Interview: Joe Sacco

By Laila El-Haddad, Al Jazeera English, Jan. 18, 2010

When it comes to the world of cartooning, Joe Sacco is considered a luminary. Sacco, who is hailed as the creator of war-reportage comics, is the author of such award-winning books as Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde.

His latest work, Footnotes in Gaza, is an investigation into two little-known and long-forgotten massacres in 1956 in the southern Gaza Strip that left at least 500 Palestinians dead. It is a chilling look back at an unrecorded past and an exploration of how that past haunts and shapes the present – including the beginning of mass home demolitions in 2003 in Rafah.

Sacco navigates the fuzzy lines between memory, experience and visual interpretation almost seamlessly all while painting an intimate portrait of life under occupation and in spite of occupation – a life not only of repression and anger but one full of humour and resilience.

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The news from Ottawa is shocking. Senior intelligence officer Richard Colvin repeatedly warned the government about the routine use of torture in Afghan prisons, yet the Canadian Forces continued to hand over their prisoners to brutal Afghan authorities.

Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, rather than taking the charges seriously, has instead used a smear campaign to attack Mr. Colvin. We cannot trust the military, or this government, to investigate itself.

Please send your letter to all of the party leaders, calling for an independent public inquiry into the conduct of government and military officials at the highest levels.

We must learn the truth, and hold those responsible accountable for their actions, and their inaction. We cannot allow Canada to be complicit in torture.

In peace,

Steven Staples, Ceasefire.ca

by Eric Morgolis, Toronto Sun, Oct. 18, 2009

Pakistan, increasingly destabilized by the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan, is getting closer to blowing apart.

Bombings and shootings have rocked this nation of 167 million, including a brazen attack on army HQ in Rawalpindi and a massive bombing of Peshawar’s exotic Khyber Bazaar.

Pakistan’s army is readying a major offensive against rebellious Pashtun tribes in South Waziristan. Meanwhile, the feeble, deeply unpopular U.S.-installed government in Islamabad faces an increasingly rancorous confrontation with the military.

Like the proverbial bull in the china shop, the Obama administration and U.S. Congress chose this explosive time to try to impose yet another layer of American control over Pakistan as Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama appears about to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Tragically, U.S. policy in the Muslim world continues to be driven by imperial arrogance, profound ignorance, and special interest groups.

The current Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, advanced with President Barack Obama’s blessing, is ham-handed dollar diplomacy at its worst. Pakistan, bankrupted by corruption and feudal landlords, is being offered $7.5 billion US over five years — but with outrageous strings attached.

The U.S. wants to build a mammoth new embassy for 1,000 personnel in Islamabad, the second largest after its Baghdad fortress-embassy. New personnel are needed, claims Washington, to monitor the $7.5 billion in aid. So U.S. mercenaries are being brought in to protect U.S. “interests.” New U.S. bases will open. Most of this new aid will go right into the pockets of the pro-western ruling establishment, about 1% of the population.

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Al Jazeera has evidence that civilians are increasingly being caught up in Pakistan’s attempts to crush the Taliban in South Waziristan.

Exclusive pictures we have received show that those villagers who haven’t fled the area, can’t escape the shells and bullets.

Imran Khan reports.

Date: Monday, Oct. 19, 2009
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Place: Gas Station Theatre, 445 River Avenue, Winnipeg
Admission: Donation
Sponsors: Hosted by the Winnipeg Chapter of The Council of Canadians, sponsored by the Manitoba Federation of Labour
Help promote this event: Poster – 792 kb

Filmmaker Paul Manly will be attending a Winnipeg screening of his documentary, about the Security and Prosperity Partnership You, Me and the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule as part of a 34 city national tour.

The Canadian government says “The Security and Prosperity Partnership is neither an agreement nor a treaty but a dialogue.” Following the shock of 9/11, right‐wing political and business leaders have pushed the SPP agenda. Negotiating away from public scrutiny, they say it is the way to keep trade flowing between the United States, Canada and Mexico. You, Me and the SPP exposes the corporate agenda of the SPP and reveals that this secretive agreement is about much more than trade.

Opponents of this secretive ‘dialogue’ claim that it is undemocratic and a direct threat to the sovereignty of the three countries involved, Canada, the United States and Mexico; it bypasses their parliamentary systems and places control of regulatory integration in the hands of large corporations. In addition to harmonizing health, safety, environmental, and labour standards, the SPP also includes deep integration of military and security structures between the three countries.

No proponents of the SPP were willing to take part in on‐camera interviews for You, Me and the SPP, which features interviews with Naomi Klein, Maude Barlow, Murray Dobbin and Joel Bakan, among a host of other opponents of the SPP including economists, lawyers, union leaders, and politicians.

