Yes! Magazine, November 8, 2009
The decision by Honduran coup leader Roberto Micheletti to renege on his October 30 agreement to allow democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya to return to power was a severe blow to pro-democracy forces who have been struggling against the illegitimate regime since it seized power four months ago. The disappointment has been compounded by the Obama administration’s apparent willingness—in a break with Latin American leaders and much of the rest of the international community—to recognize the forthcoming presidential elections being held under the de facto government’s repressive rule. [source link expired]
Category: Human Rights
The Goldstone Report: Killing the Messenger
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, October 7, 2009 & Alternet
On October 1, the Obama administration successfully pressured the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to drop its proposal to recommend that the UN Security Council endorse the findings of the Goldstone Commission report. The report, authored by renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, detailed the results of the UNHRC’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. These findings included the recommendation that both Hamas and the Israeli government bring to justice those responsible for war crimes during the three weeks of fighting in late December and early January. If they don’t, the report urges that the case be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible prosecution. [source]
Weapons of Mass Democracy
Yes! Magazine September 17, 2009
On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country’s long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners—veterans of protracted resistance movements—is conducting a training session in the optimal use of a “weapons system” that is increasingly deployed in struggles for freedom around the world. The workshop leaders pass out Arabic translations of writings on the theory and dynamics of revolutionary struggle and lead the participants in a series of exercises designed to enhance their strategic and tactical thinking.
These trainers are not veterans of guerrilla warfare, however, but of unarmed insurrections against repressive regimes… [source]
Showdown in ‘Tegucigolpe’
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, July 10, 2009
One of the hemisphere’s most critical struggles for democracy in 20 years is now unfolding in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa (nicknamed “Tegucigolpe” for its long history of military coup d’états, which are called golpes de estado, in Spanish). Despite censorship and repression, popular anger over the June 28 military overthrow of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya is growing. International condemnation has been near-unanimous, and the Organization of American States has suspended Honduras, the first time the hemisphere-wide body has taken so drastic an action since 1962… [source]
The Iranian Uprising is Home-Grown, and Must Stay That Way
Common Dreams June 19, 2009
The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society… [source link expired]
How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 8, 2009
President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems. [source]
Telling the Lebanese How to Vote
Huffington Post, July 7, 2009, |Updated May 25, 2011:
In recent visits to Lebanon, both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear that the United States would react negatively if the March 8th Alliance — a broad coalition of Islamist, Maronite, leftist, nationalist, and pan-Arabist parties — won the upcoming parliamentary elections. These not-so-subtle threats have led to charges of U.S. interference in Lebanon’s domestic affairs. What prompts U.S. concerns is that the largest member of this coalition is Hezbollah, the populist Shiite party which the United States considers to be a terrorist organization. [source]
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Defending Israeli War Crimes
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, May 28, 2009; by By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
In response to a series of reports by human rights organizations and international legal scholars documenting serious large-scale violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli armed forces in its recent war on the Gaza Strip, 10 U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the Israeli action. It is virtually unprecedented for state attorneys general — whose mandates focus on enforcement of state law — to weigh in on questions regarding the laws of war, particularly in a conflict on the far side of the world. More significantly, their statement runs directly counter to a broad consensus of international legal opinion that recognizes that Israel, as well as Hamas, engaged in war crimes. [source]
Pelosi the Hawk
Reports by international human rights groups and from within Israel in recent weeks have revealed the massive scale of war-crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law, committed by Israeli forces during their three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Despite this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has steadfastly stood by her insistence that the U.S.-backed Israeli government has no legal or moral responsibility for the tragic consequence of the war.
This is just one episode in a long history of efforts by Pelosi to undermine international humanitarian law, in regards to actions by a country she has repeatedly referred to as America’s most important ally in the Middle East. It’s also part of her overall right-wing agenda in the Middle East. As the powerful Speaker of the House, Pelosi could very well undermine efforts by President Barack Obama in the coming years to moderate U.S. policy toward that volatile region.
Support for the Gaza War
During the height of Israel’s devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip in January, Pelosi pushed through a resolution putting the House of Representatives on record calling “on all nations…to lay blame both for the breaking of the calm and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas.”[emphasis added]
Not only did the resolution ignore Israel’s attacks in Gaza in November and other violations of the ceasefire that served to “break the calm,” it put forward an extreme reinterpretation of international humanitarian law apparently designed to absolve any nation that kills large numbers of civilians, as long as the other side allegedly initiated the conflict.
The resolution favorably quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, regarding responsibility for civilian deaths and for the causes of the conflict, but cites no one else. Though the Gaza War should be considered “a final and eloquent testimony to the complete failure of the neoconservative movement in United States foreign policy,” as Juan Cole has written, Pelosi instead aligned herself and the Democratic congressional majority with the failed ideology of the outgoing Bush administration. Indeed, some of the language of Pelosi’s resolution was even to the right of Bush: For example, while the January 8 UN Security Council resolution — which received the endorsement of Rice and other administration officials — condemned “all acts of violence and terror directed against civilians,” Pelosi’s resolution only condemned the violence and terror of Hamas. Similarly, her resolution placed conditions for a ceasefire on the Palestinian side that was even more stringent than those advocated by the Bush administration and endorsed eventually by the Israelis.
And, despite International Red Cross reports of Israeli forces illegally preventing emergency workers from reaching wounded civilians, killing aid and health workers, and attacking hospitals and ambulances, Pelosi’s resolution went on record praising Israel for having “facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
Pelosi’s resolution also cited the Israeli invasion as part of Israel’s “right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas’s unceasing aggression, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter.” In reality, the UN Charter explicitly prohibits nations going to war unless they “first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.” Yet Israel — with strong bipartisan U.S. support — has refused to even meet with Hamas. Furthermore, while Article 51 does allow countries the right to resist an armed attack, it doesn’t grant any nation the right to engage in such massive and disproportionate warfare against densely packed cities and refugee camps.
Pelosi also claimed that Hamas bore responsibility for the more than 700 deaths of Palestinian civilians because of the alleged use of “human shields.” Hamas was certainly guilty of less-severe humanitarian violations, such as not taking all necessary steps to prevent civilian casualties while positioning fighters and armaments, but this isn’t the same as using civilians as shields. And, as Human Rights Watch noted, even the presence of armed personnel and weapons near civilian areas “does not release Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian property during military operations.” Furthermore, the nature of urban warfare, particularly in a territory as densely populated as the Gaza Strip, makes the proximity of retreating fighters and their equipment to civilians unavoidable in many cases. In any case, there have been scores of well-documented cases of civilian casualties in areas where there were no Hamas fighters.
The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential “pro-Israel” lobby, did not draft Pelosi’s resolution, unlike some similar resolutions in recent years. The wording of the resolution came primarily out of the offices of Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid, and House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman. This was a completely Democratic initiative led by Pelosi herself.
Pelosi’s siding with the Bush administration in its defense of violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. allies was nothing new. When Bush defended Israel’s assaults on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure in 2006 and defied the international community by blocking UN efforts to impose a ceasefire, Pelosi voted in favor of a resolution commending him for “fully supporting Israel.” This Pelosi-backed resolution claimed that Israel’s actions were legitimate self-defense under the UN Charter and, despite evidence to the contrary, praised “Israel’s longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcom[ed] Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” Directly contradicting empirical studies by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. Army War College, all of which noted the absence of any credible evidence of even a single civilian fatality resulting from such practices, she went on recording insisting that the nearly 800 civilian deaths were a result of Hezbollah using “human shields.” Pelosi also echoed Bush’s defense of Israel’s 2002 West Bank offensive, which also was directed primarily at civilian targets. Once again contradicting findings by reputable human rights groups, she voted in favor of a resolution sponsored by right-wing Republican leader Tom DeLay claiming the massive assault was “aimed solely at the terrorist infrastructure.”
Pelosi attacked the International Court of Justice for its landmark 2004 ruling calling for the enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention in Israeli-occupied territories. She also voted in favor of a resolution condemning the World Court for its near-unanimous advisory opinion that Israel’s separation barrier shouldn’t be built beyond Israel’s internationally recognized border into the occupied West Bank in order to incorporate illegal settlements into Israel, warning that members of the international community would “risk a strongly negative impact on their relationship” with the United States if they dared push for the implementation of the ruling. (See my article “Attacks Against World Court by Congress Reveal Growing Bipartisan Hostility to International Law.”) And Pelosi has even gone as far as defending Israel’s use of death squads in the extra-judicial killings of suspected militants.
Pelosi’s Middle East Record
Pelosi’s right-wing agenda in the Middle East goes beyond efforts to undermine international humanitarian law. During the Bush years, she tried to push congressional Democrats to support the administration’s broader Middle East agenda. “There is no division on policy between us and President Bush, be it on Israel, Palestine or Syria,” she declared.
Nancy Pelosi doesn’t view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of the many rights and wrongs of both parties. For her, it’s all the fault of the Palestinians, and the responsibility for the violence and the failure of the peace process rests on them alone.
Pelosi has long insisted that the Palestinians’ 1993 decision to recognize Israeli control over 78% of Palestine was not enough. She has even portrayed former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s 2000 proposal to create a Palestinian Bantustan on approximately 18% of Palestine — which would have effectively divided the territory into four non-contiguous units with Israel controlling the borders, airspace, and water resources — as “a generous and historic proposal.” She further insisted that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s rejection of that proposal was indicative of the Palestinians’ lack of commitment to peace, ignoring his subsequent acceptance of President Bill Clinton’s peace plan put forward five months later. Echoing the Israeli right’s claim that the Palestinians’ various peace proposals are all just a ruse and that they simply want to destroy Israel, Pelosi insists that the conflict is about “the fundamental right of Israel to exist” and that it is “absolute nonsense” to claim it has anything do to with the Israeli occupation.
Subsequently, Pelosi has sought to undermine the road-map for Israeli-Palestinian peace. In May 2003, she signed a letter to Bush insisting that the peace process must be based not on an end to Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land seized in the 1967 war, but “above all” on the end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership. Though the road-map called for both Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers to simultaneously work to fulfill their obligations, she insisted that the Palestinians alone were responsible for implementing the first stage of the Road Map and failed to even mention any of Israel’s reciprocal responsibilities, such as ending the sieges and military assaults on Palestinian population centers and halting construction of additional illegal settlements.
Speaking about a visit to one of the illegal Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2004, Pelosi referred to an infiltration by local Palestinians that had taken place that morning as part of “the daily reality of Israel: even moments of peace and beauty are haunted by the specter of violence.” By implying that the Gaza Strip, seized by force by the Israeli army in 1967, was part of Israel, Pelosi apparently hoped to reinforce efforts by the Israeli right to resist compliance with a series of UN Security Council resolutions, and a ruling by the International Court of Justice to withdraw these settlements in accordance with international law.
When Israel finally withdrew its illegal settlements from the occupied Gaza Strip the following year, keeping the territory under a strict siege and blockade, she praised it as a “courageous,” “gut-wrenching” decision for Israel, as if the Gaza Strip wasn’t actually occupied territory but instead a part of Israel itself, generously given up by the Israeli government in the interest of peace..
Double Standards
Pelosi has supported strict economic sanctions and even threats of military force against Middle Eastern governments targeted by the Bush administration — such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran, or Syria — that were slow in complying with UN Security Council resolutions. Yet she has never publicly called on Israel to abide by any of the dozens of Security Council resolutions on international humanitarian law, illegal annexation of militarily-occupied territory, or nuclear proliferation with which that government remains in material breech. In Pelosi’s worldview, a country’s obligations to comply with the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions depend not on objective international legal standards but on their relations with the United States.
After supporting false assertions that Saddam Hussein had somehow reconstituted his “weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, Pelosi now claims it’s actually Iran — another oil-rich Middle Eastern nation — that “represents a clear threat to Israel and to America.” She has refused to support calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone for all of Southwest Asia, which would include nuclear states Israel, Pakistan, and India, and would link up with already existing nuclear weapons-free zones in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the South Pacific. Instead, while believing that these U.S. allies need not be pressured to give up their nukes, she argues that Iran “must be confronted by an international coalition against proliferation.” Indeed, she threatened Iran for its nuclear program while defending Israel for its development of a sizable nuclear arsenal.
Pelosi voted in favor of sanctions against Syria based on its refusal to unilaterally give up its missiles — even though Israel (along with such other U.S. allies as Turkey, Israel and Egypt) have even more advanced missile programs — and its refusal to unilaterally give up their chemical weapons stockpiles, even though Israel and Egypt have much larger chemical weapons arsenals.
In short, Pelosi supports the position advocated by the Bush administration rejecting law-based universal standards to challenge the threat of weapons proliferation in the volatile Middle East, insisting the United States can unilaterally decide which countries can and cannot have certain weaponry.
Prior to the division of power between the Fatah-controlled West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in 2007, Pelosi supported Bush’s policy of refusing to resume normal relations with the Fatah-led Palestine Authority, unless the cabinet excluded members of Hamas or any party that doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, refuses to renounce violence, or fails to endorse previous agreements in the peace process. By contrast, Pelosi has raised no concerns about the new Israeli government, led by officials who refuse to recognize Palestinians’ right to statehood, refuse to renounce violence, and fail to endorse previous agreements. Indeed, despite Israel’s new foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel and much of the West Bank, Pelosi has not uttered a word of concern.
Moreover, Pelosi has also repeatedly pushed to increase U.S. military aid to Israel, rejecting calls by Amnesty International and other human rights groups to condition the arms transfers on an improvement in Israel’s human rights record in the occupied territories and an end to attacks on civilian population centers.
Undermining International Law
Such double standards are part of Pelosi’s larger effort to undermine international law and UN authority. She has from the beginning sought to exclude the United Nations from any role in monitoring or implementing the roadmap for Middle East peace. According to Pelosi’s aforementioned letter to Bush, allowing the United Nations or the European nations that cosponsored the roadmap to share responsibility in overseeing implementation as originally planned “might only lessen the chances of moving forward” toward peace since “the United States has developed a level of credibility and trust with all parties in the region which no other country shares.”
In short, Pelosi was arguing that the Bush administration — despite its contempt for the UN Charter and basic premises of international law and its support of Israeli occupation forces — was more reliable than the United Nations or the European Union in monitoring the peace process.
Pelosi has also supported legislation that attacks the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). For example, Pelosi faults UNRWA for making “no effort to permanently resettle Palestinian refugees,” even though this would go well beyond its mandate and be against the wishes of the majority of refugees, who insist upon returning to their homeland in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She joined far-right UN critics in raising dubious allegations that “UNRWA facilities have been used for terrorist training and bases for terrorist operations,” and that the UNRWA educational system of using textbooks and educational materials “promote anti-Semitism, denial of the existence and the right to exist of the state of Israel, and exacerbate stereotypes and tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis.”
