Posts from — November 2011

Bahrain: Reports of Military Personnel Tortured, Imprisoned, and Killed by Regime
6 November 2011 – by Mona Kareem – Global Voices

This post is part of our special coverage Bahrain Protests 2011.

Release our activists, release our students, release our medics, release our women, release our teachers, and now release our military personnel. All of these are Twitter campaigns that Bahraini netizens have been pushing for to create awareness about the different segments targeted by the Bahraini regime since protests started on February 14.

Activists say there are scores of military and police personnel who have been arrested and trialed in military courts during the unrest for refusing to shoot protesters, sending text messages, attending funerals, protesting, or just for being members of the Shia’a sect. The sentences they have received vary between 1-12 years.

Activists insist they have not had fair trials, just like the rest of those prosecuted in Bahrain since pro-democracy protests shook the nation. They add that the military personnel, who work for the defense and interior ministries, were also not able to appeal their sentences and that the media has unfortunately neglected their cause, especially with the lack of information about their cases.
Free Ali Al-Ghanmi (who refused to shoot protesters) by Twitter user @HoPeGlObE

Free Ali Al-Ghanmi (who refused to shoot protesters) by Twitter user @HoPeGlObE

On Twitter, activist Hadeel Kamalaldin (@hadeeloosh) asked people to use the hashtag #FreeMilitary to demand the release of soldiers and to tweet their names and details of their cases [ar]:

Activists detained in Qurain Prison, are prisoners of conscience and must be released immediately
03 Nov 2011 – BCHR

Bahrain Center for human rights (BCHR) came to know that fourteen activists and political figures –currently imprisoned in Qurain Military Prison as a result of protests since Feb 14th, 2011 –have decided to instruct their lawyers to raise their cases to the Court of Cassation, after the military appeals court upheld the sentences of up to life imprisonment, on charges — according to the military prosecution —” incitement against the regime, attempt to bring down the Regime”. But members of the Group told their lawyers that they decided to go to court not because they trust the independency or the impartiality of the judicature in Bahrain, especially when it comes to political issues such as their, but to depletion the domestic adjudication mechanisms.

Bahrain Centre for human rights (BCHR) believes that all political prisoners or the so-called security cases do not have a real opportunity for a fair trial, whether in the Military Court, “National Safety Court” or in the Ordinary Criminal Courts. Justice in Bahrain missing the independence and impartiality, where oppositions and activists are being criminalized at laws incompatible with international standards, such as “The Terrorism Law” and The issues of State’s security of the Penal Code, which is being used effectively to restricting public freedoms, especially with regard to the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of Association. The court often ignore the requests of lawyers and hinder their work, including delaying their access to the case files, refusing to listen to the defendants, and refusing to refer them to an independent forensic doctor to investigate into allegations of torture, which has already led last December to the wave of withdrawals of a large group of over 40 lawyers in protest against the obstruction of their work and their exploitation in show trials which lacked the conditions of fair trials.

Regarding the Group of activists detained in Qurain Prison for nearly seven months, includes well-known activists and opposition political figures, they are:

1- Abdulwahab Husain (57-years-old) The Spokesperson for Al Wafa Party,
2- Ebrahim Sharif (54-years-old) General Secretary of the national democratic action Society (Waad),
3- Hasan Mushaima (63-years-old) General Secretary of Haqq Activity,
4- Dr. Abdul Jalil Al Sankis (48-years-old) President of the Human Rights of Haqq Activity,
5- Abdulhadi Al Khawaja (50-years-old) was an international Human rights activist and former President of the Bahrain Centre for human rights.

The Group also includes well-known opposition clerics such as:

6- Sheikh Abdul Jalil Meqdad (58-years old),
7- Sheikh Saeed Al Nouri (39-years-old),
8- Sheikh Abdel Hadi Al Mukhoder (42-years-old),
9- Sheikh Abdullah Al Mahroos (47-years-old),
10- Shaikh Mohammed Habib Al Meqdad,
11- Shaikh Mohammed Ali Al Mahfoodh (51-years-old)

Along with other activists:

12- Salah Al Khawaja (48-years-old),
13- Mohammad Hasan Jawad Parweez (64-year-old),
14- Al Hurr Al Sumaikh (30-years-old).

Through follow-up to arrest and prosecute members of this group and access to case files by lawyers, Bahrain Center for human rights (BCHR) recorded the following:

1. Defect in the procedures of arrest, investigation, and that was done in the name of the military authority within the national safety procedures – invalidity of investigations of the military prosecutor and the National Safety Courts due to lack of jurisdiction and conflict with the Constitution and international standards.

2. Dependence of the investigations and the courts on confessions extracted during a long period of solitary confinement and under the physical and psychological torture.

3. The case did not include any charges attributed to members of the group of committing any acts of violence, or what is considered as crimes according to international standards. Everything contained in the case of actual information is mainly concerning the defendants’ exercise of their fundamental rights and freedoms such as freedom of expression and freedom of Assembly and freedom of Association.

4. All speeches and recordings which were provided in the case did not include any incitement to violence, but on the contrary they all contain clear terms calling for peaceful work and renounce violence.

