295개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Yesterday I wrote: "After the 'termination'... it seems that everyone is quite happy". Actually - of course - it is not the real truth. Because there are also many people, who are very concerned about what will come as next..
About one person who have big problems with the killing of Zarqawi you can read here, published yesterday in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth(based on AFP news):
Father of al-Zarqawi victim: More violence coming
Father of Jewish American businessman Nick Berg, allegedly beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says he regrets death of his son's murderer, warns of upsurge in Iraq violence
The father of Nick Berg, a US businessman allegedly beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , said Thursday he regretted the death of his son's murderer and warned of an upsurge in violence in Iraq.
"The death of every human being is a tragedy," Michael Berg said in a statement.
"The death of Mr. Zarqawi means a continuation of the violence and revenge that took the life of my son," he said. "This will mean an increase in violence and resistance to the occupation of Iraq by the US military."
The headless body of Nick Berg, 26, who had gone to Iraq to look into business opportunities in the communications industry, was found in May 2004, and the video of his beheading appeared on an Al-Qaeda linked website a few days later.
'I don't believe in revenge'
Michael Berg, a long time anti-war activist and a particularly vocal critic of the US-led invasion of Iraq, is currently standing as a Green Party candidate for the November elections to the US Congress.
"Revenge is something that I do not follow, I do (not) ask for, I do not wish for against anybody," said Berg who, in an interview with CNN, repeatedly refused to voice any pleasure in Zarqawi's death.
"How could a human being be glad that another human being is dead?" he said.
"He (Zarqawi) has a family who reacts just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel badly for that," Berg said. "I feel doubly badly because Zarqawi was a political figure, and his death will re-ignite another wave of revenge."
Berg's arrest
Nick Berg first went to Iraq in December, 2003 and stayed for more than one month.
He went back in March the following year, keeping in touch with his family by phone or e-mail every day, ahead of his planned return home at the end of the month.
Instead, for a reason still not fully explained, Berg was arrested by Iraqi police and jailed.
The FBI also became involved in his case and he was eventually released on April 6 after his desperate parents filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that he was being illegally held by the US military.
Berg immediately contacted his parents, but after a final phone call on April 9, communication ended completely and they never heard from him again.
Berg was Jewish, although the matter of his religion was never mentioned in the video statement read by his masked captors prior to his execution.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3260655,00.html
..supplement:
Just yesterday I found following article by Voice of People(민중의 소리) about the police and military aggression against the village of Daechuri in the beginning of last month.
Police and troops ravaged the land of peace
Government broked away conversation, and removed the Daechu elementary school by force
In contraposition to each other between Government and the residents around U.S. base extention in Pyeongtaek, a huge amount of policemen and troops Thursday forced the people and activists off the land.
A massive force including 13,000 riot police, 3,000 soldiers broke into the Daechu elementary school which is protected by only 700 residents and activists, and conducted suppression operations, almost a massacre.
The Ministry of national defense promised to solve the problem by conversation at first, but they suddenly broked away the talk one-sidedly on Wednesday and declared the forcible expropriation.
They are severely criticized by deciding to put the troops in.
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| △13,000 riot police broke into the Daechu elementary school. ⓒKim Chul-Soo, the Voice of People |
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| △Soldiers suppress the people by force. ⓒJung Taek-Yong, the Voice of People |
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| △Terrible bloodshedding could be seen everywhere. ⓒKim Chul-Soo, the Voice of People |
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| △11 Catholic Priests including Father Moon Jung-Hyun were fighting on the roof of the school. ⓒKim Chul-Soo, the Voice of People |
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| △Daechu elementary school, the dream of the residents was thoroughly demolished. ⓒ the Voice of People |
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2006-05-04 ⓒThe Voiceofpeople |
http://www.vop.co.kr/english/news_view_eng.html?serial=42589
Current developments in the same case: Hunger strike in the near of Cheongwadae("Blue House", the S.K. presidential residence). But the text you can only read in Korean..
| 문정현 신부 청와대 앞 단식 "올 데 까지 왔다" |
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구속자 석방, 미군기지이전 재협상 촉구
Here you can read about some of the latest developments in English: http://www.antigizi.or.kr/zboard/zboard.php?id=english_news http://saveptfarmers.org/blog/
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Just our future??
THE "BUTCHER OF BAGHDAD" HAS BEEN KILLED
BY THE BUTCHERS OF WASHINGTON
After the "termination" of Zarqawi it seems that everyone is quite happy - of course the USA and its allies all over the so-called "free" world. But also Al Qaeda, while confirming his death, wrote that this is a "happy message" because Zarqawi died as a "martyr" and so he is now in the paradise(^^).
But believe it or not, no problems - only yesterday, short after Z's "termination", at least 40 mainly civilians were killed by attacks in Iraq - will be solved with the killing of Zarqawi...
Asia Times(HK) published today following articles:
Death of Zarqawi: George gets his dragon
The killing of the world's No 1 terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 40, in Iraq on Wednesday, as announced by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, will undoubtedly and dramatically change the political landscape in the war-torn country.
Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq was killed in a US air strike on an isolated safe house north of Baghdad at 6:15pm local time on Wednesday, Maliki said.
The man who was portrayed as having been everywhere yet nowhere, and who has been blamed for every evil in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003, is finally dead. It is America's single most important achievement since the arrest of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in December 2003. Undoubtedly, for now, it will overshadow all the bad publicity the
Americans have been getting for the Haditha massacre of last November, where 24 Iraqi civilians were killed by US marines, or the Ishaqi massacre, where another 11 were killed by US troops in March.
As the world stands back to digest the killing of Zarqawi, who had a US$25 million reward for his head, Iraqis hold their breath, wondering whether his demise will actually make their lives any better. Or will his killing inflame the insurgency and produce many more Zarqawis?
Zarqawi's death marks a momentous two days for Maliki. On Thursday, Jawad al-Bulani, a Shi'ite and a former army colonel under Saddam, was chosen to lead the Interior Ministry. General Abd al-Qadir Jasim, a Sunni, was approved in parliament as defense minister. Jasim was until now commander of Iraq's ground forces.
