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Police make preemptive arrests
at St. Louis bio-tech conference

Compiled by Nicholas Holt

May 21 (AGR)— During May 16-17 in St. Louis, Missouri, police initiated a severe crackdown on activists before protests against the pro-biotech World Agricultural Forum (WAF) and during the concurrent Biodevastation 7 conference.

The Biodevastation 7 conference, which addressed issues of environmental racism, world agriculture, and biowarfare, went on successfully despite the heavy police presence.

On May 16, St. Louis police — backed by federal agents — raided the Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP), home of the St. Louis Independent Media Center, office of the Gateway Greens/Green Party USA, and the Confluence newspaper, as well as other organizations; and the Bolozone, a collective housing project, in anticipation of the Biodevastation 7 conference and expected protests at the WAF. Police arrested protesters and non-protesters alike, without any provocation.

“We condemn this blatant harassment of people coming to peacefully protest biotechnology in St. Louis,” said Brian Tokar, of the Vermont-based Institute for Social Ecology, a member of the International Planning Committee for Biodevastation 7. “[Biotechnology company] Monsanto, with all their political influence here in St. Louis, knows that the more people learn about genetic engineering, the more they oppose it. False accusations of ‘protester violence’ merely mask their own record of violence against people and environments all over the world.”

It was good fortune, St. Louis police said, when the raids yielded “weapons” like rocks and nails.

St. Louis police chief Joe Mokwa had been saying for the two weeks before the Biodevastation Conference that some protesters were intent on doing damage to the city, repeatedly comparing the protesters to the 50,000 who shut down the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999.

The fifteen people arrested at the Bolozone were cited for a city ordinance violation of occupying a condemned building, Mokwa said. It had no occupancy permit, according to building inspectors.

Some of those staying in the building insisted it was not condemned. Three people, who bought it from the city for $800, have been staying there for a year, they said.

Police said neighbors’ complaints had spurred the raid.

“The timing is coincidental because these people just got here,” Mokwa said. “We have an obligation to investigate complaints. We are not going to allow people to reside in abandoned buildings.”

Activists said police circled the buildings for days, questioning anyone on foot or bicycle.

“It’s definitely systematic harassment of protesters,” said Art Friedrich, who lives at the Bolozone, which had been opened to out-of-towners attending Biodevastation 7.

None of those arrested were charged with weapons violations.

Most remained in jail into the night.

“This is political repression. We’re being targeted,” said Molly Dupre, 23, of St. Charles, as she emerged on bail from police headquarters after about seven hours in custody on a charge of occupying a condemned building.

Dupre said she was in her upstairs bedroom at the Bolozone when police arrived. She said one officer told her they had a warrant and another said they didn’t need one.

She said police told her there were orders to sweep the city for anyone who looked like an anarchist.

Dupre scoffed at any suggestion of violent people staying there. Most are puppeteers, she said.

“It’s a rehab site,” she said, referring to the items confiscated by the police. “These are things that are going to be found in every garage across America.”

Also last Friday, nine members of the Flying Rutabaga Cycle Circus, a group of clowns, stilt-walkers, and jugglers, were arrested by St. Louis police while riding through a park and charged with operating a bicycle without a license.

A police spokesman later said the arrestees were each issued with a summons for impeding the flow of traffic and admitted that the bicycle license law is no longer on the books in St. Louis..

The charges were later dropped.

Those arrested, as well as a number of Circus members who were arrested at the Bolozone, had their bicycles confiscated by police.

As of May 21, only half of the bicycles had been returned, some with the tires slashed.

On May 18, despite heavy police presence and warnings from police that protests would turn violent, a peaceful group of about 200 protesters gathered in a downtown St. Louis Park across from the Hyatt-Regency hotel to listen to speakers voice their opposition to genetically-engineered farm products.

A few hundred people opposed to genetically engineered food marched past police at the site of the WAF, but no confrontations were reported.

Demonstrators banged drums and chanted slogans as they walked past barricades and boarded up windows near the hotel where the WAF was being held.

Scientists, agriculture experts, educators, and farmers from 26 countries were expected at the forum’s 2003 World Congress.

The protesters contend that genetically modified seeds and foods harm consumers and the environment. One chant was “Say No to Monsanto,” directed against the St. Louis-based biotechnology company.

Demonstrators contend most of the forum’s participants support biotechnology, but forum organizers claim the gathering is a neutral conference addressing agricultural issues such as hunger.

St. Louis Green Party Activist Daniel Romano said many countries in the world are suspicious of genetically-engineered organisms, or GMOs. He added that those countries are right to be suspicious of gatherings of agri-business companies, like the WAF.

Besides speakers, the audience was entertained by singers, poets and the traveling bicycle circus.

Sources: Associated Press, Guardian (UK), Infoshop.org, Michigan IMC, St. Louis Indymedia, St. Louis Post Dispatch

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Troops accused of torturing Iraqi prisoners

By Sanjay Suri

London, England, May 16 (IPS)— Iraqis taken prisoner by coalition forces have been tortured, and about 2,000 are still detained without any outside contact, members of an Amnesty International team said here on May 16.