5. Some members of the Group are independent activists and some of them belong to various political associations. Prosecutors did not provide any real evidence to prove they belong to “one active group”, or that this group — or any of the groups that belong to some of the defendants — had planned or initiated action to change the regimes by force. The statement that has been introduced into the case and calling for a Democratic Republic, it is the opinion and political position issued by a coalition of three political groups stressed the peaceful option, did not contain any indications to covert action or violent coups and has called to seek the people’s opinion to determine the political option.

6. Procedures of arrest, detention, investigation and trial were all greatly missing fair trial standards.

On the basis of the foregoing, Bahrain Centre for human rights (BCHR) demands:

a) The immediate release of all the members of this group and drop charges against them as they are prisoners of conscience who had been targeted for exercising their freedoms and fundamental rights.
b) Reparation and reform of laws and institutions and to punish the responsible for such violations to ensure it’s not repeated. …more

Bahrain’s Courageous Doctors
By Adil E. Shamoo – November 7, 2011 – FPIP

Bahraini medical personnel protesting in Manama (Photo: Dr. Nabeel al Ansari).The United States continues to ignore the thwarted Arab Spring in Bahrain. Recently, a quasi-military court in the small Gulf state sentenced 20 doctors and nurses to up to 15 years in jail. The charge against them? Treating injured demonstrators opposing the regime.

Doctors and nurses in the Middle East have a long and proud tradition of treating the ill, regardless of the situation. In ninth-century Baghdad, for example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was the Caliph’s physician. The Caliph asked this physician to prepare a poison to kill his enemies. The physician refused, risking his life, and was eventually jailed for one year. After serving his sentence, the Caliph inquired as to why he refused. The physician replied, “My profession is instituted for the benefit of humanity and limited to their relief and cure.”

So the doctors and other healthcare providers in Bahrain who treated the injured demonstrators were acting not only in the noblest tradition of the Hippocratic Oath but also in keeping with centuries-old Arab tradition. Medical ethics requires all physicians to be medically neutral toward those they treat.

Last February, Bahrain’s citizens joined the Arab Spring by holding massive demonstrations against the country’s corrupt, minority royal government. Bahrain’s security forces, assisted by Saudi-led troops sent by the Gulf Cooperation Council, brutally suppressed the peaceful demonstrations by force, resulting in the deaths of around 30 people, as well as hundreds of others wounded and arrested. At least 1,200 people were dismissed from their jobs. Opposition leaders were arrested, quickly tried, and sent to jail. Many detainees were tortured, and some women were sexually abused.

The government of Bahrain soon turned its attention to doctors and other healthcare providers, arresting, jailing, and torturing those accused of treating protesters. One female doctor told NPR that she was tortured and threatened with rape. In the same story, a man claimed that he was beaten unconscious. The authorities threatened the arrested individuals, saying that the security forces would arrest and torture members of their families if they didn’t sign a confession.

The doctors and nurses in Bahrain have called for support from the international community, especially from the United States. But the U.S. State Department has been muted in its comments about Bahrain’s abuse of hospital staff. This has led some medical professionals and other observers to lament that if such abuses had occurred in Syria or Iran, the United States would have condemned them vocally and emphatically.

U.S. policy toward the Arab Spring has been two-faced and unprincipled since its outbreak. When a hostile regime – in Syria or Iran, for example – has abused human rights, the administration has taken the moral high ground. However, in the case of friendly regimes – like those in Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – the administration has toned down its criticism or remained silent altogether. In the case of Bahrain, the United States still maintains a naval base there with 15,000 personnel.

The British Medical Association (BMA) issued a statement strongly condemning Bahrain’s behavior, stating, “BMA is shocked that these doctors are being persecuted for acting in accordance with their code of ethics.” The World Medical Association issued a similar statement. However, the American Medical Association merely invited physicians, if they wish, to write directly to Bahrain’s rulers to voice their opinion. The U.S. bioethics associations are silent.

Over the course of history, humanity has carved out zones of ethical conduct, whether in the conduct of war or the treatment of the sick and wounded. Medical ethics has a long and honorable history that U.S. officials and medical professionals must uphold for the doctors and nurses in Bahrain. Otherwise, the Arab Spring won’t bloom for long. …source

Listen to Part Two HERE

Iran Sanctions Act Definite Step Toward War
by Rep. Ron Paul, November 05, 2011 -AntiWar.com

Statwement on Mark-up of HR 1905, the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011, House Foreign Affairs Committee

I would like to express my concerns over the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 and my opposition to it being brought to the Floor for a vote. Let us be clear on one critical matter: the sanctions against Iran mandated by this legislation are definite steps toward a US attack on Iran. They will also, if actually applied, severely disrupt global trade and undermine the US economy, thereby harming our national security.

I am surprised and disturbed that the committee viewed this aggressive legislation to be so bipartisan and uncontroversial that a recorded vote was not even called.

Some may argue that we are pursuing sanctions so as to avoid war with Iran, but recent history teaches us otherwise. For how many years were sanctions placed on Iraq while we were told they were necessary to avoid war? Thousands of innocent Iraqis suffered and died under US sanctions and still the US invaded, further destroying the country. Are we safer after spending a trillion dollars or more to destroy Iraq and then rebuild it?

These new sanctions against Iran increasingly target other countries that seek to trade with Iran. The legislation will severely punish foreign companies or foreign subsidiaries of US companies if they do not submit to the US trade embargo on Iran. Some 15 years after the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 failed to bring Iran to its knees, it is now to be US foreign policy to threaten foreign countries and companies.

