Student speaks out on Iraq sanctions

By Fadia Rafeedie

Following are excerpts from Fadia Rafeedie’s Cal-Berkeley convocation address on Wednesday, May 17. Madeline Albright was the commencement speaker, and many students protested her speech. Rafeedie, the student speaker who earned the distinguished honor of addressing the audience, is Palestinian. Because Secretary Albright was invited to speak, Rafeedie put aside her proposed speech (which had already been read and approved by the University) and instead spoke from her heart about her views of Albright and US policy in Iraq.

Secretary Albright didn’t even mention Iraq, and that’s what the protesters were here to listen to. And I think sometimes not saying things, not mentioning things — is actually lying about them.

And what I was going to tell her while she was sitting on the stage with me, I was going to remind her that four years ago from this Friday when we were freshmen, I heard her on 60 Minutes talking to a reporter who had just returned from Iraq.

The reporter was describing that a million children had died due to the sanctions that this country was imposing on the people of Iraq. And she told her, listen, “that’s more children than have died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Do you think the price is worth it?” Albright looked into the camera and she said, “the price is worth it.”

Since that time, 3 times that number of people have died in Iraq. And I was going to ask her, “do you really think the price is worth it?” We are about 5,000 here today, next month, by the time we graduate, that’s how many people are going to die in Iraq because of the sanctions. This is what House Minority Whip David Boniors calls “infanticide masquerading as policy.”

And I’m a history major, and sometimes I look back at history and I see things like the slave trade, the Holocaust, I see people dropping atomic bombs and not thinking what the ramifications are, and I don’t want us to think about Iraq that way. It’s already a little too late because 2.5 million people have died and yet these sanctions continue.

For the last 10 years, you wouldn’t imagine the kinds of things that aren’t being let into this country: heart machines, lung machines, needles, infrastructural parts to build the economy. Even cancer patients — sometimes some of the medicine will be let in, but not all of the medicine.

It’s very strategic what’s let in at what time, because what it does is it prolongs life, but it doesn’t save it. In Iraqi hospitals they clean the floors with gasoline because detergent isn’t even allowed in because of the sanctions. These are all United States policies.

And Secretary Albright — I have no conflict with her, as an individual. I don’t happen to respect her, but she belongs to a larger power structure. She’s a symbol.

And when the protesters are protesting, it’s not because they want to pick a fight with the woman who you guys all happen — well, many of you — happen to love. She was introduced as the “greatest woman of our times.” Now see, to me that’s an insult. This woman is doing horrible things. She’s allowing innocent people to suffer and to die.

Iraq used to be the country in the Arab World that had the best medical services and social services for its people, and now look at it. It’s being obliterated.

And a lot of times you might hear it’s because of Saddam Hussein and I’d like to talk a little bit about that. He’s a brutal dictator — I agree with her, and I agree with many of you. But again, I’m a history major, and history means origins. It means beginnings. We need to see who’s responsible for how strong Saddam Hussein has gotten.

When he was gassing the Kurds, he was gassing them using chemical weapons that were manufactured in Rochester, New York.

And when he was fighting a long and protracted war with Iran, where 1 million people died, it was the CIA that was funding him. It was US policy that built this dictator. When they didn’t need him, they started imposing sanctions on his people. Sanctions — or any kind of policy — should be directed at people’s governments, not at the people.

The cancer rate in Iraq has risen by over 70 percent since the Gulf War. The children who are dying from these malicious diseases weren’t born when the Gulf War happened. The reason that the cancer rate is so high is because every other day our country is still bombing Iraq. We’re still at war with them. They have no nuclear capabilities. In fact, just last week, the United Nations inspectors found, again, that Iraq has no nuclear capabilities and yet we are bombing them every other day with depleted uranium. And what this does is it releases a gas that the people breathe. It’s making them ill, and they’re dying and they don’t have medicine.

I saw some of my friends, being arrested here today. One of them was Lillian. Her aunt did a documentary about this depleted uranium, and it showed that it’s being mined by Native American populations in the United States. They’re getting sick. Their children are getting sick. And that depleted uranium is going from here, to our military, to Iraq, and it’s decimating populations. This is a big deal.

But in general, I’m speaking to a crowd that gave a standing ovation to the woman who typifies everything against which I stand, and I’m still telling you this because I think it’s important to understand. And I think, that if I achieve nothing else, if this makes you think a little bit about Iraq, think a little bit about US foreign policy, I’ve succeeded.

I don’t want to take too much of your time, but I want to end my speech with a slogan that hangs over my bed in Arabic. It says, “La tastaw-ishu tareeq el-aq, min qilit es-sa’ireen fihi” and that translates into, “Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it.” I think our future is going to be the future of truth, and we’re going to walk on that path, and we’re going to fill it with travelers.

