Gaza: From the massacre and rubble of Shejalya, statues of memory and witness…

Palestinian artist captures Gaza pain in clay

By ADEL ZAANOUN, Agence France-Presse, October 28, 2014

GAZA CITY : Palestinian artist Iyyad Sabbah (R),40, stands in front of his statues standing amidst the rubble of buildings destroyed during the 50 days of conflict between Israel and Hamas last summer, in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City on October 21, 2014. The statues are made of fiberglass and covered with clay and are depictions of the Palestinians who fled their houses from Israeli shelling during the most recent conflict. AFP PHOTO/MAHMUD HAMS

GAZA CITY – Among the mountains of rubble littering Gaza after a deadly summer war, clay outlines emerge of men, women, and children with a story to tell about fear, flight and destruction.

Though his sculptures, which are made of fibreglass and covered with clay, Iyyad Sabbah relates the pain of those who lived through this latest conflict with Israel during which nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians.

Some are splashed with blood-red paint, those closest to the ruins of homes flattened by bombs in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya district.

The neighborhood, on the border with Israel, lay on the frontline when ground troops went in and was largely reduced to a wasteland in the war launched to halt cross-border militant rocket fire.

It is in Shejaiya that Sabbah, a professor of art at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University, has chosen to locate his installation, attracting many passers-by.

“These statues recall the war, when we fled – men, women and children – some in just their underwear,” reflected Mohammed al-Latif, 20, who escaped his home shortly before it was flattened in an Israeli drone strike.

Personification of suffering

“These statues are a new form of art by giving form to the suffering of Gazans,” said the artist, who was delighted at the warm reception local people have given to his figures of clay.

Condemn the massacre of 18,000 political prisoners in Iran in the summer 1988

On the Occasion of the 25^thAnniversary

of the Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran

25 years ago, following its humiliating defeat in the eight years reactionary war with Iraq, the regime of

Islamic republic commenced on a secret campaign of elimination of political prisoners, in Iran. From

June till September 1988, in less than two months, the brutal henchmen of the reactionary regime

murdered an estimated, 18,000 political prisoners across the country. They included men and women,

young and old, communists, progressive and patriotic activists and intellectuals that were held in prison

across the country. Amongst those killed were activists who had already completed their prison

sentences but were recaptured and eliminated.

This heinous crime had remained uncovered until Khomeini’s designated successor, ayatollah

Montazeri, having lost his position to Khamenei (the current leader of Islamic republic), following

intense factional rivalries and power struggles, exposed some details of this genocide in his factional

rhetoric.

ATIK: “WE CONDEMN THE MASSACRE OF THE FASCIST MILITARY JUNTA AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT!”

[An important statement by the organization of migrants from Turkey in Europe, issued 16 August 2013. — Frontlines ed.]

The attacks against the masses who gathered on the squares in Egypt in defiance of the military coup have turned into a massacre. Hundreds of people who took to the squares against the fascist military coup are killed, thousands are injured during the attack. And while these brutal attacks continue with all its barbarism, state of emergency was declared in many cities in Egypt.

As the deepening contradictions in Egypt are not being resolved, they have put the country in a more complex situation. As is known, the people of Egypt now more impoverishing and suffering from more repression have toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime with the rebellion started two years ago. However the spontaneous peoples uprising lacked revolutionary leadership and the  Egyptian army attempting to control the uprising, supervised the elections and the Muhammed Mursi administration came to power. As it is its nature, also this administration in its core continued the rule of the previous administration. Upon this the masses have risen again.

Following this uprising the army was once more activated to prevent the growing popular opposition to flow into a revolutionary stream. With this aim, the coup on behalf of the Supreme Military Council was committed and the leadership was seized. Muhammed Mursi was arrested on 3rd July. As a result the narrow minded organization Muslim Brotherhood have lead the masses within their influence spheres to demonstrations. The backward segments in the government will  use doctrines based on religion and nationalism on the poor layers of the people for their own gain. In fact,  this is what the Muslim Brotherhood Movement (Muslim Brotherhood) is doing.

This coup in Egypt is not independent from the imperialists. In fact, the coup by the Supreme Military Council was made with the directives of the US.  The current situation is clearly reflecting this. Following this the US imperialist has not been able to conceal the support they have given the coup in Egypt. Therefore the intervention was not even called a coup, and a declaration that they will continue with the annual financial aid was issued. Although the EU and US imperialists have “condemned” the junta’s attacks, massacring hundreds of people, this was merely to justify themselves. Despite these condemnations the role they played in this massacre cannot be camouflaged.  On the contrary, they have played a determining role in the coup and the massacre of the masses.