During this mark-up one of my colleagues argued that if Mercedes-Benz wants to sell trucks to Iran, they should not be allowed to do business in the United States. Does anyone believe this is a good idea? I wonder how the Americans working at the Mercedes-Benz factory in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama would feel about banning Mercedes from the United States. Or perhaps we might ask the 7,600 Americans who work in the BMW factory in Spartanburg, SC how they would feel. Should the American consumer be denied the right to purchase these products? Is the United States really prepared to take such aggressive and radical action against its NATO ally Germany? …more

Saudi Arabia Names New Defense Minister
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE -5 Nov 2011 13:22

RIYADH – King Abdullah on Nov. 5 named his half-brother Prince Salman, who is governor of Riyadh, as Saudi Arabia’s defense minister to succeed the late Crown Prince Sultan, state television Al-Ekhbariya said.

Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz was appointed Riyadh’s governor in Prince Salman’s place, the report said, citing a series of royal decrees, under which Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the late crown prince’s son, was named deputy defence minister.

King Abdullah late last month named Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as crown prince succeeding his brother Sultan, who died in a U.S. hospital on Oct. 22.

Salman, who was born in 1935 and served as Riyadh’s governor since 1955, and Nayef are full brothers. He was considered close to Sultan, who he accompanied on his trips abroad for medical treatment. …source

AP Exclusive: CIA following Twitter, Facebook
By KIMBERLY DOZIER – AP Intelligence Writer

Va. (AP) — In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day.

At the agency’s Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the “vengeful librarians” also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.

From Arabic to Mandarin Chinese, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the analysts gather the information, often in native tongue. They cross-reference it with the local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest levels at the White House, giving a real-time peek, for example, at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt.

Yes, they saw the uprising in Egypt coming; they just didn’t know exactly when revolution might hit, said the center’s director, Doug Naquin.

The center already had “predicted that social media in places like Egypt could be a game-changer and a threat to the regime,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press at the center. CIA officials said it was the first such visit by a reporter the agency has ever granted.

The CIA facility was set up in response to a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission, with its first priority to focus on counterterrorism and counterproliferation. But its several hundred analysts — the actual number is classified — track a broad range, from Chinese Internet access to the mood on the street in Pakistan.

While most are based in Virginia, the analysts also are scattered throughout U.S. embassies worldwide to get a step closer to the pulse of their subjects.

The most successful analysts, Naquin said, are something like the heroine of the crime novel “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” a quirky, irreverent computer hacker who “knows how to find stuff other people don’t know exists.”

Those with a masters’ degree in library science and multiple languages, especially those who grew up speaking another language, “make a powerful open source officer,” Naquin said. …more

Why Israel Won’t Go It Alone
November 04, 2011 – By Meir Javedanfar – The Diplomat

With speculation intensifying over whether Israel is planning to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, it’s worth remembering that it’s the U.S. that will have the ultimate say.

If you want to know whether Israel is about to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities then you’d be better served looking at Iran-related policy and statements emanating from Washington DC than speculative reports from the Israeli press.

The possibility of an Israeli strike has been thrust into the spotlight again following reports in the Israeli media speculating that an agreement has been reached between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Netanyahu to take the military option against Iran’s facilities. Although these reports were later denied by Barak, new reports quickly emerged that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had also been convinced to back a military strike. Meanwhile, other members of the security cabinet, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai, are reported to be undecided and “losing sleep” over this matter.

The fact that Israel tested a new missile in the midst of all this added credibility to speculation that something could be afoot, especially with reports emerging that the Israeli Air Force recently took part in a joint NATO exercise focused on practicing long-range attacks.

Still, regardless of whether Netanyahu and Barak really do intend to attack Iran, it’s exceedingly unlikely Israel’s leaders, as hawkish as they may be, would attack Iran without U.S. permission. The Israeli government may feel comfortable challenging the United States over the issue of settlements, but striking Iran is a very different matter.

It wouldn’t matter who is in charge at the White House and how pro-Israel they may or may not be – a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran, without U.S. consent, would likely have severe consequences for Israel-U.S. relations. After all, the building of settlements doesn’t directly risk American lives and the U.S. economy. Attacking Iran without U.S. permission could and would.

For a start, the United States still has troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and any unilateral attack by the government of Israel against Iran could put the lives of U.S. soldiers there in jeopardy of Iranian retaliation. It could also create a massive spike in oil prices, something which could have severe consequences for an already struggling U.S. economy. To take such action without securing U.S. approval would risk undermining American interests in an unprecedented way, a reality that successive Israeli governments have been fully aware of. …more

Tensions rise over an Israel-Iran conflict
by Staff Writers – Washington (UPI) – Nov 4, 2011

Anxiety is rising in world capitals over possible pre-emptive military strikes by Israel against Iran over the threat posed by Tehran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, together with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, are said to be lobbying Cabinet members to agree to attacks on Iranian military facilities, Israeli news reports state.

Punctuating those reports was news that Israel recently tested a Jericho missile, said to be capable of striking Iran.

British media are reporting that the country’s Ministry of Defense has ordered services to draw up contingency plans for supporting possible U.S. military operations against Iran if Washington were to back up Tel Aviv in any such scenario.

