[A-List] Fwd: [koran-salatiga] Update & Chomsky on Human Rights Week from ZNet

[KM <kangmalacca@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 17:04:55 -0500
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > You may have noticed that we are "fiddling" around
> > with the top page of
> > ZNet, a bit.
> >
> > Think of it as trying to fulfill a New Year's
> > resolution.
> >
> > Can we make the top page a bit less imposing,
> > facilitate navigation to
> > recent material, and yet not sacrifice volume and
> > variety and also not
> > increase the number of "clicks" or the searching
> > people have to do to
> > find not only what they want, but what is new
> since
> > their last visit?
> >
> > Can we find a mix and balance that is good for new
> > people, first
> > arriving, and also for old hands who know their
> way
> > around?
> >
> > Can we keep things easily and closely at hand, yet
> > be less imposing -
> > would be one way to put it?
> >
> > At any rate, there will probably be a number of
> > changes before we settle
> > on a new shape -- for a few months, anyhow.
> >
> > And having gotten that bit of explanation out of
> the
> > way...here is the
> > main reason for this message...a new essay from
> Noam
> > Chomsky, on the
> > Ocassion of Human Rights Week, 2002.
> >
> > ----
> >
> > Human Rights Week 2002
> > By Noam Chomsky
> >
> > Human Rights Week is not much of an occasion in
> the
> > US, with some
> > notable qualifications. But it does receive
> > considerable attention
> > elsewhere. For me personally, Human Rights Week
> 2002
> > was memorable and
> > poignant. The week opened on the eve of Human
> Rights
> > Day, Dec. 10, at
> > St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where thousands of
> > people gathered to
> > celebrate -- though that may not be quite the
> right
> > word -- the tenth
> > anniversary of the Kurdish Human Rights Project
> > KHRP, which has done
> > outstanding work on some of the most serious human
> > rights issues of the
> > decade: particularly, but not only, the US-backed
> > terrorist campaigns of
> > the Turkish state that rank among the most
> terrible
> > crimes of the grisly
> > 1990s, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions
> > driven from the
> > devastated countryside, with every imaginable form
> > of barbaric torture.
> > The week ended for me in Diyarbakir in
> southeastern
> > Turkey, the
> > semi-official capital of the Kurdish region,
> teeming
> > with refugees
> > living in squalor, barred from returning to what
> is
> > left of their
> > villages, even though new legislation
> theoretically
> > allows that choice.
> >
> > I had been invited to Diyarbakir by the Human
> Rights
> > Association, which
> > does courageous and impressive work under
> conditions
> > of constant serious
> > threat. The preceding days I spent in Istanbul at
> > the invitation of the
> > Publishers Association, which was holding its
> annual
> > meeting and an
> > international book fair, dedicated to peace and
> > freedom; and the public
> > sector union KESK (not permitted to function as a
> > union under harsh laws
> > and state practice), which was holding an
> > international symposium on the
> > same themes. While in Istanbul, I was able to
> visit
> > the miserable slums
> > where unknown numbers of Kurdish refugees seek to
> > survive the damp cold
> > winter months in decaying condemned buildings:
> large
> > families may be
> > crammed into a single room with young children
> > virtually imprisoned
> > unable to venture into the dangerous alleyways
> > outside, and older
> > children working in illegal factories to help keep
> > the family alive.
> > They too are effectively barred from returning to
> > the homes from which
> > they were expelled, despite the new legislation
> that
> > lifts the state of
> > emergency in southeastern Turkey -- formally, at
> > least.
> >
> > The founder and director of the KHRP is also
> barred
> > from returning to
> > his country. And just to round out the picture,
> the
> > US is now refusing
> > entry to human rights activists recording and
> > protesting these crimes. A
> > few weeks ago Dr. Haluk Gerger, a leading figure
> in
> > the Turkish human
> > rights movement, arrived with his wife at a New
> York
> > airport. INS
> > cancelled his 10-year visa, returning him and his
> > wife at once after
> > fingerprinting and photographing. Dr. Gerger has
> > received awards from
> > Human Rights Watch and the American Association
> for
> > the Advancement of
> > Science for his outstanding contributions to human
> > rights; his
> > punishment by the Turkish authorities had been
> > singled out by the State
> > Department as an example of Turkey's failure to
> > protect elementary
> > rights. In an open letter to the US Ambassador,
> the
> > spokesperson of the
> > Freedom of Speech Initiative in Istanbul,
> protesting
> > this treatment,
> > writes that Dr. Gerger is "a founding member of
> the
> > Human Rights
> > Association of Turkey" and "an ardent defender of
> > Kurdish rights," who
> > "has written extensively on the issue and has
> > criticized governmental
> > policies," likening "the Turkish government's
> > treatment of the Kurds to
> > Serbia's ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia,"
> and
> > suffering
> > imprisonment and heavy fines as well as loss of
> his
> > academic position
> > for his writings on human rights issues.