Two Amnesty researchers, Said Bourmedouha and Judit Arenas, presented their findings after returning from Basra. The team showed media representatives footage of mass graves in the area and reported also on the large number of disappearances under the Saddam regime.

But while there have been several reports of killing and disappearances under the Saddam regime, this is among the first serious allegations of torture by the coalition forces.

“We know of cases of prisoners tortured at Basra airport,” Bourmedouha said. “We also found evidence of people tortured in Nasiriyah before they were taken prisoner.”

In one case, he said a Saudi national reported being tortured by electric shocks after he was taken prisoner by the coalition forces. Basra was captured by the British and has remained under control of British forces.

Bourmedouha said the Amnesty team had sought meetings with some of the estimated 2,000 Iraqis being held prisoner by the coalition forces. “The US command turned down our request,” Bourmedouha said.

The report from Basra is the first part of Amnesty’s investigations of human rights abuses in Iraq. “We will be going north from here,” Arenas said.

But the picture Amnesty presented from Basra shows a city where the occupying forces are still unable to keep law and order. “Everybody in Basra has just one message,” Bourmedouha said. “They do not want food, they do not want water, they want security.”

The Amnesty findings indicate that from the torture and tyranny practiced by the Hussein regime, people have faced more of the same either from the occupying forces or from the new Shia leaders.

“A new pattern of killings is emerging,” Bourmedouha said. “Two shop owners were killed for selling alcohol. Two nigh club owners have been killed and one has been threatened; he does not go home any more. One girl was kidnapped and raped and released only after ransom was paid. In Nasiriyah two girls were abducted; one was rescued but one was killed.”

No one can step out at night into the sound of gunfire, he said. Women are afraid to go out without male escort, Bourmedouha said. “A lot of women talk of harassment from the Islamists,” he said.

“We raised this matter with the British forces but they say they do not have enough forces,” Bourmedouha said. Some people were arrested “but they were released because there was no prison to take them to,” he said. The researchers noted, however, that the first police station had been opened in Basra about ten days ago, and now there are four.

The Amnesty researchers said they were still gathering more evidence to present to the coalition authorities. A full report will be published and presented to the US and British authorities, they said.

The area around Basra is littered with ammunition and landmines, Arenas said. The ammunition is causing many deaths, particularly among children, she said. “These have simply been left lying around, and remain unguarded.”

The Amnesty team reported they handed out questionnaires about missing people and that they had at least 500 forms come in over the past two weeks. The team said lists of the disappeared that had been prepared add up at present to about 17,000 names. But there is no attempt yet to trace these people.

The researchers said the coalition forces had failed to secure sites where mass graves had been found.

“We saw the remains where the victims had been blindfolded, and with hands and feet tied,” Arenas said. “We saw T-shirts with bullet holes, and hair and teeth were openly available,” she said.

The findings were reported to the coalition forces. “But five days later when we returned the sites had still not been secured,” she said. “We are asking for 24-hour guards here and for proper identification of the remains so that people can finally get some answers,” Arenas said.

A correspondent pointed out that when the coalition forces were unable to protect the living, they were hardly likely to protect the remains of the dead.

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Expanded domestic role for CIA, military proposed

Compiled by Shawn Gaynor

May 21(AGR)—It all happened behind closed doors, like government mischief typically does. The Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress attempted to sneak through a provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act pending before Congress that would give the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the military the ability to act domestically to investigate and subpoena American citizens without probable cause or judicial oversight.

The Bill, S 1025.RS, was sponsored by Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, (R-KS), who also supported the amendment expanding CIA and military powers.

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee howled, and the provision was pulled. Roberts says he wants to discuss it again later.

It remains unclear who proposed the amendment, but administration officials downplayed the proposal saying it was not really a major matter. They said it would not have put new domestic information within reach of the Pentagon and CIA, but only saved them the step of going through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for access.

The FBI gained similar powers to monitor US citizens without probable cause through the post 9-11 PATRIOT Act.

“This is a very odd and very far-reaching idea that came out of nowhere,” said one government official who spoke to the Charlotte Observer.

Protections, such as barring the CIA from exercising subpoena power, were put in place in part because President Harry S. Truman was concerned about creating another Gestapo.

When the CIA was created in 1947, it was purposely given a wide berth to operate overseas, but as a safety valve for US freedom it was prohibited from engaging in internal security or law-enforcement functions.

Similarly, constraints on the military were established to keep it from becoming a tool of repression for the federal government. The armed forces have been explicitly prohibited from engaging in law enforcement since 1878 under the Reconstruction-era Posse Comitatus Act. Georgia senator Bob Barr, a Republican and persistent opponent of mingling the military with police work, puts the reason bluntly: “When we send the Marines overseas, we don’t have them carry a copy of the Miranda rights.”

Currently the Posse Comitatus prevents the US military from operating on domestic soil in most situations, including as an intelligence gathering and law enforcement force.

However, the limits of the Posse Comitatus Act do not altogether preclude a domestic military role. The use of military forces in domestic law enforcement is permitted under the circumstances of public insurrections, crimes involving nuclear materials, and national emergencies that are beyond the capability of civilian law enforcement agencies.

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