UN: Zionist attack against Mavi Marmara broke International Law: summary executions and torture

What we all knew already but it is always good to see it ratified by an international institution such as the UN Human Rights Council.

The report also said that there was clear evidence to prosecute Israeli criminals under article 174 of the Geneva Convention for the charges of: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.

The Mission considers that several violations and offences have been committed. It is not satisfied that, in the time available, it can say that it has been able to compile a comprehensive list of all offences. However, there is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

• wilful killing;
• torture or inhuman treatment;
• wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.

The Mission also considers that a series of violations of Israel’s obligations under international human rights law have taken place, including:

• right to life (article 6, ICCPR);
• torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (article 7, ICCPR; CAT);
• right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention (article 9, ICCPR)
• right of detainees to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person (article 10, ICCPR);
• freedom of expression (article 19, ICCPR).

The right to an effective remedy should be guaranteed to all victims. The mission must not be understood to be saying that this is a comprehensive list by any means.

266. The Mission notes that the retention by the Israeli authorities of unlawfully seized property remains a continuing offence and Israel is called upon to return such property forthwith.

The report also hopes that Israel will cooperate in handing the perpetrators of these crimes and compensating the victims adequately and promptly. But they regret the lack of cooperation by Israel.

They also state that:

All the passengers on board the ships comprising the flotilla who appeared before the Mission impressed the members as persons genuinely committed to the spirit of humanitarianism and imbued with a deep and genuine concern for the welfare of the inhabitants of Gaza.

USA seems set to attack Iran

The last few days have left us with a spat of contradictory news on the conflict around Iran and its nuclear ambitions. First Brazil and Turkey managed to strike a deal that was tailored to US demands so far on this matter and which counted with the support of Russia, a key UN security council veto-holding power and a major nuclear power itself. The US reaction however has been very hostile, claiming that they had already reached an agreement with Russia and China on further sanctions, including intercepting ships sailing to/from Iran in search of nuclear fuel or components.

They pretext that the agreement comes six months late and that Iran does not renounce to regular uranium enriching, which it is entitled to by the NPT, but the obvious reasons are that the USA wants to increase and not decrease the tension with Iran, in line with what their Zionist masters (the only nuclear power of the region) demand and, also, that it wants to trample the diplomatic movements of Brazil (already under US factual siege in Latin America), Turkey (becoming too independent for Washington's and Tel Aviv's likes) and Russia.

This new block of sanctions proposed by the USA are all but an open declaration of war, because the bulk of the naval intervention would fall to US/NATO hands, who are the interested party and who have a whole fleet in the area.

If Washington's position prevails (and so far it usually does), we should expect rapid escalation towards open war. While the USA is unlikely to occupy Iran right away (too costly and too likely to backfire), a terrible protracted unequal conflict, similar to the situation that Iraq was subjected to in the 1990s and early 2000s of total blockade, takeover of airspace and calculated bombings, is the most likely outcome. If the fundamentalist regime does not fall to that, then outright war is also within the possibilities but probably at a later moment, just like happened in Iraq under Bush Jr.

At the moment the UN security council is made up mostly of US satellites (UK, France, Austria, Japan, Mexico, Gabon, Nigeria, Uganda, Bosnia-Herzegovina), what makes the possibility of defeating US proposals by regular vote something almost unthinkable. This leaves Russia and China, who have the right of veto, as the key players.

China, maybe more concerned right now on what is happening at its own borders (Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Thailand, Korea), has not yet said a word. So Russia seems the most crucial player in this standoff. It's not a comfortable position considering how strong are Zionist interests in Russia too but, as of late, Russia has acted with determination and success against Zionist plans in Georgia, is gaining influence in West Asia (Syria, Turkey and of course cornered Iran).

Clinton has said that they had already persuaded Russia and China to back up their new sanctions package but Russia has spoken with ambiguous words backing the Brazil-Turkey bartered deal.

It's difficult to understand all clues in this complex multilateral situation but I'd say that Russia needs to back up Turkey specially, which is clearly sliding away from US influence, and does not want in any case yet another US engineered war in its West Asian backyard. Afghanistan, Iraq and Georgia are already more than enough. I imagine that, unless the USA offers a lot (something like Taiwan), the interest of China is also to back Russia, Iran, Turkey and Brazil in the UN. China, deeply concerned about its own access to West Asian oil resources, does not want more US military buildup in the Persian Gulf.

On the other hand, US attitude is clearly set up for a remake of the Iraq blockade, eventually leading to an outright invasion. This is totally consistent with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the rallying of friendly Arab dictatorships into its military alliance system and the government change and potential disintegration of Pakistan. Ideally, for the Pentagon and the White House (and of course for AIPAC, J-street and all the Zionist International), all the area should become submissive to the USA (and Israel), furthering the grip not just in Arab/Muslim nationalist ambitions but also on the access to resources of rising star China and setting advanced positions closer to the soft belly of Russia: Central Asia.

Of course, neutralizing the initiative of free-thinker powers such as Brazil and Turkey is also part of the plan. So, in the best case, expect the new deal to be boycotted by the USA and never gain the seal of approval of the UN Security Council, keeping the situation as it is: an active siege of Iran.