> >
> > Colin Powell's State Department has now declared
> him
> > persona non grata
> > in the United States, adopting the stand of
> > extremist elements in the
> > Turkish military and ultranationalist parties.
> >
> > The Turkish state, with the hand of the military
> > never hidden, remains
> > harsh and repressive, despite some encouraging
> > changes in recent months.
> > But even superficial contact reveals that Turkish
> > culture and society
> > are free and vibrant in ways that should be a
> model
> > for the West.
> > Particularly striking is the spirit of resistance
> > that one senses at
> > once, from the caves outside the city walls of
> > Diyarbakir where refugees
> > speak eloquently of their yearning to return to
> > their homes to the urban
> > centers of intellectual life.
> >
> > The struggle of people of Turkey for freedom and
> > human rights is truly
> > inspiring, not only because of the depth of
> > commitment but also because
> > it seems so natural and without pretense, just a
> > normal part of life,
> > despite the severe threats that are never remote.
> > That includes
> > courageous writers of international renown like
> > Yashar Kemal; scholars
> > who have faced and endured severe punishment for
> > their commitment to
> > tell the truth, like Ismail Besikci, who has spent
> > much of his life in
> > prison for his writings on state terror in Turkey;
> > parliamentarians like
> > Layla Zana, still languishing in prison, serving a
> > 15 year sentence for
> > expressing in her native language her hope that
> > "Kurdish and Turkish
> > people can live peacefully together in a
> democratic
> > framework"; and many
> > others like them, from all walks of life. They are
> > of course unknown in
> > the US, much like the Latin American intellectuals
> > assassinated by US
> > proxy forces, not to speak of the hundreds of
> > thousands of usual victims
> > -- "unworthy victims," in Edward Herman's phrase,
> > because they suffer at
> > the wrong hands: ours.
> >
> > Dr. Besikci refused a $10,000 prize from the US
> Fund
> > for Free Expression
> > in protest against Washington's decisive
> > contribution to terror in
> > Turkey, primarily in the Clinton years, when the
> US
> > provided 80% of
> > Turkey's arms and Turkey became the leading
> > recipient of US arms
> > (Israel-Egypt aside) as criminal atrocities
> > escalated. In the single
> > year 1997 alone, US arms flow to Turkey exceeded
> the
> > combined total for
> > the entire Cold War period up to the onset of the
> > state terror campaign;
> > or as it is called in State Department reports on
> > terror, and in the
> > press, the "successful counter-terror" campaign
> for
> > which Turkey is to
> > be praised and rewarded. That practice accords
> with
> > the standard
> > doctrine, by no means unique to the US, that
> > "terror" is what THEY do to
> > US, and "counter-terror" is what WE do to THEM,
> > commonly much worse, and
> > only occasionally retaliation, not that it would
> be
> > tolerable in that
> > case.
> >
> > Privileged people in the West should feel humility
> > and shame when
> > observing the courage and integrity of those who
> > live under draconian
> > laws and brutal repression and terror, in no small
> > measure thanks to
> > Western support, and not only condemn the abuses
> and
> > defend the victims
> > but regularly carry out acts of civil disobedience
> > in protest, at severe
> > risk. They should also feel shame that the KHRP
> > operates in London, not
> > New York, where it belongs, given the locus of
> > responsibility for the
> > crimes. The British record is not attractive, but
> > the primary
> > responsibility, by far, lies here. There is in
> fact
> > a major Kurdish
> > Center in New York, with many activities and
> > important and highly
> > informative publications (Center for Research of
> the
> > Kurdish Library,
> > Brooklyn, Vera Saaedpour, director). Its
> > anniversary, however, would not
> > bring together thousands of people in New York. It
> > is known only to
> > those who are concerned with human rights --
> > seriously concerned, that
> > is, as shown by their attitude to their own
> crimes.
