Another "Prevention Of Terrorism Act"
« on: 2004-05-16 17:27:47 »
I don't really know much about Indian politics. I was reading about the Indian elections where the Congress party won, and this comment on the "Prevention of Terrorism Act" (POTA) rang a bell.
In recent years, the number of people killed by the police and security forces runs into tens of thousands. Andhra Pradesh (neo-liberalism's poster state) chalks up an average of about 200 deaths of "extremists" in "encounters" every year. In Kashmir an estimated 80,000 people have been killed since 1989. Thousands have simply "disappeared".
According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared People in Kashmir, more than 2,500 people were killed in 2003. In the last 18 months there have been 54 deaths in custody. The Indian state's proclivity to harass and terrorise has been institutionalised by the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota). In Tamil Nadu, the act has been used to stifle criticism of the state government. In Jharkhand, 3,200 people, mostly poor adivasis (indigenous people) accused of being Maoists, have been named in Pota cases. In eastern Uttar Pradesh, the act is used to clamp down on those who protest about the dispossession of their land. In Gujarat and Mumbai, it is used almost exclusively against Muslims. In Gujarat, after the 2002 pogrom in which an estimated 2,000 Muslims were killed, 287 people were accused under Pota: 286 were Muslim and one a Sikh. Pota allows confessions extracted in police custody to be admitted as evidence. Under the Pota regime, torture tends to replace investigation in our police stations: that's everything from people being forced to drink urine, to being stripped, humiliated, given electric shocks, burned with cigarette butts and having iron rods put up their anuses, to being beaten to death.
Under Pota you cannot get bail unless you can prove that you are innocent -- of a crime that you have not been formally charged with. It would be naive to imagine that Pota is being "misused". It is being used for precisely the reasons it was enacted. This year in the UN, 181 countries voted for increased protection of human rights. Even the US voted in favour. India abstained.
Meanwhile, economists cheering from the pages of corporate newspapers inform us that the GDP growth rate is phenomenal, unprecedented. Shops are overflowing with consumer goods. Government storehouses are overflowing with grain. Outside this circle of light, the past five years have seen the most violent increase in rural-urban income inequalities since independence. Farmers steeped in debt are committing suicide in hundreds; 40% of the rural population in India has the same foodgrain absorption level as sub-Saharan Africa, and 47% of Indian children under three suffer from malnutrition.
But in urban India, shops, restaurants, railway stations, airports, gymnasiums, hospitals have TV monitors in which India's Shining, Feeling Good. You only have to close your ears to the sickening crunch of the policeman's boot on someone's ribs, you only have to raise your eyes from the squalor, the slums, the ragged broken people on the streets and seek a friendly TV monitor, and you will be in that other beautiful world. The singing, dancing world of Bollywood's permanent pelvic thrusts, of permanently privileged, happy Indians waving the tricolour and Feeling Good. Laws like Pota are like buttons on a TV. You can use it to switch off the poor, the troublesome, the unwanted.
When Pota was passed, the Congress staged a noisy opposition in Parliament. However, repealing Pota never figured in its election campaign. Even before it has formed a government, there have been overt reassurances that "reforms" will continue. Exactly what kind of reforms, we'll have to wait and see. Fortunately the Congress will be hobbled by the fact that it needs the support of left parties to form a government. Hopefully, things will change. A little. It's been a pretty hellish six years.
RE: virus: Another "Prevention Of Terrorism Act"
« Reply #1 on: 2004-05-16 18:50:37 »
rhinoceros Sent: 16 May 2004 11:28 PM
I don't really know much about Indian politics. I was reading about the Indian elections where the Congress party won, and this comment on the "Prevention of Terrorism Act" (POTA) rang a bell.
[Blunderov] Arundhati Roy is brilliant. I think it was she who coined the phrase 'Bush the Lesser'. My wife pointed out her new book to me, sadly I forget the title, while we were book-browsing before movies the other day.
In it she pointed out that it is the poor of America who not only fight the war in Iraq but also pay for it by the loss of social services that are cut to finance it. A hugely disproportionate percentage of black people swell the ranks of the army just as they do the prisons. She says that exactly one (1) member of Congress has a child fighting in Iraq.
So we know who is both paying for the war and fighting it. Who, exactly, is benefiting from it? Private Lynndie England?