The two key security jobs were left temporarily vacant when Maliki's government of national unity took office on May 20 because his coalition partners were unable to agree on candidates, and has been a major political stumbling block. Agreement has also been reached for Shirwan al-Waili to become the new minister for national security.
Since Zarqawi appeared on the world stage in 2003, he has been a phenomenon that has overshadowed his boss, Osama bin Laden. Many in the Arab world doubted whether the Jordanian-born Zarqawi even existed. (Some reports indicate that Jordanian intelligence provided information on the location where he was killed.)
Living up to the Arab conviction in "conspiracy theories", many argued that Zarqawi was created by the Americans to justify their problems in Iraq. Whenever something went wrong, they would blame it on Zarqawi. Or, as Arab radicals would say, he was created by the Americans to pin their crimes on him. And even in the US, on April 10 the Washington Post said the US military had conducted major propaganda to exaggerate Zarqawi's role in Iraq.
So while Zarqawi may not have been created by the Americans, he certainly was magnified by them, and inflated to dramatic proportions to justify why Iraq was in such a mess.
While the US is basking in Zarqawi's death, as is the United Kingdom, it should not be forgotten that they were not the only ones after his blood.
Jordanian intelligence wanted him. So did Maliki, the Iraqi Kurds and the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebel Shi'ite cleric. So did the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a leading Shi'ite organization. So did Iran. So did Saudi Arabia. So did the average Iraqi citizen.
In a recent audio message, Zarqawi not only attacked the US and the Sh'ite-dominated government in Iraq, but also Iran. He had even claimed that the US, Iran and Shi'ites in general were collaborating to destroy Islam. He has also plainly called for continued attacks against Shi'ites and called Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani an "an atheist".
Zarqawi, after all, did not have the religious legitimacy to become the No 1 leader of political radical Islam. Nor did he have the family heritage, connections and money of bin Laden.
Nor did he have the education and record of someone like Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy. Zarqawi was a terrorist who appeared out of seemingly nowhere, to inflict as much hardship and pain on the Iraqis and the Americans as he could.
The crucial question is just how much Zarqawi was responsible for holding his side of the insurgency together - that is, will the edifice fall away, or withstand the blow?
As the British Broadcasting Corp reported, "It is likely he [Zarqawi] has had a considerable impact in terms of leadership, tactics and inspiration. But he was not a one-man band."
Indeed, writes Syed Saleem Shahzad, Zarqawi's killing could be a blessing for the Iraqi resistance, in which his notoriously awkward personality was a problem: he resisted strict orders from the al-Qaeda leadership to reconcile differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites. In fact, he did his best to exacerbate sectarian strife.
And Zarqawi was even a major problem for the nationalist Iraqi resistance in the hands of Sunni tribes of the north. Many times, they clashed with Zarqawi over strategy.
The Iraqi tribes in Samarra and Mosul have ties with the southern tribes, which are Shi'ite. Many top Sunni tribal leaders have houses in the upscale neigborhoods of Basra in the south, and many top Shi'ite tribal elders have houses in Baghdad.
These tribal leaders were members of a chieftains' council during Saddam's time and they knew one another well. After the US occupation of Iraq, the Sunni-dominated Iraqi resistance tried to make a breakthrough with the southern Shi'ite tribes, but Zarqawi resisted this.
This bred resentment against Zarqawi and his followers in Samarra, the nucleus of the Iraqi resistance, even leading to the sides killing each other's members.
With Zarqawi's death, therefore, there is a strong chance of a major reconciliation between the Shi'ite groups and the Sunni-dominated Iraqi resistance: the main irritant in their relations is dead.
The rise and fall ...
Zarqawi (whose real name was Ahmad al-Khalayleh) was born into poverty in the small town of Zarka in Jordan (northeast of Amman) on October 20, 1966. His family lived near a cemetery and by the time he was 18, both his parents were dead.
He grew up playing soccer in the streets of Zarka, and dropped out of Prince Talal Primary School before obtaining his high-school diploma, pursuing from here on the life of a "street boy".
Zarqawi became a delinquent young man who drank heavily, decorated himself with tattoos, and was arrested briefly in the 1980s for sexual assault in Jordan. In jail he was influenced by Islam and, on his release, decided to travel to Afghanistan to help fight the Soviets.
It seemed the logical thing to do for an able young man who could not get a decent job because he had a criminal record, no education and no money. The warriors who went to Afghanistan were well fed and well paid by the resistance leader, Osama bin Laden.
But to Zarqawi's surprise, the Soviets left Afghanistan in February 1989, just as he arrived. He did not engage in combat, but rather, befriended bin Laden. At the time, bin Laden was an ally of the United States, fighting a common enemy, the Soviet Union.
Instead of leading guerrilla attacks, Zarqawi became a newspaper reporter for an Islamic newsletter published in Afghanistan. Bin Laden tried to recruit him into al-Qaeda, but Zarqawi refused, claiming that his only enemies were the Jews in Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan, whom he described as "perverters of Islam and a disgrace to the Prophet Mohammed".
Zarqawi eventually returned to Jordan with the one aim of toppling the Jordanian monarchy of King Hussein, a longtime ally of the West. He was arrested for his activities in 1992 and spent seven years in jail.
During this time, Hussein signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1993, adding to Zarqawi's wrath against the Hashemite family, accusing them of having abandoned the Arab cause. When he was released in 1999, he vowed to topple the monarchy (by now under the crown of current King Abdullah II) and replace it with an Islamic caliphate.
Contradicting stories emerged about his years in prison in Jordan. Some inmates described him as a strong leader who commanded respect and fear from fellow prisoners, while others remembered that he was a man with limited political abilities, completely incapable of leading a political or military movement.
Out of jail, Zarqawi tried to blow up the SS Radisson Hotel in Amman, to create havoc in the Hashemite kingdom and disturb the new reign of King Abdullah II. When he failed, he fled Jordan and went to Pakistan, residing near the border with Afghanistan, where he reportedly met bin Laden again.