Right-Wing not Pro-Israel
Nancy Pelosi isn’t, as some of her critics would have it, too “pro-Israel;” rather, she is simply too right-wing. Her positions on U.S. policy toward Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and a number of other nations in that region put her closer to the right-wing Christian Coalition than the moderate National Council of Churches, closer to the neoconservative Project for a New American Century than to the liberal Peace Action, and closer to right-wing Zionist groups like AIPAC than liberal Zionist groups like Americans for Peace Now or Brit Tzedek v’Shalom.
The 2006 Lebanon War, which Israel launched after months of pressure by the Bush administration to attack its northern neighbor, ended up as a disaster for Israel, as outlined by the Israeli government’s 2007 Winograd Report. During the fighting, as thousands of Israeli peace activists took the streets of Tel Aviv chanting “We will not kill or die for Bush,” Pelosi was back in Washington essentially saying, “Oh, yes you should!”
Where Pelosi’s allegiance lies in the Israeli political spectrum is not only illustrated by her opposition to the Israeli peace movement, but in her outspoken support of former prime minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon. She repeatedly praised the right-wing Israeli leader for his “remarkable leadership,” endorsing Sharon’s construction of a separation barrier deep inside the West Bank as well as his “disengagement plan,” which would eventually annex most of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territory into Israel.
And she has been quite intolerant of Democrats who dissent from her hawkish views, heavily pressuring House Democrats to support various resolutions supporting Bush’s Middle East policy and seeking to damage the campaigns of insurgent Democrats who challenge her right-wing views. For example, Pelosi attacked Howard Dean, early in his campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, for suggesting the United States should be more “even-handed” towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has even condemned former President Jimmy Carter for opposing Israeli occupation policies in the West Bank. No Democratic leader has ever criticized either a former president or the front-running presidential candidate of his or her own party on any issue as harshly as Pelosi criticized Dean and Carter on Israel and Palestine.
Pelosi’s views don’t reflect her role as a major Democratic fundraiser. Her antipathy toward Palestinians goes back long before she came into leadership. As a junior congresswoman in 1988, without links to wealthy national contributors, she was an outspoken opponent of Palestine’s right to exist, helping lead an effort to defeat a ballot proposition in San Francisco supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
Pelosi’s right-wing Israel policy is less a matter of AIPAC’s power and more about the inability of the progressive community in San Francisco and Democrats elsewhere to force her to do otherwise. She changed her position in support of the U.S. occupation and counterinsurgency war in Iraq only because her constituents and Democrats nationwide demanded it, fearing the political consequences of doing otherwise. She isn’t likely to change her position on these other important Middle East policy issues unless we do the same.
Unfortunately, few Democrats are even aware of how far to the right Pelosi is when it comes to the Middle East. Not only has the mainstream media failed to call attention to her Middle East agenda, but progressive publications have failed do so as well. In These Times praised Pelosi for her “solid record” on human rights issues, while Ms. Magazine lauded her for having a “voting record strong on…human rights,” failing to even mention her defense of Israeli war crimes against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.
Obama was initially able to withstand attacks by right-wing Republicans over the Chas Freeman appointment and tentative plans to participate in the UN Anti-Racism Conference, but he capitulated once prominent Democrats began pressuring him as well. Unless, then, rank-and-file Democrats are willing to challenge Pelosi on the Middle East, there is little hope that Congressional Democrats will allow the Obama administration to take human rights or international law seriously — not just in terms of Israel and its neighbors — but anywhere else.
Obama’s Visit to Caterpillar Shows Insensitivity to Human Rights Concerns
Over the objections of church groups, peace organizations and human rights activists, President Barack Obama decided to return to Illinois to visit the headquarters of the Caterpillar company, which for years has violated international law, U.S. law and its own code of conduct by selling its D9 and D10 bulldozers to Israel.
In his speech on Thursday, Obama praised Caterpillar, saying, “Your machines plow the farms that feed our families; build the towers that shape our skylines; lay the roads that connect our communities; power the trucks that deliver our goods.” He failed to mention that Caterpillar machines have been used to level Palestinian homes, uproot olive orchards, build the illegal separation wall and, in some cases, kill innocent civilians, including a 23-year old American peace activist.
Given the slump in sales that forced Caterpillar to lay off thousands of workers, the company is emblematic of the problems facing industrial towns of the Midwest in the face of the worse recession in decades and was therefore seen as an appropriate place for Obama to make an appearance. Yet surely there were other heavy equipment manufacturers, or other industries, he could have chosen to visit — one which doesn’t provide its wares for what have been widely recognized as crimes against humanity and is not the subject of an international boycott by the human rights community.
The Caterpillar boycott has been endorsed by scores of church groups, peace organizations, and human rights groups. Following enormous pressure from both clergy and laity, the Church of England announced three days prior to Obama’s visit that it had sold off $3.3 million in stockholdings in the company. And, two days earlier, Hampshire College became the first American college or university to divest from Caterpillar. Some have interpreted Obama’s visit as a rebuke to these recent gains in the international campaign against the Peoria-based corporation.
Supplying Repression
More than 15,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories have been destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, the majority with Caterpillar bulldozers. Most of these have been for clearance operations to make way for Israeli and related occupation infrastructure, not for security reasons. An estimated 50,000 Palestinians have been made homeless by Caterpillar bulldozers.
Meanwhile, more than one million olive trees — many centuries old and in the hands of a single family for many generations — have been destroyed, mostly with caterpillar’s heavy equipment. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler, in a letter to Caterpillar ‘s chief executive officer James Owens, argued that the Israeli occupying forces’ destruction of Palestinian agricultural resources “further limit[s] the sustainable means for the Palestinian people to enjoy physical and economic access to food” and constituted a clear violation of international law.
Caterpillar bulldozers and other equipment have also been used in the construction of Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank. Caterpillar has not just been responsible for the destruction of Palestinian property and Israel’s land grabs, however, but also for the deaths of nearly a dozen people, including an 85-year-old man, several children, and American peace activist Rachel Corrie.
The Case of Rachel Corrie
In December 2001, as violent Palestinian protests against the then 34-year Israeli occupation increased — the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for the placement of unarmed human rights monitors in the occupied territories. In response, a number of pacifist groups from the United States and Europe began to send their own representatives to play the role of human rights monitors, even to the point of physically placing their bodies between the antagonists.
Among these volunteers was Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Of particular concern for her and her colleagues was the use of Caterpillar bulldozers destroying Palestinian homes and orchards.
On March 16, in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces were preparing to destroy a series of homes, including that of a Palestinian pharmacist and his family. Rachel was among a group of international observers who stood in front of the bulldozer as a form of nonviolent resistance against this illegal act by Israeli occupation forces. According to both Palestinian and American eyewitnesses, Rachel was standing in plain site of the bulldozer’s driver. She was wearing a bright fluorescent orange jacket and had engaged the driver in conversation to try to convince him not to destroy the house. Nevertheless, after an initial pause, the Caterpillar bulldozer surged forward despite cries from Rachel’s colleagues, trapping her feet under the dirt so she could not get out of the way before being run over. The Caterpillar bulldozer then backed up, running Rachel over a second time, mortally wounding her. She died in a nearby hospital a short time later.
Efforts by Rachel’s parents to sue Caterpillar were thrown out by a federal appeals court, where a panel of three judges argued that their suit could not have gone to trial “without implicitly questioning, and even condemning, United States foreign policy towards Israel.”
The Israeli government claimed that it was an accident. Not only did the Bush administration accepted this interpretation and refused to call for an independent investigation, Rachel’s home state senators — Democrats Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell — backed the Bush administration in denying that she was murdered, and refused to call for Congressional hearings. Soon thereafter, both threw their support behind an additional $1 billion in military aid to Israel.
Four months earlier, the United States had vetoed a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israel for the murder of three United Nations workers in two separate incidents in the occupied territories in December, 2002. Among those killed was British relief worker Iain Hook, who was assisting in the reconstruction of Palestinian homes destroyed during an Israeli military offensive the previous spring, also using Caterpillar bulldozers.
Now, in making his highly-public appearance at the Caterpillar headquarters, President Obama, taking after President Bush, appears to have also decided to come to the defense of these kinds of war crimes in the face of international criticism.
Breaking the Law
Caterpillar sells its bulldozers to Israeli occupation forces through the United States Foreign Military Sales Program. Though originally designed for agricultural and construction purposes, the Israeli military modifies the Caterpillar bulldozers to include machine gun mounts, smoke projectors, and grenade launchers. Caterpillar CEO Owens, praised by President Obama during his Thursday appearance, insists that his company has “neither the legal right nor the ability to monitor and police individual use of that equipment.” When confronted by human rights groups about the use of their equipment in violation of international humanitarian law, Caterpillar insists that “any comments on the political conflict in the region are best left to our governmental leaders who have the ability to impact action and advance the peace process.”
Despite this claim by Owens and other Caterpillar executives that the company bears no responsibility for its equipment’s end uses, the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights explicitly states that companies should not “engage in or benefit from” violations of international human rights or humanitarian law and that companies “shall further seek to ensure that the goods and services they provide will not be used to abuse human rights.”
Human Rights Watch has referred to Caterpillar’s denial of responsibility as the “head in the sand approach.”
Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a signatory and is therefore legally bound to uphold, states that “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.” Obama, apparently has little concern for such legal obligations, however, and has thus far refused to limit the transfer of American-made equipment to Israel, even when used in such overt violations of international humanitarian law.
The U.S. Arms Export Control Act limits the use of U.S. military aid, under which the sale of Caterpillar bulldozers is covered, to “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense” and explicitly prohibits its use against civilians.
Unfortunately, Obama – like Bush before him – has indicated little interest in upholding such federal law, much less international law, and seems to have underscored his contempt for such legality in making his appearance at Caterpillar in the face of growing international opposition to that company’s policies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/obamas-visit-to-caterpill_b_167187.html
Democrats Back Bush, Reject Human Rights Groups, in Support for Israeli Assault on Gaza
The Democratic leadership’s strident support for the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip underscores how the Democrats suffer from the same illusions as the outgoing Republican administration: that placing an Arab territory under debilitating sanctions that punish the population as a whole, bombarding heavily populated civilian areas — resulting in widespread casualties among innocent people — and invading and occupying territories with a long history of resistance to outsiders will somehow lead to greater moderation from those afflicted.
The reality is that Israel’s war against Hamas and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip is no more likely to result in more rational and compromising positions from the Palestinian side than the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel will lead to more rational and compromising positions from the Israelis.
As a result, the hard-line militaristic position of the Democratic Party does not bode well for a more enlightened Middle East policy after eight disastrous years under President George W. Bush.
On Capitol Hill, resolutions are being prepared in the House and Senate to defend the Bush administration’s policy of unconditional support for the Israeli assaults, which as of this writing have led to the deaths of 500 people, at least one-quarter of whom were civilians. Unless there is widespread public opposition, it appears that the overwhelming majority of congressional Democrats will vote along with their Republican colleagues in favor of these resolutions, thereby giving Israel a blank check to continue the carnage and, as a result, give Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups the excuse to continue their attacks against Israeli civilians as well.
Democrats Goad Israel Into War
In June, 38 of 49 Democratic senators — including Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton of New York — wrote a letter (PDF) to President Bush that Americans for Peace Now, a moderate Zionist group, warned would build “a defense, in advance, for a large Israeli military offensive in Gaza.” The letter also urged the Bush administration to block any U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel, claiming that United Nations opposition to Israeli attacks against crowded urban areas constituted a refusal to “acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defense.” An almost identical letter in the House, drafted by House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., received the signatures of 150 of the body’s 230 Democrats.
Americans for Peace Now noted that such an Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip would likely result in large-scale civilian casualties. In apparent anticipation of the large numbers of Palestinian deaths that would result from such military operations in the Gaza Strip, the House passed a resolution (PDF) in March, during an outbreak of fighting, that claimed, “Those responsible for launching rocket attacks against Israel routinely embed their production facilities and launch sites amongst the Palestinian civilian population, utilizing them as human shields.” The resolution goes on to specifically condemn “the use of innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields by those who carry out rocket and other attacks” and yet again makes note of Palestinians who “continue to be utilized as human shields by terrorist organizations.”
But according to Joe Stork of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, while Hamas failed to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, the watchdog group had found no instances of Hamas actually using human shields in the legally defined sense of deliberately using civilians as a means of deterring counterattacks. Despite my contacting the offices of more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress who supported the resolution — all of whom are members of the so-called Progressive Caucus — none of them could provide any examples of Hamas actually using human shields. It appears that the Democrats’ goal in pushing through this resolution was to convince their constituents that it was the Palestinians, not the Israelis who were attacking them, who were responsible for civilian casualties and who would likewise be responsible for the far greater number of civilian casualties that would inevitably result from the Israeli bombardment and invasion which was to commence later that year.
The resolution also gave unqualified support for the Israeli government’s attacks against the Gaza Strip, even as Amnesty International condemned Israel’s “reckless disregard for civilian life” in its bombing and shelling of civilian population centers. The AI report also noted how the attacks by Palestinians against civilian-populated areas in Israel, which the report also roundly condemned, “does not make it legitimate for the Israeli authorities to launch reckless air and artillery strikes which wreak such death and destruction among Palestinian civilians.”
Not a single one of the 230 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the resolution. (There were four abstentions, and 12 did not vote.) This sent a clear signal that there would be no opposition in Congress — which provides over $4 billion annually in unconditional military and economic aid to the Israeli government — for an even larger military assault against the Palestinian population of the enclave.
Democratic support for an Israeli war against the Gaza Strip went beyond such nonbinding resolutions. In apparent anticipation of the long-planned Israeli invasion of Gaza — which was to begin just three months later — the Democratic-controlled Congress voted in September to send 1,000 of the highly sophisticated GBU-39 missiles to Israel, which have been used on a large scale in the Israeli assault.
On Nov. 4, Israel launched a brief but significant military incursion into Gaza. Though the raid was a clear violation of the cease-fire that had been in place at the time, no criticism was heard in Washington. There had been a series of minor violations by both sides, but the magnitude of this raid appeared designed to provoke Hamas into letting the cease-fire lapse. Israel then tightened its siege of the Gaza Strip, prompting Human Rights Watch to note that “Israel’s severe limitations on the movement of nonmilitary goods and people into and out of Gaza, including fuel and medical supplies, constitutes collective punishment, also in violation of the laws of war.” Despite this, President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders continued to defend the sanctions.
