Breaking the Silence releases a new book containing 96 stories of dozens of women who served in the Occupied Territories.

Read more here.

BREAKING THE SILENCE – Women Soldiers’ Testimonies (.pdf)

Was there violence?

All the time.

What kind?

First of all, just plain harassment. Keeping them on their feet, because if you’re really gung-ho and got up that morning rearing to go and catch some, you could easily hunt down thirty people in a half-hour. The point is you had to detain them. You couldn’t get them and check them out one by one. You had to catch the guy, seat him and wait for others. And often they would come in large groups. Again, when they move in large groups obviously they’re not out on a terrorist mission, that’s not exactly the recommended mode of action… So you catch them and make them stand in formation.

Formation?

Yes. Stand in formation, and there’s that famous Border Patrol rhyme – Wahad hummus, wahad ful, ana bahibbak Mishmar HaGvul (One plate of hummus, one plate of beans, I love you Border Patrol)… They’re made to sing it. Sing and hop. Just
like rookies, the kind of hazing stuff in basic training, about which soldiers’ parents are always raising hell. It’s the same thing. Only much worse. If anyone laughs, or the soldiers decide he’s laughed, he gets punched. Why did you laugh? Boom, a fist. He doesn’t really have to laugh to get that punch. I feel like punching him. Why did you laugh? Boom.

How long does this last?

It can last for hours. It depends how bored the soldiers are, they can stretch it out for two hours. It’s an eight-hour shift. Got to get through it somehow.

And who is made to stand in formation?

Everyone, all age groups.

Women? Children? Elderly people?

Yes. Whoever shows up. Whoever shows up, stands in formation. There were the more sensitive soldiers who’d let the women and elderly go. I’d say the elderly were less harassed. And there were soldiers who’d harass the elderly. Like in any society, this company too, some soldiers abused more and others less. Some had absolutely no restraint and abused anyone.

Yash Tandon
Pambazuka News
2010-01-28, Issue 467

Haiti is a tragedy for us all. It is a tragedy for you and me. It is a tragedy for Africa, for the poor countries of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. An earthquake is a global phenomenon, it can happen anywhere. It can happen in the US, in Europe and in Japan. So why then is it so destructive in its effects in the countries of the South? It is because of the failure of development. Haiti is a microcosm of the disastrous outcome of the failed so-called ‘development’ policies of the last thirty years in the South, and the destructive effects of foreign interventionist policies in the affairs of the poor countries of the South – from Somalia to Bangladesh to Haiti.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, in his passionate book, The Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization gives a graphic account of what happens when local economies and local initiatives of a poor country like Haiti are subordinated to the will of global finance and corporate power masked by the ideologies of ‘free trade’ and ‘development aid’. ‘In a world oriented only toward profit, it may be difficult for us to hear God’s voice among the din and the racket of the moneychangers who have filled the world’s temples’, he writes.

He describes how he had to wrestle with his heart and mind to resist the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) that was being forced on him as a condition for donor aid. When he remained faithful to his heart and mind, he was forced out of power. The government that replaced him relented to the pressure of the donors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank (WB). In 2004 in what he described as his ‘kidnapping’ with the connivance of France and the US, he was forced into exile. He was unceremoniously transported first to Jamaica and then, eventually, to South Africa.

[Read the article]

h/t: More Terrible Death-Video From The Bloodless Coup

Former prime minister accused of ‘not facing up to facts’ as he gives evidence to Chilcot inquiry

Paul Lewis and Vikram Dodd, guardian.co.uk, 29 January 2010

[Highlights from Tony Blair’s evidence to the Iraq inquiry – video]

The families of British military personnel killed in Iraq condemned Tony Blair’s performance before the Chilcot inquiry today, accusing him of being disrespectful.

[Read the report]

Related:
STOP THE WAR COALITION
Web: http://stopwar.org.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/STWuk
UPDATE: BLAIR INQUIRY PROTEST
People are coming from across Britain for the protest outside the Iraq inquiry when Blair gives evidence on 29 January.

29 January 2010MAP is pleased to present a series of films that will be launched over the course of 2010. We look to highlight not only our work but also the challenges faced by average Palestinian mothers, fathers and children living under occupation or as refugees. Our first film examines the lives of Palestinians a year on from the Israeli attack on Gaza.

[Read more]