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NPK-info 07-10-2001 - Nederlands Palestina Komitee
/ www.palestina-komitee.nl
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NPK/WL, 7-10-2001
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12 oktober 2001
20:00 - 22:00 uur
De Rode Hoed
"Mensenrechten en Vrede in Israël en de
Palestijnse Gebieden na één jaar
Intifada"
Amnesty International maakt met twee
mensenrechtenactivisten de balans op.
In september is het een jaar geleden dat de Intifada
uitbrak. In een jaar
tijd zijn er aan beide kanten slachtoffers gevallen,
ruim 600 aan
Palestijnse kant, ruim 150 aan Israëlische kant.
In het kader van 1 jaar Intifada, nodigt de
Nederlandse sectie van Amnesty
International twee heel bijzondere gasten uit:
advocate Allegra Pacheco en
dokter Eyad al-Sarraj.
Pacheco, geboren en getogen in de Verenigde Staten,
is een Israëlische
advocate die zich inzet voor Palestijnse gevangenen
in Israël. Zij richt
zich hierbij met name op mensenrechtenschendingen als
marteling,
administratieve detentie, huisvernietiging en
confiscatie van land. In 1998
was Pacheco een van de belangrijkste gasten bij de
viering van 50 jaar
Universele Verklaring van de Rechten van de Mens in
Parijs.
Al-Sarraj is psychiater, vredesactivist en directeur
van het programma voor
geestelijke gezondheidszorg in Gaza. Hij zet zich
sinds jaar en dag in voor
vreedzaam verzet tegen de
Israëlische bezetting van de Palestijnse
Gebieden. Ook probeert hij de
wereld te wijzen op de oneindig lijkende
spiraal van
mensenrechtenschendingen zowel voor als tijdens de huidige
Intifada. In 1998 won
Al-Sarraj de Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights
Defenders.
Wij nodigen u uit om op 12 oktober 2001 het
Publieksforum met het onderwerp
"Vrede en Mensenrechten in Israël en de
Palestijnse Gebieden na één jaar
Intifada" bij te wonen, waar Amnesty
International de balans opmaakt met
Pacheco en al-Sarraj.
Het forum zal om 20:00 uur aanvangen in de Grote Zaal
van De Rode Hoed,
Keizersgracht 102 te Amsterdam (020-638 56 06).
Voor meer informatie kunt u bellen met Charles
Schoenmaeckers,
Amnesty International Nederland.
Telefoon: 020-626 44 36, e-mail: c.schoenmaeckers@amnesty.nl
Visit http://www.stoptorture.org/
or http://www.amnesty.nl/
and register to
take a step to stamp out torture.
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BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY
October 2, 2001
URGENT APPEAL
END THE SIEGE OF BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY
STOP THE HARASSMENT OF STUDENTS, FACULTY AND STAFF
ALLOW THE RESIDENTS OF 35 VILLAGES UNDER SIEGE TO
RESUME THEIR EDUCATION AND
WORK
On September 28th, 2001, the Israeli Authorities
stated that they would ease
travel restrictions on the Palestinian population
within the West Bank and
Gaza following the signing of a cease-fire agreement
between the Palestinian
Authority and the Israeli Government.
The gulf between words and actions remains apparent
for the more than 5,000
students, 700 staff, and 65,000 villagers (in 35
villages in the area) whose
livelihoods and education continue to be severely
curtailed by the Israeli
checkpoints blocking access along the only route
remaining between the
Birzeit area and Ramallah.
Since March 2001, all residents of the area as well
as students and staff
at Birzeit University have been victim to the whims
of the Israeli military
forces and their soldiers positioned at these
checkpoints. Sometimes this,
the only access road, has been completely barred to
pedestrians, at others
only commercial vehicles are allowed to pass through.