Tehran, meanwhile, is warning that any “Zionist regimes attack against Iran would lead to heavy damages to the U.S. as well as to the Zionist regime.”

The saber rattling and hand-wringing coincides with the imminent release of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that apparently will give unprecedented detail on Iran’s nuclear program and new evidence suggesting Tehran, despite repeated denials, is attempting to produce nuclear weapons. …more

Netanyahu Said Pushing for Strike on Iran
November 03, 2011 – Associated Press – by Josef Federman and Dan Perry

JERUSALEM — An Israeli official said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to persuade his Cabinet to authorize a military strike against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program – a discussion that comes as Israel successfully tests a missile believed capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran.

It remained unclear whether Israel was genuinely poised to strike or if it was saber-rattling to prod the international community into taking a tougher line on Iran. Israeli leaders have long hinted at a military option, but they always seemed mindful of the practical difficulties, the likelihood of a furious counterstrike and the risk of regional mayhem.

The developments unfolded as the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to focus on the Iranian program at a meeting later this month. The West wants to set a deadline for Iran to start cooperating with an agency probe of suspicions that Tehran is secretly experimenting with components of a weapons program.

Israeli leaders have said they favor a diplomatic solution, but recent days have seen a spate of Israeli media reports on a possible strike, accompanied by veiled threats from top politicians.

In a speech to parliament this week, Netanyahu said a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a “dire threat” to the world and “a grave, direct threat on us, too.”

His hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was dismissive of the reports but added: “We are keeping all the options on the table.”

The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing sensitive internal deliberations, told The Associated Press that the option is now being debated at the highest levels.

The official confirmed a report Wednesday in the Haaretz daily that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak both favor an attack, but do not yet have the support of a majority of Cabinet ministers. The official also said Israel’s top security chiefs, including the heads of the military and Mossad spy agency, oppose military action.

It is generally understood that such a momentous decision would require a Cabinet decision. Israel’s 1981 destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor was preceded by a Cabinet vote.

Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment on the issue but did say there is a “decision-making process which has stood the test of time. … There have been precedents, and the process works.”

With most of its population concentrated in a narrow corridor of land along the Mediterranean, Israel’s homefront could be vulnerable to a counterattack.
[Read more →]

November 18-20, 2011: SOA Vigil at the Gates of Fort Benning, Georgia

STAND UP FOR DIGNITY, JUSTICE, SOLIDARITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION!

Join thousands of solidarity activists, torture survivors, union workers, people of faith, students, immigrants, veterans and others from November 18-20, 2011 at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to take a stand for justice, to close the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and to resist U.S. militarization.

This December will mark the 30th anniversary of the massacre of close to 800 indigenous villagers in the El Mozote region of El Salvador. Still, graduates of the SOA are leading the repression, killing hundreds and displacing thousands of Hondurans. Mexicans and immigrants passing through Mexico are the target of drug cartels and death squads like the “Zetas” – another product of SOA training. In the midst of the continuing war in Colombia, fueled by SOA violence, killings of trade union activists touched 51 in 2010.

In Guatemala, General Mario Fuentes Lopez was arrested for genocide against that country’s indigenous people in the 1980s; General Fuentes Lopez was a graduate of the SOA. Pedro Pimentel Rios, a member of the notorious Kaibiles (Guatemalan Special Forces), who was became an instructor one month after his participation in the Dos Erres massacre in 1982, was arrested and extradited to Guatemala. A member of the Zetas and former Mexican Special Forces member, Jesus Enrique Rejón Aguilar, was arrested and confessed that he helped to recruit Mexican Special Forces members trained at Ft. Benning. …more

Iran Plot: A Pretext for War
By Richard Javad Heydarian, November 4, 2011

For many Iran observers, Washington’s latest accusations against Iran — implicating members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States — come off as surreal, if not wholly bizarre.

At this juncture, it may be too early to pass a credible judgment on the substance and validity of the allegations, but there are just too many reasons to dismiss them as another cynical attempt to further isolate Iran. In the greater scheme of things, such accusations might be part of America’s strategy to push its “regime change” agenda in Iran. Although only a trial in an impartial, credible, and civilian court could shed light on the truthfulness of the U.S. claims, we have every reason to take Washington’s allegations with a grain of salt.

In geo-strategic terms, these allegations might pave the way for a new stage of “cold war” between Iran on one hand, and the United States and its [Persian] Gulf allies, such as Saudi Arabia, on the other. As U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq and popular revolutions engulf much of the Middle East, the last thing Washington needs is to extinguish the prospect of a negotiated solution to Tehran’s nuclear program. Instead, Washington should accommodate Iran’s increasing interest in restarting nuclear negotiations and improving ties with its neighbors and the great powers. This is our best chance at avoiding another major clash in the region, embroiling America in an even more destructive conflict. …more

“We need more robust condemnation from them,” he told a seminar at the British parliament entitled ‘Bahrain; Time to support regime change and end occupation.’ He suggested that the UK government could at least call for the release of the political leaders in Bahrain and for the 3000 workers to be re-instated and compensated for lost income.

“Time for Regime Change in Bahrain”: London Seminar
5 November, 2011 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – “The UK Foreign Office together with other countries are not robust in the condemnation of the human rights abuses committed by the al Khalifa regime,” says veteran British peer Lord Avebury. Averbury, an elected Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, was also critical of the weak stance taken by the EU’s Foreign Affairs high representative Catherine Ashton about the brutal suppression of anti-regime peaceful protesters in Bahrain.