Hamas appeared willing to renew its cease-fire in return for Israel lifting the blockade on humanitarian and other aid and ending its periodic raids into Gaza and assassinations of Hamas officials. However, Israel — again, supported by Obama and Democratic congressional leaders — refused. Now, however, despite these leading Democrats’ opposition to nonmilitary means, which could have salvaged the cease-fire and prevented the rocket attacks into Israel, they are now claiming that Israel had “no choice” but to launch its massive assault on Gaza Strip in retaliation.
In a Dec. 28 interview, Obama’s chief adviser David Axelrod appeared to align the president-elect with the Bush administration in its support for Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, citing an Obama statement from the summer, in which he said, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
Axelrod ignored the fact that since Israel had launched its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, rocket attacks against Israeli towns had actually increased. This raises concerns that an Obama administration, like the Bush administration, may be so ideologically committed to military solutions in political conflicts that it too will ignore even obvious failures.
Rationalizing Civilian Deaths
Amnesty International USA, in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on January 2, noted its dismay “at the lopsided response by the U.S. government to the recent violence and its lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” The Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization went on to note, “Without diminishing the responsibility of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians, the U.S. government must not ignore Israel’s disproportionate response and the longstanding policies which have brought the Gaza Strip to the brink of humanitarian disaster.”
Leading Democrats rushed to the administration’s defense, however. As reports of widespread civilian casualties among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from the Israeli attacks continued to pour in, Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., insisted that “When Israel is attacked, the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stated ,”I strongly support Israel’s right to defend its citizens against rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.” House Majority Leader Hoyer claimed, “Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza” and that Israel has “an unequivocal right” to engage in its military operations. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., whom the Democrats recently named to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declared “Israel has a right, indeed a duty, to defend itself in response to the hundreds of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza over the past week.” Even prominent liberals, like Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., insisted that “This use of Gaza as a base from which to attack Israel left Israel with no choice except self defense.”
These Democrats have been unable to explain how a number of the most deadly Israeli strikes, which took place nowhere near any legitimate military targets, constitute acts of self-defense. These have included the missile which struck a group of students leaving the U.N.-sponsored Gaza Training College in downtown Gaza, the bombing of a mosque during evening prayers, another missile attack centered in civilian neighborhoods in the crowded refugee camps of Jabalya and Rafah, as well as a series of attacks against the territory’s one university. Scores of others who worked in government offices under the Hamas administration but had nothing to do with rocket attacks against Israel — or any other military function of the Islamist party — have been killed as well.
Yet some Democrats have gone as far as to simply deny that attacks against civilian targets are taking place at all. For example, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and its Middle East subcommittee, has insisted that (PDF), contrary to reports of reputable human rights groups, international journalists and other eyewitnesses, “The Israeli response has been a series of targeted strikes against Hamas militants, aimed directly at those who are launching the attacks on Israeli civilian population centers” and that “the Israeli military is taking extreme caution to limit civilian casualties.”
The Democratic Party has a history of denying Israeli culpability in the deaths of civilians during military operations in the Gaza Strip. During an Israeli offensive against the territory in 2006, prior to Hamas’ takeover of the Palestinian Authority, Amnesty International declared:
“The Israeli authorities’ deliberate and wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and property in the Gaza Strip amounts to a war crime. The destruction and the disproportionate and arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on the movement of people and goods into and from the Gaza Strip also amount to collective punishment of the entire population. This violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits punishing protected persons for offenses they have not committed.”
Similarly, the International Red Cross, long recognized as the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, declared that Israel was violating the principle of proportionality, as well as the prohibition against collective punishment.
Despite this and similar reports by other reputable human rights groups, Democrats – with only nine dissenting votes – joined their Republican colleagues in passing a House resolution claiming Israel’s attacks, which resulted in widespread civilian casualties, were “in accordance with international law.” The resolution went on to rebuke reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’s criticisms of Israel’s failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets by including language that praised Israel’s “longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss” and welcomed “Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.”
The resolution also insisted that Israel’s attacks were in accordance with “Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.” However, Article 33 of the Charter requires all parties to “first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice,” which Israel — with the backing of most of these same congressional Democrats — has refused to do. Article 51 does allow countries the right to resist an armed attack, but not the right to engage in massive and disproportional attacks against crowded urban population centers.
The 2006 resolution, sponsored by the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., then the ranking Democratic member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, commended President Bush for “fully supporting Israel” in the face of widespread international opposition, including by some of the United States’ closest allies.
With only nine dissenting Democratic votes in the 435-member body, this placed virtually the entire Democratic Caucus on the side of Bush against a broad consensus of the international community, including all major human rights organizations.
Opposing Peace Negotiations
It should come as no surprise that when negotiations are ruled out, war results. But instead of encouraging negotiations between Hamas and Israel, the Democratic Party has actively discouraged it.
Even President-elect Obama, who has expressed willingness to meet with leaders of Iran and other hard-line regimes, spoke out in early 2008 against any negotiations with the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, which received the majority of seats in the most recent Palestinian parliamentary elections. Indeed, the Democrats — led by Vice President-elect Joe Biden — have criticized the Bush administration for allowing the Palestinian Authority to go ahead with free elections in the first place.
This opposition to peace talks comes despite polls showing that a majority of Israelis — including the mayors of the Israelis towns on the receiving end of Hamas rocket attacks — do support negotiations with Hamas. Unlike the Democratic Party, the Israeli public is much more cognizant of the fact that — whether it be a short-term cease-fire, a permanent peace agreement or something in between — ending the violence without such negotiations will be impossible. Indeed, at the very time Obama was rejecting the idea of talks with Hamas, senior members of the Israeli security establishment were urging the Israeli government to engage in such talks, arguing that any agreement made without Hamas would fail.
Furthermore, for a number of years, the Israelis have been regularly negotiating indirectly with Hamas through Egyptian intermediaries and Palestinian prisoners. Back when Hamas was in charge of local governments in some West Bank towns several years ago, there were direct talks on a number of logistical issues. The Democratic Party, however, insisted that such talks not take place — apparently because the prospect of negotiations would get in the way of Israel’s massive military offensive against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.
The Democratic Party’s leadership has long argued that no talks should take place until Hamas formally recognizes Israel’s right to statehood, yet many of these same Democrats have had no problems with meeting, and even providing support for, Israeli parties and political groups that insist that the Palestinians do not have the right to statehood, such as the Likud Bloc, which is favored to win the upcoming Israeli elections. In addition, a sizable majority of Democrats in Congress have gone on record insisting that an explicit Hamas recognition of Israel as a Jewish state be a precondition for ending sanctions and inclusion in the peace process, which is not only an unnecessary prerequisite for negotiating a long-term cease-fire, but is something which even the Israeli government has not demanded.
Silencing Democratic Critics
Democratic Party leaders have made it clear that any dissent from within the party to their right-wing position rejecting any contact with Hamas will not be tolerated.
For example, Robert Malley, who served as a National Security Council member and special assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs under the Clinton administration, was already under fire for having the temerity to object to the Bush administration’s effort to organize a coup against Hamas, noting how, “Almost every decision the United States has made to interfere with Palestinian politics has boomeranged.” He had been serving as an informal adviser to Obama during the presidential race, but was forced to sever his ties with the campaign when it was revealed that, as part of his efforts to promote a cease-fire in his role with the International Crisis Group, he had met with Hamas officials. For the Obama campaign, such peace-making efforts simply could not be tolerated.
In an even better-known example, former President Jimmy Carter was quoted last spring as saying, “I think there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors … Hamas will have to be included in the process,” adding, “I think someone should be meeting with Hamas to see what we can do to encourage them to be cooperative.” He then met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria.
Former presidents have historically been largely exempt from criticisms by elected officials of their own party. When it comes to expressing the opinion that the United States should figure out a way to include Hamas in negotiations, however, such courtesy quickly evaporated. Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, was immediately denounced by Democratic Party leaders. Steve Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee claimed, “Carter’s views are antithetical to those in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. He does not speak for either [Clinton or Obama] in any shape or form, and I think there’s pretty much unanimity on that point.”
As a result of his efforts to avoid war, Carter was denied a major platform at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, the first time in memory that a former president had been denied such an honor at his party’s quadrennial gathering.
It’s important to remember that both Malley and Carter were leaders of NGOs whose very mandates are to engage in conflict resolution. What these Democrats appear to be saying is that the Bush administration’s policy of not talking with those deemed undesirable should not just be the policy of the U.S. government, but every nongovernmental organization and private citizen as well.
But that policy is inconsistent. Through his role at the Carter Center, for example, Carter met with war criminals like Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Haiti’s Raoul Cedras and Uganda’s Martin Ojul, with no complaints from these same Democratic leaders. Their opposition to Carter’s willingness to speak with Hamas appears not to have been because of the group’s role in war crimes but because Carter had hoped such dialogue might pave the way for a negotiated settlement. Indeed, a number of those who supported Carter’s exclusion from the Democratic National Convention had themselves met with unsavory characters as well, including right-wing Cuban and Nicaraguan terrorist leaders, some of the worst dictators on the planet, and others with even more blood on their hands than Meshaal.
What Explains the Democrats’ Position?
All this inevitably raises the question as to why, in a conflict where both sides are clearly at fault, the Democratic Party has chosen to put 100 percent of the blame on the Palestinian side and has unconditionally supported the actions of the Israelis, who are not only the more powerful of the two, but whose violations of international humanitarian law are many times greater than those of Hamas.
There are those who try to defend these Democratic hawks by claiming it would somehow be political suicide to oppose any resolution supporting Israeli military actions. But a recent Rasmussen poll indicates that Americans are closely divided regarding the legitimacy of Israel’s attacks on Gaza Strip, with Democratic voters opposing the offensive by a 55 percent-to-31 percent margin. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict overall, 7 of 10 Americans believe the United States should not take sides — yet another example of how out of step the Democratic leadership is with the American public.
Nor does this strident support for Israeli militarism have anything to do with a genuine concern for Israel’s legitimate security interests, given that every previous effort to defeat Hamas militarily has backfired. Similarly, Israel’s 2006 offensive against Lebanon’s Hezbollah — also overwhelmingly supported by congressional Democrats — proved to be a disaster for Israel.
The primary factor for the Democratic leaderships’ hawkish stance regarding the current conflict appears to be the relative inaction of the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Most rank-and-file Democrats, at least intuitively, recognize the fallacy of the Democratic leadership’s militaristic line and are aware that support for the Bush administration Middle East policy has brought neither justice for the Palestinians nor security for Israel. At the same time, however, the grassroots of the party has failed to mobilize in a way that would let the party leadership know there is a price to pay for supporting such a right-wing agenda.
Despite their efforts to undermine international humanitarian law and rationalize for the killing of civilians, many of these Democratic supporters of Bush administration policy toward Israel and Palestine still receive the enthusiastic endorsements and PAC funding from MoveOn and other supposedly “progressive” political organizations.
The message to Democratic lawmakers, then, appears to be that the progressive community doesn’t care about international humanitarian law, at least if the victims happen to be Arabs.
And, although American Israel Public Affairs Committee and allied right-wing groups have certainly played a role in limiting debate within the Democratic Party, their power is often so grossly exaggerated as to create a fatalistic view that it is not worth even trying to get these Democratic officials to support a more balanced policy on Israel and Palestine. This results in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy by leading progressive activists to blithely accept that otherwise progressive members of Congress embrace positions essentially identical to that of the Bush administration. Congressional staffers — always off the record — often play into anti-Semitic stereotypes by claiming that their boss is but a hapless victim of rich and powerful Jews behind the scenes and should therefore not be held accountable for his or her actions. It is profoundly disappointing that so many peace and human rights activists appear to fall for it.
If there is to be peace between Israel and Palestine, we must stop giving these Democratic hawks the benefit of the doubt or making excuses for them. This means engaging in protests at their speaking events and sit-ins in their offices. It means withholding campaign contributions, supporting progressive challengers in primary races and backing Green or other third-party challengers in the general election.
Until they know there is a political price to pay for their anti-Palestinian — and ultimately anti-Israel — positions, they will continue to push their right-wing foreign policy agenda. How the progressive community addresses the ongoing tragedy in the Gaza Strip in the coming days and weeks may determine the direction for the incoming Obama administration and the 111th Congress, not just in terms of U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine, but in foreign policy overall.
For ultimately, the issue is not about Hamas versus the Israeli government, or even Palestine versus Israel, but between supporters of international humanitarian law and those who believe the United States and its allies are somehow exempt.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/democrats-back-bush-rejec_b_155801.html
Fighting Corruption through Nonviolent Action
There is a quiet revolution going on in the international struggle against corruption and for greater transparency in government.
Two years ago, I attended my first International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), sponsored Transparency International and other groups, which takes place every other year. The location was Guatemala City, a country where the per capita annual income is only slightly more than the registration, hotel and air fare of most participants. Sponsors included Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell and other corporations whose own record of upholding legal and ethical standards is far from pristine.
There were a number of sparsely-attended workshops during the four-day conference featuring participants who emphasized the importance of grass roots struggles to fight corruption: Walden Bello, Alejandro Bedana, Shaazka Beyerle, Giorgi Meladze and a handful of others spoke about the successes of grassroots movements in such countries as the Philippines, Nicaragua, Turkey, and Georgia struggling against official corruption. However, the overall emphasis at the conference was on strengthening laws, better oversight by international organizations, stricter sanctions by foreign governments and corporations against corrupt local officials, and other top-down solutions.
What a difference two years can make.
This year’s IACC, which just concluded in Athens, took on a very different tone. Though the corporate sponsorship and high visibility of current and former government officials was still enough to give one pause, there were an unprecedented number of participants from civil society: human rights activists, feminists, veterans of nonviolent action campaigns, journalists from alternative media, environmental campaigners, advocates of debt relief, and – despite the European location – and unprecedented number of participants from the global south.
In contrast to the final declaration from the conference in Guatemala, which stressed that the central issue was “respect for the law,” there was a far greater emphasis this year on the role of ordinary citizens. It is difficult for people to respect law unless there is some kind of enforcement mechanism. If the government itself is the law-breaker, however, who then provides the enforcement?
Coming out of this year’s conference was a growing awareness that corruption can never be completely overcome unless it is recognized as an issue of social justice and is pressed by popular movements from below. Indeed, IACC Council Chairman Barry O’Keefe stressed the need to expand the anti-corruption movement to include new stakeholders from civil society
Though still in the minority, there were a record number of sessions this year stressing the role of civic action to fight corruption. Activists from Armenia, Egypt, India, Russia, Uganda, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, the United States and many other countries shared narratives of creative uses of nonviolent action to challenge corrupt officials, illicit activities by private corporations, and irresponsible local, regional and national governments. These included not just efforts in relatively peaceful societies, but stories of some dramatic victories by movements challenging corruption in areas of extreme violence, like the Niger Delta of Nigeria and the highlands of Guatemala.
