Chronicles of a delegation of U.S. citizens traveling to Gaza organized by CodePink and supported by U.S. Citizens for Peace & Justice, Rome, Italy

3 June 2009

As luck would have it, we just happened to be in Gaza at the same time as Justice Richard Goldstone, the Jewish South African judge who is leading the UN Human Rights Council investigation of the assault on Gaza. He and his team had just arrived in Gaza on Wednesday, the day before we were leaving and our brilliant CodePink organizers managed to arrange a meeting with him.

The international fact finding mission has been given the mandate “to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.”

He started off by saying that though they had planned to enter through Israel, they had been forced, like us, to travel through Rafah. “We had hoped Israel would cooperate with our investigation, but unfortunately that have chosen not to.” He also commented on the immense amount of data and the very short time period his mission has been given to complete their report – just three months. They had held their first hearings in Geneva in early May and this was the first trip to the area.

[Read the report]

by Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson
Islamabad, Pakistan
June 11, 2009

In Pakistan’s Swabi district, a bumpy road leads to Shah Mansoor, a small village surrounded by farmland. Just outside the village, uniform size tents are set up in hundreds of rows. The sun bores down on the Shah Mansoor camp which has become a temporary home to thousands of displaced Pakistanis from the Swat area. In the stifling heat, the camp’s residents sit idly, day after day, uncertain about their future. They spoke with heated certainty, though, about their grievances.

[Read the report]

There’s a mudslide of infotainment regarding Iran’s presidential election on the internet today. Not many discussing the biographies of the candidates, the pledges of destruction made by Israeli and U.S. fascists, or the effects of sanctions presently enforced and threatened to be imposed. Slipping out is a report of foreign influence on sovereign elections.

Ahmadinejad is the “madman” and the preferred candidate of the neoconservatives, a descriptive utilised by the go-to guy for progressive change in U.S. Middle East foreign policy, an attitude that reflects the depth of his think tank.

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An interview with Mahmood Mamdani

In his latest book, Mamdani attacks the Save Darfur Coalition as ahistorical and dishonest, and argues that the conflict in Darfur is more about land, power, and the environment than it is directly about race.

“The Save Darfur movement claims to have learned from Rwanda,” writes Mahmood Mamdani in his new book, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. “But what is the lesson of Rwanda? For many of those mobilized to save Darfur, the lesson is to rescue before it is too late, to act before seeking to understand.” His book is an argument “against those who substitute moral certainty for knowledge, and who feel virtuous even when acting on the basis of total ignorance.” Americans think Darfur is a tragic genocide. Mamdani thinks the reality is more complex. His ideas should be taken seriously for a number of reasons, especially because he provides a road map to a workable peace settlement.

Mamdani rewrites the crisis by putting it in context. He notes that violent deaths in Iraq during the U.S. invasion and occupation far surpass death rates in Darfur. If death rates are higher, why all the attention on Darfur, rather than Iraq? he wondered. Is the killing racially motivated? To answer that, he examines the history of Sudan.

[Read the interview]

On May 27, Royal Dutch Shell goes to court on charges of involvement in the execution of the iconic Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa thirteen years ago. His son, Ken Wiwa, Jr., and bestselling novelist Richard North Patterson discuss Saro-Wiwa’s legacy, Nigeria now, and the upcoming landmark trial. EDITORS’ UPDATE: The trial has been postponed until further notice. Photo by Dan Eckstein.

[Read the conversation]