He then moved to Afghanistan and set up a military training camp, with bin Laden's support, in Herat, specialized in creating poisons for warfare. According to Jordanian intelligence, he also formed a terrorist group called Jund al-Sham in 1999, with $200,000 from bin Laden.
It was founded by 150 jihadis whom he had recruited from bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Its primary purpose was to destroy Jordan, and create terror in neighboring countries once part of Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria), including Syria and Palestine.
Apparently, he continued to travel to Jordan, under false passports, and was arrested again in 2001 but was soon released. Authorities did not know who he was. Soon afterward, he was sentenced to death in absentia for the attempted attack on the SS Radisson.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, a joyful Zarqawi went back to Afghanistan to help bin Laden and Mullah Omar of the Taliban in their war against the Americans. He was allegedly wounded in a US attack and traveled to Iraq to have his leg treated in a hospital owned by the Iraqi president's son, Uday Hussein.
By 2002, Zarqawi had set up permanent base in northern Iraq where he joined the radical Ansar al-Islam to fight against Kurdish militias striving to maintain Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq. Throughout this time, Zarqawi was a nobody in world politics, unknown outside of Jordan.
His name became famous when then-US secretary of state Colin Powell gave his famous speech at the United Nations on February 5, 2003 (six weeks before the war), accusing Saddam of having weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda.
Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was one of the reasons Powell cited proving that Saddam was linked to bin Laden. The speech, which became famed for its inaccuracy, referred to Zarqawi as Palestinian and not Jordanian. A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report in 2004, however, confirmed that there was no evidence proving that Saddam was informed of or involved in Zarqawi's treatment at an Iraqi hospital.
It said, "There is no conclusive evidence that the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Zarqawi." Opponents of this claim say that it would have been impossible for Zarqawi to slip into Iraq, and be treated at a hospital run by Uday Hussein, without the knowledge and blessing of the Iraqi president. Naturally, this was challenged by King Abdullah of Jordan, who said that Jordan knew of his journey to Iraq and demanded that the Iraqi government extradite him, but Saddam refused.
According to MSNBC television, everybody knew that Zarqawi was in Iraq in 2002. The Pentagon had pushed to carry out an operation against him at least three times, but this had been vetoed by the National Security Council. The administration of President George W Bush was interested in building up allies for its upcoming war on Iraq and did not want a small invasion for the sake of a until-then petty official in al-Qaeda, to jeopardize the coalition Bush was working on creating.
Former CIA official Michael Scheuer later told reporters that Bush "had Mr Zarqawi in his sights for almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot!"
When the war began, Zarqawi found himself in the middle of a battle he had longed avoided. He knew that he could not fight the Americans and had wanted to concentrate his operations against Jordan. Prior to the war, he had carried out a high-profile terrorist attack in Amman, killing Laurence Foley, a senior US diplomat based in Jordan on October 28, 2002.
When interrogated by Jordanian authorities, the three suspects confessed that they had received money and arms to carry out their operation from Zarqawi. One of the leaders of the operation, it was revealed, had received $27,000 for planning the murder. Zarqawi was again brought to court in absentia for the killing of Foley and sentenced to death - for the second time in his life.
At 36 years old, Zarqawi was one of the world's youngest terrorists, with two death sentences hanging over his head. There was no turning back for his terrorist operations so he decided to work full time from within Iraq, leading the al-Qaeda branch against the US Army after the downfall of Saddam's regime in April 2003.
On October 24, 2004, he officially announced that he was working with al-Qaeda, and on December 27, 2004, bin Laden delivered a speech that was broadcast on the Doha-based Al-Jazeera TV, calling Zarqawi "the prince of al-Qaeda in Iraq". He asked all jihadists "to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds".
A trail of terror
Among Zarqawi's "achievements" in Iraq are those listed below. They have either been attributed to Zarqawi, or proudly claimed by Zarqawi.
1. Bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on August 7, 2003, killing 19 people.
2. Bombing the United Nations headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad on August 19, 2003, killing 22 people, including the UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
3. A car bomb in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf on August 29, 2003, killing 85 people, including Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI.
4. Four car bombs at different police stations in Baghdad and the headquarters for the International Red Cross on October 27, 2003, killing 35 people and wounding 220.
5. A suicide bombing at the headquarters of Italy's police force in Iraq, killing more than 30 people on November 12, 2003.
6. An armed attack on the office of the governor of Karbala (another Shi'ite holy city) on December 27, 2003, killing 19 people.
7. A car bomb at the gates of the Green Zone on January 18, 2004, killing 31 people.
8. Two car bombs at police stations in Iraq on February 10-11, 2004, killing 100 people.
9. A truck bomb at a Polish base on February 18, 2004, killing 10 people.
10. A series of bombing on the holy Shi'ite day of Ashoura, carried out in Baghdad and Karbala on March 2, 2004, killing 181 people.
11. A car bomb at Baghdad's Mount Lebanon Hotel on March 17, 2004, killing seven people.
12. A bombing in Basra, killing 74 people on April 21, 2004.
13. An attack on US marines in Ramadi on May 2, 2004, killing six Americans.
14. The kidnapping then beheading of American businessman Nicolas Berg on May 11, 2004. He was shown live on videotape being beheaded by a masked man, believed to be Zarqawi himself. He claimed to be killing the American in retaliation to the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.
15. A car bomb assassinating Izz al-Din Salem, the interim president of the Iraqi Governing Council, on May 18, 2004.
16. A failed assassination of Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Abdul-Jabbar Yusuf on May 22, 2004.
17. A car-bomb attack on a convoy in Baghdad on June 14, 2004, killing 13 people, including three employees of General Electric.
18. The kidnapping and killing of Korean hostage Kim Sun-Il on June 22, 2004.
19. The kidnapping of two Americans (Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong) and a Briton (Kenneth Bigley) from their homes in Baghdad on September 16, 2004.