The dramatic growth in democratic governance in recent decades from Latin America to Eastern Europe as well as large parts of Africa and Asia rarely came from outside forces or top-down initiatives, but primarily from democratic civil society organizations engaging in strategic nonviolent action. There appears to be a growing recognition that endemic corruption needs to be addressed the same way.
A number of the democratic experiments which have emerged in recent years from the global south and the former Soviet Bloc will remain fragile if the legitimacy of elected governments is questioned as a result of their corrupt behavior. The global anti-corruption movement is beginning to recognize that it may be up to the very forces which made free elections in these countries possible to also ensure that these new democracies live up to their promise and, if not, to be prepared to take to the streets once again.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/fighting-corruption-throu_b_149249.html
Haidar’s Struggle
Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation’s struggle against the 33-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country, won this year’s Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
This recognition of Haidar and her nonviolent freedom campaign is significant in that the Western Sahara struggle has often gone unnoticed, even among many human rights activists. In addition, highlighting the work of an Arab Muslim woman struggling for her people’s freedom through nonviolent action helps challenge impressions held by many Americans that those resisting U.S.-backed regimes in that part of the world are misogynist, violent extremists. Successive administrations have used this stereotype to justify military intervention and support for repressive governments and military occupations.
Unfortunately, given its role in making Morocco’s occupation possible, the U.S. government has little enthusiasm for Haidar and the visibility her winning the RFK prize gives to the whole Western Sahara issue.
Moroccan Occupation
In 1975, the kingdom of Morocco conquered Western Sahara — on the eve of its anticipated independence from Spain — in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice upholding the right of the country’s inhabitants to self-determination. With threats of a French and American veto at the UN preventing decisive action by the international community to stop the Moroccan invasion, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed struggle against the occupiers. The Polisario established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in February 1976, which has subsequently been recognized by nearly 80 countries and is a full member state of the African Union. The majority of the indigenous population, known as Sahrawis, went into exile, primarily in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria.
Thanks in part to U.S. military aid, Morocco eventually was able to take control of most of the territory, including all major towns. It also built, thanks to U.S. assistance, a series of fortified sand berms in the desert that effectively prevented penetration by Polisario forces into Moroccan-controlled territory. In addition, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Morocco moved tens of thousands of settlers into Western Sahara until they were more than twice the population of the remaining indigenous Sahrawis. Yet the Polisario achieved a series of diplomatic victories that generated widespread international support for self-determination and refusal to recognize the Moroccan takeover. In 1991, the Polisario agreed to a ceasefire in return for a Moroccan promise to allow for an internationally supervised referendum on the fate of the territory. Morocco, however, refused to allow the referendum to move forward.
French and American support for the Moroccan government blocked the UN Security Council from providing the necessary diplomatic pressure to move the referendum process forward. The Polisario, meanwhile, recognized its inability to defeat the Moroccans by military means. As a result, the struggle for self-determination shifted to within the Moroccan-occupied territory, where the Sahrawi population has launched a nonviolent resistance campaign against the occupation.
Nonviolent Resistance
Western Sahara had seen scattered impromptu acts of open nonviolent resistance ever since the Moroccan conquest. In 1987, for instance, a visit to the occupied territory by a special UN committee to investigate the human right violations sparked protests in the Western Saharan capital of El Aaiún. The success of this major demonstration was all the more remarkable, given that most of the key organizers had been arrested the night before and the city was under a strict curfew. Among the more than 700 people arrested was the 21-year-old Aminatou Haidar.
For four years she was “disappeared,” held without charge or trial, and kept in secret detention centers. In these facilities, she and 17 other Sahrawi women underwent regular torture and abuse.
Most resistance activity inside the occupied territory remained clandestine until early September 1999, when Sahrawi students organized sit-ins and vigils for more scholarships and transportation subsidies from the Moroccan government. Since an explicit call for independence would have been brutally suppressed immediately, the students hoped to push the boundaries of dissent by taking advantage of their relative intellectual freedom. Former political prisoners seeking compensation and accountability for their state-sponsored disappearances soon joined the nonviolent vigils, along with Sahrawi workers from nearby phosphate mines and a union of unemployed college graduates. The movement was suppressed within a few months. Although the demands of what became known as the first Sahrawi Intifada appeared to be nonpolitical, it served as a test of both the Sahrawi public and the Moroccan government. It paved the way for Sahrawis to press for bolder demands and engage in larger protests in the future that would directly challenge the Moroccan occupation itself.
A second Sahrawi intifada, which because known as the “Intifada al-Istiglal” (the Intifada of Independence), began in May 2005. Thousands of Sahrawi demonstrators, led by women and youths, took to the streets of El Aaiún protesting the ongoing Moroccan occupation and calling for independence. The largely nonviolent protests and sit-ins were met by severe repression by Moroccan troops and Moroccan settlers. Within hours, leading Sahrawi activists were kidnapped, including Haidar, who was brutally beaten by Moroccan occupation forces. Sahrawi students at Moroccan universities then organized solidarity demonstrations, hunger strikes, and other forms of nonviolent protests. Throughout the remainder of 2005, the intifada continued with both spontaneous and planned protests, all of which were met with harsh repression by Moroccan authorities.
Haidar was released within seven months as a result of pressure from Amnesty International and the European parliament. Meanwhile, nonviolent protests have continued, despite ongoing repression by U.S.-supported Moroccan authorities. Despite continued disappearances, killings, beatings, and torture, Haidar has continued to advocate nonviolent action. In addition to organizing efforts at home, she traveled extensively to raise awareness internationally about the ongoing Moroccan occupation and advocate for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.
U.S. Increases Backing for Morocco
As repression increased, so did U.S. support for Morocco. The Bush administration has increased military and security assistance five-fold and also signed a free-trade agreement. The United States remained largely silent over the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied Western Sahara while heaping praise for King Mohammed VI’s domestic political and economic reforms. This year’s Republican Party platform singles out the Kingdom of Morocco for its “cooperation and social and economic development,” with no mention of Western Sahara.
However, the occupation itself continues to prove problematic for Morocco. The nonviolent resistance to the occupation continues. Most of the international community, despite French and American efforts, has refused to recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation of the territory.
As a result, the Moroccan kingdom recently advocated an autonomy plan for the territory. The Sahrawis, with the support of most of the world’s nations, rejected the proposal since it would not allow them the choice of independence, as all those living in non-self-governing territories have the legal right to do.
Indeed, the autonomy plan is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco, a contention that the UN, the World Court, the African Union, and a broad consensus of international legal opinion have long rejected. To accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the UN and the ratification of the UN Charter more the 60 years ago, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent.
In addition, Morocco’s proposal contains no enforcement mechanisms, nor are there indications of any improvement of the current poor human rights situation. It’s also unclear how much autonomy Morocco is offering, since it would retain control of Western Sahara’s natural resources and law enforcement. In addition, the proposal appears to indicate that all powers not specifically vested in the autonomous region would remain with the kingdom.
Despite this, the Bush administration refers to Morocco’s autonomy plan as “credible and serious” and the “only possible solution” to the Western Sahara conflict, further insisting that “an independent state in the Sahara is not a realistic option.” While visiting Morocco last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed her support for the “good ideas” put forth by the Moroccan occupiers. Referring to the 35-year-old conflict, she proclaimed that “it is time that it be resolved,” presumably with the Sahrawis accepting their fate as permanently living under Moroccan rule.
Key House Democrats have weighed in support of Morocco’s right of conquest as well, with Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who chairs the Subcommittee on the Middle East, joining Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) in signing a letter endorsing the autonomy plan. Prominent Republicans signing the letter included Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). Indeed, more than 80 of the signers are either committee chairmen or ranking members of key committees, subcommittees and elected leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives, yet another indication in this post-Cold War era of a growing bipartisan effort to undermine the longstanding principle of the right of self-determination.
Advocacy for Haidar
Ironically, the United States rejected a more generous autonomy plan for Kosovo and instead pushed for UN recognition of that nation’s unilateral declaration of independence, even though Kosovo was legally part of Serbia and Western Sahara is legally a country under foreign military occupation.
Alas, U.S. administrations have gone to great lengths to prevent RFK award recipients from even having the opportunity to tell their stories. For example, the Reagan administration denied entry to the United States to representatives of the 1984 winners CoMadres — the group of Salvadoran women struggling on behalf of murdered and kidnapped relatives and other victims of the U.S.-backed junta. They couldn’t even receive their award.
In addition to a modest cash reward, the human rights award includes the expectation the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights will launch an ongoing legal, advocacy and technical support through a partnership with the winner. According to Monika Kalra Varma, the center’s director, “The RFK Human Rights Award not only recognizes a courageous human rights defender but marks the beginning of the RFK Center’s long-term partnership with Ms. Haidar and our commitment to work closely with her to realize the right to self-determination for the Sahrawi people.”
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), brother of the slain senator for whom the prize is named, stated, “I congratulate Aminatou Haidar for receiving this honor. All who care about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law for the people of the Western Sahara are inspired by her extraordinary courage, dedication and skilled work on their behalf.”
Next Steps
Western Sahara remains an occupied territory only because Morocco has refused to abide by a series of UN Security Council resolutions calling on the kingdom to end their occupation and recognize the right of the people of that territory to self-determination. Morocco has been able to persist in its defiance of its international legal obligations because France and the United States, which wield veto power in the UN Security Council, have blocked the enforcement of these resolutions. In addition, France and the United States served as principal suppliers of the armaments and other security assistance to Moroccan occupation forces. As a result, at least as important as nonviolent resistance by the Sahrawis against Morocco’s occupation policies would be the use of nonviolent action by the citizens of France, the United States and other countries that enable Morocco to maintain its occupation. Such campaigns played a major role in forcing the United States, Australia, and Great Britain to cease their support for Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. Solidarity networks have emerged in dozens of countries around the world, most notably in Spain and Norway, but don’t yet have a major impact in the United States, where it could matter most.
A successful nonviolent independence struggle by an Arab Muslim people under the Haidar’s leadership could set an important precedent. It would demonstrate how, against great odds, an outnumbered and outgunned population could win through the power of nonviolence in a part of the world where resistance to autocratic rule and foreign military occupation has often spawned acts of terrorism and other violence. Furthermore, the participatory democratic structure within the Sahrawi resistance movement and the prominence of women in key positions of leadership could serve as an important model in a region where authoritarian and patriarchal forms of governance have traditionally dominated.
The eventual outcome rests not just on the Sahrawis alone, but whether the international community, particularly those of us in the United States, decide whether such a struggle is worthy of our support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/haidars-struggle_b_133005.html
Washington’s Hypocrisy Over African Dictatorships
The Bush administration has justifiably criticized the Zimbabwean regime of liberator-turned-dictator Robert Mugabe. It has joined a unanimous UN Security Council resolution condemning the campaign of violence unleashed upon pro-democracy activists and calling for increased diplomatic sanctions in the face of yet another sham election. In addition, both the House and the Senate have passed strongly worded resolutions of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in support of their struggle for freedom and democracy.
However, neither the Republican administration nor the Democratic-controlled Congress is sincerely concerned about human rights and democratic elections as a matter of principle. Rather, they are more likely acting out of political expediency. Despite claims of support for the advancement of democracy, the United States continues to support other African dictatorships that are as bad as or even worse than that of Zimbabwe.
Indeed, the United States currently provides economic aid and security assistance to such repressive African regimes as Swaziland, Congo, Cameroun, Togo, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Gabon, Egypt, and Tunisia. None of these countries holds free elections, and all have severely suppressed their political opposition.
The Worst Abuser
Among the worst of these African tyrannies has been the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. Obiang has been in power even longer than the 28-year reign of Mugabe and, according to a recent article in the British newspaper The Independent, makes the Zimbabwean dictator “seem stable and benign” by comparison. Obiang originally seized power in a 1979 coup by murdering his uncle, who had ruled the country since its independence from Spain in 1968. Under his rule, Equatorial Guinea nominally allowed the existence of opposition parties as a condition of receiving foreign aid in the early 1990s. But the four leading candidates withdrew from the last presidential election in December 2002 in protest of irregularities in the voting process and violence against their supporters. In that election, Obiang officially received more than 97% of the vote (down from 99.5% in the previous election.)
Though the U.S. State Department acknowledged that the election was “marred by extensive fraud and intimidation,” the Congress and the administration devoted none of the vehement condemnation that was so evident after the recent, similarly marred election process in Zimbabwe.
One major reason for the difference in response is oil. The development of vast oil reserves over the past decade has made Equatorial Guinea one of the wealthiest countries in Africa in terms of per capita gross domestic product. Virtually all of the oil revenues, however, goes to Obiang and his cronies. The dictator himself is worth an estimated $1 billion, making him the wealthiest leader in Africa; his real estate holdings include two mansions in Maryland just outside of Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the country’s population lives on only a few dollars a day, and nearly half of all children under five are malnourished. The country’s major towns and cities lack basic sanitation and potable water while conditions in the countryside are even worse.
During his most recent visit to Washington in 2006, Obiang was warmly received by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who praised the dictator as “a good friend” of the United States. Not once during their joint appearance did she mention the words “human rights” or “democracy.” At the same press conference, Obiang praised his regime’s “extremely good relations with the United States” and his expectation that “this relationship will continue to grow in friendship and cooperation.” None of the assembled reporters raised any questions about the regime’s notorious human rights record or its lack of democracy, instead using the opportunity to ask Secretary Rice questions about the alleged threat from Iran.
In 2002, the dictator met with President George W. Bush in New York to discuss military and energy security issues. He followed up in 2004 with meetings with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham.
Cozy Relations
Equatorial Guinea receives U.S. government funding and training through the International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). In addition, the private U.S. firm Military Professional Resources Incorporated – founded by former senior Pentagon officials who cite the regime’s friendliness to U.S. strategic and economic interests – plays a key role in the country’s internal security apparatus. Furthermore, as a result of Obiang’s understandable lack of trust in his own people, soldiers from Morocco – one of America’s closest African allies – have served for decades in a number of important security functions, including the role of presidential guards.
Maintaining close ties with such a notorious ruler has led even conservative Republicans like Frank Ruddy, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Equatorial Guinea in the mid-1980s, to denounce the Bush administration for being “big cheerleaders for the government – and it’s an awful government.”