Over the summer the
situation has hardened, and access to the University
(or the return home)
can only be accomplished through the long and
harrowing walk through the
checkpoints-- where students and staff are
often verbally and physically
abused by the soldiers. At various times, tear gas,
sound bombs and even
live fire have been lobbed at students and staff
alike -- in one case, a
University staff member after a heated discussion
with a soldier
subsequently had her hip broken when he shot a tear
gas grenade directly at
her.
The checkpoints pose a dual threat; on the one hand
they fundamentally
impede the ability of students to continue their
education and staff and
residents to make their livelihoods or meet their
work responsibilities. On
the other, they pose a constant threat to our
physical safety and
psychological well-being. The damage to academic life,
community service
programs, research and the very future development of
the University are
very real. Equipment and book shipments cannot be
brought to the campus.
Teaching staff and students lose hours of valuable
educational time crossing
the checkpoints. The ability to use the libraries and
labs after classes, as
well as enrichment activities are all no longer
possible as it is unsafe to
cross the checkpoints after dark. Moreover, almost
20% of the 2000-2001
student body have missed an entire academic year due
to being under siege in
areas such as the Gaza Strip and North and South West
Bank.
The Birzeit community has over the past few months,
held a number of
peaceful demonstrations, organized by the University
and its friends. In
March this resulted in the filling in of the trenches
that the Israeli
military bulldozers had gouged out of the road.
However, subsequent peaceful
protests against the ongoing checkpoint closure -
including delivering
notice to the soldiers that their actions contravened
international law --
have had no impact. Instead, the checkpoints have
hardened into a part of
the systematic and official policy of intimidation
that is aimed at
institutionalizing the suffering of Palestinian
civilians in an attempt to
break their wills and lay waste to their society and
nation. We call on the
international community to defend human rights by
taking immediate action
against this closure, which clearly violates the
Fourth Geneva Conventions,
to which Israel is a signatory, as well as the
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and other international human rights
provisions. Indeed, it is
urgent and necessary that the High Contracting
Parties to the Convention
convene and exercise their responsibilities under
international law. But
alongside these comprehensive initiatives, we urge
the international
community to act whenever the interests of peace and
security are violated
and take concrete measures to ensure these interests.
We believe an open road to Birzeit University is a
step forward to a just
and equitable peace. Your support is urgently needed.
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Call the nearest Israeli Embassy in your area and
send your protests to the
Israeli Government
- Benjamin Beneliezer, Israeli Minister of Defense at
sar@mod.gov.il
- Shimon Peres, Israeli Foreign Minister at sar@mofa.gov.il
- Limor Livnat, Israeli Minister of Education, sar@education.gov.il
Please also contact one of the following
international representatives:
H.E. Mr. Kofi Annan
Secretary General, United Nations
Fax: + 212 963 - 2155
E-mail: ecu@un.org
Mr. Terje Rod Larsen
Personal Representative of the Secretary General
to the United Nations in Palestine
Tel: + 972 8 282 2914
Fax: + 972 8 282 0966
E-mail: unsco@palnet.com
Mr. Romano Prodi
President, European Union
E-mail: romano.prodi@cec.eu.int
Mr. Koichiro Matsura
Director General, UNESCO
7 Place de Fontenoy 75352
Paris 07SP
Fax: + 33 1 45 6 7 16 90
For further information about Birzeit University,
please visit the
University Website at http://www.birzeit.edu
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From F r e e d o m 4-10-2001
"...and those who produce the "laundry
list" of a blood-soaked historical
record are "anti American", which
apparently is similar to the
"anti-semitism" of those who dare to point
out the atrocious activities of
the Israeli state. "
John Pilger
The world has been in ferment since September 11, but
why weren't there
similar outcries at earlier atrocities?
John Pilger
Thursday October 4, 2001
The Guardian
This week saw the end of an exhibition I helped put
on at the Barbican in
London, devoted to photo-journalism that makes sense
of terrible events.