References:
· Thierry Meissan, Strategy Shift in the Middle East (Voltaire Net)
· BBC: Iran hit by fresh UN nuclear sanctions threat
· Al Jazeera: Brazil criticises USA over Iran

Malalai Joya denounces occupation of Afghanistan

There is a very interesting interview at Voltaire Net with this Afghan MP who was suspended for her progressive views and opposition to imperialist occupation and talibanization under it.

Some excerpts follow:

The aim of the war was never to create democracy and justice nor to uproot the terrorist groups. The war’s only purpose has been to perpetuate the occupation, install military bases and safeguard the takeover of a region that has substantial natural resources.

...

Look at the UN bombardments. In May 2009 in my own province more than 150 civilians were killed.

...

The base text [of the Afghan Constitution] might very well declare equality between men and women but the country is ruled by Sharia law. The so-called democracy of the official Constitution is systematically flouted. It’s only there as a token to attract international aid, which is then usually embezzled.

Today Afghanistan is a country where women – often girls as young as 14 or 15 years – fleeing their conjugal home to escape extreme violence, are considered criminal and are imprisoned. Yes, there’s an increase in the number of girls returning to school, but the records don’t take into account the girls who have to leave school again, due to threats to their safety and pressure from their families to get married.

Suicide has become the ultimate weapon of desperate young women, who are aware that there are alternatives but know that they will never have the right to them.

...

All of the troops must leave and the militia of the warlords must be dismantled. Democracy can’t be established by an occupying force that does nothing more than spread out and strengthen the Talibanization of my country.

...

Democratic parties and associations are more often than not fighting in secret. Let’s not forget that the Constitution bans the existence of all non-religious parties whose frame of reference does not include the Qur’an.

...

There are so many faceless heroes and heroines. Their battle is in their towns and villages. Why does no single western leader recognise the existence of a progressive movement that could emerge and play a role?

UN warns of the lack of political rights in Spain

The Special Relator for the Promotion of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Fight Against Terorism, Martin Schenin, has issued a new report on his mission to Spain where he denounces that:

• Political parties and electoral lists can be forbidden without guarantees of any sort thanks to a very vague law that allows almost any reason to declare a party illegal and to the lack of guarantees in the trials where all is decided.
• That terror scare is used to repress NGOs, media and political activities, without respecting the principles of proportionality and necessity.
• That the term "terrorist organization" lacks of any rigorous definition and is used as a blank clause for political repression.
• That incommunicated arrest, trials in a especial tribunal, arrests without trial for as long as four years and the increment of punishments pose too many risks for human rights and legal guarantees to be acceptable.
• That totally new electoral lists are being repressed without any evidence of legal breach.
• That political pluralism is essential for a society to be truly democratic and therefore any restriction should be exceptional and be clearly regulated.

Source: Gara.
.

UN official calls to research the 9/11 conspiration

I recently commented on the promising new appointment to lead the UN comission dealing with Israel behaviour on Palestine, Prof. Richard Falk. Now I read that the same person is calling for an international comission to research the role if US neocons in the 9/11 attacks (read story in NY The Sun), suspicions that many of us have held since about 9/12, when the dust settled and we started pondering how the alleged leader of the plot, M. Atta (supposedly dead in NY attacks), had been talking with his father, why such an serious intelligence agency as the BND had Atta classified as anti-Taliban, how can two skyscrappers collapse so easily and so on and so on and so on.

I think I'm going to like this new UN personality, really. But I also fear that he might get killed like happened to so many honest researchers before him (I'm thinking in Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian right now, for instance).

The hypocrisy curtain around Israel falling down

The soon-to-be UN investigator on Israel behaviour on the occupied territories, Prof. Richard Falk has defended his decission to compare Israel with Nazi Germany. He declared to BBC:

If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison.

With the story of the Holocaust as pretext, Israel has been all the time manipulating the media and the diplomatic circles with one single objective: getting away with their genocide of Palestinians and their forced incorporation of that country. It seems each time is getting harder for the Zionists to get away impunely. Maybe it has to do with the Holocaust becoming more and more "old history", in comparison with the the very patent actuality and painful dramatism of the Palestinian plea, maybe it has to do in Zionism distorting all the international realtions around a petty resourceless strip of land - not sure but the case is that each day less and less people can accept that Israel is miraculously justified to do all kind of atrocities and war crimes because of something that happened, many kilometers away, long ago, in a totally unrelated context.

But beware: the Israel Lobby is still very powerful, specially in the USA and Europe. Won't happen that, because some UN offcer accuses Israel of war crimes, will suddenly the so-called "international community" (aka USA and clique) intervene to save the Palestinians and their own face. But it's a beginning.

The UN comitted an atrocious colonialist injustice when it decided to divide Palestine in 1948 and therefore the UN has some responsability in solving that long lasting insult against Humankind and preventing any more suffering of the native population at the hands of a racist colony that not so long ago was the best friend of "white" South Africa.

The Nazi comparison is certainly not any excess, indeed.