Though the Chinese have also recently begun investing in the country’s oil sector, U.S. companies ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess, Chevron/Texaco, and Marathon Oil have played the most significant role. A report by the International Monetary Fund notes that U.S. oil companies receive “by far the most generous tax and profit-sharing provisions in the region.” Congressional hearings recently revealed how U.S. oil companies paid hundreds of millions of dollars destined to state treasuries directly into the dictator’s private bank accounts. A Senate report faulted U.S. oil companies for making “substantial payments to, or entering into business ventures with,” government officials and their family members.
The irony of the relative silence of Congress and the Bush administration regarding the human rights abuses and the undemocratic nature of Obiang’s regime is that, due to the critical role of U.S. economic investment and security assistance, the United States has far more leverage on the government of Equatorial Guinea than it does on the government of Zimbabwe. As a result, Americans can feel self-righteous in their condemnation of a regime in Zimbabwe with which the United States has little leverage while continuing to support an even more repressive regime over which the United States could successfully exert pressure if it chose to do so.
This does not mean the United States should have waited until it first ends its support of Obiang and other African dictatorships before joining the rest of the international community in condemning the repression in Zimbabwe. However, as long as the United States maintains such blatant double-standards, U.S. credibility as a defender of human rights and free elections is seriously compromised and thereby plays right into the hands of autocrats and demagogues like Robert Mugabe.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/washingtons-hypocrisy-ove_b_110179.html
Sharp Attack Unwarranted
PETITION supporting Dr. Gene Sharp, foremost author-expert on Strategic Nonviolent Action
Gene Sharp, an 80-year-old scholar of strategic nonviolent action and veteran of radical pacifist causes, is under attack by a number of foreign governments that claim that he and his small research institute are key players in a Bush administration plot against them.
Though there is no truth to these charges, several leftist web sites and publications have been repeating such claims as fact. This raises disturbing questions regarding the ability of progressives challenging Bush foreign policy to distinguish between the very real manifestations of U.S. imperialism and conspiratorial fantasies.
Gene Sharp’s personal history demonstrates the bizarre nature of these charges. He spent two years in prison for draft resistance against the Korean War, was arrested in the early civil rights sit-ins, was an editor of the radical pacifist journal Peace News, and was the personal assistant to the leftist labor organizer A.J. Muste. He named his institute after Albert Einstein, who is not only remembered as the greatest scientist of the 20th century but was also a well-known socialist and pacifist.
Sharp founded the Albert Einstein Institution in 1983, dedicated to advancing the study and utilization of nonviolent conflict in defense of freedom, justice, and democracy. Long considered the foremost authority in his field, Sharp has inspired generations of progressive peace, labor, feminist, environmental, and social justice activists in the United States and around the world. In the past few decades, as nonviolent pro-democracy movements have played the decisive role in ending authoritarian rule in such countries as the Philippines, Chile, Madagascar, Poland, Mongolia, Bolivia and Serbia, interest among peace and justice activists has grown in his research and the work of other scholars studying strategic nonviolent action.
Fabricated Allegations
Unfortunately, however, as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s open advocacy for “regime change,” any American group or individual who provides educational resources on strategic nonviolence to civil society organizations or human rights activists in foreign countries has suddenly become suspect of being an agent of U.S. imperialism – even Gene Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution.
For example, in February Iranian government television informed viewers that Gene Sharp was “one of the CIA agents in charge of America’s infiltration into other countries.” It included a computer-animated sequence of him and John McCain in a White House conference room plotting the overthrow of the Iranian regime. In reality, Sharp has never worked with the CIA, has never met Senator McCain, and has never even been to the White House. Government spokespeople and supporters of autocratic regimes in Burma, Zimbabwe, and Belarus have also blamed Sharp for being behind dissident movements in their countries as well.
Ironically, some on the left have picked up and expanded on these charges. For example, in an article about the Bush administration promoting “soft coups” against foreign governments it doesn’t like, Jonathan Mowat claims that “The main handler of these coups on the ‘street side’ has been the Albert Einstein Institution,” which he says is funded by Hungarian-American financier George Soros. Venezuelan-American attorney Eva Golinger, meanwhile, claimed that “Peter Ackerman, a multimillionaire banker had sponsored ‘regime changes’ in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia through the Albert Einstein Institute.” Tony Logan insists that AEI “is a U.S. government run operation designed to link Gandhian methods of nonviolent protest to Pentagon and U,S, State Department efforts to overthrow foreign governments.” In a similar vein, Counterpunch readers were recently informed that the Albert Einstein Institution plays “a central role in a new generation of warfare, one which has incorporated the heroic examples of past nonviolent resistance into a strategy of obfuscation and misdirection that does the work of empire.”
Absolutely none of these claims is true. Yet such articles have been widely circulated on progressive websites and list serves. Such false allegations have even ended up as part of entries on the Albert Einstein Institution in SourceWatch, Wikipedia, and other reference web sites.
The international press has occasionally echoed some of these bogus claims as well. For example, a commentary published in the Asia Times last fall accused Sharp of being the “concert-master” for the Saffron Revolution in Burma, claiming that the Albert Einstein Institution is funded by an arm of the U.S. government “to foster U.S.-friendly regime change in key spots around the world” and that its staff includes “known CIA operatives.” Though these charges were utterly false, the article was then widely circulated on a number of progressive list serves, including such academic networks as the Peace and Justice Studies Association.
Implicit in such charges is that Burmese monks and other pro-democracy activists in that country are unable to initiate such actions themselves and their decision to take to the streets last fall in mass protests against their country’s repressive military junta came about because an octogenarian academic in Boston had somehow put them up to it. One Burmese human rights activist, referring to his country’s centuries-old tradition of popular resistance, noted how the very idea of an outsider having to orchestrate the Burmese people to engage in a nonviolent action campaign is like “teaching grandma to peel onions.” (The Asia Times article also tried to connect Sharp to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China and another article from the Straits Times in Singapore even places Sharp and AEI behind the recent uprising in Tibet.)
This racist attitude that the peoples of non-Western societies are incapable of deciding on their own to resist illegitimate authority without some Western scholar telling them to do so has been most dramatically highlighted by French Marxist Thierry Meyssan. In his article “The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA,” he insists that Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution were personally responsible for the 1991 Lithuanian independence struggle against the Soviet Union; the 2000 student-led pro-democracy movement that ousted Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia; the 2003 Rose Revolution that forced out Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze; and, the 2004 Orange Revolution that forced the revote on the rigged national election in Ukraine. He also credits (or, more accurately, blames) Gene Sharp for personally playing a key role in uniting the Tibetan opposition under the Dalai Lama, as well as forming the Burmese Democratic Alliance, the Taiwanese Progressive Democratic Party, and a dissident wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization that Sharp supposedly trained secretly in the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.
The failure of people power movements to succeed in some other cases was not, according to Meyssan, due to weaknesses within the movement or strengths in the state apparatus. Says Meyssan, “Gene Sharp failed in Belarus and Zimbabwe for he could not recruit and train in the proper time the necessary amount of demonstrators.”
Despite the absurdity of these claims and the attribution of seemingly superhuman capabilities to this mild-mannered intellectual, Meyssan’s article has been repeatedly cited on progressive web sites and list serves, feeding the arrogance of Western leftists who deny the capability of Asians, Africans, Latin Americans, and Eastern Europeans to organize mass actions themselves.
The Real Story
The office of the Albert Einstein Institution – which supposedly plays such a “central role” in American imperialism –is actually a tiny, cluttered space in the downstairs of Gene Sharp’s home, located in a small row house in a working class neighborhood in East Boston. The staff consists of just two employees, Sharp and a young administrator.
Rather than receiving lucrative financial support from the U.S. government or wealthy financiers, the Albert Einstein Institution is almost exclusively funded by individual small donors and foundation grants. It operates on a budget of less than $160,000 annually.
Also contrary to the slew of recent charges posted on the Internet, the Albert Einstein Institution has never funded activist groups to subvert foreign governments, nor would it have had the financial means to do so. Furthermore, AEI does not initiate contact with any individual or organizations; those interested in the group’s educational materials come to them first.
Nor have these critics ever presented any evidence that Sharp or the Albert Einstein Institution has ever been requested, encouraged, advised, or received suggestions by any branch of the US government to do or not do any research, analysis, policy studies, or educational activity, much less engage in active subversion of foreign governments. And, given the lack of respect the U.S. government has traditionally had for nonviolence or for the power of popular movements to create change, it is not surprising that these critics haven’t found any.
The longstanding policy of the Albert Einstein Institution, given its limited funding and the reality of living in an imperfect world, is to be open to accepting funds from organizations that have received some funding from government sources “as long as there is no dictation or control of the purpose of our work, individual projects, or of the dissemination of the gained knowledge.” Well prior to the Bush administration coming to office, AEI received a couple of small grants from the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) to translate some of Gene Sharp’s theoretical writings. Nearly forty years ago (and fifteen years prior to AEI’s founding), Sharp received partial research funding for his doctoral dissertation from Harvard Professor Thomas Schelling, who had received support from the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense to fund doctoral students.
Though these constitute the only financial support Gene Sharp or the Albert Einstein Institution has ever received, even indirectly, from government sources, critics have jumped on these tenuous links to allege that AEI is “funded by the U.S. government.”
Progressive Connections
A look at the five members of the Albert Einstein Institution’s board shows that none of them is a supporter or apologist for U.S. imperialism. In addition to Sharp himself, the board consists of: human rights lawyer Elizabeth Defeis; disability rights and environmental activist Cornelia Sargent; senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA Curt Goering; and, veteran civil rights and anti-war activist Mary King, author of a recent highly acclaimed book that gives a sympathetic portrayal of the first – and largely nonviolent – Palestinian Intifada.
During the 1980s, Gene Sharp’s staff included radical sociologist Bob Irwin and Greg Bates, who went on to become the co-founder and publisher of the progressive Common Courage Press.
Some years ago, when the institute had a larger budget, one of their principal activities was to support research projects in strategic nonviolent action. Recipients included such left-leaning scholars and activists as Palestinian feminist Souad Dajani, Rutgers sociologist Kurt Schock, Israeli human rights activist Edy Kaufman, Kent State Peace Studies professor Patrick Coy, Nigerian human rights activist Uche Ewelukwa, and Paul Routledge of the University of Glasgow, all of whom have been outspoken critics of U.S. foreign policy.
For decades, the work of Gene Sharp has influenced such radical U.S. groups as Movement for a New Society, the Clamshell Alliance, the Abalone Alliance, Training for Change and other activist organizations that have promoted nonviolent direct action as a key component of their activism.
Sharp and AEI have also worked closely in recent years with pro-democracy activists battling U.S.-backed dictatorships in such countries as Egypt and Equatorial Guinea as well as with Palestinians resisting the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation, hardly “the work of empire” designed “to foster US-friendly regime change” as critics claim.
The Case of Venezuela
As part of an effort to challenge the longstanding stereotype of nonviolent action being the exclusive province of radical pacifists, Dr. Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution have taken a “transpartisan” position that cuts across political boundaries and conceptions and makes their educational resources available to essentially anyone.
Not surprisingly, a small minority of those who have taken advantage of such resources have been those whose commitment to justice and equality is questionable, including some members of Venezuelan opposition groups.
This ideological indifference on the part of Sharp and his institution has been troubling for many of us on the left, but it certainly does not constitute evidence that they are part of a U.S.-funded conspiracy to overthrow foreign governments around the world to advance U.S. imperialism and capitalist hegemony. Indeed, their consulting policy explicitly prohibits them from taking part in any political action, participating in strategic decision-making with any group, or taking sides in any conflict. None of the institute’s critics has been able to provide evidence of a single violation of this policy.
Nevertheless, in her book Bush vs. Chavez: Washington’s War on Venezuela, author Eva Golinger falsely claims that the Albert Einstein Institution has developed a plan to overthrow that country’s democratically elected government through training right-wing paramilitaries to use “widespread civil disobedience and violence throughout the nation” in order to “provoke repressive reactions by the state that would then justify crises of human right violations and lack of constitutional order.” Similarly, in a recent article, Golinger has gone so far as to claim that Gene Sharp has written “a big destabilization plan aiming to overthrow Chavez government and to pave the way for an international intervention” including sabotage and street violence. Neither Golinger nor anyone else has been able to produce a copy of this supposed plan, instead simply citing Sharp’s book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, written over 35 years ago, in which he outlines close to 200 exclusively nonviolent tactics that have been used historically, but includes no destabilization plan aimed at Venezuela or any other country.
In addition, Meyssan, in an article posted in Venezuela Analysis, insisted that “Gene Sharp and his team led the leaders of [the opposition group] Súmate during the demonstrations of August 2004.” In reality, neither Sharp nor anybody else affiliated with the Albert Einstein Institution even took part in – much less led – those demonstrations. Nor were any of them anywhere near Venezuela during that period. Nor were any of them in contact with the leaders of that demonstration.
In another article, recently posted on the Counterpunch web site, George Cicariello-Miller falsely accuses Sharp of having links with right-wing assassins and terrorists and offering training “toward the formulation of what was called ‘Operation Guarimba,’ a series of often-violent street blockades that resulted in several deaths.” Cicariello-Miller’s only evidence of Sharp’s alleged role in masterminding this operation was that a right-wing Venezuelan opposition leader had once met with Sharp in Boston and that a photo of a stylized clinched fist found in some AEI literature (taken from a student-led protest movement in Serbia eight years ago) matched those on some signs carried by anti-Chavez protesters in Venezuela.
It appears that no one who has written any of these articles or who has made such claims has ever actually attended any of the lectures, workshops, or informal meetings by Gene Sharp or others affiliated with the Albert Einstein Institution or has even bothered to interview anyone who has. If they had done so, they would quickly find that these presentations tend to be rather dry lectures which focus on the nature of power, the dynamics of nonviolent struggle, and examples of tactics used in nonviolent resistance campaigns historically. They do not instruct anybody or give specific advice about what to do in their particular situation other than to encourage activists to avoid all forms of violence.
Finally, even if one were to assume that the Albert Einstein Institution’s underfunded two-person outfit was indeed closely involved in training the Venezuelan opposition in tactics of nonviolent resistance, Chavez would have little to worry about. No government that had the support of the majority of its people has ever been overthrown through a nonviolent civil resistance movement. Every government deposed through a primarily nonviolent struggle – such as in the Philippines, Chile, Bolivia, Madagascar, Nepal, Czechoslovakia, Indonesia, Serbia, Mali, Ukraine, and elsewhere – had already lost popular support. This is not the case with Venezuela. While Chavez’ progressive economic policies have angered the old elites, he still maintains the support of the majority of the population, particularly when compared to the alternative of returning to the old elite-dominated political system.