“We need more robust condemnation from them,” he told a seminar at the British parliament entitled ‘Bahrain; Time to support regime change and end occupation.’ He suggested that the UK government could at least call for the release of the political leaders in Bahrain and for the 3000 workers to be re-instated and compensated for lost income.

“Ultimately the people of Bahrain want to change their political system and we have to support them, not just for reform but for real transformation,” the 83-year old peer said. He referred to NATO intervening in Libya in support of regime change to maintain stability and asked “what was the difference with Bahrain?” “We can ask for Saudi Arabia to withdraw its forces so that Bahrainis enjoy peace and freedom,” Avebury further suggested.

“Pro-democracy activists have been languishing behind bars for months under the worst possible conditions such as Abdul Wahab Hussain, Hassan Mushaime, Abdul Jalil Al Miqdad, Mohammad Habib Al Miqdad, Dr Abdul Jalil Al Singace and Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja,” he said.

Also speaking at the seminar was renowned international lawyer Abdul Hamid Dashti, who highlighted the peaceful nature of the eight month uprising, corresponding with other revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

The anti-regime movement in Bahrain hoped that the world would support them as in other countries, but it has never happened because of “double standards, the narrow interests of some countries and the oil money of the Saudis,” Dashti said.
[Read more →]

The Reagan administration’s report claimed that “conscientious human rights and church organizations,” including Amnesty International, had been duped by the communists and “may not fully appreciate that they are being utilized.”

“If those promoting such disinformation can convince the Congress, through the usual opinion-makers — the media, church and human rights groups — that the present GOG [government of Guatemala] is guilty of gross human rights violations they know that the Congress will refuse Guatemala the military assistance it needs.

Reagan and Guatemala’s Death Files
5 November 2011 – by Robert Parry – Consortium News

A 9-foot-high bronze statue honoring President Ronald Reagan has been unveiled at National Airport, continuing the deification of the right-wing icon. Left out of the celebration was anything about Reagan’s dark side, as Robert Parry recounted in this article from 1999.

Ronald Reagan’s election in November 1980 set off celebrations in the well-to-do communities of Central America. After four years of Jimmy Carter’s human rights nagging, the region’s anticommunist hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems.

The oligarchs and the generals had good reason for the optimism. For years, Reagan had been a staunch defender of right-wing regimes that engaged in bloody counterinsurgency campaigns against leftist enemies.

In the late 1970s, when Carter’s human rights coordinator, Pat Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its “dirty war” — tens of thousands of “disappearances,” tortures and murders — then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should “walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. [For details, see Martin Edwin Andersen’s Dossier Secreto.]

Despite his aw shucks style, Reagan found virtually every anticommunist action justified, no matter how brutal. From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America during his presidency, while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.

The death toll was staggering — an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the Contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political “disappearances” in Honduras and some 100,000 people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala.

The one consistent element in these slaughters was the overarching Cold War rationalization, emanating in large part from Ronald Reagan’s White House.

Yet, as the world community punishes war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, no substantive discussion has occurred in the United States about facing up to this horrendous record of the 1980s.

Rather than a debate about Reagan as a war criminal, the former president is honored as a conservative icon with his name attached to Washington National Airport and with talk of having his face carved into Mount Rushmore.

When the national news media does briefly acknowledge the barbarities of the 1980s in Central America, it is in the context of one-day stories about the little countries bravely facing up to their violent pasts.

At times, the CIA is fingered abstractly as a bad supporting actor in the violent dramas. But never does the national press lay blame on individual American officials.

Truth Commission

The grisly reality of Central America was revisited on Feb. 25, 1999, when a Guatemalan truth commission issued a report on the staggering human rights crimes that occurred during a 34-year civil war.

The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human rights body, estimated that the conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s.

Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.

The report documented that in the 1980s, the army committed 626 massacres against Mayan villages. “The massacres that eliminated entire Mayan villages … are neither perfidious allegations nor figments of the imagination, but an authentic chapter in Guatemala’s history,” the commission concluded.

The army “completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their livestock and crops,” the report said. In the north, the report termed the slaughter a “genocide.” [Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1999]

Besides carrying out murder and “disappearances,” the army routinely engaged in torture and rape. “The rape of women, during torture or before being murdered, was a common practice” by the military and paramilitary forces, the report found.

The report added that the “government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some [of these] state operations.” The report concluded that the U.S. government also gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed “acts of genocide” against the Mayans.

“Believing that the ends justified everything, the military and the state security forces blindly pursued the anticommunist struggle, without respect for any legal principles or the most elemental ethical and religious values, and in this way, completely lost any semblance of human morals,” said the commission chairman, Christian Tomuschat, a German jurist.

“Within the framework of the counterinsurgency operations carried out between 1981 and 1983, in certain regions of the country agents of the Guatemalan state committed acts of genocide against groups of the Mayan people,” Tomuschat added. [NYT, Feb. 26, 1999]

The report did not single out culpable individuals either in Guatemala or the United States. But the American official most directly responsible for renewing U.S. military aid to Guatemala and encouraging its government during the 1980s was President Reagan.
[Read more →]

Two Cosponsors Added to Bahrain Arms Sale Resolution
POMED – 5 November, 2011

Two new cosponsors have been added to H.J. Res. 80, which calls for “limiting the issuance of a letter of offer with respect to a certain proposed sale of defense articles and defense services to the Kingdom of Bahrain.” The two cosponsors added are Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA). Last week, two additional cosponsors were added to the resolution.