All those Iraqis who yearn for freedom will benefit from it, as will all people who will be safer with a democratic Iraq than one ruled by a murderous totalitarian despot. And no one is led to a US military recruiting center in chains; it's an all-volunteer service. When someone enlists in a military, they should expect that they might have to engage in military action during their term of service
> [Blunderov] Arundhati Roy is brilliant. I think it > was she who coined the > phrase 'Bush the Lesser'. My wife pointed out her > new book to me, sadly I > forget the title, while we were book-browsing before > movies the other day.
Amazon.com lists _The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy_, coauthored by Arundhati Roy and David Barsamian, published February this year. I'm presuming that's her most recent. Here's the listing:
Re:Another "Prevention Of Terrorism Act"
« Reply #4 on: 2004-05-16 22:40:57 »
[Blunderov] Arundhati Roy is brilliant. I think it was she who coined the phrase 'Bush the Lesser'. My wife pointed out her new book to me, sadly I forget the title, while we were book-browsing before movies the other day.
In it she pointed out that it is the poor of America who not only fight the war in Iraq but also pay for it by the loss of social services that are cut to finance it. A hugely disproportionate percentage of black people swell the ranks of the army just as they do the prisons. She says that exactly one (1) member of Congress has a child fighting in Iraq.
[rhinoceros] Yes, the phrase was hers. I found it here (with her photos and other stuff)
Re: virus: Re:Another "Prevention Of Terrorism Act"
« Reply #5 on: 2004-05-17 13:57:17 »
<Joe Dees> : All those Iraqis who yearn for : freedom will benefit from it
Freedom is self-determination. They were always free to ovetthrow Saddam on their own. By acting on their behalf, we took away their self-determination, and, hence, their freedom.
One of Saddam's former generals, who was extremely brutal, was put back in charge. I don't see how having the same brutal leaders in charge is going to help them very much.
-----Original Message----- From: "Joe Dees" <hidden@lucifer.com> Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 19:26:43 To:virus@lucifer.com Subject: virus: Re:Another "Prevention Of Terrorism Act"
All those Iraqis who yearn for freedom will benefit from it, as will all people who will be safer with a democratic Iraq than one ruled by a murderous totalitarian despot.
FALLUJAH, Iraq - A former Saddam Hussein-era general appointed by the Americans to lead an Iraqi security force in the rebellious Sunni stronghold of Fallujah urged tribal elders and sheiks Sunday to support U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.
Retired Maj. Gen. Mohammed Abdul-Latif rose to prominence after nearly monthlong battles last month between the Marines monthlong battles in April between the Marines and insurgents hunkered down in Fallujah's neighborhoods.
"We can make them (Americans) use their rifles against us or we can make them build our country, it's your choice," Latif told a gathering of more than 40 sheiks, city council members and imams in an eastern Fallujah suburb.
The siege of this city of 200,000 people, located about 40 miles west of Baghdad, was lifted when top Marine officers announced the creation of the Fallujah Brigade — a force made exclusively of former Iraqi army officers.
The Marines withdrew from Fallujah into the rural hinterland and far-flung suburbs, allowing the Iraqi force to take up positions and start patrols inside the city. The brigade is expected to number about 1,500 men, many of them conscripts or noncommissioned officers under Saddam.
They are expected to fight the guerrillas, although some of the same insurgents who fought the Marines last month will likely join the brigade.
On Sunday, Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment provided security for the gathering in Kharma.
Latif, 66, a native of Baghdad, urged the elders to talk freely, citing the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
"The Quran says we should sit together, discuss and make a decision, but let it be the right decision," the silver-haired Latif — a slim figure wearing a blue shirt and dark blue tie and pants — told the sheiks.
The venue offered a rare insight into Latif's interactions and influence over Fallujah elders. As he spoke, many sheiks nodded in approval and listened with reverence to his words. Later, they clasped his hands and patted Latif on the back.
Latif, speaking in Arabic to the sheiks, defended the Marines and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
"They were brought here by the acts of one coward who was hunted out of a rathole — Saddam — who disgraced us all," Latif said. "Let us tell our children that these men (U.S. troops) came here to protect us.
"As President Bush said, they did not come here to occupy our land but to get rid of Saddam. We can help them leave by helping them do their job, or we can make them stay ten years and more by keeping fighting."
Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the Marine battalion commander, said, "No truer words have been spoken here today than those by General Latif."
Latif also told the insurgents to "stop doing stupid things."
"Those bullets that are fired will not get the Americans out, let them finish their job here so that they can return to their country," Latif said.
"Our country is precious, stop allowing the bad guys to come from outside Iraq to destroy our country."
