Fredericton Peace Coalition

Social organizations in El Salvador have denounced the disappearance of Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, a well-known anti-mining leader from the town of San Isidro, Cabañas department. Rivera is a local leader of the FMLN, the director of the San Isidro Community Center, and the legal representative of Amigos de San Isidro Cabañas (ASIC). He is a vocal opponent of El Dorado gold mine, a project of the Canadian-owned mining company – Pacific Rim. The project has been stalled due to disputes over permits. Pacific Rim recently sued El Salvador for $77 million under the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) after the government refused to grant a permit to open the mine.

Most members of a group of foreign peace activists seized at sea by the Israeli navy remained in custody Friday, three days after their failed attempt to run Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, relatives and supporters said.

Abousfian returned home to Montreal last Saturday around midnight after a six-year forced exile in Sudan, where he experienced torture, imprisonment without trial, and over one year trapped in the Canadian embassy. All with the involvement of Canadian officials.

Canada’s Goldcorp negotiate land deals with military force

On the morning of June 28, masked soldiers burst into the home of Honduran President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya and forced the elected head of state onto a plane out of the country. Later that day, the Honduran congress overwhelmingly elected its speaker Roberto Michiletti, a member of Zelaya’s own Liberal Party, as the country’s new president.

Bruce Brown died of cancer at age 18. Some of Marilyn Kissinger’s other friends lived into their early and late twenties, dying in the late 1960s. Most had died by the late 1980s. Doreen Thomas says her friends and family lasted until their forties and sixties, but ”everybody’s household was full of cancer. The people who didn’t have internal cancer, we had outside cancer. I’ve had 11 [tumors] removed.” Thomas had moved to Enniskillen, New Brunswick, in 1953. Two years later, the Canadian military started spraying Agent Orange and other chemicals at nearby Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, and kept doing so until at least 1984.

MY RELIGION THEN AND NOW

My Christian Church in two o nine,
Rejected war and violence,
Called rule by force the empires crime,
Which threatened mans existence.
Our founder said “the words the way”
Of Politics and Temples,
Who rule by love so neighbours say,
Let’s join these peaceful peoples.
My Church, alas, met Constantine,*
The King of Rome by violence,
And joined the Empires war machine,
As rule by force assistants.
My Christian Church, two thousand nine,
Supports its wars and violence,
“Our wars are just, we’re fighting crime,
While others watch in silence”.
My Christian Church, two thousand nine,
Has lost its independence,
When rule by force wins all the time,
We’re slaves to war and violence.
Two thousand nine; the Empires war,
They threaten nuclear weapons,
Which Humankind rejects before,
We’re loveless lifeless atoms.
To be Religious really means -
To live not needing war machines.

* Until 315AD when Constantine conquered Rome Christians refused to carry arms.

Ezra Nawi is going to prison–for peacefully resisting settler and army violence against West Bank Palestinians and the illegal expropriation of their land.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture.

On the eve of crucial talks with the White House over halting its ongoing takeover of the occupied West Bank, Israel’s defence ministry yesterday confirmed plans for a massive expansion of a settlement near Ramallah.