> > It is far more
> > gratifying to wring one's hands over the crimes of
> > others that we can do
> > little about, or perhaps to contemplate the
> strange
> > flaw in our
> > character that keeps us from responding to the
> > crimes of others in some
> > proper way (rarely spelled out beyond bold and
> often
> > mindless
> > declarations). In sharp contrast, the crimes that
> we
> > could easily bring
> > to an end merely by withdrawing our decisive
> > participation must be
> > buried deep in the memory hole.
> >
> > Uppermost in everyone's minds from London to
> > Diyarbakir and beyond is
> > the feverish determination of the Bush
> > administration to find a pretext
> > for what it believes will be a cheap and
> politically
> > useful war in Iraq,
> > with Blair trailing loyally behind. In Turkey,
> > popular opposition to the
> > coming war is overwhelming. Much the same is true
> > throughout the region,
> > and in most of Europe and the rest of the world as
> > well. Poll results
> > for the US look different, but that is misleading.
> > It can hardly escape
> > notice that although Saddam Hussein is reviled
> > everywhere, it is only in
> > the US that people are genuinely afraid that if we
> > don't stop him today,
> > he'll kill us tomorrow.
> >
> > Engendering such fears is second nature to the
> > re-cycled Reaganites at
> > the helm in Washington. Throughout the 1980s they
> > were able to ram
> > through their reactionary agenda, significantly
> > harming the population,
> > by maintaining a constant state of fear. Twenty
> > years ago Libyan hit-men
> > were wandering the streets of Washington to
> > assassinate our leader. Then
> > the Russians were going to bomb us from an air
> base
> > in Grenada (if they
> > could find it on a map). Meanwhile the awesome
> > Sandinista army was
> > poised only two days marching time from Harlingen
> > Texas, a "dagger
> > pointed at the heart of Texas." And on through the
> > decade. To determine
> > a meaningful measure of domestic support for the
> > coming war, it would be
> > necessary to extricate the fear factor, unique to
> > the US. The results
> > would probably show little difference from the
> rest
> > of the world.
> >
> > There is no historical precedent for such enormous
> > popular opposition to
> > a war, and protest against it, before it is even
> > launched (fully
> > launched, to be more accurate).
> >
> > In the Kurdish areas the general opposition to war
> > is heightened by
> > concern over the consequences for the Kurds. The
> > neighboring countries
> > are likely to intensify domestic repression in the
> > context of war.
> > Similar concerns extend to Kurds elsewhere,
> > including the 4 million who,
> > for the moment, have achieved unusual progress in
> > the northern enclaves
> > of Iraq under the uneasy alliance of Masoud
> Barzani
> > and Jalal Talabani.
> > Apart from their vulnerability to murderous Iraqi
> > assault in the event
> > of war, and the anticipated Turkish reaction if
> > there is any hint of a
> > move towards meaningful autonomy, more than half
> are
> > reported to be
> > reliant for survival on the UN "Oil for Food"
> > program, likely to be
> > severely disrupted in the event of war. "Free
> > Kurdistan is like a huge
> > refugee camp," one Kurdish leader commented,
> > dependent on UN-run
> > programs for food and on Baghdad for fuel and
> power.
> > The UN High
> > Commissioner for Refugees is planning for possible
> > flight of hundreds of
> > thousands to neighboring countries, where they are
> > not likely to receive
> > a warm welcome, and where the prospects for the
> > indigenous Kurdish
> > populations are sufficiently grim even without
> what
> > might lie ahead --
> > or perhaps to camps in northern Iraq that are
> being
> > constructed by the
> > Turkish army there, according to Turkish sources,
> a
> > development with
> > threatening portent.
> >
> > I mentioned a qualification to the lack of
> attention
> > to Human Right Week
> > here: namely, when human rights violations can be
> > exploited as a weapon
> > against some official enemy, a practice that
> Amnesty
> > International has
> > bitterly deplored, again in the past few months.