In The US, Mass Child Killings Are Tragedies. In Pakistan, Mere Bug Splats

George Monbiot, The Guardian, Monday 17 December 2012

 

[A memorial to the victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings in Connecticut. The children killed by US drones in north-west Pakistan ‘have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and teddy bears’. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty.]

“Mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts … These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.” Every parent can connect with what President Barack Obama said about the murder of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut. There can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the media who is untouched by the grief of the people of that town.

It must follow that what applies to the children murdered there by a deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a sombre American president. These children are just as important, just as real, just as deserving of the world’s concern. Yet there are no presidential speeches or presidential tears for them, no pictures on the front pages of the world’s newspapers, no interviews with grieving relatives, no minute analysis of what happened and why.

Philippines: “Outrage sweeps Mindanao over Tampakan massacre”

Protest of massacre by military and mining companies. Photo by Bulatlat

 

They are demanding the military to account for such “act of barbarity” and pull-out these troops “who have become attack dogs against lumads who are only defending their land from being turned into ugly mine sites.”

By WARREN CAHAYAG, davaotoday.com

Tupi, South Cotabato  – Anti-mining advocates led by church, lumads and progressive groups in Socsksargen and Davao strongly condemn the brutal slaying of the family of a Blaan anti mining leader in Tampakan, South Cotabato.

They are demanding the military to account for such “act of barbarity”, saying that relieving the perpetrators is not enough but the pull-out of these troops “who have become attack dogs against lumads who are only defending their land from being turned into ugly mine sites.”

The Mindanao Alliance of Indigenous Peoples, Kusog sa Katawhang Lumad sa Mindanao (KALUMARAN) said that the killing of Juvy Capion, the pregnant wife of anti-mining indigenous leader Daguil Capion and his two sons “was intentional and not a result of an encounter as claimed by the Philippine army.”

South African police slaughter striking miners after stand-off

18 dead at British-owned platinum mine as authorities lose patience with rival factions in industrial dispute

Alex Duval Smith , Tom Bawden, The Independent

Cape Town, Friday 17 August 2012

A South African platinum mine turned into something akin to a war zone yesterday when an attempt by riot police to break up a week-old dispute by workers resulted in the deaths of up to 18 people.

Fighting between miners from rival unions had already claimed 10 lives over the past week near the Marikana mine near Rustenburg, about 100 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. Two of those killed were police officers who were hacked to death on Monday.

The leaders of two trade unions at Marikana – the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which has been dominant at the mine for 30 years, and the Association of Mining and Construction Union (Amcu) – blamed the London-listed mine owner Lonmin for the trouble.

Lesiba Seshoka, an NUM spokesman, said that the company had attempted to break the NUM’s dominance by granting a pay rise to a small group of rock drillers. “The company undermined the bargaining process by unilaterally offering an allowance to rock-drill operators outside the bargaining process,” he said.

On caste atrocities that are taking place across India

Resolution of the All India Executive Committee, Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) — (approved at meeting in Delhi, 1-2 August 2012)

Several incidents of caste atrocities on Dalits have been committed by the dominant caste forces in different parts of the country – spanning from Bolangir of Odisha to Lakshimpeta of Andhra Pradesh and recently in Bhagana in Haryana, in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and in other places. While the massacre of five Dalit peasants in a gruesome manner in Lakshimpeta village by dominant caste landowners and rich peasants have shaken the country, other incidents of casteist attacks like the burning of houses and assault on 60 dalit families in Bolangir or the social boycott and banishing of 128 Dalit families in Bhagana have not attracted much attention from the progressive and democratic sections of the country. In Lakhsimpeta, the landed section of the Backward Caste Kapus have adopted the brahmanical ideology as a result of their acquisition of private property – most importantly, land, and became perpetrators of caste violence on the ‘untouchable’ Mala people. Lakshimpeta massacre also involves the questions of dam and displacement, since the people of the village are evictees of a dam constructed by the government. While other evictees got compensation and land from the government, Dalits could get nothing and lost everything due to this forced displacement.