20. A car bomb in the Shi'ite town of Karbala, killing 60 people on December 19, 2004.
21. Zarqawi asked his followers to boycott the Iraqi parliamentary elections and unleash hell on those who participate, because by doing so, he claimed, they were legitimizing the US occupation of Iraq. No elections are free or real so long as the Americans are in Iraq, he added. On the day of the elections on January 30, 2005, more than 40 people were killed by Zarqawi's men.
22. A car bomb killed 125 people in Hillah on February 28, 2005.
23. A series of attacks in April-June 2005 after the formation of the Iraqi parliament led to the killing of an estimated 800 Iraqis.
24. A suicide bombing on July 16, 2005, killed 98 people in Mussayib.
25. A car bomb killed 112 people in Baghdad on September 14, 2005.
26. Car bombings at two hotels in Baghdad killed 17 Iraqis on October 24, 2005.
27. The deadly terrorist attacks at hotels in Amman on November 9, 2005, killing 60 people, including Palestinian officials and Syrian-born Hollywood director Mustapha al-Akkad, who had produced a film about tolerant Islam in Hollywood in the 1970s.
28. Another car bomb attack at the Hamra Hotel in Baghdad killed six on November 18, 2005. Bombers in two mosques killed 74 Iraqis.
29. About 180 Iraqis were killed in suicide attacks on January 4-5, 2006.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF09Ak03.html
The Guardian(GB) wrote this:
Iraq terrorist leader 'eliminated'
IHT/NYT:
Bush sees 'severe blow' to Al Qaeda in Iraq raid
Al Jazeera:
Al-Zarqawi killed in air strike
Oil down, dollar up as al-Zarqawi dies
The so-called "left-liberal" Israeli daily Haaretz(please check out also the talkbacks):
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Al-Zarqawi family reacts to the news
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| Al-Zarqawi killed in U.S. strike north of Baghdad | ||
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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and kidnappings, has been killed in an air raid north of Baghdad - a major victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror...
Read the full article here:
...and so on, and so on.. Bla, bla, bla..
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THE MASSACRE IN HADITHA..
Asia Times(HK) published yesterday following article:
My Lai to Haditha, wars' turning points
On November 19, 2005, US Marine Corps commanders in Iraq said that 24 Iraqis had been killed in Haditha, a small town in Anbar province, as a result of a roadside bomb placed by Iraqi insurgents. Sad but common; there was nothing unusual to the story, since dozens of car bombs explode all over Iraq every single day.
At the time, a marine spokesman distorted the story in a public statement and said that 15 (not 24) Iraqis "were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately after the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small firearms. Iraqi soldiers and marines returned the fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another."
The incident was not reported as a "scandal" with "misconduct" until March 12. Unfortunately for the US troops who committed the massacre, living next door to the building was Taher Thabet, 43, an Iraqi journalist who runs the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy. He heard the bomb that killed the US soldier at 7:15am, and saw angry marines get out of their vehicles and head for four homes on either side of the road. Thabet then heard gunfire, screams - then silence.
The next morning, he visited the house rampaged by the Americans and videotaped everything he saw. He followed up with further footage at the Haditha morgue. He gave the video to Time magazine's correspondent in Iraq, who in turn contacted the marines for an explanation, receiving the same story originally given by the Americans on November 19.
The marines said this was al-Qaeda propaganda against the US. Time, however, did not buy it. Time interviewed Haditha locals, including the mayor, the morgue doctor, relatives of the victims and a lawyer who negotiated a settlement between the marines and the families of those who were killed.
The marines had paid the families, through this lawyer, up to US$2,500 per victim. Time presented all of this to the US military spokesman in Iraq, Colonel Barry Johnson.
The continued nagging of Time journalists reached General Peter Chiarelli, the newly appointed second-in-command of US troops in Iraq. He asked his aides to brief Time on updates "after the investigation" was completed. He was shocked to hear that "there had been no investigations". He ordered a speedy investigation, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was briefed with the findings on March 10.
Bush received his copy on March 11. Then, on March 19, Time's article came out, sending shock waves throughout the White House and Pentagon. Eman Waleed, a nine-year old Iraqi girl, was quoted in Time saying, "I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head."
This makes the crime all the uglier: homicide and cover-up. US investigations into the case are currently under way, headed by General Eldon Bargewell, and meanwhile, far away in Washington, former presidential candidate John Kerry has prepared a bill in Congress demanding withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by the end of the year.
Coinciding with the loud outcry over Haditha, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told his British counterpart Prime Minister Tony Blair that he was adamant about bringing Italian troops back home. Nobody wants to blacken their image further, and that of their country, with the continued occupation and destruction of Iraq. Nobody, that is, apparently except for Bush.
Was Bush fully informed about the Haditha massacre on March 11? One can only be amazed at how passively he has reacted to an event that could ruin not only his reputation and honor, but that of the entire US military as well.
It is equally amazing how some US commentators, such as David Reinhard of The Oregonian, rudely wrote, "Of course, nobody knows for sure what happened in that small Iraqi village last November 19."
Yet the story has come out. The entire family of Yunis Khalaf, for example, was gunned down in Haditha while he was screaming: "I am a friend. I am good!" His girls were aged 14, 10, five, three, and one year. All of them were killed in cold blood, shot in the head or chest at close range. Among the 25 Iraqis killed at Haditha were an infant and an old man in a wheelchair. He was shot nine times. One girl, aged 12, survived the massacre of her family by playing dead and lived to tell the story to Time.
As the Haditha story was making headlines from Tokyo to Washington, other troubling news was coming out of Iraq. Last Wednesday, a pregnant Iraqi woman was shot dead, along with her cousin, as she was rushing to give birth in Samarra. She entered a "prohibited area" and refused to stop when US troops asked her to do so. Regardless if she understood English, or if she was in labor and unable to stop, she was shot dead. She is survived by her husband and two children, aged two and one.
Then came new accusations against the US military, now blamed for another killing in Ishaqi village north of Baghdad. The British Broadcasting Corp last week aired images of 11 Iraqi citizens killed by the Americans on March 15. The bodies included four women and five children. The oldest was 75 years old. The youngest was six months.