> > Through the 1980s,
> > Human Rights Day was the occasion for impassioned
> > denunciations of the
> > Soviet Union, technically accurate but with
> extreme
> > cynicism that
> > utterly resists exposure. Human Rights Day 2002
> was
> > the occasion for the
> > release by the Jack Straw, British Foreign
> > Secretary, of a Dossier on
> > Saddam Hussein's crimes -- accelerated by a few
> > days, as part of the
> > US-UK effort to elicit some hostile Iraqi gesture
> > prior to the crucial
> > Dec. 8 deadline for Iraq's submission of documents
> > on its weapons of
> > mass destruction (WMD). The Dossier was authentic,
> > drawn mostly from
> > reports of human rights organizations on Saddam's
> > horrendous atrocities
> > through the 1980s. Unmentioned, as usual, was the
> > fact that these
> > shocking crimes were of no concern to the US or
> UK,
> > which continued to
> > provide their friend Saddam with aid, including
> > means to develop WMD at
> > a time when he was vastly more dangerous than
> today.
> >
> > In the US, those responsible are now again in
> > office, and instructions
> > are that we are to disregard the criminal record
> for
> > which they show not
> > the slightest contrition. The current British
> > government was then in
> > opposition, but as journalist Mark Thomas
> revealed,
> > parliamentary
> > protests against Saddam's crimes from 1988 through
> > the 90s are missing a
> > few names: Blair, Straw, Cook, Hoon,.., that is,
> the
> > leading figures of
> > the governing party. Thomas also released a letter
> > demonstrating that
> > Straw's discovery of Saddam Hussein's evil nature
> is
> > quite recent. In
> > January 2001, as Home Secretary, it was his
> > responsibility to rule on
> > pleas for political asylum. He rejected the appeal
> > of an Iraqi who had
> > been detained and tortured in Iraq because the
> "wide
> > range of
> > information on Iraq" that Straw had at his
> disposal
> > made it clear that
> > the Iraqi tyrant's courts would not "convict and
> > sentence a person"
> > improperly, and "if there are any charges
> > outstanding against you and if
> > they were to be proceeded with on your return, you
> > could expect to
> > receive a fair trial under an independent and
> > properly constituted
> > judiciary."
> >
> > But something changed since January 2001, and the
> > crimes that were of no
> > account shock our sensibilities and require war.
> And
> > we are all supposed
> > to observe this performance with sober approval,
> if
> > not awe.
> >
> > I also mentioned that in 1997, US arms flow to
> > Turkey exceeded the
> > combined total for the Cold War years as state
> > terror mounted to levels
> > far beyond anything attributed to Milosevic in
> > Kosovo before the NATO
> > bombing, which was undertaken, we were solemnly
> > informed, because we are
> > so high-minded that we cannot tolerate crimes so
> > near the borders of
> > NATO -- only within NATO, where we must not only
> > tolerate but expedite
> > them. 1997 was an important year for the human
> > rights movements in other
> > ways as well. It was the year when the world's
> > leading newspaper
> > informed its readers that US foreign policy had
> > entered a "noble phase,"
> > with a "saintly glow." It was also the year when
> US
> > military aid to
> > Colombia skyrocketed, increasing from $50 million
> to
> > $290 million by
> > 1999, then doubling by 2001 and still increasing.
> In
> > 1999, Turkey
> > relinquished to Colombia its place as leading
> > recipient of US arms. The
> > reason is not hard to discern: Turkish state
> terror
> > was by then a
> > success, Colombia's was not. Through the 1990s,
> > Colombia had by far the
> > worst human rights record in the Western
> hemisphere,
> > and was by far the
> > leading recipient of US arms and military
> training,
> > a correlation that
> > is well-established and would be of no slight
> > concern if it were known
> > outside of scholarship and dissident circles.
> >
> > Turkey and Colombia share other common features.
> > Each has several
> > million people violently displaced; 2.7 million by
> > now in Colombia,
> > increasing at the rate of 1000 a day, according to
> > the latest reports of
> > the leading human rights organization. These are
> the
> > numbers internally
> > displaced, not counting those who have fled
> > elsewhere. And Colombia,
> > like Turkey, provides a model of courageous
> > resistance that should be
> > observed with shame and humility by privileged
> > Westerners --
> > particularly those who labor to suppress the
> > continuing atrocities and
> > terror for which we bear responsibility, to efface
> > the disgraceful
> > record of the past, and to erect firm barriers
> > against the threat of
> > exposure of crimes that the general population
> would
> > not tolerate, were
> > the barriers to be breached.
> >
> > ===================================
>
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