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U.S. at U.N. prisoners’ rights meeting: Progress, but still wrong on solitary confinement
December 13, 2012
Yesterday I wrote about the ACLU’s efforts to ensure that the U.S. government is properly engaged at a U.N. meeting in Buenos Aires on uniform rules for the treatment of prisoners. Now that the meeting is underway, it appears that the U.S. delegation is playing a constructive role – but we’ve still got work to do.
Signs of the times in Haiti: The military, money and meaning of an occupation
August 15, 2012
There are periods in a country’s history when the signs and warnings that that history will soon enter into a dramatically different phase are clear as day. Such is the period today in Haiti, where daily events portend an inauspicious development for the future: The Haitian Army may soon be returning.
United States withholds military aid from Rwanda
July 27, 2012
On Saturday, July 21, 2012, the United States officially announced that it was withholding $200,000 in military aid from the Rwandan government. Although a materially insignificant sum, the symbolism has serious implications for Rwanda’s image and reputation in the global community.
U.S. cuts aid to Rwanda for destabilizing Congo
July 21, 2012
The State Department announced today that the U.S. “has cut this year’s planned military assistance to Rwanda amid concerns that the government in Kigali is supporting rebel movements in neighboring Congo,” according to the Washington Post. A three-year campaign by advocates for peace in the Congo and an end to the plundering of its mineral riches culminates successfully in today’s announcement. They have been pressing for implementation of the only law sponsored by then Sen. Obama allowing denial of aid to Congo’s neighbors that destabilize the Congo.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the night of Troy Davis’ execution
September 21, 2011
Tomorrow Kagame will appear as one of Bill Clinton’s featured speakers in a plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual gathering of the global elite. At the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative, Clinton presented Kagame with a Global Citizenship Award.
Libya and Congo: Africa in the age of Obama – Why military intervention is not the answer
May 10, 2011
The rationale for the U.S. intervention in Libya is to protect vulnerable civilians from mass slaughter by the Libyan regime. Why has the U.S. has pursued a military path to “protect” civilians in Libya, when there is a far greater humanitarian crisis unfolding in the heart of Africa, in the Congo. President Obama has the diplomatic tools at his disposal to help alleviate the human suffering in the Congo but has not used them. Watch the videos and sign the petition.
Rwanda: Who’s denying genocide?
May 9, 2011
The 2010 U.N. Mapping Exercise Report, U.N. Prosecutor Del Ponte’s 2009 exposé of Rwandan Patriotic Front crimes, and the 2008 Spanish genocide indictment of President Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front tell the real story.
Pierre Labossiere on welcoming Aristide home to Haiti
April 10, 2011
“I was at his (President Aristide’s) house, we heard a roar of shouts of joy, and then over the walls people started coming in, pouring into the courtyard of the house when they saw the car. People were accompanying the car as many as three miles from the airport to his house,” relates Pierre Labossiere of the jubilant welcome that greeted the Aristides on their return to Haiti ending seven long years of exile for them and brutal repression of the people they had to leave behind. Pierre tells the story of the Haitian people and how their never-say-die spirit continues to inspire the world.
U.S., NATO and the attacks against Libya
March 17, 2011
No blood for oil! Libya has the largest known oil reserves on the continent of Africa. The country is also a large producer of natural gas that is supplied to several European states. It is the resources of this country that U.S. imperialists want to control.
The people have won!
February 11, 2011
This people’s victory in North Africa, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt, is OUR VICTORY TOO. We, the people of the world, must move forward toward global revolution that will liberate the entire global community.
Kagame will be Rwanda’s next president. Then what?
August 3, 2010
Knowing that he is a predator of political and press freedoms, it is now opportune for Western donors to revisit their support for Kagame as well as their role in Rwanda’s reconstruction and reconciliation processes.
ICTR calls for immediate release of Peter Erlinder from Rwandan prison as Erlinder’s wife appeals to U.N. Security Council members
June 15, 2010
In the runup to the presidential election Aug. 9, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has prevented his prospective opponents from registering, briefly jailed his leading opponent, Victoire Ingabire, and has imprisoned her attorney, Professor Peter Erlinder, since May 28. Today, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), where Erlinder is lead defense attorney, called for his release.
Rwandan opposition parties condemn grenade attacks in Kigali
February 21, 2010
If Rwanda’s three viable opposition parties are allowed to register and participate in free and fair elections, they have a good chance, in coalition, of defeating Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Party. Those three parties condemned the Feb. 19 deadly grenade attacks in Kigali, calling them “an attempt to instill fear in the population” prior to Rwanda’s August presidential election.
Takeover imminent of Honduras’ Garifuna Community Hospital
September 1, 2009
Despite objections by local Garifuna communities, Honduras’ de facto government is moving to take over the first and only Garifuna-managed hospital in the country, ousting its current staff. The facility – built by Dr. Luther Castillo, other Garifuna doctors, local architects and the communities themselves – is located in the remote coastal municipality of Iriona. [The Garifuna, descended from Africans who intermarried with native Arawak and Carib people, number about 600,000 on the Caribbean coast of Central America.]
Letter to Hillary Clinton from Congolese elected officials
August 30, 2009
One is hard pressed to find media accounts of what the Congolese people want or how they believe that the United States could best play a constructive role in ending the suffering in the Congo. Considering that the United States has played a significant historical role in the stifling of the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people and the backing of the 1996 and 1998 invasions of the Congo by its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, which unleashed what the United Nations say is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II, it is important to hear directly from the Congolese people regarding U.S. engagement in the Congo.
Cynthia McKinney is in Gaza and the medicine got through!
July 16, 2009
Jubilant at finally breaking the blockade to bring aid to the people of Gaza, three Black heroes – former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, fresh out of an Israeli prison, New York City Councilman Charles Barron and M-1 of dead prez – and Viva Palestina organizer British Member of Parliament George Galloway’s are interviewed by the world press. Yet U.S. media are silent. Read all about it right here.
The blood pours: UN soldiers shoot at Haitian mourners outside church funeral of Father Jean Juste in Haiti
June 19, 2009
Today, June 18, U.N. soldiers gunned down Haitian mourners outside the church, Port au Prince Cathedral in Haiti, the largest church in the country, during the funeral for Father Gerard Jean Juste. But undeterred by U.N. guns, Haitians continue to run towards the darkness, using their bodies, breath and soul to light the world – liberty or death! Famous Haitian artist Zap Zap has been reported arbitrarily detained, arrested and transported to an unknown location.
No evictions: Gulf Coast residents can keep their FEMA trailers
June 10, 2009
The move by FEMA to enforce the June 1 eviction date for Gulf Region residents who live in temporary trailers not only lacks basic compassion but is also a derogation of the government’s responsibilities to uphold fundamental human rights.