The video was obtained from a Sunni resistance group opposed to the US occupation of Iraq. The US story at the time said that four Iraqis (not 11) had died as US troops raided a building trying to catch Ahmad Abdullah Mohammad Na'is al-Utaybi, a member of al-Qaeda.
Iraqi police challenged the US tale, saying that the number was 11 (including five children and four women), deliberately killed by US troops, who also deliberately blew up the building once they had finished.
Surprising the world, after leaking that 12 marines would face charges for the event, the US military declared that they were innocent on Friday, 24 hours after the BBC film was broadcast. Angry Iraqis are asking: "What kind of a verdict could be reached in 24 hours?"
Two scandals in one week, however, for Bush were simply too much to tolerate. This might explain why the Americans quickly wrapped up the Ishaqi affair, saying that all accusations of a massacre by US troops were "absolutely false".
Memories of My Lai
Daniel Henninger commented on the Haditha massacre in the Wall Street Journal: "The narrative of this story has pretty much set in already: it's another My Lai. We all know they did it, the brass covered up, and prison sentences for homicide are merely a formality."
Many in the US, like Henninger, are drawing parallels between what happened in Haditha and what happened in My Lai, Vietnam. The March 1968 massacre there, when the US Army wiped out an entire village - elderly, women and children, killing more than 300 civilians in one of the worst crimes of the Vietnam War - should be remembered to understand why the US military is acting in such a manner in Iraq.
That single act, more than all the rest, turned US public opinion against the Vietnam War. The US soldiers found no insurgents in the village on the morning of March 16. Led by Lieutenant William Calley, they killed the civilians - primarily old men, women, children and babies. Some were tortured or raped. Dozens were herded into a ditch and executed with automatic firearms.
Calley was convicted in 1971 of premeditated murder in ordering the shootings and was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, president Richard Nixon ordered him released from prison. Calley claimed that he was following orders from his captain, Ernest Medina, who denied giving the orders and was acquitted at a separate trial. Of the 26 men initially charged, Calley's was the only conviction.
Senator John Kerry gave a statement to Congress on the Vietnam massacre in 1971 regarding Calley. He said: "I think if you are going to try Lieutenant Calley then you must at the same time, if this country is going to demand respect for the law, you must at the same time try all those other people who have responsibility, and any aversion that we may have to the verdict as veterans is not to say that Calley should be freed, not to say that he is innocent, but to say that you can't just take him alone."
And his words ring loud and clear today, 36 years later, and can be applied verbatim with regard to Haditha and Ishaqi.
Everybody in the Bush administration is responsible for the massacres in Iraq. The officers in charge on November 19. The soldiers who pulled the triggers then lied about it. The marines who did not conduct an immediate investigation into the case. Rumsfeld for sending men with low morals or dignity to Iraq. And finally, Bush. More than anybody else, he is responsible for Haditha, just as he is responsible for Abu Ghraib, Ishaqi and all the other "mistakes" committed by the Americans since they invaded Iraq in March 2003.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF06Ak01.html
6.3 the leading German(bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel wrote this:
Memories of My Lai
November 19, 2005 began like many days in Iraq -- with an explosion. By the end of the day, 24 people from Haditha were dead. The US Marines are suspected of having committed the biggest slaughter of civilians at the hands of the US military since the Vietnam War.
Haditha is a small, dusty city on the Euphrates River 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest of Baghdad, in Iraq's Anbar Province. The primarily Sunni region, dominated by insurgents, is notorious for one, horrific fact: more people die here day after day than anywhere else in the country. The US Marines periodically attempt to crush the insurgency, but end up withdrawing to their bases, the only locations in Iraq where they feel relatively safe. Indeed, US troops lives are in danger the minute they set foot outside their bases.
But the region - and Haditha - isn't just dangerous for US soldiers. It is also hazardous for those who live there, primarily for farmers who often fall victim to roadside bombs set by insurgents. Avoiding civilian deaths is not much of a concern. But life in Haditha also becomes perilous when US Marines go on insurgent hunts.
Most of the soldiers in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment have already spent quite a bit of time in Iraq. Many are already on their second tours of duty with some even on their third -- Haditha isn't the first hellhole with which they've become acquainted. Last summer, 20 Marines were killed during a three-day battle with insurgents -- 14 killed by a roadside bomb and the remaining six, all sharpshooters, shot in an ambush. A normal day in Iraq.
Like so many other days in Haditha, Nov. 19, 2005 began with an explosion. At 7:15 a.m., a convoy of four Marine Humvees was driving slowly down a main thoroughfare in Haditha. This time the bomb was so carefully placed that it hit only one Humvee and not a single civilian. Miguel Terrazas, 20, the driver of one of the Humvees, was killed immediately, while two other soldiers were wounded. None of the remaining troops from the 3rd Battalion was harmed.
A deathly silence over Haditha
For the US forces in Iraq, these kinds of attacks are as unavoidable as they are common in Anbar Province. According to the results of a preliminary investigation commissioned by the US military, however, the incident on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005 led to the biggest war crime US soldiers have committed since Vietnam - nothing less than an Iraqi My Lai. It was a massacre of the innocent, of children, women and unarmed men that even overshadows Abu Ghraib, the definitive example of barbaric prison abuse in Iraq.
Twenty-four people died in Haditha that day. An old man was killed in a wheelchair and mothers tried unsuccessfully to protect their children. The only survivors were a teenager who ran away and a girl who pretended to be dead.
After the roadside bomb detonated, a deathly silence must have fallen over Haditha. The Marines' first step was likely to recover the dead and the two wounded in the attack, while neighboring residents watched from their brick houses and small, palm tree-lined courtyards. To onlookers, the Marines standing around the burned-out Humvee seemed as if they were in shock. According to eyewitnesses, one of the Marines suddenly yelled something and the group sprang into action.
They spent the next four hours terrorizing Haditha, randomly killing anyone unlucky enough to cross their paths. This, at least, is how news magazine Time reconstructed the incidents.