This comes as Bahraini security forces used tear gas and armored vehicles to disperse demonstrators marching towards the Pearl Square after the funeral of Ali Hasan al-Dehi. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland noted in the daily press briefing that ”We, the US, would encourage full transparency as this case proceeds and we obviously call on everybody to exercise restraint… It is a fragile time in Bahrain as all sides wait for the Bahraini independent commission of inquiry report.” …source

For first time since ouster: Mubarak meets Arab leader
Published November 4th, 2011 – 16:16 GMT

In the first such visit by an Arab or foreign ruler since he stepped down on February 11, ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met earlier this week Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Issa, reports said on Friday. The rare meeting took place in Mubarak’s suite at the World Medical Center.

The visit lasted half an hour, during which Mubarak was crying. Their previous meeting was held a year ago. In that meeting, Mubarak voiced Egypt’s supports to Bahrain’s stability, independence and sovereignty.

According to an Egyptian newspaper, King Hamad bin Isa, has obtained an official permission to visit Mubarak. It is now expected that this visit will be followed by visits of a number of princes from the Gulf region. It is believed that in recent times, Mubarak’s wife has stepped up her contacts with a number of princes, kings and heads of state, to notify them about his deteriorating health conditions. Following the visit, the Bahraini leader decided to participate in the costs of treating Mubarak. He also expressed his readiness to fund the arrival of the German doctors who operated Mubarak last year. …source

More on the Bahrain State attack on funeral of 78 year old, Ali Hasan al-Dehi, on The Lede HERE

Tear gas used to disperse protesters after funeral of father of opposition leader, 78 year old, Ali Hasan al-Dehi was beaten to death by Security Forces police on his return home.

Bahrain national guard deploys armored vehicles to prevent funeral march by by mourner of 78 year old, Martyr Ali Hasan al-Dehi who was beaten to death. 4 November, 2011.

America’s Unsavory Allies
A look at the some of the bad guys the U.S. still supports.
BY URI FRIEDMAN | OCTOBER 28, 2011

The U.S. caught a lot of flak this year for having partnered with Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi before uprisings rocked the Middle East. But in his speech on the Arab Spring in May, President Barack Obama suggested that the days of America narrowly pursuing its interests in the region without the broader priority of promoting reform and democracy were over. “We have embraced the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator,” Obama declared.

Not entirely. Sometimes, it’s difficult to reconcile that revamped formulation of American foreign policy with diplomatic realities. Take two events this week. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. is operating a drone base in Ethiopia, a country Freedom House recently downgraded to “Not Free” because of “national elections that were thoroughly tainted by intimidation of opposition supporters and candidates.” Only days earlier, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the autocratic Central Asian leaders Islam Karimov and Emomali Rakhmon to discuss how they can help with the war in Afghanistan. “If you have no contact you will have no influence, and other countries will fill that vacuum who do not care about human rights,” Clinton explained ahead of her visit, adding that “it’s a balancing act.”

In fact, even with its post-Arab Spring foreign policy, the U.S. is still engaged in that controversial “balancing act” with a number of repressive leaders. Let’s take a look at eight of the worst offenders. …more

In Praise of a Bahraini Police Officer
11-4-2011 – By Brian Dooley – Director, Human Rights Defenders Program

Remember that photo from Tiananmen Square in 1989 where the guy with the shopping bags stands in front of the column of tanks? It’s an inspirational image – the unarmed man defying four tanks.

There are really two heroes in that picture. The man with the shopping bags and the man in the tank who refuses to shoot him or run him over. Protestors were being killed in and around Tiananmen Square that week and it wouldn’t have been unusual if the tank had opened fire on the unarmed man.

But the guy in the tank held his fire, possibly defying orders from his superiors. The tank commander’s career, and possibly his life, were on the line. And he did the right thing. When police officers or soldiers refuse to commit human rights abuses it’s particularly impressive – these people have everything to lose by disobeying orders in the name of conscience.

Ali Jasim Al Ghanmi

During the Arab Spring, we’ve seen it in Syria. One Syrian soldier explained how he was sent to an area of unrest. “We received the order from our officers to shoot at anything that moved, even unarmed children and the elderly in Harasta. We got close to them, we threw our weapons on the ground and the people protected us. When our officers saw that, they opened fire on us. One of my colleagues was hit in the shoulder but we succeeded in taking him into hiding.” Some Libyan soldiers were reportedly executed for refusing to fire on protestors in February.

In Bahrain, too, an unknown number of the security forces have been detained for joining the calls for democracy and refusing to join the regime’s violent crackdown. Bahrain is ruled by a monarchy, and in February hundreds of thousands of protestors congregated to demand political reform.

Bahrain is an increasingly volatile state, and its violent crackdown continues. Foreign Policy Magazine last week named it as one of the U.S.’s ‘Unsavory Allies,’ right up there with Equatorial Guinea and Uzbekistan as embarrassing friends.