Manly also interviewed ordinary citizens who have been affected by the SPP agenda including a retired elementary school teacher who is on the no‐fly‐list; a citizen who refused to participate in the Canadian census because Lockheed Martin, the world largest arms manufacturer, is part of the census process; a mill worker who has been laid‐off because deregulation has allowed forest companies to close mills and export raw logs; and a mother of twins who is concerned about protecting her young children from contaminated products.

Manly has created an extremely thorough introduction to a set of issues that will increasingly affect every Canadian. As the film progressed, I was shocked at my own ignorance about the SPP and TILMA and their implications and I am indebted to this film for the research and revelations it presents.
- Mark Achbar – Manufacturing Consent, The Corporation

What the SPP really represents is a parallel government, so that the important decisions are made outside of parliament and outside of legislatures … democracy is slowly being gutted.
- Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, journalist

The ultimate goal, quite obviously, is to create such tight integration that effectively we only have one North American political, security, military, and economic place ‐ that there really are no differentials between this country and the country next door.
- Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair, Global Politics and International Law, UBC

SPP Dead?

In August of 2009, the US government declared that the SPP is no longer an active initiative but almost all of the various parts of this corporate agenda have either been implemented or are moving forward under separate programs and it is widely anticipated that a more extensive rebranded SPP 2.0 will be unveiled soon. The SPP stands out as a prime example of the willingness of the corporate elite and their political cronies to sacrifice democratic principles and civil liberties in favour of corporate control and monopolization.

The national tour is sponsored by the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.

Information about the film, including a list of screening dates, the trailer, and additional videos can be viewed on the film’s website.

Israel & Palestine: What’s Preventing Peace?
A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein

Date: Saturday October 17, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: Canadian Mennonite University, Laudamus Auditorium (North Campus), 500 Shaftesbury Blvd
Presented by: Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East and the Institute for Community Peacebuilding

Dr. Norman Finkelstein is an American professor of Political Science and one of the foremost thinkers and speakers on the Israel-Palestine conflict. His presentation and the following discussion will explore thefollowing questions as well as those you bring:

• What are the conditions for peace in the Middle East?
• Is peace desired by those in political power?
• If so, why, after so many years, has it not happened?
• What DOES stand in the way of peace in the Middle East?

Help promote this event by downloading and distributing this poster.

by Dahr Jamail, Truthout, July 14, 2009

US Army Specialist Victor Agosto served a 13-month deployment in Iraq with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. “What I did there, I know I contributed to death and human suffering,” Agosto told Truthout from Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas, in May, “It’s hard to quantify how much I caused, but I know I contributed to it.”

His experience in Iraq, coupled with educating himself about US foreign policy and international law, has led Agosto to refuse to deploy to Afghanistan. “It’s a matter of what I’m willing to live with,” he said of his recent decision, “I’m not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong.”

Agosto’s lawyer, James Branum, who is also the legal adviser to the GI Rights Hotline and co-chair of the Military Law Task Fore, told Truthout during a phone interview on July 10 that, contrary to mainstream opinion that believes Afghanistan to be a “justified” war, the invasion and ongoing occupation are actually in violation of the US Constitution and international law.

“Victor is approaching this from the standpoint of law and ethics,” Branum explained, “It’s his own personal ethics and principles of the Nuremburg Principles, that the war in Afghanistan does not meet the criteria for lawful war under the UN Charter, which says that member nations who joined the UN, as did the US, should give up war forever, aside from two exceptions: that the war is in self-defense, and that the use of force was authorized by the UN Security Council. The nation of Afghanistan did not attack the United States. The Taliban may have, but the nation and people of Afghanistan did not. And under US Law, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, any treaty enacted by the US is now the “supreme law of the land.” So when the United States signed the UN Charter, we made that our law as well.”

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Latin America Asks: Are the Gorillas Back?

by John Ross, Counterpunch, July 12, 2009

The June 28th coup d’etat in Honduras that toppled leftist president Mel Zelaya sends us back to the bad old days of the “gorillas” – generals and strongmen who overthrew each other with reckless abandon and the tacit complicity of Washington.

Perched on a hillside in the Mexican outback, we would tune in to these “golpes de estado”, as they are termed in Latin America, on our Zenith Transoceanic short wave. First, a harried announcer would report rumors of troop movement and the imposition of a “toque de queda” (curfew.) Hours of dead air (and probably dead announcers) would follow and then the martial music would strike up, endless tape loops of military marches and national anthems. Within a few days, the stations would be back up as if nothing had happened. Only the names of the generals who ruled the roost had changed.