Unfortunately, Chavez himself was apparently convinced by these conspiracy theorists that Gene Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution really were part of a CIA-backed conspiracy against him, claiming last June that “they are the ideologues of the soft coup and it seems like they’re here [in Venezuela.] They are laying out the slow fuse … they’ll continue laying it out [with] marches, events, trying to create an explosion.” In reality, no one affiliated with AEI was in Venezuela nor were they organizing marches, events, or any other activity, much less trying to create an “explosion.”
In response, Sharp wrote a letter to President Chavez explaining the inaccuracy of the Venezuelan leader’s charges against him and expressing his concern that “for those persons who are familiar with my life and work and that of the Albert Einstein Institution, these inaccuracies, unless corrected, will cast doubts on your credibility.” He also offered Chavez a copy of his book The Anti-Coup, which includes concrete steps on how a threatened government can mobilize the population to prevent a successful coup d’etat, hardly the kind of offer made by someone conspiring with the CIA to overthrow him.
With the U.S. corporate media and members of Congress refusing to challenge the very real efforts by the Bush administration to subvert and undermine Chavez’s government, the credibility of those of us attempting to expose such genuine imperialistic intrigues are being compromised by these bizarre conspiracy theories involving Gene Sharp, the Albert Einstein Institution, and related individuals and NGOs. Golinger’s books and articles, for example, bring to light some very real and very dangerous efforts by the U.S. government and U.S.-funded agencies. It is hard for many people to take her real accusations seriously, however, in the face of her simultaneously putting forward such blatant falsehoods about Gene Sharp and his institute.
Why Such Bizarre Attacks?
There is a long, sordid history of covert U.S. support for foreign political parties, military cliques, and individual leaders, as well as related activities that have resulted in the overthrow of elected governments. And there are the very real ongoing efforts by such U.S. government-funded entities as the NED and IRI which, in the name of “democracy promotion,” provide financial and logistical support for groups working against governments the United States opposes. Given these very real manifestations of U.S. imperialism, why have some people insisted on going after an aging scholar whose worst crime may be that he is not being discriminating enough regarding with whom he shares his research?
One reason is that some critics of Sharp subscribe to the same realpolitik myth that sees local struggles and mass movements as simply manifestations of great power politics, just as the right once tried to portray the popular leftist uprisings in Central America and elsewhere simply as creations of the Soviet Union. Another factor is that many of the originators of the conspiracy theories regarding Gene Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution are Marxist-Leninists who have traditionally downplayed the power of nonviolence and insisted that meaningful political change can only come about through manipulation by powerful external actors or privileged elites.
This is reinforced by the fact that many supporters of U.S. imperialism – particularly the neo-conservatives – share this vanguard mentality with Marxist-Leninists. As a result, the right has given the United States unjustifiable credit for many of the dramatic transitions from dictatorships to democracies which have taken place around the world in recent decades. This, in turn, has led some on the left to see such ahistorical polemics as “proof” of the central U.S. role because the imperialists are “admitting it.”
The attempts to discredit Gene Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution – as well as similar charges against the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) – appear to be part of an effort by both the right and the far left to delegitimize the power of individuals to make change and to portray the United States – for good or for ill – as the only power that can make a difference in the world. (For a detailed analysis of the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and popular democratic movements, see my article on the United States, nonviolent action and pro-democracy struggles.)
It is therefore troubling that so many progressive sources of information have transmitted such falsehoods so widely and that so many people have come to believe them, particularly given the transparent lack of any solid evidence to back their accusations. The minority of these articles that actually have citations, for example, simply quote long-discredited sources such as Meyssan and Golinger. In a mirror-image of the right-wing’s blind acceptance of false stories about Barack Obama’s embrace of militant Islam, Michelle Obama’s anti-white rhetoric, and Nancy Pelosi’s punitive tax plan against retirees, some on the left all too easily believe what they read on the Internet. The widespread acceptance of these false charges against Gene Sharp and others raises concerns as to how many other fabricated pseudo-conspiracies are out there that distract progressive activists from challenging all-too-real abuses by the U.S. government and giant corporations.
One consequence of these attacks has been that a number of progressive grass roots organizations in foreign countries have now become hesitant to take advantage of the educational resources on strategic nonviolent action provided by the Albert Einstein Institution and related groups. As a result of fears that they may be linked to the CIA and other U.S. government agencies, important campaigns for human rights, the environment, and economic justice have been denied access to tools that could have strengthened their impact. Furthermore, these disinformation campaigns have damaged the reputation of a number of prominent anti-imperialist activists and scholars who have worked with such groups by wrongly linking them to U.S. interventionism.
Fortunately, there is now an effort underway to fight back. Activists from groups ranging from the Fellowship of Reconciliation to Code Pink to the Brown Berets – as well as such radical scholars as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Paul Ortiz – are signing onto an open letter in support of Gene Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institution. [Source]
PETITION supporting Dr. Gene Sharp, foremost author-expert on Strategic Nonviolent Action
Estonia’s Singing Revolution
There is an infamous line from the Nazi era, which Hermann Goring adapted from a play performed on Hitler’s birthday: “When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.”
By contrast, the people of Estonia, when faced with many guns, reached for their culture.
In a remarkable new documentary, The Singing Revolution, filmmakers Maureen and Jim Tusty tell the little-known story of the Estonian people’s nonviolent struggle against decades of Soviet occupation, culminating in that country’s independence in 1991. The movement played an important role in the downfall of the entire Soviet Empire.
Over the previous several years, nonviolent uprisings had helped topple Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe as well as right-wing dictatorships from Southeast Asia to Latin America. Earlier in the century, Gandhi’s movement in India demonstrated the power of nonviolent action in leading a country to independence against even the powerful British Empire. The people of Estonia, along with their neighbors in Latvia and Lithuania, similarly showed how sustained nonviolence could be successfully waged against the Soviet occupation of their country. Music was a key part of this struggle.
Music around the World
Music has played a key role in nonviolent struggles around the world. With updated lyrics to traditional African-American Gospel music that stressed emancipation and resistance, song energized the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. The Nuevo Cancion movement, blending local folk music traditions with language espousing justice and resisting repression, inspired the pro-democracy campaign in Chile during the 1980s. And the rich harmonies of African folk tradition, with lyrics calling for freedom and defiance against the oppressors, empowered the South African struggle against apartheid.
In most such cases, the music was an inspirational and unifying force for the movement. In Estonia, music – primarily the country’s rich choral tradition – played an even more central role for it embodied the essence of the struggle. For centuries, foreign domination had threatened Estonian national and cultural identity. Many other peoples would have assimilated in the face of centuries of foreign control, but the Estonians refused to give up their unique culture. They speak a language totally unrelated to the Slavic and Scandinavian languages of their neighbors; they are mostly Lutheran, whereas most of their immediate neighbors are Catholic or Orthodox. A more immediate threat to their linguistic and cultural heritage was the huge number of Russian settlers who moved into the country since the Soviet re-conquest in 1944 – to the point where these Russian settlers almost outnumbered the Estonians themselves. Despite claims of international proletarian solidarity, the 20th-century Soviet Communists were in many ways as chauvinistic in their nationalism as the czars who had occupied Estonia in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Though one of the world’s smallest countries, Estonia has one of the world’s largest repertoires of folk songs, and the Estonians have used their music as a political weapon for centuries. Songs were used as protest against German conquerors as far back as the 13th century and as an act of resistance against the occupying army of Russian czar Peter the Great in the 18th century. Since 1869, Estonians have taken part in an annual song festival known as Laulupidu, where choirs from around the country come together for a multi-day celebration of choral music, with as many as 25,000 people singing on stage at the same time. These gatherings, which have attracted crowds of hundreds of thousands, have always been as much about the popular yearning for national self-determination as they have been about music. Laulupidu became the cornerstone of the resistance against the Soviet occupation, when – in addition to singing the requisite songs praising the state and the Communist Party – the organizers defied Soviet officials by including banned nationalist songs and symbols. Despite divisions within the nationalist movement and despite violent provocations by Soviet occupation forces and pro-Soviet Russian settlers, the movement gained strength, and the public protests, nationalist displays, and other forms of nonviolent resistance escalated.
Given Estonia’s small size, armed resistance would have been completely futile and only led to more suffering. Russia was 300 times the size of Estonia, whose population was barely more than one million. The Soviet Red Army, the largest armed force in the world at that time, was more than prepared to crush any form of armed resistance. Yet it was no match for hundreds of thousands of nonviolent Estonians singing their way to freedom. When this nonviolent resistance movement began in the mid-1980s, taking advantage of the limited space made possible by reforms enacted by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviets had no clue what was coming. By all conventional measures, they had things under complete control.
Western Responses
The West didn’t have a clue what was coming either, however. Washington believed that the best way to deter the feared expansion of Soviet Communism was through NATO, the massive procurement of arms, and the threat of triggering a nuclear holocaust. For decades, the assumption was that these Soviet-imposed autocratic regimes could not be rolled back. Estonia was deemed a hopeless cause. The United States did provide nominal recognition to the impotent remnants of a rightist Estonian government-in-exile, largely unaware of the exciting changes taking place inside the country.
Few anti-imperialists in the West were aware of what was happening in the Baltic republics during this period, either. They were wary of the right-wing nationalism of many Estonian exiles and offended by the hypocrisy of the U.S. government giving lip service to freedom in Eastern Europe while backing brutal autocratic regimes elsewhere and arming foreign occupation forces in East Timor, Palestine, and Western Sahara. However, the burgeoning Estonian struggle for independence crossed the ideological spectrum, with even the Estonian Communist Party eventually confronting Moscow with demands for independence from the Soviet Union. The Estonian people’s concern was not in great power rivalries, but in national freedom.
Meanwhile, the Reagan administration, which did think that Communism could be rolled back, thought the best way to end Soviet occupations was through support for armed groups like the Afghan mujahadin. This strategy did eventually result in driving out the Soviets from Afghanistan. But the war also resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the displacement of millions, and fueled an Islamic radicalization that tragically came to our shores on 9/11.
The Estonians, however, had a better way: through massive noncooperation, through building alternative national cultural institutions, and through their music.
The Estonians’ commitment to nonviolence and their embrace of music not only made their independence struggle a success, it was also key in making Estonia a successful democracy. There are still ongoing political struggles in the country, particularly regarding the rights of Estonia’s large Russian minority. But the use of a nonviolent strategy in the independence struggle has led to a climate where such potentially explosive issues are addressed without the warring militias and ethnic cleansing that have characterized other countries with serious ethnic divides.
Indeed, the Estonian revolution was led not by an elite vanguard of unsmiling ideologues. It was a massive, inclusive, and democratic celebration of a nation and its culture. Those values continue to resonate to this day. The Estonians did Emma Goldman proud. They danced, and they had a revolution.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/estonias_singing_revolution
Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles
The United States has done for the cause of democracy what the Soviet Union did for the cause of socialism. Not only has the Bush administration given democracy a bad name in much of the world, but its high-profile and highly suspect “democracy promotion” agenda has provided repressive regimes and their apologists an excuse to label any popular pro-democracy movement that challenges them as foreign agents, even when led by independent grassroots nonviolent activists.
In recent months, the governments of Zimbabwe, Iran, Belarus, and Burma, among others, have disingenuously claimed that popular nonviolent civil insurrections of the kind that toppled the corrupt and autocratic regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine in recent years – and that could eventually threaten them as well – are somehow part of an effort by the Bush administration and its allies to instigate “soft coups” against governments deemed hostile to American interests and replace them by more compliant regimes.
This confuses two very different phenomena.
The U.S. government has undeniably provided small amounts of money to various opposition groups and political parties through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and other organs. Such funding has at times helped a number of opposition groups cover some of the costs of their operations, better enabling them to afford computers, Internet access, fax machines, printing costs, office space and other materials. Assistance from foreign governments has also helped provide for poll watchers and other logistical support to help insure free and fair elections. In addition, the United States, through the NED, the IRI and other U.S.-funded projects, has also provided seminars and other training for opposition leaders in campaign strategies.
What is controversial about these endeavors is that they have been directed primarily at helping conservative, pro-Western parties with a free-market orientation and generally not parties of the democratic left. Nor are they aimed solely at pro-democracy struggles challenging autocratic regimes. Indeed, U.S. agencies have also backed opposition parties in countries such as Venezuela, despite it already being a democracy.
Some opposition groups in some countries have welcomed U.S. assistance while others have rejected such aid on principle. There is no evidence, however, to suggest – even in cases where this kind of limited U.S. support for opposition organizations has taken place – that the U.S. government or any U.S.-funded entity has ever provided training, advice, or strategic assistance for the kind of mass popular nonviolent action campaigns that have toppled governments or threatened the survival of incumbent regimes.
How Democratic Change Occurs
The United States remains the world’s number one supplier of armaments and security assistance to the world’s dictatorships. There is little reason to take seriously the idea that U.S. foreign policy, under either Republican or Democratic administrations, has been based upon a sincere belief in advancing freedom and democracy as a matter of principle. History has shown repeatedly that the U.S. government, like most Western powers, supports democratic rule only if it is seen to promote perceived economic and strategic interests. Conversely, the U.S. government has frequently opposed democratic rule if it is seen to be contrary to perceived economic and strategic interests. Since the vast majority of Americans, according to public opinion polls, do support democracy as a matter of principle, however, support for “democracy” has long been used as a rationalization for various U.S. foreign policy initiatives, even when these policies end up supporting authoritarianism and repression. As a result, though support for democratic change in countries ruled by autocratic regimes is certainly a worthwhile goal, skepticism over the Bush administration’s pro-democracy rhetoric is indeed warranted.
In any case, true democratic change comes from within. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a series of broadly based nonviolent social movements that have succeeded in toppling dictatorships and forcing democratic reforms in such diverse countries as the Philippines, Chile, Bolivia, Madagascar, Nepal, Czechoslovakia, Indonesia, Serbia, Mali, and Ukraine. Even the relatively conservative Washington-based Freedom House, after examining the 67 countries that have moved from authoritarianism to varying degrees of democratic governance over the past few decades, published a study concluding that these transitions did not come as a result of foreign intervention and only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms. In the overwhelming majority of cases, according to this report, change came through democratic civil society organizations engaging in massive nonviolent demonstrations and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes, boycotts, tax refusal, occupations of public space, and other forms of non-cooperation.
Whenever governments are challenged by their own people, they tend to claim that those struggling for freedom and justice are traitors to the nation and agents of foreign enemies. In previous decades, opposition activists challenging U.S.-backed dictatorships in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere were routinely labeled as “communist agents” and “Soviet sympathizers.” Today, pro-democracy movements within U.S. client states in the Middle East are depicted as “Islamic fundamentalists” and “Iranian agents.” Similarly, opposition activists in Iran, Belarus, Burma, and Zimbabwe have been labeled as “supporters of Western imperialism” and “American agents.”
