes who came to express their solidarity and encouragement.

Sunday evening begins Yom HaShoah, or Nazi Holocaust Remembrance Day. Which means we who are U.S. Jews--as well as non-Jews--ought not forget the genocides happening all around us.

Genocide has lots of components: stopping specific groups of people from living their lives is part of it. Also: occupying their land, preventing people from practicing their religion, from being able to gather and protest. And threatening specific groups of people with cultural and physical extinction is also part of it. How it is that we allow genocide in this country--this allegedly GREAT country that portrays itself as against things like genocide and racism--is beyond me.

I see this move by the Greater Vallejo Recreation Re-destruction District as a violation of people's civil rights and civil liberties to gather peacefully and to protest, and to practice their religion. This is part of a genocidal war against Indigenous people in the U.S. 

Please support the protest.

What follows is being cross-posted from Censored News with thanks to Brenda.

 

Protect Glen Cove Day 15: More Civil Rights Claims Filed

Sacred Site Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT).

For Immediate Release: Thursday, April 28, 2011
Contact: * Corrina Gould 510-575-8408 * Morning Star Gali (510) 827 6719 *Norman “Wounded Knee” Deocampo 707-373-7195 * Mark Anquoe (415) 680-0110

Day 15 : Spiritual Vigil and Gathering to Protect Glen Cove Sacred Site Enters 3rd Week as Greater Vallejo Recreation District Breaks Agreement to Negotiate in Good Faith

SSP&RIT Files More Civil Rights Claims Against GVRD for New Violations as Threats Against Spiritual Ceremony and Sacred Site Escalate

By Protect Glen Cove
http://protectglencove.org/

Vallejo, California – As the spiritual gathering and vigil being held by local tribal members and supporters at the sacred burial site at Glen Cove in Vallejo entered its third week, Native Americans working to protect Glen Cove filed more complaints this morning with the Attorney General of California in response to new and serious violations of civil rights by the Greater Vallejo Recreation District.

The organization Sacred Site Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes today filed an addendum to the civil rights complaint filed on April 13, 2011 with the State Attorney General in response to GVRD’s attempt to intimidate and limit the number of participants in the spiritual ceremony, attempts to restrict certain ceremonial practices including songs, and GVRD’s refusal to negotiate a resolution of the dispute. The new complaint also further documents the presence of cremations as well as burials at the site, highlighting the risk that bulldozing the hill poses to the ancient human remains.

In a major development, GVRD has informed the United States Department of Justice that they will not sign a proposed agreement allowing the ceremony to temporarily continue without threat of arrest, and GVRD has failed to follow through on their agreement to meet with tribal members to try to resolve the burial site dispute.
Tribal members fulfilled their part of what was thought to be an interim agreement, including taking down tents used for sleeping during the around the clock ceremonies. GVRD however has now refused to do anything they had agreed to do, while stepping up the police presence and monitoring of the ceremony.

Support for the efforts of tribal members to protect the site continues to grow. Last night over 50 people gathered for ceremonies and to welcome Mohave and Chemehuevi visitors from the Colorado River Indian Tribes who came to express their solidarity and encouragement. Hundreds of Native Americans and their supporters have pledged to peacefully defend the sacred site in response to any attempt to desecrate the site or remove the ceremony. “I dont believe any of our tribal people would agree to outright grave robbery and disturbing sacred sites. We will not allow it to happen,” said Fred Short, Spiritual Leader of the American Indian Movement and a participant in the spiritual gathering at Glen Cove.

Glen Cove is located near the intersection of South Regatta and Whitesides Drive in Vallejo. For more information and directions: www.protectglencove.org

A copy of the Civil Rights Complaint and Addendum is available by contacting Bradley Angel at Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice

(415) 722-5270 or bradley@greenaction.org

Mumsnet appreciates feminist brilliance. Catharine A. MacKinnon on Gender Crime: a podcast

photo of Catharine A. MacKinnon is from here

There are so many men in the world who could learn a thing or fifty from Catharine A. MacKinnon, about justice, equality, humanity, and the political condition of being a woman. She is, to me, one of the most intellectually, legally, and politically brilliant women on Earth. I have found all of her work so deeply humane, rooted in reality, committed to justice for women across class and race, and also unwilling to engage in meaningless and needless academic abstractionism for the sake of selling books on theory, as so many "gender theorists" do. So, brava to Ms. MacKinnon!