Latif, a former military intelligence officer said to have been imprisoned by Saddam and exiled, praised the former Iraqi army.
"The army used to be honest until Saddam made the men turn into beasts, take bribes, betray their own country," he said. "The real army is the army that works hard to serve its own citizens, with courage and strength."
After the meeting, Latif told The Associated Press that the situation in Fallujah has greatly improved, that "winds of peace" prevail in the city and the people that fled the fighting have returned. He would not elaborate on the size or current activities of the Fallujah Brigade.
"Let us speak about peace," Latif said in English. "Fallujah was an open wound, now it's healing."
Latif, speaking in Arabic to the sheiks, defended the Marines and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
"They were brought here by the acts of one coward who was hunted out of a rathole — Saddam — who disgraced us all," Latif said. "Let us tell our children that these men (U.S. troops) came here to protect us.
"As President Bush (news - web sites) said, they did not come here to occupy our land but to get rid of Saddam. We can help them leave by helping them do their job, or we can make them stay ten years and more by keeping fighting."
Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the Marine battalion commander, said, "No truer words have been spoken here today than those by General Latif."
Latif also told the insurgents to "stop doing stupid things."
<snip>
[rhinoceros] This is not so bad, if you think that the occupation troops managed to restore order just by staying out of Falluja. But they could do even better. Here is another one:
"I want the American soldier to return to his camp. What I want more is that he returns to the United States," General Muhammad Latif told Reuters in an interview.
"They should leave very quickly, very quickly or there will be problems. If they stay it will hurt the confidence and we have built confidence. They should leave so that there will be more calm."
Latif and a group of generals offered to tame Falluja with their Falluja Brigade after the town was subject to a month-long siege in which hundreds of Iraqis died as U.S. air strikes and guerrilla mortars rocked the town.
Life has been calm over the last few days, but Marines are still on the edge of the Golan area of Falluja, where the heaviest fighting took place, manning checkpoints with Iraqi security forces under Latif's command.
Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marines Division, said on Thursday after meeting Latif the Marines would maintain a presence around Falluja until certain security requirements were met.
"At some point, I am sure we will pull back if the foreign fighters are confirmed and turned over to us, the heavy weapons are turned over to the Iraqi army and then we get them. It is event driven," he said.
But Latif said there was no need for them to stay because Falluja was peaceful.
Members of both the Iraqi Police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps joined armed mujahideen in celebration, waving their guns in the air and flashing the two-fingered "Victory" sign.
The US 1st Marine Division sent a small convoy into Fallujah today in order to meet with the mayor and show cooperation with the Iraqi Police (IP) and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC). But the supposed show of force was a pre-arranged exercise. Immediately following the Marines’ departure, the embattled city erupted into what could only be described as a huge victory celebration over the US military.Residents were joined by fully armed resistance fighters who intermingled freely with uniformed IP and ICDC personnel.
At roughly 11:00 this morning, several American Humvees and Stryker vehicles entered the downtown area of Fallujah, accompanied by pick-up trucks full of members of both the IP and ICDC, who traveled in front of, beside, and behind the military convoy. The small convoy slowly made its way inside the heavily blockaded Tribal Council compound.
A 1st Marine Division press release about the exercise says Marines "traveled into Fallujah today to exercise freedom of movement and meet with city officials."
Abdul Rahman, a captain in the ICDC, explained the Marines’ exercise as a negotiated concession. "There were negotiations between the people of Fallujah and the occupation forces," Captain Rahman said. "The plan is for the Americans to pull all of their troops out of the city after they get this one patrol."
After pausing to look at the military vehicles inside the compound, Rahman added, "We want them out of our country."
Nervous residents of the recently besieged city watched quietly from sidewalks as the vehicles sat for about 30 minutes inside the Tribal Council complex, behind concrete barriers some eight feet high. The scores of Iraqi Police and Iraqi Civil Defense Core members who had accompanied that patrol now guarded the building.
<snip>
Ahmed Saadoun Jassin, a uniformed Iraqi Policeman hired and trained by the US occupation authority, didn’t bother containing his joy at seeing the Marines leave. "I can’t describe to you the happiness I feel right now," he said. "This is a victory for Islam."
When asked about cooperating with the Marines, Jassin explained, "This was the deal that was negotiated. They couldn’t stay in Fallujah for over one hour, which they didn’t."
Shop owners threw handfuls of candy at the passing crowds. Many of the people celebrating waved old Iraqi flags, while some held up copies of the Qur’an.
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