Mass Protest of anti-tribal state violence–at Parliament in New Delhi, India (July 31, 2012)

for more information, see:

http://www.icawpi.org/en/peoples-resistance/statements/854-protest-against-massacre-of-20-adivasi-villegers-in-bijaqpur-chhattisgarh

The Government of Violence : A Massacre In Dandakaranya

By Kamal K.M, Countercurrents.org, 16 July, 2012

‘Dandakaranya’ is a stretch of forest in India that runs through the states of Chattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra , and Andhra Pradesh. Roughly translated in Sanskrit, the word means `Jungle of Punishment’.

When you enter the village of Kottaguda , located in Bijapur district of Chattisgarh, the first impression is one of serenity. The vestiges of the Salwa Judum pillage from a few years ago still remain as a burnt scar. The houses have stood starkly against these acts of aggression.

We couldn’t see any trace of massacre from ten days ago.

We were a group of thirty people from different parts of India , people of different professions and academic backgrounds. There were some people in the group who had been to similar kind of fact finding report missions, like Advocate Tharakam, Prasanth Haldar, V.S Krishna, Advocate Raghunath, C Chandrasekhar, R Shiva Shankar, and Ashish Gupta. Some of them were official members of different human rights organizations under the umbrella of Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO). We – advocates, teachers, government employees, students, former trade union activists and media professionals – were united by a single objective – to unearth the truth about what had actually happened on the night of June 28 th .

When we entered the village there was a solemn air about it. The only humans we saw there were some heavily armed paramilitary forces inside the bushes – they might have been from CoBRA force or CRPF.

The men in arms averted our gaze. They couldn’t meet our eye with the shadow of the dastardly act of a few days ago looming large over them.

8pm on the evening of 28 th June, Kottaguda village in Bijpapur District, Chattisgarh.

There was a meeting being held to discuss the upcoming seed festival – Beeja Pondum. It was a wet monsoon night. Some people from other villages, like Sarkeguda and Rajpenta, were also attending the meeting. A few children loitered around playfully. At 10pm , the CoBRA force and CRPF cordoned off the villages and started firing indiscriminately and without any warning.

The first attack came from the west, and instantly killed three adivasis. This was quickly followed by firing from three other directions. Terrified villagers started running – some tried to take shelter, some ran towards their respective villages. Yet, the bullets continued to spray for another 30 minutes. Then, as if to survey the dead, the CRPF forces fired two flare guns that lit up the area. They languidly ambled through the scene and collected the dead bodies that remained.

The national Media duly reported the incident following the government version. But by the next morning it slowly emerged that those killed were actually villagers. It was infact a massacre. It was clear that the victims were tribal villagers, who were randomly killed. Some news papers and tv channels corrected their mistake and reported the truth. Some still have not corrected their mistake.

Syria: at least 200 killed in Hama province massacre, say activists

If confirmed, killings in village of Tremseh would represent single biggest massacre since uprising began

Julian Borger, The Guardian, Thursday 12 July 2012

[Syria: government troops participate in a live fire exercise. Activists say more than 200 people have been killed in a massacre in Hama province. Photograph: AP]

Syrian government troops and a pro-regime militia have killed more than 200 people, mostly civilians, in a village near the city of Hama, opposition activists reported in the early hours of Friday morning.

The massacre is said to have taken place in the village of Tremseh, starting early Thursday morning, when government forces are alleged to have surrounded the village and opened fire with mortars and artillery. Then an Alawite pro-government militia, the Shabiha, are reported to have moved into Tremseh and started carrying out executions.

A statement by the Hama Revolutionary Council said: “More than 220 people fell today in Tremseh. They died from bombardment by tanks and helicopters, artillery shelling and summary executions.

“It appears that Alawite militiamen from surrounding villages descended on Tremseh after its rebel defenders pulled out, and started killing the people. Whole houses have been destroyed and burned from the shelling,” Fadi Sameh, an opposition activist from Tremseh, told Reuters.

Sameh said he had left the town before the reported massacre but was in touch with residents.

“Every family in the town seems to have had members killed. We have names of men, women and children from countless families,” he said, adding that many of the bodies were taken to a local mosque.

Syria’s My Lai

05/28/2012

The Houla Massacre Marks a New Level of Violence

Some 109 people were killed on Friday night in the Syrian village of Houla after regime troops, responding to attacks by the Free Syrian Army, bombarded the village with tank and mortar fire. This image is taken from a video said to be of the burial of the victims on Saturday of 92 people, including 32 children.