The Marines first forced their way into the house of Abd al-Hamid Hassan Ali, a diabetic who had been confined to a wheelchair after his leg was amputated. Others in his house included his wife, 66, two middle-aged men, the couple's daughter-in-law and four small children between two months and eight years of age. The daughter-in-law managed to flee with the baby. The old man was found with nine gunshots to his chest and abdomen, his entrails spilling from a gaping wound in his back.
Gruesome excesses
The Marines then broke into the neighboring house, shooting at close range and throwing hand grenades into the kitchen and bathroom. A married couple, 43 and 41 years of age, the wife's sister and five children between the ages of 3 and 14 were killed. Thirteen-year-old Safe Junis Salim survived when her dying mother fell on top of her and she lost consciousness, presumably leading the Marines to think that she was dead.
In a third house, the Marines killed four brothers. The last civilians killed on this day in Haditha were four students and a taxi driver who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The four students were in the taxi on their way home for the weekend. The taxi driver, probably sensing something was amiss, quickly put the car in reverse, but it was too late. The last five victims of the massacre died in much the same way as the others.
Only a few days ago, US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly conceded that their two countries had made many mistakes in Iraq. In his speech, the US president symbolically mentioned Abu Ghraib, the site of gruesome excesses committed by American soldiers. But if accusations prove to be true, Haditha would represent an even more serious act of barbarism -- a systematic murder of the innocent motivated by revenge.
Haditha will then be on par with the infamous My Lai incident. Five hundred and four Vietnamese civilians were killed on March 16, 1968 in a massacre committed by soldiers in the 11th Infantry Brigade, under the command of Lt. William Calley. It took almost two years before Life magazine first reported on the atrocities that took place in the village on the border with North Vietnam -- finally breaking the cloak of silence the US military had placed over My Lai.
Immediately prior to indications of a massacre in Haditha being made public, Iraq had just experienced a tiny flash of hope. It had taken five gut-wrenching months for the Iraqis to finally assemble a new government under President Nuri al-Maliki. In addition, the United States and Iran were cautiously moving toward the possibility of talks to address ways to achieve long-term peace in Iraq -- considered a confidence-building exercise in preparation for possible negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.
"Such incidents are devatating"
But the Haditha incident has destroyed much of any progress made in the region. Haditha reinforced widespread suspicion that the US is not only capable of atrocities, but also that it does its best to cover them up. Should it come to an investigation, each case is merely declared an isolated incident. Haditha weakens America and is likely to bolster already staunch opposition to the now-unpopular US president's war. "Such incidents are devastating," says Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, in an interview with SPIEGEL. Arab networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have reported extensively on Haditha and its consequences.
The news of the massacre was met with dismay within the Washington political establishment. John Warner, a well-respected, elderly Republican senator from Virginia, was the first to mention Haditha in the same breath as Abu Ghraib. Warner, the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which held hearings over the four-hour Nov. 19 rampage in Haditha, posed a critical question: "What was the reaction of the Marine Corps when it happened?"
John Murtha, highly decorated from his days as a Marine infantryman in the Vietnam War and now a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, has no doubts whatsoever that the Marines killed innocent civilians and then tried to cover up the incidents. He says that official sources have told him that the soldiers "cold-bloodedly" shot a woman who had bent over her child in a protective position and begged the Marines for mercy. Murtha is especially interested in finding out whether Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace "gave the order to cover up the affair."
Fittingly enough, the new Iraqi ambassador, Samir Sumaidaie, presented his credentials at the White House last Tuesday. He then gave his first interview to CNN, calling the murders "a betrayal of the American people."
After the massacre, the city's imams and tribal leaders led a protest march from the mosque to the US base, where the clerics reminded the Americans that they had "promised to bring the country peace and security, and not panic, fear and terror." The Iraqis were told that the murderous rampage had been a mistake.
Reaching the public eye
Instead of launching their own investigation, the Marines tried to cover their tracks. Their official version of the incident has the 24 civilians being killed by insurgents and not by US troops. According to a communiqué issued on Nov. 20, Lance Cpl. Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were initially killed by the roadside bomb, while the remaining nine victims died during an ensuing firefight with snipers.
The families of most of the victims each received $2,500, the maximum amount of compensation allowed under Marine regulations. The payments represented an initial acknowledgment that Haditha was more than just an ordinary attack with a high, but not unusual number of victims.
On the day after the Haditha massacre, Tahir Thabit, a journalism student, filmed videotape of the dead in the city's morgue, setting a process into motion that would eventually bring the affair before the public eye. US magazine Time obtained Thabit's video in January and sent a copy to Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, who launched a formal investigation. In March, the magazine published a story that refuted the Marines' official version. After interviewing 28 eyewitnesses in Haditha, the Time reporters reconstructed the events of Nov. 19.
Thabit's video has since become widely available in the Middle East, with copies turning up in mosques in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Terrorist organization Al Qaida's far-reaching network presumably played a role in ensuring discreet distribution of the tape.
Col. Gregory Watt began questioning the 13 Marines in February. Although the Marines stood by their version of the 24 victims having been killed by the roadside bomb and in the ensuing exchange of gunfire, the facts point to a different story. The strongest piece of evidence to refute the Marines' version was the death of the four students and their taxi driver. The five victims were not carrying weapons, nor had they made any threatening moves against the soldiers.
"Something in my head and heart"
US military investigators examined the crime scenes a total of 15 times. Dozens of bullet holes peppered the walls of the three houses. Bullets had passed completely through the victims' bodies, indicating that they were shot at close range. In addition, new photos of the corpses materialized that had apparently been deliberately kept under wraps.
The Marines' version of the incident fell apart when the investigators reconstructed the massacre. The principal suspects include Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who led the patrol, and two privates. All three will likely face murder charges. Nine of the 13 Marines probably witnessed what happened in Haditha, but failed to intervene.