Ali Jasim Al Ghanmi is a 25 year-old policeman, married with a daughter. On February 17 he heard that protestors in Bahrain were being shot by the security forces – he went to the hospital and helped the medics treating the wounded.

Dressed in his uniform, he went to the crowd of protestors and publicly announced he would no longer work for the repressive dictatorship. He was carried on the crowd’s shoulders and became a mini-celebrity among the protestors, impressed that a policeman would take such a stand.

He went into hiding after the security forces attacked and removed the protestors from the central protest area of the Pearl Roundabout in mid-March. His family said they received threats that he had to turn himself in. He was eventually discovered on May 4 and arrested. His family says their house was raided twice after that date anyway, and his brothers and mother assaulted.

Ali claims he was tortured in detention and, since September 24, has been put in solitary confinement as punishment for shouting ‘Down, down, Hamad’ in the prison yard – the chant of protestors against the country’s king. He is waiting to be tried on charges including Inciting hatred against the regime, Inciting military personnel against the regime and Absence from duty.

People like Ali Jasim Al Ghanmi, who put conscience above all else, are heroes of the Arab Spring, and they should not be forgotten.

U.S. Planning Troop Buildup in Gulf After Exit From Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS – October 29, 2011 – NYT

MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.
Related

The plans, under discussion for months, gained new urgency after President Obama’s announcement this month that the last American soldiers would be brought home from Iraq by the end of December. Ending the eight-year war was a central pledge of his presidential campaign, but American military officers and diplomats, as well as officials of several countries in the region, worry that the withdrawal could leave instability or worse in its wake.

After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative.

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

With an eye on the threat of a belligerent Iran, the administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. While the United States has close bilateral military relationships with each, the administration and the military are trying to foster a new “security architecture” for the Persian Gulf that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense. …more

The GCC shows its true colors
By Mohammed Ayoob – March 16, 2011 – Foreign Policy

Two-thousand Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) troops, most of them from Saudi Arabia, entered Bahrain on Monday — ostensibly to provide security to government installations “threatened” by protestors. In fact, such a show of force, with more troops on the way, is an attempt by the Saudi-led GCC to stiffen the resolve of the ruling house in Bahrain to put down the democracy protests if need be with force. The violence unleashed by the Bahraini army and police against peaceful protestors on Tuesday was the direct outcome of the Saudi/GCC military intervention.

Various interpretations have been put forward as to the reasons behind the Saudi-led military intervention. These include pre-empting the emergence of a pro-Iranian, Shia-dominated government in Bahrain and tilting the balance in favor of the hard-line faction among the al-Khalifa and against the more moderate faction allegedly led by the crown prince.

What is missing from these explanations is a discussion of the essential nature of the GCC that has propelled it to intervene in the internal affairs of a member country. The Gulf Cooperation Council was established in 1981 in the wake of the Iranian revolution, ostensibly to promote economic cooperation and defend its members against external threats. However, it quickly became clear that given the similar nature of oil producing rentier economies in the Gulf, talk about increasing economic exchange was merely a façade. So was the argument that the Gulf monarchies needed an organization to coordinate their external security policies. The only act of major security cooperation they engaged in was to supply billions of dollars to the Saddam regime in Iraq, first to help it invade Iran in 1980 and then to stave off an Iranian victory that seemed imminent between 1982 and 1984.

Their lack of capacity to protect themselves against external threats was clearly demonstrated in 1990 when Iraq occupied Kuwait. Despite the billions spent by Saudi Arabia in particular to acquire state of the art weaponry from the United States, the kingdom had to invite in a half million American troops to defend itself and eventually force Iraq out of Kuwait. It was clear that the Gulf monarchies, above all Saudi Arabia, the largest and most powerful among them, were incapable of defending themselves against external threats, actual or presumed, without American boots on the ground.

The real reason for the establishment of the GCC in 1981 was not defense against external enemies threatening the security of GCC states but cooperation against domestic challenges to authoritarian regimes. Its main task was and continues to be coordination of internal security measures, including sharing of intelligence, aimed at controlling and suppressing the populations of member states in order to provide security to the autocratic monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The establishment of the GCC was in large measure a reaction on the part of the Gulf monarchies to the Iranian revolution of 1979 in which people’s power toppled the strongest autocracy in the neighborhood. The Arab autocracies of the Gulf did not want to share the Shah’s fate.

That ensuring the security of autocratic regimes was the principal reason for the existence of GCC has become crystal clear with the military intervention by Saudi-led forces in Bahrain to put down the democracy movement and prevent the freedom contagion from spreading to other parts of the Gulf. It is true that the Saudis are apprehensive of the Shia majority coming to power in Bahrain because of the impact it could have on its own restive Shia minority in the oil-rich east of the country. Riyadh is also worried about the impact of a change in regime in Bahrain on the balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the region. (One can, however, argue that Saudi military intervention in Bahrain’s affairs will in fact redound to Iran’s benefit in the long run by further de-legitimizing the al-Khalifa rule in Bahrain).

But these are secondary explanations. The primary concern of the Arab autocracies in the Gulf is the suppression of democratic movements regardless of the sectarian character of the populations engaging in democratic struggles. They are worried that if any of the autocracies fall or even reach a substantial compromise with democratic movements it will have a domino effect in the entire Gulf region consigning all of them to the dustbin of history. The GCC was established as an instrument to protect and prolong autocratic rule on the Arabian littoral of the Gulf. Its military operation in Bahrain has clearly shown this true colors.