In reality, the limited amount of financial support provided to opposition groups by the United States and other Western governments in recent years cannot cause a nonviolent liberal democratic revolution to take place any more than the limited Soviet financial and material support for leftist movements in previous decades could cause an armed socialist revolution to take place. As Marxists and others familiar with popular movements have long recognized, revolutions are the result of certain objective conditions. Indeed, no amount of money could force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their jobs, homes, schools, and families to face down heavily armed police and tanks and put their bodies on the line unless they had a sincere motivation to do so.
Conspiracy Theories
A number of regimes facing popular opposition have gone so far as to claim that certain small independent non-profit organizations and supporters of nonviolent action from Europe and the United States who have provided seminars and workshops for opposition activists on the history and dynamics of nonviolent resistance are somehow working as agents of the Bush administration. Some Western bloggers and other writers critical of the Bush administration and understandably concerned about U.S. intervention in the name of “democracy,” have actually bought into some of the claims by these governments. These conspiracy theories have in turn been picked up by some progressive websites and periodicals and even by some in the mainstream press, which then repeat them as fact.
Virtually all of these seminars and workshops, however, come at the direct request of opposition organizers themselves. And at least as many of them have been on behalf of pro-democracy activists struggling against right-wing dictatorships as there have been on behalf of pro-democracy activists struggling against left-wing dictatorships. Over just this past year, for example, my colleagues and I have worked with Egyptians, Maldivians, Palestinians, West Papuans, Sahrawis, Azerbaijanis, and Guatemalan Indians struggling against repressive U.S.-backed governments. In addition, virtually all of these groups have a strict policy of refusing support from the NED or any other government-funded entities. As a result of my own involvement in a number of these groups and personally knowing most of their principal workshop leaders, I recognize that charges that Gene Sharp, Jack DuVall, Bob Helvey, Ivan Marovic, the Albert Einstein Institution, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), and the Center on Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) are somehow in cahoots with the CIA or are serving as agents of U.S. imperialism are totally unfounded.
Unfortunately, even Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – echoed by some of his North American supporters – has apparently fallen for these false charges and has accused some of these individuals and groups of plotting with his opponents to overthrow him. Chavez has every right to be a bit paranoid, given the very real U.S. government efforts to subvert his regime, including support for a short-lived coup in 2002. In reality, however, the only visit to Venezuela that has taken place on behalf of any of these non-profit groups engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolence was in early 2006 when I – along with David Hartsough, the radical pacifist director of Peaceworkers – led a series of workshops at the World Social Forum in Caracas. There we lectured and led discussions on the power of nonviolent resistance as well as offered a series of screenings of a film ICNC helped develop on the pro-democracy movement in Chile against the former U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet. The only reference to Venezuela during those workshops was how massive nonviolent action could be used to resist a possible coup against Chavez, not foment one. In fact, Hartsough and I met with some Venezuelan officials regarding proposals that the government train the population in various methods of nonviolent civil defense to resist any possible future attempts to overthrow Chavez.
Workshops on Strategic Nonviolence
The American and European groups that share generic information on the history and dynamics of strategic nonviolence with civil society organizations in foreign countries are not unlike the Western private voluntary organizations that share environmentally sustainable technologies and agricultural techniques to farmers in developing nations. Both offer useful tools that, if applied consistently and effectively, could improve the quality of life for millions of people. There is nothing “imperialistic” about it.
Just as sustainable agricultural technologies and methods are more effective in meeting human needs and preserving the planet than the conventional development strategies promoted by Western governments, nonviolent action has been shown to be more effective in advancing democratic change than threats of foreign military intervention, backing coup plotters, imposing punitive sanctions, supporting armed rebel groups, and other methods traditionally instigated by the United States and its allies. And just as the application of appropriate technologies can also be a means of countering the damage caused by unsustainable neo-liberal economic models pushed by Western governments and international financial institutions, the use of massive nonviolent action can counter some of the damage resulting from the arms trade, military intervention, and other harmful manifestations of Western militarism.
Development based on Western models usually means that multinational corporations and the governments of wealthy capitalist countries end up exerting a large degree of control over these societies, whereas appropriate technologies allow for genuine independence and self-sufficiency. Similarly, unlike fomenting a military coup or establishing a military occupation – which relies on asserting control over the population and potential political opponents – successful nonviolent civil insurrections are necessarily based on a broad coalition of popular movements and are therefore impossible for an outside power to control.
It is ironic, then, that some elements of the left are attacking those very individuals and groups who are trying to disseminate these tools of popular empowerment against the forces of oppression and imperialism.
People Power
Another difference between these people-to-people educational efforts and U.S. intervention is that, unlike the NED and other government-backed “pro-democracy” efforts, which often focus on developing conventional political initiatives led by pro-Western elites, these workshops on strategic nonviolence are primarily designed for grassroots activists unaffiliated with established political parties who seek to make change from below.
Historically, individuals and groups with experience in effective nonviolent action campaigns tend to come from leftist and pacifist traditions which carry a skeptical view of government power, particularly governments with a history of militarism and conquest. For example, my own background in strategic nonviolent action is rooted in my involvement in the late 1970s as a nonviolence trainer for the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance and the nonviolent revolutionary group Movement for a New Society, both of which were radically decentralist in structure and decidedly anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist in orientation. More recently, my fellow workshop leaders have included a South African veteran of the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front, a leading Palestinian activist from the first intifada, and former student leaders from the left-wing Serbian opposition to Milosevic.
Conversely, large bureaucratic governments accustomed to projecting political power through military force or elite diplomatic channels have little understanding or appreciation of nonviolent action or any other kind of mass popular struggle. Indeed, what would CIA operatives know about nonviolence, much less grassroots organizing?
In short, not only is it naïve to assume than an external power could provoke a revolution of any kind, it should be apparent that the U.S. government does not know the first thing about fomenting a nonviolent civil insurrection. As a result, the dilemma for U.S. policy-makers – and the hope for all of us who support democracy as a matter of principle and not political expediency – is that the most realistic way to overthrow the world’s remaining autocratic regimes is through a process the U.S. government cannot control.
The U.S. government has historically promoted regime change through military invasions, coup d’etats, and other kinds of violent seizures of power that install an undemocratic minority. Nonviolent “people power” movements, by contrast, make regime change possible through empowering pro-democratic majorities. As a result, the best hope for advancing freedom and democracy in the world’s remaining autocratic states comes from civil society, not the U.S. government, which deserves neither the credit nor the blame for the growing phenomenon of nonviolent democratic revolutions.
Strengthening the Bush Agenda
The emergence of civil society organizations and the growing awareness of the power of nonviolent action in recent years have been among the most positive political developments in what has otherwise been largely depressing political times. It is most unfortunate, then, that supposedly “progressive” voices have chosen to attack this populist grass roots phenomenon as some kind of Bush administration conspiracy.
It is also ironic that so many on the American left – after years of romanticizing armed struggle as the only way to defeat dictatorships, disparaging the potential of nonviolent action to overthrow repressive governments, and dismissing the notion of a nonviolent revolution — are now expressing their alarm at how successful popular nonviolent insurrections can be, even to the point of naively thinking that it is so easy to pull off that it could somehow be organized from foreign capitals. In reality, every successful popular nonviolent insurrection has been a home grown movement rooted in the realization by the masses that their rulers were illegitimate and the current political system was incapable of redressing injustice. By contrast, no nonviolent insurrection has succeeded when the movement’s leadership and agenda did not have the backing of the majority of the population. This is why the 2002-2003 “strike” in Venezuela’s oil industry failed to bring down Chavez while comparable disruptions to economies elsewhere have often forced out less popular leaders.
“Leftist” critics of nonviolent pro-democracy movements parallel right-wing supporters of U.S. intervention in that both denigrate the power of individuals to take their destiny into their own hands and overthrow oppressive leaders and institutions. Instead, both appear to believe that people are passive victims and that social and political change can only come through the manipulation of foreign powers.
Reagan Redux
For example, despite President Ronald Reagan’s insistence during the 1980s that the popular armed insurgencies that challenged repressive U.S.-backed regimes in Central America were the result of a Soviet “hit list,” the reality was that the revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala were homegrown popular movements. The Soviets provided a limited amount of assistance and obviously wanted to take political advantage of the possible overthrow of pro-American oligarchs by having them replaced with leftist revolutionaries who would be friendlier to their interests. But the oppressed peasants and workers of those Central American countries were not following the dictates of Moscow. They were struggling for basic rights and an end to repression.
Similar claims heard today that the United States is somehow a major force behind contemporary popular movements against dictatorships in Burma, Iran, Zimbabwe, and Belarus or that the United States was somehow responsible for the successes of previous movements in Serbia, Georgia or Ukraine are equally ludicrous. This attitude parallels claims by those on the right who disingenuously credited Reagan’s dangerous and militaristic Cold War policies for the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and tried to depict the union activists, peasants, students, priests, and others martyred in the course of popular struggles in Central America as Soviet agents.
In addition, it is important to remember that the vast majority of successful nonviolent civil insurrections have not been against dictatorships opposed by the U.S. government, but dictatorships supported by the U.S. government. Right-wing autocrats toppled by such “people power” movements have included Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, the Shah of Iran, Duvalier in Haiti, Pinochet in Chile, Chun in South Korea, and Numeiry in Sudan, to name only a few.
Another problem with this kind of simplistic reductionism is that when nonviolent civil insurrections do succeed in bringing democrats to power in countries previously under anti-American dictatorships, the new often-inexperienced leaders are faced with plaudits from the American right and suspicion from the European and North American left. This could lead them to wonder who their friends really are and reinforce the myth that those of the right, rather than the left, are the real champions of freedom.
The conspiratorial thinking and denigration of genuine popular movements appearing increasingly in some leftist circles serves to strengthen the hand of repressive regimes, weaken democratic forces, and bolster the argument of American neo-conservatives that only U.S. militarism and intervention – and not nonviolent struggle by oppressed peoples themselves – is capable of freeing those suffering under repressive rule.
How Change Occurs
Successful nonviolent revolutions, like successful armed revolutions, often take years or decades to develop as part of an organic process within the body politic of a given country. There is no standardized formula for success that a foreign government or a foreign non-governmental organization could put together, since the history, culture and political alignments of each country are unique. No foreign government or NGO can recruit or mobilize the large numbers of ordinary civilians necessary to build a movement capable of effectively challenging the established political leadership, much less of toppling a government.
Trainers and workshop leaders like me and my colleagues emphasize certain strategies and tactics that have been successful elsewhere in applying pressure on governments to change their policies and undermining the support and loyalty required for governments to successfully suppress the opposition. In some cases, local activists may try to emulate some of them. However, a regime will lose power only if it tries to forcibly maintain a system that the people oppose, not because a foreign workshop leader described to a small group of opposition activists certain tactics that had been used successfully in another country at another time.
In maintaining our steadfast opposition to U.S. interventionism and exposing the hypocrisy and double-standards of the Bush administration’s rhetoric in support of democracy, we must also challenge those who denigrate popular indigenous movements as creations of Washington or slander reputable non-profit groups that share their generic knowledge of nonviolent strategies and tactics with like-minded organizations overseas.
Finally, both to maintain our credibility and because it is the right thing to do, progressives should recognize the moral imperative of opposing repressive regimes regardless of their ideology or their relationship with the United States. Progressives should also embrace strategic nonviolent action in the cause of freedom as an ethical and realistic alternative to U.S. interventionism.
http://www.fpif.org/reports/nonviolent_action_and_pro-democracy_struggles
Lantos’ Tarnished Legacy
Pundits responded to news of the retirement of Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) at the end of his current term with platitudes and praise. They have focused primarily on his heroic role as a Holocaust survivor and member of the anti-Nazi resistance in his native Hungary as well as his leadership on human rights issues in Congress, serving as the founder and longtime co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
There’s no question that his personal history is both courageous and noble. Nor is there any debate that he stood up in support for the International Criminal Court, the people of the occupied nations of Tibet and East Timor, and the victims of oppression in Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe, Vietnam and other countries.
At the same time, most peace and justice activists have found Lantos – who has chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs since the Democrats regained their Congressional majority – as a very inconsistent advocate for human rights.
Indeed, the Congressman has openly challenged the United Nations as well as reputable independent human rights organizations when they have raised concerns about human rights abuses by certain key U.S. allies, even to the point of directly contradicting their findings. In addition, his leadership in support of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and his resulting culpability in the human rights tragedies that followed, will no doubt be the most significant negative mark on his legacy.
Iraq Deceptions
Lantos’ desire to have the United States take over Iraq was so strong that he was apparently willing to grossly exaggerate that oil-rich country’s military capabilities to frighten the American public into giving up on diplomatic efforts and launch a war. In 2001, Lantos claimed Iraq was developing long-range missiles “that will threaten the United States and our allies” even though – as arms control experts correctly noted at the time – this was not actually the case. Similarly, though the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed that Iraq no longer had a nuclear weapons program and strict international sanctions prevented that country from restarting it, Lantos claimed that such peaceful and diplomatic means to eliminate Iraq’s nuclear program had actually failed and that military means were necessary to prevent Iraq from developing its nuclear capability.
As the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs committee, his willingness to co-sponsor the resolution granting President George W. Bush unprecedented power to invade a foreign country at the time and circumstances of his own choosing was critical in making the disastrous Iraq War possible.
The resolution co-sponsored by Lantos contained accusations that were known or widely assumed to be false, such as claims of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States despite the fact that a definitive report by the Department of Defense noted that not only did no such link exist, but that no such link could have even been reasonably suggested based upon the evidence available at that time.
The resolution also falsely claimed that Iraq was “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability.” In reality, Iraq had eliminated its nuclear program long before, a fact that was confirmed in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1998, four years prior to the resolution. It also falsely claimed that Iraq at that time continued “to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability” when, in reality, as the U.S. government now admits, Iraq had rid itself of its chemical and biological weapons nearly a decade earlier and no longer had any active chemical and biological weapons programs.
Though Saddam Hussein’s regime was notorious for its human rights abuses, this was not apparently what motivated Lantos to support the invasion. The September 30, 2002 issue of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz quoted Lantos telling an Israeli Knesset member, in reference to Saddam Hussein, “We’ll be rid of the bastard soon enough. And in his place we’ll install a pro-Western dictator.”
Indeed, his support for a number of U.S.-backed dictatorships in the Middle East has raised serious questions regarding his actual commitment for human rights.