The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, and two other officers suspected of trying to cover up the killings have since been relieved of their commands. Chessani also apparently gave the order to compensate the victims' families. Under Marine regulations, cash compensation can only be paid when innocent people are killed.
Lance Cpl. Ryan Briones, 21, was a member of the Third Battalion and was stationed in Haditha, but he is not one of the suspects in the massacre. Instead, Briones was assigned to recover the bodies of the dead. Miguel Terrazas was his friend and the two had been workout partners at the unit's gym. Briones covered his friend's body with a poncho and said a prayer. A short time later, he says, he picked up the body of a young girl who had died from a gunshot to her head. Brain matter dripped onto Briones' boots as he held the girl.
Briones will probably never forget these images. "This left something in my head and heart," he says.
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Yesterday I published following article(incl. my - perhaps stupid - ideas):
이라크: 학살 주말
http://www.antiwar.or.kr/maybbs/view.php?db=antipabyeong&code=board&n=7345&page=207
The Observer, GB, was writing today..
US confronts brutal culture among its 'finest sons'
In the wake of the Haditha massacre come further allegations of outlaw killings in Iraq. They add to growing unease about US military culture that fails to distinguish civilian from insurgent
American veterans of the war in Iraq have described a culture of casual violence, revenge and prejudice against Iraqi civilians that has made the killing of innocent bystanders a common occurrence.
The US military is now involved in at least three separate investigations into its own soldiers' conduct in Iraq that may illegally have led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians. It is widely expected that more incidents will be uncovered. The most serious is the alleged massacre of 24 civilians in the Sunni town of Haditha by a unit of marines. The victims included women and children who were shot after a roadside bomb hit a convoy and killed a US soldier.
Last week it was revealed that two more incidents have also been under investigation. The first is the death of 11 Iraqis during an American raid near Balad in March. The dead included five children. The second inquiry involves seven US marines and a sailor in the death of an Iraqi civilian near Baghdad in April. It is believed the man was dragged from his home and shot before an AK-47 and a shovel were placed next to his body to make it look like he was an insurgent.
Some American veterans have expressed little surprise at the latest revelations. 'I don't doubt for one moment that these things happened. They are widespread. This is the norm. These are not the exceptions,' said Camilo Mejia, a US infantry veteran who served briefly in the Haditha area in 2003.
American veterans have told The Observer of a military culture that places little practical emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties in the heat of battle, although they also point out the huge problems of urban fighting against a tough enemy that often hides within the civilian Iraqi community.
'In these circumstances you would be surprised at how any normal human being can see their morals degenerate so they can do these things,' said Garrett Reppenhagen, a former US sniper.
Mejia, who has served time in jail for refusing to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty, said there was widespread prejudice against Iraqis in his unit, and that Iraqis were routinely referred to as 'Hajis' in the same way that local people during the Vietnam war were called 'gooks' or 'Charlie'.
'We dehumanise the enemy under these circumstances,' said Mejia. 'They called them gooks in Vietnam and we called them Hajis in Iraq.'
Mejia described an incident in Ramadi when his unit was manning a roadblock near a mosque. When one car refused to stop, US soldiers opened fire on it. Then the American unit came under fire from elsewhere. In the resulting firefight, however, no insurgents were killed while seven Iraqi civilians stuck at the roadblock died. No weapons were found in the car that had refused to stop. 'There was no sense in it. There was no basic humanity. They were all civilians and we didn't kill any insurgents,' Mejia said.
Some have tried to defend the killings by pointing to the stress that US soldiers - many of whom are on their second or third tour of duty - are under. But it is clear that there are other, deeper problems within the US military that point to a widespread failure of command.
At the heart of the issue is a culture of violence against Iraqi civilians that has been present in large measure since the moment US forces crossed the border into Iraq - an inability and unwillingness to distinguish between civilians and combatants that as three years have passed has been transformed, for some, into something more deliberate.
From the shootings of civilians in Nasiriya by marines during the US advance to similar shootings by the Third Infantry Division on the outskirts of Baghdad during the so-called 'Thunder Run' into the city, the same pattern has reasserted itself. Indeed, within weeks of the fall of Saddam's regime it expressed itself in the moment that many now see as the starting point of the insurgency: the firing by US paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division into a noisy demonstration in Falluja.
And as the occupation and insurgency have dragged on, the sense of unaccountability has only increased. Last November, during the referendum on the new Iraqi constitution in the dangerous northern city of Mosul, a young sniper in a Stryker fighting vehicle described being hit by two improvised explosive devices in one day and his crew's reaction: 'I just wanted to get out and kill some Iraqis.'
It is a lack of discipline that has been commented on with horror by British officers - representing an army that itself has seen its own soldiers seriously mistreat Iraqi civilians.
In the days since evidence of the Haditha killings emerged, media organisations, including The Observer, have been contacted with details of other incidents that Iraqis have long claimed involved the execution of civilians by US troops.
Among them is an alleged massacre at Makr al-Deeb, near the town of Al-Qaim on the Syrian border, where marines were alleged to have bombed a wedding party and then shot a number of survivors. At the time, Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit, claiming his soldiers had attacked a foreign fighters' safe house.
After Haditha, it seems such denials can longer be taken at face value. Iraq's new Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, yesterday rejected the US military's exoneration of its forces over another alleged massacre - this time in the town of Ishaqi on 15 March - when US troops are alleged to have executed five children, four women and two men after tying them up. So far the US military has reacted to the crisis by vowing to investigate any incidents that occur and insisting that they are isolated and carried out by a tiny minority of soldiers.
However, the impact of the scandals is likely to have a damaging impact on American attitudes towards the war. They have emerged in the wake of the prisoner abuse incidents at Abu Ghraib, which greatly damaged US public opinion about events in Iraq and deeply affected troop morale.
But many believe that the new scandals, in particular Haditha, will have a much larger political and military effect than Abu Ghraib. 'It will be bigger than Abu Ghraib. That was torture. At Haditha we are talking about people being killed. It will be a huge blow to US efforts,' said Aidan Delgado, a veteran whose unit served at Abu Ghraib.