Mohammed Ayoob is university distinguished professor of international relations at Michigan State University. …source

Amal, First Political Party in Bahrain and the Region under Kangaroo Military Trials
A Brief Report on The attack and Detention of Amal Political Society Leadership

On the second of May 2011, around two o’clock early morning, a special team of the so-called national security of Bahrain raided the house where AlMahfoodh and his two sons were living with his friend’s house in Jabalat-Habshi . The members of the team were all masked and fully armed with electric-shock weapons and with different types of personal guns and pistols, and they were accompanied by some members of the police. The masked armed people were around 40 persons and they just raided the house of one of the friend of AlMahfoodh . The team members attacked the house by sneaking from the roofs of the house and broke the entrances to only break everything and destroy every piece of furniture in the house.

The members of the national security team attacked AlMahfoodh with his two sons, and his friend, beating them violently with hoses, sticks, boxes and kicks. They also assaulted them verbally with bawdy language and cursed them and their Shiite faith. The house was destroyed totally, and even the fences of the stairs were broken and thrown away. Much property was stolen from the house from perfumes and watches, to money and jewelry. After some time, the four of them were taken in separate cars with their eyes covered to unknown destinations.

After around a month and a half, the family of AlMahfoodh received a phone-call from him and it lasted for 6 minutes. He did not know where he was, and he did not recognize the date or time at that moment. In addition, he could not speak about any of his being subject to torture; neither could he speak about his health. The whole family was very concerned because his voice was very thin and his focus was not acceptable.

After a bit less than two months, the family received a call from the National Security, and they were told to have a visit with their detainee in the Prison of “DryDock Center of Detention”. The visit allowed only 4 of his family members, not allowing any access to personal stuff or requirements such as toothpaste and shampoo. The visit lasted for 10 minutes where the detainee and the family were accompanied by 6 of the national security guards. Prior to the detainee’s entrance,the family was told that the conversation allowed is limited to the family status only,without any reference to the political situation or anything else. The family was asked to appoint a lawyer to speak for AlMahfoodh in the First Hearing of the Military Court – which was only after 4 days of meeting the detainee. See full report on Amal Leaders for Freedom HERE

Bahrain: Atrocities and Brutal Crackdown Continue, Rights Organisations Warn
By Anissa Haddadi – November 3, 2011 – IB Times

Activists in Bahrain say that protests against the regime are on-going despite the targeting of civilians by the security forces. The Kingdom’s forces are accused of arresting, and attacking civilians and the Bahrain Centre for human’s rights (BCHR) say that many protesters are being hit in the chest or heads, with several cases of protesters losing their eyes being reported.

While the protests in Syria continue to grab the headlines, less is being said about the current situation in Bahrain. According to rights activists however demonstrations are on-going and so is the brutal crackdown by the regime.

According to The Bahrain Freedom Movement demonstrators took to the street Wednesday to continue protesting against the regime in the cities of Duraz, Samaheej, Daih, Karbabad and Dair with slogans reportedly including “If you become more cruel we will become more determined”.

While reports mention attacks on protesters by the regime’s riot police others say demonstrators had been attacked by armed mercenaries, while villages are also being raided and protesters taken away.

Following months of violence protests now include demands for regime change, the liberation of jailed activists or simply protests against attacks on villages and villagers.

While the regime’s forces were accused of using live ammunitions on demonstrators when the protests first started, reports suggest they have now turned to other weapons directly used against the protestors.

“Government forces use different weapons like birdshot gun, tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets in their attacks,” the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights says.

BCHR reports several cases where civilians taking parts in the protests have lost their eyes and have been forced to live in hiding, fearing that their injury would then make them an even greater target of the security forces.

Among them is Mohammed Yusuf Abu-Saada, who was shot in the eye during a protest and kicked repeatedly by the security forces.

The hospital report states that “patient was involved in demonstrations where he was assaulted with bullet injury to his right eye and was beaten and kicked on the right side of face by police,” BCHR reports.

According to the organisation the police now systematically targets protesters injured during the demonstrations by arresting them when they are taken to hospital.

The centre cites the case of Jaffar Salman, who had been injured on 15 March 2011 and lost both of his eyes. Salman was reportedly arrested by the police when taken to Salmaniya hospital, detained by the regime’s forces and then taken to court.

During his brief trial, he was not given the right to speak, was prevented from having a lawyer or his family with him and was sentenced to two years in prison.

“His family has not visited him in months because he told them he gets tortured and humiliated before and after every visit. His family say that when they did visit him, his 4 year old twins were not allowed to have any physical contact with their father. In most recent phone call Jaffar told his wife that he is not getting treatment for his eyes and that he worries as their condition gets much worse” the organisation points out.

The recent revelations come as Charif Bassioni , an imminent Cairo-born international United Nations war crimes expert, often called “the Father of International Criminal Law”, is due to publish the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).

The commission was established by the ruler of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Kahlifa of Bahrain, to look into the incidents that occurred in the kingdom during the period of unrest in February and March 2011.

With the recent revelations suggesting that the ‘incidents’ are still occurring, activists are waiting to see whether the report, expected on the 23rd of November will shed a light on the past and on-going atrocities conducted on civilians. …source