Guatemala was the Central American republic par excelencia for such “golpes.” Perhaps the most memorable was the overthrow of General Jacobo Arbenz by Alan Dulles’s CIA in 1954 after Arbenz sought to expropriate and distribute unused United Fruit land. Like Mel Zelaya, the general was shaken rudely awake by soldiers and booted out of the country in his underwear.

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Honduran Teachers Defy Coup Government, Maintain Strike

by Kristin Bricker, Narco News, July 7, 2009

With the death of 19-year-old Obed Murillo allegedly at the hands of Honduran security forces at Tegucigalpa airport yesterday while President Manuel Zelaya was attempting to land there, the coup government demonstrated its willingness to resort to lethal force to maintain its power.

Likewise, the Honduran people have demonstrated their resolve to oppose the coup government, no matter the cost. On Monday, just one day after Honduran security forces opened fire on an unarmed crowd of Zelaya supporters at the airport, resulting in one death and a still-unknown number of injuries, thousands of Zelaya supporters took to the streets for the ninth straight day, with protests reported in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, and El Progreso.

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by Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, July 2, 2009

American troops were not welcomed with flowers in Iraq but their departure from cities and towns has been.

Iraqis celebrated National Sovereignty Day Tuesday as U.S. troops were yanked out of populated centres and put into remote bases.

In time, even that hidden presence will begin to grate on the Iraqis, just as a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia had spurred Osama bin Laden and others.

Yet this limited troop pullout is being hailed as a triumph. One is reminded of Richard Nixon’s 1973 boast of “peace with honour” in Vietnam. The 1973 Paris treaty that led to the U.S. troop withdrawal was a face-saving formula.

In Iraq, too, the U.S. has little choice but to get out.

Not only did the Iraqi invasion and occupation prove the limits of military power, it also exposed how incapable America has become at nation-building. Its postwar incompetence was stunning.

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Winnipeg’s 28th consecutive annual Walk for Peace took place under a warm sun and clear blue skies on Saturday, June 13.While the turn-out of 100 people was small, it was broadly representative of Winnipeg’s diverse communities, with participants of all ages.

Peace Alliance Winnipeg chair Glenn Michalchuk (right) opened the program with a tribute to longtime peace activists who have died in recent years: Cec Muldrew, Don and Doreen Plowman, Carl Ridd and Gordon MacDermid.

Cec Muldrew was a fixture in the local peace movement through his activities on behalf of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms. A vibrant, conscientious activist and World War 2 veteran, Cec would go to air shows to distribute literature and express his opposition to the glorification of war that the shows represented.

Don and Doreen were active in the peace movement in the early days of opposition to the American war in Vietnam and before. Doreen was a founding member of the Manitoba Peace Council in 1949 and helped gather signatures for the first Stockholm Appeal and for peace during the Korean War. She was also involved in the Ban the Bomb campaign and the protests against Strontium 90 fallout during the Cold War. In 1998, the YMCA recognized Doreen’s many contributions to the movement by awarding her its Peace Medal.

Carl Ridd was one of the founders of Project Peacemakers and deeply committed to social justice. He is well known for his commentaries on militarism which he viewed as the source of war and oppression. Fittingly, his last public activity in support of peace came on a bitterly cold day in February 2003 was to welcome thousands of Winnipeggers who came out to protest the impending US invasion of Iraq.

Gordon MacDermid served as Dean of Theology at the University of Winnipeg, retiring in 2005. He joined the No War Coalition in that year and played a key role in the review of the NWC that led to its rebirth as Peace Alliance Winnipeg. An active member of the PAW executive until his final illness, Gordon was deeply concerned about the growing militarization of Canadian life and he repeatedly stressed the need for PAW to build a movement which encompasses the elements of opposition to war, militarism and the erosion of civil liberties and human rights.

Following the Walk, participants listened to speeches by Yves Engler, author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Alanna Makinson, VP External, University of Manitoba Students Union and Sri Ranjan of the Canadian Tamil Congress. Entertainment was provided by  Süss and refreshments by the Sikh Society of Manitoba.

We’ll post video of the speeches and music in the near future. In the meantime, here are a few photos of Peace Walk 2009 supplied by Glenn Michalchuk, Maggi Robinson and Paul Graham.

Peace Alliance Winnipeg thanks the following organizations for their contributions to organizing the 2009 Winnipeg Walk for Peace:

• Project Peacemakers
• Sikh Association of Manitoba
• University of Manitoba Students Association
• University of Winnipeg Students Association

FUSION is a benefit concert where every cent of our ticket sales proceeds will go to help bring clean water to our world. We are supporting: www.watercan.com and The Lake Winnipeg Foundation.

More Information: http://www.musicforjustice.com/