I found the following link on Mumsnet. It's so refreshing to see a space online that respects women and respects radical feminism too. Please click *here* to link to them. What follows are the comments from that website. And below that, the original website's links to the podcast. MacKinnon speaks for fifteen minutes. Please take that amount of time to hear what she has to say and behold compassionate, fierce intellectual greatness.

Sun 27-Mar-11 12:50:35

philosophybites.com/2011/03/catherine-mackinnon-on-gender-crime.html
 

Sun 27-Mar-11 15:55:23

Great stuff, thanks for posting this Prolesworth.
It's so exciting to hear feminism in action. Loved it when she said philosophers should engage in reality more. Also, the interviewer going "what about Belle de Jour" when she was talking about how prostitution is a gender crime, and her slapping him (nicely) down pointing out how men are very attached to the idea of the myth of women's choice in prostitution. Also the male belief that the ultimate in female freedom looks like a woman selling herself sexually to men.

Sun 27-Mar-11 15:56:51

(Feminism in action being Mackinnon's work at the International Criminal Court on gender crimes, and also her earlier work on sexual harassment - all coming from feminist analysis and understanding and all applied to make the world a better place for women)
 

Mon 28-Mar-11 09:26:55

What a brilliant woman she is. I liked her point about the way rape law focuses on physical force but fails to recognise social force. She's an extremely clear thinker and communicator. More Catharine Mackinnon on the airwaves, I say!

Here's the info from the Philosophy Bites website:

Sat, 26 March 2011

Catharine MacKinnon on Gender Crime

 

In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Catharine MacKinnon talks to Nigel Warburton about the concept of Gender Crime. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.

Direct download: Catherine_MacKinnon_on_Gender_Crime.mp3

Cross Post from dedgurlcingztheblooze: who will socially care about the 11 year-old girl who was group-raped in Cleveland, Texas?

Sources for this audio post are here:

http://dedgurlcingztheblooze.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/i-wasnt-going-to-talk-about-this/

http://blip.tv/file/4872727


See also this post from What About Our Daughters *here*.

Thank you to The Blogmother, and to dedgurlcingztheblooze.
Here are some of my own thoughts for right now:

My prayers are with that girl. And all the girls the world over being group-raped and raped individually by men and boys, disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous. The society must crumble, as dedgurl says in the audio blog.

Punishing a few perpetrators of atrocity pretends rape would end of only we sent all the rapists to jail. It wouldn't--especially in jail. And also the class-privileged white men who travel the world to rape girls won't ever get put in jail so how does killing or locking up only Black and Brown men solve the rape problem? It may make some individual survivors feel safer to know their assaulter-terrorist-violator is in prison. And I'm not opposed to rapers of children or of women going to prison--let anyone who violates a girl or woman sexually or physically be sent there for the rest of his life, as far as I'm concerned. At least she'll be safer, but only from him. Not by the other male relatives, the other procurers, the other date-rapists, the other boyfriends, the other men wanting a little action.

Most rapes of girls, after all, are committed by their own fathers and step-fathers and other male relatives. And by "sex (read: rape) tourists", procurers, pimps, traffickers, and slavers. None of those men will get put in jail, folks. Group-rape is not the usual way girls and women are raped, even while it is disgustingly, reprehensibly, outrageously common.

So what are we going to do about all that? The political approach is not to pretend justice is served by locking up a few predators. Girls and women remain unsafe no matter how many poor men go to jail. Rape is a reality because in this society, white het men want it to be one. The political approach that has a spiritual center, a humane core, is to radically transform society into an non-predatory, non-misopedic, non-misogynist one where girls and women are not targeted from birth to death for rape and other violations and degradations.

Feminist Resources: Protective Mothers Alliance: Working to Make Justice Real for Women and Children. Working to Hold Accountable Abuser Husband-Fathers and their Pro-Patriarchal Attorneys

image is from here

We must realise that courts are patriarchal spaces. Juries are people who, often enough, see the world through the lenses of patriarchs. Male supremacy is the law of most lands which means men rule and men are presumed to be truth-tellers unless proven otherwise. Male supremacist rule means women are perpetually seen as wh*res, b*tches, and unrepentant liars, unless or until, as a class, they can prove otherwise, to the satisfaction of men as a class.

In such a world, women who speak out against their husbands' or ex-husbands' abuses of them are targeted by the abusers' attorneys as unfit mothers because they endured abuse and because they are committing abuse--against the patriarchal perp-parent. They are painted in ugly portraits by misogynistic attorneys who make the case that such liars, such anti-man monsters should not be custodial parents. This is accomplished while the husbands, ex-husbands, and their attorneys lie through their terroristic teeth.