By Ulrike Putz  in Beirut

With at least 109 dead, including dozens of children, the weekend massacre in the Syrian village of Houla could go down in history alongside such brutal post-World War II massacres as My Lai and Srebrenica. In Syria, it will likely trigger a new wave of violence and reprisals.

My Lai. Sabra and Shatila. Srebrenica. And now Houla. The sheer intensity of international outrage over the Friday-night massacre means that the village in northeastern Syria could very well join the towns in Vietnam, Lebanon and Bosnia-Herzegovina as short-hand for the murder of defenseless civilians in the post-World War II era. According to the United Nations, at least 100 people were killed in the attack, many of them young children. On Sunday afternoon, the UN Security Council condemned the killings and blamed the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad for the slaughter.

China on Monday joined the long list of countries to denounce the violence. “China feels deeply shocked by the large number of civilian casualties in Houla, and condemns in the strongest terms the cruel killings of ordinary citizens, especially women and children,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.

The death toll from the attack continued to rise on Sunday, with several of the 300 people wounded succumbing to their injuries. The number of dead is now thought to be 109 villagers. In addition, some 3,000 people took to the streets of Damascus to protest against the bloody government attack, according to activists. Security forces reportedly fired into the crowd, killing two. Houla, it would seem, is not yet over.

But global disgust has not brought an end to the violence. At least 24 people were killed in the central city of Hama during bombardments on Sunday night, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Eight of those killed were reportedly children. The bombardment came after several attacks on Assad forces by fighters with the Free Syrian Army, though reports of the violence have yet to be independently verified, Reuters reported.

With a number of the wounded having succumbed to their injuries over the weekend, the death toll now stands at 109, including dozens of children under the age of 10.

Close-Range Shots

According to activists, the Friday night slaughter in Houla came at the hands of Syrian security forces and other fighters loyal to the Assad regime. UN observers, who visited the village on Saturday morning, confirmed that evidence — such as tank shells found at the site — indicates that regime troops are behind the violence. Images produced during the UN visit intensified the global revulsion: more than 30 of those killed are children under the age of 10. Some of the pictures show children who appear to have been executed with close-range shots to the head.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle joined the chorus of condemnation on Saturday, saying in a statement that “it is shocking and horrifying that the Syrian regime refuses to cease using brutal violence against its own people. Those responsible for this crime must be brought to justice.”

Given the presence of UN observers, the Syrian regime was unable to deny, as it often does, the events that took place in Houla, located not far from the rebel stronghold of Homs. Instead, Damascus claimed that it carried no responsibility, with state television reporting that “terrorists” were behind the bloodbath.

Since the uprising in Syria began some 15 months ago, foreign journalists have been largely prevented from entering the police state, making it difficult to verify reports coming out of the country. Information from Syrian activists, on which most media outlets depend, have furthermore proven unreliable in the past.

Memorial Day: While the system glorifies imperialist war, the people remember the victims of their war crimes — Hiroshima/Nagasaki

USA Terrorism: HIROSHIMA / NAGASAKI Atomic Bomb

This video is a clip from a BBC Documentary called “BBC History of World War II: Hiroshima (2005)”. It is available on DVD
The US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the largest international terrorist attack in history.  This attack was the only time that atomic or nuclear weapons have been used.

“Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims.
In the Geneva and Hague Conventions, which in turn are based upon the basic principle that the deliberate harming of
soldiers during wartime is a necessary evil, and thus permissible, whereas the deliberate targeting of civilians is absolutely forbidden.

These Conventions thus differentiate between soldiers who attack a military adversary, and war criminals who deliberately
attack civilians.”

The fascist Turkish state massacre of 40 peasants in Şırnak

With the massacre of 40 peasants in Şırnak the fascist Turkish state has added a new massacre to its list of atrocities against the Kurdish nation!

3 January 2012

ATİK | 03 – 01 – 2011 | The fascist Turkish state is continuing the massacres against the innocent Kurdish nation by means of chemical weapons. In the village of Roboski of Şırnak Uludere province 40 innocent people have been massacred in bombings by war planes. In the warmongering statement after the last MGK (National Security Council) meeting, the practical implementation of the statement “The operations will continue day and night” was that, civilian peasants have been brutally killed through air bombings. We are carefully awaiting to know what the AKP government will fabricate with regards to the massacre under their responsibility while they are claiming to be against the massacres of the Khadafi regime in Libia, the Esad regime in Syria  and also calling upon and threatening  Esad to seize the massacres.