Brilliant, subversive pictures from Vietnam show the
systematic rape of a
country with weapons designed to spread terror. The
exhibition ranged from
Hiroshima to two final, haunting images of sisters,
aged 10 and 12, their
bodies engraved in the rubble of the Iraqi city of
Basra, where American
missiles destroyed their street two years ago: part
of a current
Anglo-American bombing campaign that is almost never
reported.
Since the outrages in America on September 11, the
exhibition has been
packed, mostly with young people. Many accused the
media and politicians of
misrepresenting public opinion and of obscuring the
reasons behind the
fanaticism of the attackers. For them, the most
telling pictures are of
"unworthy victims". Let me explain. The
6,000 people who died in America on
September 11 are worthy victims: that is, they are
worthy of our honour and
a relentless pursuit of justice, which is right. In
contrast, the 6,000
people who die every month in Iraq, the victims of a
medieval siege devised
and imposed by Washington and Whitehall, are, like
the little sisters bombed
to death in their sleep in Basra, unworthy victims -
unworthy of even
acknowledgement in the "civilised" west.
Ten years ago, when 200,000 Iraqis died during and
immediately after the
slaughter known as the Gulf war, the scale of this
massacre was never
allowed to enter public consciousness in the west.
Many were buried alive at
night by armoured American snowploughs and murdered
while retreating. Colin
Powell, then US military chief, who 22 years earlier
was assigned to cover
up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and is currently
being elevated to hero
status in the western media, said: "It's really
not numbers I'm terribly
interested in." An American letter writer to the
Guardian last week, in
admonishing the
writer Arundhati Roy for producing a "laundry
list" of American terror
around the world, revealed how the blinkered think.
The lives of millions of
people extinguished as a consequence of American
policies, be they Iraqis or
Palestinians, Timorese or Congolese, belong not in
our living memory, but on
a "list". Apply that dismissive abstraction
to the Holocaust, and imagine
the profanity.
The job of disassociating the September 11 atrocities
from the source of
half a century of American crusades, economic wars
and homicidal adventures,
is understandably urgent. For Bush and Blair to
"wage war against
terrorism", assaulting countries, killing
innocents and creating famine,
international law must be set aside and a monomania
must take over politics
and the "free" media. Fortunately public
opinion is not yet fully
Murdochised and is
already uneasy and suspicious; 60% oppose massive
bombing, says an Observer
poll. And the more Blair, our little Lord Palmerston,
opens his mouth on the
subject the more suspicions will grow and the
crusaders' contortions of
intellect and morality will show. When Blair tells
David Frost that his war
plans are aimed at "the people who gave [the
terrorists] the weapons", can
he mean we are about to attack America? For it was
mostly America that
destroyed a
moderate regime in Afghanistan and created a
fanatical one.
On the day of the twin towers attack, an arms fair,
selling weapons of
terror to assorted tyrants and human rights abusers,
opened in London's
Docklands with the backing of the Blair government.
Now Bush and Blair have
created what the UN calls "the world's worst
humanitarian crisis", with up
to 7m people facing starvation. The initial American
reaction was to demand
that Pakistan stop supplying food to the starving who,
of course, fail to
qualify
as worthy victims.
The bombing intelligentsia (the New Humanitarians, as
Edward Herman calls
them) are doing their bit, blaming September 11 on
"an evil hatred of
modernity" and something called "apocalyptic
nihilism". There are no reasons
why; the Barbican pictures are fake. Aside from a few
"errors",
Anglo-American actions are redeemed, and those who
produce the "laundry
list" of a blood-soaked historical record are
"anti American", which
apparently is similar to the "anti-semitism"
of those who dare to point out
the atrocious activities of the Israeli state.
Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez lost their son Greg in
the World Trade Centre.
They said this: "We read enough of the news to
sense that our government is
heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the
prospect of sons,
daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying,
suffering, and nursing
further grievances against us. It is not the way to
go... not in our son's
name."
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