The few women who are able to get to a courtroom are encouraged to keep silent about men's private violence, his private predation, his private abuses, because it will reflect badly on HER and make her custody suit less likely to result any mother having sole or primary custody of her children. If courts see the mother as putting down the holy husband he gets full custody, including of children he emotionally, physically, and sexually assaults.

This is so common as to be normal. And it is a normal violation of any understanding of human rights. When men fight for "father's rights" or "men's rights" what they reveal is something they don't intend to reveal: they are not humane and they care not at all about human rights for oppressed people. They only care about preserving the rights patriarchal societies and its institutions give them, unjustly.

"Domestic violence" is not the problem. Patriarchal violence is. The social atrocity is men terrorising and abusing women and children globally. That some women might occasionally "strike back" doesn't mean "domestic violence goes both ways". And if there are women who yell at their husbands and hit them without leaving a bruise, that isn't "both ways" either, because most women learn that raising their voice to their husbands will result in them being beaten, raped, or killed. So the few women who do raise their voices to their terrorist husbands are doing so at great risk. What risk is there to husbands, globally, who raise their voices and their fists to their wives? Usually, none. There is usually no risk because it's a man's world where women have not "come a long way, baby".

image of U.S. 1970s print ad is from here

Ads like this one proliferated in the 1970s in the U.S. as a way of corporately co-opting the Women's Liberation Movement. Suddenly, "liberation" meant having access to "your own cigarette". (Cough.) Anyone who believes feminists of any color control advertising media are delusional. Women aren't in charge and never were. Men have ruled every economic, social, political, legal, medical, educational, and religious institution since those institutions, globally while not universally, since they came into existence. That some men think feminists have "gone too far" only means that for many men, the mere existence of feminist campaigns to end sexism and misogyny equals "going too far".

We must keep in mind that even within the G8 countries, there are some where homosexuality and transsexuality for men is allowed to exist, but lesbianism is not. Not that homosexuals and transsexuals have the same rights to be free of men's exploitation and abuse that heterosexual men have. But, at the very least, they get to exist. Did you know there are countries, industrialised, "developed" countries, where lesbianism isn't allowed and doesn't socially exist? Did you know there are countries which socially, tacitly permit men (who are heterosexually married to women) to have sex with other men on the side? Women who marry men cannot have sex with women at all, unless the husband demands it for his own entertainment. How "equal" does that sound to you? Did you know there are countries--developed, industrialised ones--where men's rape of women, if it happens inside a marriage, is not legally considered to be rape because it is her duty to fulfill his sexual needs, as he and the court and the government defines them?

We must keep in mind the conditions in which most women live: poverty, patriarchy, and predation. Men are at war against women, not with women. Men terrorise women and it is never called Terrorism by governments such as the U.S.'s. Why? What part of terrorism isn't happening to women by men? To those who answer "It isn't organised", I'll remind you that Men's Rights groups and Father's Rights groups are very well-organised indeed, and are usually run by white class-privileged men. They have influence in many countries. They are the gendered equivalent of White Rights and Aryan Rights groups--which are also all run by men, often men with less class privilege than the Men's Rights groups. This means, structurally and politically speaking, Men's Rights groups have more power than White Nationalist groups. Whether in the service of men who are white, or whites who are men, these organisations are well-networked and international. This means women of all colors are not free, baby.

All that follows is from Protective Mothers Alliance.

