Last week, amid much pomp and circumstance, Haitian born Governor General Michaëlle Jean graced the province with her presence.
This week Euvonie Georges-Auguste, a Haitian women’s rights activist and literacy co-ordinator, will speak in Fredericton.
Posted: May 28th, 2007 under Canada, Haiti, Women, Workers.
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Posted: May 26th, 2007 under Immigrant/Refugee Rights, Lebanon, Palestine.
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to Afghanistan comes just one day after Malalai Joya, an outspoken women’s rights activist and Member of the Afghan Parliament, was suspended. The pretext for her suspension was her description of the Afghan Parliament as no better than a ‘zoo’. But it was clearly aimed at silencing her criticism of the Afghanistan government.
During his surprise visit, Harper said that Canada is bringing, “the light of freedom and democracy, of human rights and the rule of law,” to the people of Afghanistan, but most Afghans’ true experience is violence and misery at the hands of the warlord-dominated government.
Joya’s suspension speaks volumes about the nature of the “democracy” we are bringing to the country. Silencing critics and intimidating or killing political opposition figures is common practice for the government that Canada continues to support.
Joya has been a thorn in the side of the NATO-supported government by being an outspoken critic of the human rights abuses of the warlords that dominate the parliament of Afghanistan. In the elections of May 2005, more than 60per cent of those elected to parliament were from known warlord groups, many of whom are responsible for war crimes committed during the civil war from 1992 to 1996. An international campaign to have the warlords held to account failed when the parliament decided to offer immunity for all past war crimes.
Joya has been threatened and attacked for her stance. In 2006, President Hamid Karzai cut her security funding, proving that women’s rights are not a concern for his government despite assertions to the contrary from the Government of Canada.
In an interview with the Guardian, Joya said: “When I speak in parliament they threaten me. In May they beat me by throwing bottles of water at me and they shouted, ‘Take her and rape her.’ These men who are in power, never have they apologized for their crimes that they committed in the wars, and now, with the support of the US, they continue with their crimes in a different way. That is why there is no fundamental change in the situation of women.”
The Canadian Peace Alliance is calling on member groups and supporters to send messages to the Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada, Omar Samad, and to Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs calling for Malalai to be reinstated.
Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada, Omar Samad
246 Queen Street, Suite 400
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5E4
Tel: (613) 563-4223 / 65
Fax: (613) 563-4962
email: contact@afghanemb-canada.net
Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs
509-S Centre Block
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Tel: 613-992-6022
Fax: 613-992-2337
e-mail: mackay.p@parl.gc.ca
Posted: May 23rd, 2007 under Afghanistan, Canada, Women.
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Olivia Ward’s article in the Sunday Star is excellent in pointing out that the United States blockaded Haiti for six decades after French slave masters were ousted by popular revolt. The U.S. was at the time a slave-holding nation itself.
That history gives context to America’s readiness to intervene in Haitian affairs even now.
The UN presence in Haiti is consistent with American policy. Far from liberating the people of Cité Soleil, UN forces have terrorized and killed civilians in an attempt to root out supporters of the only popular political party, Lavalas. The UN insists wrongly and knowingly that it is instead arresting gang leaders.
On Feb. 15 the UN News Service published an article stating that UN forces had transformed a former gang leader’s headquarters into a free medical clinic. This was false and on being questioned, the UN’s head of media relations there was forced to acknowledge that MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) had only handed out bottles of water and offered free medical checkups for one day following 72-hour mass arrest operations – the UN routinely arrests people without warrant in Haiti.
Most shameful for us is that Canada helped to give the cover of legitimacy to the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004 by participating in the coup orchestrated by Washington and Paris.
Olivia Ward walked gingerly through her report on Haiti. For example, she wrote, “President Aristide was ousted in 2004.” A more precise rewrite would be: “The democratically elected president of Haiti was kidnapped and escorted out of Haiti by the U.S. Marines while Canadian soldiers secured the airport.”
The overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide was planned by Washington, France and Canada in the Canadian capital under the name The Ottawa Initiative. Another blemish on Canada’s peacekeeping record.
Two female union and women’s rights activists will be in Toronto on May 25 to give your readers their first-hand report.
Posted: May 23rd, 2007 under Canada, Haiti.
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Death Toll Reaches 80 in Lebanon as Troops Shell Palestinian Refugee Camp
Posted: May 23rd, 2007 under Immigrant/Refugee Rights, Lebanon, Occupation, Palestine.
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The Toronto Star: Two U.S Army deserters have exhausted their appeals for Canadian refugee status and now face deportation. In a ruling released yesterday, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeal upheld decisions by the Federal Court and the Immigration and Refugee Board that Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are not entitled to refugee status.
Posted: May 23rd, 2007 under Canada, Iraq, US, War Resisters.
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Posted: May 22nd, 2007 under Canada, Colombian Blood Coal, Economic Violence, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Oil & Gas.
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After a group of Mohawks from the Tyendinaga reserve blockaded the railway between Kingston and Toronto two weeks ago, a near unanimous cry rose up from the editorial pages of Ontario newspapers and talk radio: Get Shawn Brant. Yesterday, Mr. Brant, a beanpole of a man, walked into a packed Napanee courtroom with his wrists and ankles shackled after handing himself over to the Ontario Provincial Police.
Posted: May 22nd, 2007 under Canada, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Oil & Gas.
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Canadian Mining Companies Helping Themselves to Others’ Wealth
Like a thousand other domestic mining companies operating abroad, Glamis is supported through Canadian stock exchanges, the world’s biggest source of capital for mining. Canada’s laws protect investors by imposing reporting, disclosure and other obligations on corporations. These laws, however, do little to protect people in developing countries from mining risks, including the human-rights abuses that often accompany such mega-projects. And for opponents of the mines, the question is not just about the rules of the game it’s about the questionable benefits of participating in the first place.
Posted: May 21st, 2007 under Canada, Economic Violence, Environment, Guatemala, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Oil & Gas.
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The biggest obstacle for U.S. military recruiters is not finding young Americans willing to enlist in wartime, it’s dealing with their parents, according to the Pentagon.
Posted: May 21st, 2007 under Militarized Campuses, US.
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