Forty peasants from Ortasu (Roboski) in the Uludere region,  between the ages of 15 to 20 who were returning to their village from where they had been working were brutally killed by F-16 war-craft bombings. According to the statement of the wounded peasants who survived the bombings,  “When we came back the jets started bombing us. A bitter smell was in the air during the bombing. Suddenly people started to burn and were killed. 5-6 people hid between the rocks to escape the bombing. The airplanes have also bombed there. They all died there at the rocks”. As a result of the bombings large number of burned and mutilated corpses of many people were taken to the county.

The policy of destruction and denial against the Kurdish nation since the founding of the Turkish Republic State is continuing with massacres and mass arrests. Racism is being instigated in all layers of society by imposing the mentality of any Kurdish in movement is ‘guilty’. Within the last month, lawyers and journalists have been arrested, detention periods have been prolonged, their homes and offices have been raided, extrajudicial executions, mass killings have taken place. These are a continuation of the atrocities of the nineties in a different form.

Army and police massacre protesters at Maspero, Egypt

October 9th, 2011

The army and police committed a horrible massacre against peaceful protesters today in Maspero, Cairo. Army vehicles ran over protesters. Live ammunition was used. Extensive rounds of tear gas were fired, and showers of beatings from the military police, the central security forces and plainclothes thugs.

At least 19 people have been killed, and more than 150 injured. The toll keeps rising.

The Army also stormed Al-Hurra and 25 January TV stations, and took them off air. The Egyptian state run TV is inciting the public against the “Coptic protesters” and even called on the citizens to take to the streets to “protect the army”!! SCAF is trying to instigate a sectarian civil war.
The protesters are not only Copts. There are Muslims present in the protests too and are talking active part in resisting the police and the army. There are ongoing battles as I’m writing now. The unifying chants in downtown Cairo is against the army and field marshal Tantawi. Protesters are chanting: “Muslims and Christians… One hand!” and “Death to the Field Marshal.”
For continuous updates, please follow the Revolutionary Socialists on Facebook.
see more at: http://www.arabawy.org/2011/10/09/army-and-police-massacre-protesters-at-maspero/

Never Forget September 16, 1982: the massacre of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatila

June Jordan

Moving Towards Home

by June Jordan

“Where is Abu Fadi,” she wailed.

“Who will bring me my loved one?”

New York Times, 9/20/82

(after the 1982 Phalangist/Israeli Massacre of Palestinian Refugees in Sabra and Shatila)

I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the

red dirt

not quite covering all of the arms and legs

Nor do I wish to speak about the nightlong screams

that reached

the observation posts where soldiers lounged about

Nor do I wish to speak about the woman who shoved her baby

into the stranger’s hands before she was led away

Nor do I wish to speak about the father whose sons

were shot

through the head while they slit his own throat before

the eyes

of his wife

Nor do I wish to speak about the army that lit continuous

flares into the darkness so that others could see

the backs of their victims lined against the wall

Nor do I wish to speak about the piled up bodies and

the stench

that will not float

Nor do I wish to speak about the nurse again and

again raped

before they murdered her on the hospital floor

Nor do I wish to speak about the rattling bullets that

did not

halt on that keening trajectory

Nor do I wish to speak about the pounding on the

doors and

the breaking of windows and the hauling of families into

the world of the dead

I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the

red dirt

not quite covering all of the arms and legs

because I do not wish to speak about unspeakable events

that must follow from those who dare

“to purify” a people

those who dare

“to exterminate” a people

those who dare

to describe human beings as “beasts with two legs”

those who dare

“to mop up”

“to tighten the noose”

“to step up the military pressure”

“to ring around” civilian streets with tanks

those who dare

to close the universities

to abolish the press

to kill the elected representatives

of the people who refuse to be purified

those are the ones from whom we must redeem

the words of our beginning

because I need to speak about home

I need to speak about living room

where the land is not bullied and beaten into

a tombstone

I need to speak about living room

where the talk will take place in my language

I need to speak about living room

where my children will grow without horror

I need to speak about living room where the men

of my family between the ages of six and sixty-five

are not

marched into a roundup that leads to the grave

I need to talk about living room

where I can sit without grief without wailing aloud

for my loved ones

where I must not ask where is Abu Fadi

because he will be there beside me

I need to talk about living room

because I need to talk about home

I was born a Black woman

and now

I am become a Palestinian

against the relentless laughter of evil

there is less and less living room

and where are my loved ones?

It is time to make our way home.