Please Listen to our latest BLOGTALKRADIO Show...click here

	Welcome to PROTECTIVE MOTHERS ALLIANCE INTERNATIONAL  Protective Mothers Alliance International (PMA) is an international organization co founded/codirected by Lundy Bancroft and Janice Levinson. The PMA family consists of protective mother-driven advocates working together as a tight team for change. PMA is working toward bringing about dramatic reform in family court for protective mothers and their children. PMA advocates for change through education, legislation reform, enforcement of current legislation, community and media outreach and other strategies that may be effective and beneficial. PMA supports the efforts of protective mothers in keeping themselves and their children safe from the abuse of a former partner, and in empowering these mothers to become advocates for themselves and others. Among the many common family law practices we work to stop are: Custody of children granted to men who abuse women; those who abuse/have abused children; those who are perpetrators of sexual abuse towards children; and the granting of unsupervised contact with children to abusers with no requirement that they overcome their abusiveness. Other issues include: Labeling protective mothers as parental alienators and punishing them for their appropriate protective efforts; using biased tests, and misusing psychological tests to support abusers; forcing protective moms to spend excessive amounts of money on prolonged, unnecessary litigation, and much more. PMA administrators, chapter leaders and members are working together as a tight team to change harmful practices that eliminate, or restrict loving, biological mothers from the lives of their children.
	Disclaimer: A note to all protective mothers and advocates who are interested in solidarity, teamwork and joining Protective Mothers Alliance International with the goal of helping us stop family court abuse. PMA International is an advocacy organization. We do not get involved in personal cases and cannot give out legal advice, as we are not attorneys. However, we may be able to give some referrals and guidance because of our personal experiences with family court. Due to the sensitive nature of the work that we do, PMA has a professional security team and a small group of attorney's who protect our organization and our protective mothers. Protective mothers and advocates interested in joining PMA or receiving some referrals and/or guidance from our staff, must undergo a screening process. Anyone who desires to join our many groups on facebook and other venues must also undergo a screening process. This is for the protection of our organization, children, mothers and advocates. For more information on this screening process and how you can help join us in our fight to stop family court abuse, please email us at lb.jlpma@gmail.com. Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation in this matter.

http://protectivemothersalliance.org/index.html

Celebrating Two Women's Freedom: Aung San Suu Kyi (Nov. 2010) and Sara Kruzan (Jan. 2011)

photo of Sara Kruzan, while in prison, is from here

It is extremely rare to have good news to report about a woman who defended herself against a slaver-pimp, or a woman who is determined to change her government, both of whom lost levels of freedom for doing so. I have posted news about each of these women in the past, before they were released from each form of detention. Blessings to both of them. Let's hope this is a memorable year for girls and women finding freedom who have been falsely imprisoned and otherwise patriarchally dominated, controlled, beaten, raped, incested, trafficked, terrorised, or enslaved, including in their own homes.

Any woman who takes the life of any man who is her slaver and pimp ought not see one day in jail. She should be heralded as a hero and a defender of freedom.

Below, read more about each of these wondrous stories, and these amazing women. Each story is cross-posted with links provided back to the source website.

http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/sex_trafficking_victim_sara_kruzan_wins_commuted_sentence

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Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan Wins Commuted Sentence

by Alex DiBrancoJanuary 03, 2011 09:32 AM (PT)Topics: human trafficking, Sexual Assault

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At 16, Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for killing the man who enslaved and sold her for rape as a child. This extreme sentence attracted the attention of women's rights and anti-trafficking advocates, including tens of thousands of Change.org members who called in the past few months for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute Sara's sentence with her 16 years of time served. Amanda Kloer reports on End Human Trafficking that Schwarzenegger came through and commuted Sara's sentence to 25 years with the possibility for parole.

Though advocates were hoping for Sara's freedom to come immediately, given that now she has spent half her life behind bars, and longer than that as a prisoner or slave, this victory nonetheless comes as a monumental success. Life without parole meant that Sara never had any chance of living outside of prison walls, despite the fact that Sara showed swift remorse for her crime of desperation and doesn't pose a threat to public safety. Now, though the date at which Sara will again taste freedom is not yet certain (her legal team is deciding on next steps), her sentences provides not just a chance, but a likelihood that she will be able to return to a free life again.

It is disappointing that Schwarzenegger decided to deny a woman who was enslaved and repeatedly sold for rape as a 13-year-old and committed her crime to escape her trafficker while only 16, at a time at which the courts had less understanding than they do now of how an abuse victim's mental state is impacted. Clearly, it demonstrates a need for continued awareness and education about the impact of sex trafficking and rape on victims. Sara Kruzan was poorly served by the American system, which failed to protect her from becoming a child sex trafficking victim, raped on a regularly basis, and then treated as a hardened criminal for acting out of self-preservation against the true criminal, her enslaver, her pimp.

But for Sara Kruzan herself, this is a happy day. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of activists and anti-trafficking advocates like yourself, Sara can expect to be free again one day, something that had seemed too much to hope for previously. It's a happy new year indeed.

Photo credit: Matt Reinbold

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.

*          *          *

Aung San Suu Kyi 'released from house arrest'

Reports from Burma say release papers have been read to pro-democracy leader and barricades removed from house

• Tracy McVeigh
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 13 November 2010 11.23 GMT
• Article history

Aung San Suu Kyi supporters rally outside the Burmese pro-democracy leader's house before her release. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

The Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest, according to reports from Rangoon.

Three official cars drove past the crowds of supporters and into the home of the Nobel peace laureate, where she has been confined for the past seven years. In total Aung Sung Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest because of her outspoken opposition to the military junta, which has ruled Burma for 48 years.