Source: Znet: www.zmag.org

SOA changes name, protesters remain

Statement of School of the Americas Watch

Fort Benning, Georgia, May 24— Nine college students, one joined by her mother and grandmother, were detained at Ft. Benning this morning, Wednesday, May 24, as they demonstrated their ongoing commitment to close the School of the Americas (SOA). They were acting in response to last Thursday’s vote in the House of Representatives, which effects cosmetic changes to the School, including a name change to Defense Institute for Hemispheric Security Cooperation.

In front of SOA headquarters, those assembled rolled out a banner which read “The Road To Shame,” and listed atrocities committed by SOA graduates. To one side protesters, dressed in black shrouds and white masks, held a banner that read “New Name — Same Shame: Wrong Way.” On the other side protesters held a banner reading “For the People, Not the Military. This Way.”

Others sowed seeds and read a statement in English and Spanish.

In a recent House debate, Congressman John Baldacci (D-ME) stated the SOA “is both a waste of taxpayer money and an affront to our common principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights... HR 4205, the Defense Authorization Bill, purports to close the SOA. It does not. Instead, it simply makes a few cosmetic changes... gives it a fancy new name and then turns a blind eye to the repeated human rights violations committed by SOA graduates.” Congressman James McGovern (D-MA) stated “... history will not go away by hanging a sign with a new name over the same entry gate to the School of the Americas.”

SOA graduates continue to be implicated in Human Rights abuses. Graduates Major David Hernandez Rojas and Captain Diego Fino Rodriguez were cited by a US State Department’s Human Rights Report for the murder of a peace commissioner/former Vice Minister for Youth and two others on March 14, 1999.

A February 23, 2000 Human Rights Watch Report on Colombia cites seven SOA-trained Colombian military for recent human rights atrocities and for support of paramilitary forces. Both reports establish collaboration between the military and the paramilitary death squads of Colombia.

Martha Baldoni of Toledo, OH who was detained, stated: “Each day this institution remains open, under whatever name, we run the great risk of sponsoring more human rights violations in Latin America. We are here to call attention to the egregious track record of the SOA and to offer an alternative vision of US foreign policy, a policy based on mutual cooperation rather than military means. We are not fooled. The SOA has a new name, but the same shame. We will be at Ft. Benning by the thousands in November, and we will be in the halls of the new Congress in January to demand this school be closed.”
For more information: SOA Watch: or 828-254-5195
www.soaw.org

Police tape says Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin was not shooter

By Yemi Toure

Atlanta, Georgia, May 25— A dispatcher’s tape of events that led to Jamil Al-Amin being charged with killing an Atlanta sheriff suggests that officials have arrested the wrong man.

In a story in the May 25 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the tape is described and excerpted:

“A sheriff’s dispatch tape from the night [that Ricky Kinchen] and his partner Aldranon English were shot reveals fellow deputies searched for a wounded gunman and surrounded an abandoned house in Atlanta’s West End where blood was found.

“English thought he shot his assailant. And minutes after the shooting, a man was seen bleeding and begging for a ride five blocks from the shooting scene, recently released Atlanta police records show.

“The only person charged in the case is Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown. Federal agents caught him in Alabama four days after the shooting. Al-Amin had not been shot and had no wounds.

“Al-Amin says he’s innocent, and the case is a government conspiracy...

“...The dramatic tape of Fulton County Sheriff’s Department radio traffic is filled with discrepancies from deputies who showed up after the shooting was over.”

Source: Hype Information Services:
www.afrikan.net/hype

Detroit restricts rights

Detroit, Michigan, May 26-- In what many activists see as an attempt to intimidate and scare off upcoming protests against the Organization of American States (OAS) in Windsor, Canada, the Detroit City Council on Friday passed 2 laws clearly geared at taking away peoples’ rights to assemble.

In a near-secret meeting, the council went over 4 proposals to limit the rights of demonstrators from June 1st through 6th. They ranged from not being allowed to have water bottles (to wash out pepper spray or tear gas) downtown to not being able to wear masks and hoods. Because of the presence of protesters and pressure on the council, only 2 of the measures have passed.

It is now illegal on June 1st through 6th to wear masks or hoods in the inner city, and it is illegal to fill small gas cans with gasoline unless an emergency requires it. Both laws are under appeal.

Much of the Detroit area’s large Muslim population has also vowed to stand alongside the protesters to have the laws overturned.

Some protesters say these laws have added to the increased harassment and intimidation that local organizers have been facing in recent weeks. Mayor Archer, at the council meeting, admitted that over $5 million has been spent on riot gear, surveillance, and overtime.

Source: www.infoshop.org