human rights
ICC indicts Sudan President Bashir for Darfur genocide
In a potentially earth-shaking move, the International Criminal Court has charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with war crimes related to the Darfur genocide. LINK
Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Monday urged a three-judge panel to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to prevent the deaths of about 2.5 million people forced from their homes in the war-torn region of Darfur and who are still under attack from government-backed Janjaweed militia.
The five charges against al-Bashir include masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in the war-torn region with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, yes, Bashir is a war criminal. He IS responsible for hundreds of thousands, likely millions, of deaths in Darfur. He's a totalitarian leader with no consideration for his people and he's impossible to negotiate with. On the other hand, it's not like he's actually going to be arrested. There's no way for the ICC to enforce this warrant, so all it really does is make the Sudanese government that much more pissed off at the West, making it that much less likely any lasting peace deal can get done.
My friend May, who's been over there as an aid worker and knows more about the region than anybody I know, called this "the worst setback to the peace process that has happened in Sudan in recent years."
I wonder what'll happen.
Darfur roundup
The New York Times reported yesterday that the Sudanese government is revisiting the tactics they used in the early stages of the conflict.
Such brutal, three-pronged attacks of this scale — involving close coordination of air power, army troops and Arab militias in areas where rebel troops have been — have rarely been seen in the past few years, when the violence became more episodic and fractured. But they resemble the kinds of campaigns that first captured the world’s attention and prompted the Bush administration to call the violence in Darfur genocide.
Aid workers, diplomats and analysts say the return of such attacks is an ominous sign that the fighting in Darfur, which has grown more complex and confusing as it has stretched on for five years, is entering a new and deadly phase — one in which the government is planning a scorched-earth campaign against the rebel groups fighting here as efforts to find a negotiated peace founder.
More below...
White Supremacists Protest in Jena, LA on Martin Luther King Day
About 30 members of a reputed white supremacists' group marched through the streets of Jena, La., Monday, expressing disdain for the holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as for six black Jena teenagers charged with beating a white classmate.
The group, which included two men who came armed, was followed closely for a while by about 100 counterprotesters who exchanged barbed comments with the group. They later backed off at police request.
"No to King! No the Jena Six!" shouted the group members, who belong to the Nationalist Movement.
Luckily, they were vastly outnumbered by counterprotesters who chanted "Down with the Klan!" A white supremacist spokesman responded, "Up with America!"
Up with America, riiight.
(more~)
Labels for slave labor produced goods (a.k.a., Wal Mart's worst nightmare)
What if on every product produced in factories that pays their workers two cents an hour or something, there was a label on the packaging that said, “Inspector general’s warning: This product may have been produced by slave labor.”?
Like the same deal as with cigarettes, except it’s a public service for a moral, not a health issue. It'd be like giving a scarlet letter to all the companies treating people like shit.
Products that rise above a certain standard would be allowed to not have the label. For example, most American-made products wouldn’t have to carry it because the majority of our workers are not mistreated. Where the line could be drawn is debatable, but it's just be nice to have an explicit, obvious way to identify the worst offenders.
Apathy is the New Fascism
The United States is the most powerful country on Earth. Our military is huge and our politicians send it anywhere they please. Our corporations are some of the largest private companies to exist in all human history. Some of the greatest artists, scientists, writers, musicians and inventors of all time are Americans. We were the first colony to rip off the chains of imperialism.
We now place the same chains on others.
The United States of today perpetrates the same crimes on the rest of the world as the Europe of centuries ago. We’re ruled by a partnership of corporations and politicians willing to destroy liberties and lives in order to maintain their power. How long we’ve been this way is unclear, but when I look at the things we’ve done lately --- like choosing to topple a sovereign government in Iraq, eagerly purchasing mass goods made by sweatshop labor in the Third World, blocking action on global warming --- I see a nation that’s completely betrayed its founding ideals. We do to the rest of the world what the British did to us: exploit without shame.
Freedom Requires Religion?????????
Earlier today, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave what the media is calling a major speech. He voiced a lot of far out opinions geared for high powered pandering to the religious conservatives who've been jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon. So given the stakes and his target audience, it's no surprise that he said some stuff that has seculars all over the country rolling their eyes. This remark in particular:
"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone," he said.
Coca Cola Call-in Action
Continuing the trend of Facebook-related activism:
http://stolaf.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8445902539
Call Coca-Cola and ask them why they don't list the source of Dasani on the bottle.
(hint: it's tap water. purified tap water.)
Pervez, Pervez
And then there was Pakistan...
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Hours after declaring a state of emergency Saturday, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ordered troops to take a television station's equipment and put a popular opposition leader under house arrest.
Musharraf also suspended the constitution and dismissed the Pakistan Supreme Court's chief justice for the second time.