The crowds waiting outside the lakeside compound cheered as news filtered out that release papers had been read to the 65-year-old. Police began moving the barricades from around the house at around 4.30pm (10.30am GMT).

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose latest term of detention was due to expire today, could have refused to sign the order if the conditions had been too harsh, said members of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

The ruling generals gave no formal indication of what was happening. It had been unclear if they would respect the expiry of the detention order due to fears she would revive her fight against the dictatorship in one of the world's most oppressive nations.

Close to 1,000 people, among them many journalists, chanted "Release Aung San Suu Kyi" and "Long live Aung San Suu Kyi", some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages pledging to stand with her. They were watched by about 30 riot police armed with guns and teargas.

Nyan Win, a lawyer for the opposition leader, said she would meet NLD leaders before deciding what to do next.

Analysts said it was likely only the paramount leader, Senior General Than Shwe, and his closest allies knew the next steps for her.

With the 7 November election, the first in 20 years, out of the way and won by an army-backed party, the generals could seek some international legitimacy with her release. The charismatic daughter of the slain hero of Burma's campaign for independence from Britain has a huge international following.

Her release could be the first step towards a review of western sanctions on the resource-rich country, the largest in mainland south-east Asia and labelled by human rights groups as one of the world's most corrupt and oppressive. It could also divert attention from an election widely dismissed as a sham to cement military power under a facade of democracy.

"The regime needs to create some breathing space urgently," said a retired Burmese academic, who asked not to be identified. "Her release will help improve an image tarnished by electoral fraud."

http://www.africanaonline.com/2010/12/aung-san-suu-kyi-freedom-from-fear/

Aung San Suu Kyi: Freedom From Fear

Posted by Erin on December 1, 2010 in News, U.S. | 2 Comments

Following the recent release of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, the story of how one of the world’s most famous political prisoner was silenced and detained should not be ignored. She is free for now, but the question remains – for how long? And will she ever assume the leadership role of her military state? Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon, Burma into a political family. Her father founded the modern Burmese army and helped negotiate Burma’s independence from the British Empire in 1947. He was assassinated by rivals that same year. Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother was also involved in politics. She was appointed to be the Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal. Aung San Suu Kyi studied and lived abroad for her early adult life, spending time in London and New York City. She received her PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

In 1988, she returned to Burma to care for her ailing mother. This would be where her political journey began. That same year, long time military leader and head of the ruling party, General Ne Win stepped down. This led to mass demonstrations for democracy in the country. On August 8, 1988 a large demonstration was held. It was violently suppressed and came to be known as the 8888 uprising. Suu Kyi realized her calling after that. She addressed a half of a million people at a rally calling for democracy later that same month. In September of 1988, a new military Junta took power but that did not quiet the cries for democracy, or the path that Suu Kyi had started down. She formed the National League of Democracy (NLD) and served as the General Secretary. Not long after that, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest. She was offered freedom if she would leave the country, but she refused.

In 1990, the military decided to hold general elections. Suu Kyi’s party, NLD won 59 percent of the vote, guaranteeing them 80 percent of the parliament seats. Being NLD’s candidate, Suu Kyi would have assumed the role of prime minister. The military did not allow that to happen though. They, instead, nullified the results and refused to hand over power. Despite international outcry over not respecting the election results, the government instead placed Suu Kyi under house arrest again. During this time, she received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom Thought and the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1996, a motorcade Suu Kyi was riding in, along with two other NLD leaders, was attacked in Rangoon. 200 men stormed the cars with metal chains, batons, stones and other weapons. They smashed windows and doors, but no one was hurt. The government launched an investigation but no further action was taken. Suu Kyi has been under house arrests numerous times, totaling 15 of the past 21 years. When she is under house arrest, she is prevented from visiting with party supporters or other international visitors. The media is also restricted with their access to her. She is imprisoned under the 1975 State Protection Act which grants the government the power to imprison people up to five years without a trial. The government also uses the Law to Safeguard the State Against the Dangers of Those Desiring to Cause Subversive Acts claiming Suu Kyi is "likely to undermine the community peace and stability" of the country.

There are 2,100 other political prisoners in her country.Suu Kyi lists among her influences [Gandhi] and his principles of non-violence. She also cites her religion, Buddhism, as a major factor in her beliefs. She entered politics in order to work for democracy. In one of her most famous speeches, she states "It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it." She also believes fear spurs many world leaders to lose sight of their purpose. "Government leaders are amazing", she once said. "So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want."