Denying Israeli Atrocities
Lantos has also been an outspoken defender of the U.S.-backed Israeli government in its frequent application of military force, even when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have engaged in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
For example, during the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented that both Hezbollah and Israelis forces were engaged in war crimes by attacking civilian areas, which resulted in the deaths of 43 Israeli civilians and more then 800 Lebanese civilians. In response, Lantos joined leading House Republicans in co-sponsoring a resolution praising Israel for its “longstanding commitment to minimize civilian loss” and even welcomed “Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” The resolution also claimed, in the face of a broad consensus of those familiar with international humanitarian law to the contrary, that Israel’s actions were “in accordance with international law.”
Similarly, in April of 2002, Amnesty International published a detailed and well-documented report regarding the Israeli military offensive in the occupied West Bank, noting how “the IDF acted as though the main aim was to punish all Palestinians. Actions were taken by the IDF which had no clear or obvious military necessity.” The report went on to document unlawful killings, destruction of civilian property, arbitrary detention, torture, assaults on medical personnel and journalists, as well as random shooting at people in the streets and houses.
In response, Lantos introduced a resolution challenging Amnesty’s findings, claiming that “Israel’s military operations . . . are aimed only at dismantling the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian areas.” In an apparent retort to growing demands by peace and human rights groups to suspend military aid to Israel in response to these violations of international humanitarian law, the Lantos resolution called for an increase in military aid, which many of these activists felt was, in effect, rewarding Israel for its repression and attacking the credibility of Amnesty International, winner of the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize. (See my article Congress Ignores Human Rights Groups In Pro-Israel Resolution.)
Contempt for International Law
Lantos has also been an outspoken critic of the International Court of Justice in its ruling on the applicability of international humanitarian law, such as the 2004 decision against Israel’s construction of a separation barrier deep inside occupied Palestinian territory. Lantos condemned the near-unanimous decision as a “perversion of justice” and praised Bush for “his leadership in marshalling opposition” to the UN’s judicial arm.
Lantos also sponsored a resolution last year defending Israel’s annexation of greater East Jerusalem, despite a series of UN Security Council resolutions citing the inadmissibility of any country expanding its territory by force and declaring the annexation illegal. His resolution also claimed that Israel had “respected the rights of all religious groups” during its 40-year occupation of that city and environs. However, a number of UN bodies – along with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other reputable human rights organizations – have frequently cited Israel for its ongoing violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention in East Jerusalem and surrounding areas, including the confiscation and destruction of homes and other property belonging to longstanding Muslim and Christian residents. (See my article Jerusalem: Endorsing the Right of Conquest.)
On a number of occasions, Lantos placed himself to the right of the Bush administration regarding Israeli violations of international humanitarian law. For example, when Bush expressed concerns that the Israeli government’s policy of assassinating Palestinian opponents was leading to the deaths of innocent bystanders, hurting moderate Palestinian forces and proving counter-productive in enhancing Israeli security, Lantos expressed that he was “deeply dismayed” by the president’s comments and insisted that such Israeli actions constituted legitimate self-defense and deserved “the full support of the United States.”
Morocco’s Occupation
Israel is not the only occupier power whose human rights abuses have been denied and defended by the Congressman. Lantos has been a strong supporter of Morocco’s efforts to annex the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony invaded by Morocco in 1975, in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark decision by the International Court of Justice. He has declared Morocco’s proposal for limited autonomy of that illegally occupied country as “a breakthrough opportunity” and a “realistic framework for a political solution.” Given the widespread opposition in the international community to legitimizing Morocco’s act of aggression, the letter concludes by urging Bush to “embrace this promising Moroccan initiative so that it receives the consideration necessary to achieve international acceptance.” (See my article The Future of Western Sahara.)
Despite well-documented reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other reputable human rights groups monitoring the situation in the occupied territory that public expressions in support for self-determination are routinely suppressed, Lantos has also expressed his confidence that “Morocco will do nothing to stifle debate among the people of Western Sahara.”
Blaming Victims
Lantos also has a history of exaggerating human rights abuses by governments and movements he opposes.
For example, despite consistent reports by United Nations monitors that the Western Sahara nationalist Polisario Front has scrupulously honored its 1991 ceasefire agreement with Morocco – despite the Moroccans’ refusal to honor their reciprocal commitment to allow for a UN-sponsored referendum on independence – Lantos has insisted that “peace has been summarily rejected by the rebel Polisario Front in favor of guerilla ambushes.” He has also falsely accused the Polisario Front – the Western Sahara nationalist movement – of forcing most of the Western Saharan population to live in arid refugee camps in neighboring Algeria, ignoring that fact that the refugees were forced to flee to these camps as a direct result of Moroccan repression in their occupied homeland.
In addition, Lantos cosponsored a resolution accusing Hezbollah of “cynically exploiting civilian populations as shields” during the fighting with Israel in 2006 despite the fact that Amnesty International found no conclusive evidence of such practices and Human Rights Watch, in a well-documented study, had found “no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.”
Tarnished Legacy
As these and other examples illustrate, Lantos’ advocacy for human rights has been far from consistent.
For human rights advocacy to be credible, it must be based on empirical evidence rather than ideological biases. It must hinge on universal principles of international humanitarian law rather than a given country’s relations with the United States.
The failure of Representative Lantos to recognize this fundamental reality will scar an otherwise noble legacy.
Democracy and Double Standards: The Palestinian “Exception”
At a time of year when Jews and Christians are celebrating the spirit of justice and peace inspired by events in the Holy Land many centuries ago, Congress has been working to insure that the Holy Land of today experiences neither.
Just prior to the Christmas recess, a bipartisan resolution in the House of Representatives and a letter signed by 73 of 100 Senators put Congress on record that the U.S. government, despite rhetoric to the contrary, does not take Middle Eastern democracy too seriously.
In recent months, Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has been trying to lure supporters of the radical Islamist group Hamas away from terrorism by allowing Hamas’ political wing to participate in the political process. In response, Congress has rushed in to pressure the Palestine Authority to bar them from participating. On December 16, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 397-17 in fa vor of a resolution introduced by Republican Congressman and Deputy Majority Whip Eric Cantor chastising the Palestinians for allowing the political wing of Hamas to take part in the forthcoming parliamentary election. Cosponsors of the resolution included Democratic Congressman (and recently appointed New Jersey Senator) Robert Menendez, Republican Congresswoman Iliana Ros-Lehtinen, and Democratic Congresswoman and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
The resolution begins by claiming that “the foundation for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist and a solemn obligation to end terrorism and violence,” ignoring the equally important foundation of Israeli recognition of Palestine’s right to exist and for an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Similarly, the House of Representatives “reaffirms its commitment to the safety and security of the democratic State of Israel” without also affirming its commitment to the safety and security of a democratic state of Palestine, yet another example of the bipartisan U.S. insistence that Israeli Jews somehow have more rights than Palestinian Arabs.
The resolution also seeks to undermine the “Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”–endorsed by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations as the basis for peace talks–by deliberately misrepresenting it. For example, the bipartisan measure claims that “the first provision of the Road Map to Middle East Peace calls for the Palestinians to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.” In reality, that anti-terrorism clause is just one of twenty-four provisions in Phase I, which also calls upon Israel to withdraw from areas of the West Bank seized from Palestinian Authority control since September of 2001, to freeze “all settlement activity, including natural growth of settlements,” and to dismantle all settlements erected since March 2001, which the right-wing Israeli government has thus far refused to do. Congress has never called upon Israel to uphold these and other requirements under the Roadmap, however, essentially arguing that it is those under occupation, not the occupiers, who are solely responsible for making the peace process work.
The resolution also criticizes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for “his willingness to see Hamas participate in the elections without first calling for it to … renounce its goal of destroying the State of Israel.” However, they do not similarly criticize Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his willingness to see parties, such as the National Union—which seeks to destroy any Palestinian national entity and expel its Arab population—to participate in Israeli elections, an apparent acknowledgement that while Israel’s survival is axiomatic, Palestine’s survival is an open-ended question. In any case, under the Palestinian Authority, as with the state of Israel, the head of government simply does not have the authority to ban a political party simply because of its ideology, however repugnant.
Similarly, the resolution goes on to assert that groups such as Hamas “should not be permitted to participate in Palestinian elections until such organizations recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” Ironically, however, the United States allows a number of political organizations, such as the Socialist Workers Party—which also does not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state—to participate in U.S. elections. The U.S. Congress apparently believes that Arab nations should not be able to experience the same degree of democracy we enjoy in this country which allows even those with extreme views to seek political office.
Double Standards
In a similar example of double standards, the Senate letter declares that “No democracy in the world allows a political party to bear its own arms,” an ironic statement for a body that voted unanimously to praise the recently completed Iraqi parliamentary elections in which a number of political parties with their own militias openly participated. In addition, the United Kingdom—America’s closest ally—allowed Sinn Fein to operate a legal political party and participate in elections even during the decades in which its armed wing, the Irish Republican Army, engaged in terrorist attacks against British citizens.
In parliamentary systems throughout the world, including U.S.-backed governments in Iraq and Israel, coalition governments have been formed which have sometimes included extremist elements. U.S. officials have defended their backing of such governments on the grounds that the ideology of a minority party of such diverse coalitions is not representative of the government as a whole. However, in the recently passed House resolution, the bipartisan majority argues that “the inclusion of Hamas … into the Palestinian structure could be construed as an implicit endorsement of their anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorist ideology.” Both the House resolution and the Senate letter threaten an end of U.S. relations with the Palestine Authority if Hamas is included.
The liberal U.S. Zionist group Americans for Peace Now (APN) noted that while “The goal of eradicating terror and consolidating weapons in the hands of the legal [Palestinian] government remains,” it should not be “a prerequisite for democratic elections.” APN also noted the negative impact of the United States insisting that such measures be a prerequisite for ongoing U.S. relations with the Palestinians’ democratically elected body. They also observed how Israel had spent nearly three decades trying to defeat Hamas through military means alone and failed.
Congress, however, has rejected moderate voices among Israelis and their U.S. supporters, and has instead thrown its weight behind Sharon’s rightist government, which has threatened to disrupt the elections if Hamas is allowed to run. Ironically, Sharon announced last week that, regardless of which parties participate, Israeli occupation authorities would prevent Palestinian residents of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem—long seen by the Palestinians as their capital—from voting. Since Jerusalemites tend to be more moderate than most other Palestinian voters, their exclusion would likely increase the numbers of Hamas supporters being elected to the Palestinian parliament.
New Electoral Insurgencies
Congress has thrown itself into internal Palestinian politics at a critical juncture. Young Fatah reformers led by Marwan Barghouti—currently held in an Israeli prison—are challenging Abbas and the corrupt Fatah old guard by organizing to run a separate slate. In addition, Hamas did unexpectedly well in recent municipal elections, though exit polls show that their unexpectedly high vote total resulted more as a protest against Fatah’s misrule than an endorsement of Hamas’ extremist ideology. Polls also show that most Palestinians oppose Hamas’ notorious armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, which have been responsible for a series of horrific terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians over the past decade and which has been outlawed by the Palestine Authority since 1996. Given that many Palestinians blame the United States for its failure to end Israel’s 38-year occupation, Congress’ recent anti-Hamas initiatives could boost the Islamist group’s fortunes even more.
In addressing the threat from Hamas, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers join the Bush administration in confusing cause with effect. It has not confused many leading Israelis, however: Writing in the Dec. 19 Jerusalem Post, the noted policy analyst Gershon Baskin observed how “Israel ‘s unilateralism and determination not to negotiate and engage President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority has strengthened the claims of Hamas and weakened Abbas and his authority which was already severely crippled by … Israeli actions that demolished the infrastructures of Palestinian Authority governing bodies and institutions.” Indeed, the PA still has not recovered from the devastating 2002 Israeli military offensive against its urban West Bank enclaves, an action roundly denounced by human rights groups and Israeli moderates but strongly endorsed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress.
President Bush and an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress have also thrown their support to Sharon’s unilateral disengagement policy which, while withdrawing Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip, has expanded them in the occupied West Bank as part of an effort to illegally annex large swathes of Palestinian territory. In addition, neither Congress nor the Bush administration has pushed Sharon to engage in serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians, which have been suspended for nearly five years, despite calls by Abbas and the international community that they resume.
Given that the PA’s emphasis on negotiations has failed to stop Israel’s occupation and colonization of large parts of the West Bank, it’s not surprising that Hamas’ claim that the U.S.-managed peace process is working against Palestinian interests has resonance, even among Palestinians who recognize that terrorism by Hamas’ armed wing is both morally reprehensible and politically counter-productive.
Though Sharon and Congress are insisting that the Palestine Authority attempt to forcibly disarm the Al Qassam Brigades, the PA’s weak and battered infrastructure combined with the widespread popular support for Hamas resulting from the PA’s inability to end the occupation through diplomatic means makes such a scenario virtually impossible. This is what led to Abbas’ strategy of allowing Hamas to participate in the parliamentary elections. This recent Congressional resolution opposing Abbas’ initiative, then, is a means of giving the Israelis an excuse to not resume substantive peace talks with the Palestinians, thereby enabling Sharon to continue his creeping annexation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank . The U.S.-backed Israeli strategy is to limit PA-controlled land to a series of non-contiguous cantons surrounded by Israel , declare this unviable territory the Palestinian state, and declare Palestinian refusal to accept this imposed solution as evidence of their unwillingness to live in peace.
Baskin argues that one of the few initiatives Abbas may have to assert his credibility against the rise of Hamas is to reactivate Palestine’s unilateral declaration of independence, made during the first and largely nonviolent intifada in 1988. Both the Bush administration and a large bipartisan majority of Congress is on record opposing formal Palestinian independence outside of terms agreed to by the Israeli government, however, arguing that rather than being an inalienable right, self-determination should be allowed only on conditions agreed to by the occupying power.
Undermining Democracy, Strengthening Occupation
The recent Congressional initiatives in respect to the Palestinian elections is part of a larger right-wing effort to undermine international legal principles regarding foreign military occupation, human rights, and self-determination, and should be seen as part of the concerted Congressional attack against international law and human rights, also manifested by the bipartisan support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the granting of extraordinary war powers to President Bush.
Given that the overwhelming majority of Democrats supported these latest anti-Palestinian initiatives, it may also indicate that, should the Democrats take back Congress in next year’s midterm elections, little change can be expected on foreign policy. Both parties seem to agree that international law, the right of self-determination, and open elections are not principles to be upheld universally, but should instead be encouraged or denied based upon narrowly-defined strategic interests.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/democracy_and_double_standards_the_palestinian_exception