The emerging picture of US military behaviour in Iraq is likely to shatter America's image of its soldiers, even in the midst of the 'war on terror', when extreme patriotism has become a growing facet of American public life. 'Americans have a heroic image of their soldiers and they don't want to lose that. They have an impression that US soldiers don't do things like this,' Delgado said.
Delgado now tours American anti-war meetings with a slideshow and lecture about the Abu Ghraib scandal. He believes that all the abuse and killings scandals are part of a widespread pattern. 'Until we recognise this as a pattern, not just a few individuals, then we are not going to the root of the problem,' he said.
He describes his experiences within Abu Ghraib , painting a picture of prisoners being severely beaten for minor disciplinary problems and saying that guards opened fire on rioting inmates, killing them for throwing stones. He also says he saw US prison guards boasting about abusing or killing prisoners.
One of the issues raised by the scandals is whether cover-ups have taken place and how high up the chain of command knowledge of the killings went. At Haditha it appears there was a clear attempt at a cover-up, both by marines on the ground and officers back at base who issued a press release claiming the Iraqis had either died in the initial explosion or had been insurgents.
At the same time, the marines and sailor being investigated in the killing of a civilian in Baghdad also appear to have attempted to cover up the death by planting evidence on the body.
It is a practice that Reppenhagen, who is now a senior member of peace group Iraq Veterans Against the War, said had happened before. 'We have members who can tell you about carrying shovels in their vehicles to throw down next to killed civilians as "proof" that they were planting IEDs [improvised explosive devices],' he said.
Few veterans believe that serious charges will travel very far up the chain of command. After Abu Ghraib, it was only low-level soldiers who stood trial. Many now expect a similar result from the new investigations.
'They make it look like Abu Ghraib, that it was just some bad soldiers who went crazy - they were the bad apples,' said Mejia. Yesterday, however, Pentagon sources suggested that even before the Haditha court martials take place some senior officers may be relieved of their commands.
Mejia believes the problem is a systemic one. He points out that both the Abu Ghraib scandal and the Haditha massacre have only come to light because either locals or US soldiers took photographs of the crimes or their aftermath. If left to the army alone, they would never have been uncovered.
'These things are just the ones we know about. Just think about how much else has gone that we don't know about. Civilians are dying there almost every day,' he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1789986,00.html
Drei Tage lang sind 1000de von Protestierenden beim Widerstand gegen die Ausweitung einer U.S. Basis mit der Polizei und Soldaten aneinandergeraten. Die Ausweitung des Camp Humphreys (K-6) ist Teil der US amerikanischen globalen Heerschau, dass der Vorgabe des neuen amerikanischen Zeitalters entspricht(PNAC), und von der Bush Regierung durchgesetzt wird, um die militärische Hegemonie in Nordostasien zu festigen.
Das nationale Verteidigungsministerium Koreas (MND) hat das Dorf Daechuri und die Umgebungsgebiete als militärisch geschützte Zone benannt, um einen Versuch zu machen, das Land als Eigentum der US Armee zu definieren. Bei einem Versuch, das eskalierende Chaos zu kontrollieren schickte das MND Truppen und Riot-Cops, um BewohnerInnen und politische AktivistInnen zu räumen, Häuser zu durchsuchen und Menschen im Vorbeigehen zu verhaften. Straßenblockaden aus Sandsäcken und Polizeibusse sind aufgestellt worden, um jede/n daran zu hindern, das Dorf zu betreten oder zu verlassen. Mindestens 400 Menschen sind seit Donnerstag verletzt und 524 verhaftet. Die drei Tage Gewalt haben Kritik der Polizeikräfte an der Räumung hervorgerufen. MenschenrechtsaktivistInnen beschrieben gegenüber der nationalen Polizei die Szenen als ein "Blutbad", und als "beschämende Momente" für die nationale Regierung.
Internationale Unterstützung wird dringend gebraucht | www.saveptfarmers.org | Neuigkeiten hier
Hintergründe: die Auseinandersetzung um Daechuri | Geschichte der US Militärbasen in Korea |1000de beteiligen sich am Widerstand gegen US Militärbasiserweiterung in Korea | Autonomieerklärung in Daechuri, Süd Korea | autonomes Dorf unter Belagerung von koreanischen Truppen | Neuigkeiten von der Belagerung
Fotos:: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Videos here
On May 4th, the MND made its fourth attempt to occupy the villages of Daechuri and Doduri and crush the resistance to U.S. military base expansion. At 5am riot police poured into the village from the adjacent army base. Some 100 protestors attempted to block their advance, but were beaten and pushed towards the school. Around 13,000 riot police, 1,500 hired 'workers' (notorious ex-military strikebreakers) and 2,000 Korean soldiers invaded the village and overran the fields. While the protesters were barricaded inside the school grounds, troops erected some 30 kilometers of triple strand 'Concertina wire' around the rice fields and set up military tents, toilet facilities and sandbag road blocks around the village. The riot police charged the school grounds, forcing protesters into the primary school. Shooting water cannons, throwing stones, and beating people with shields and batons, they swarmed across the lines of defense and into the school. After a massive battle for the first floor, protestors moved to the second floor, sitting with arms linked. Others occupied the roof of the school to prevent helicopters from deploying troops onto the roof. The riot police slowly made their way to the second floor and began removing and arresting the protestors, one by one. 
Having cleared the primary school, the MND demolished the school and the playground. By nightfall, the primary school, the headquarters for organizing and the symbol of Daechuri's resistance, was a pile of smoldering rubble. The children's playground equipment lay mangled and blackened on the ground and surrounding trees were flattened. Over 400 people were arrested that day and hundreds injured.
On May 5th, several dozen elderly farmers and a handful of supporters gathered in a quiet vigil. Around one-hundred riot police marched through the village to arrest the remaining villagers. Their advance was halted by a few village women and some supporters who stood in front of the riot police shields, refusing to let them pass. After a tense standoff, the police relented. 
Between 1,000 to 1,500 supporters marched across the fields, over the barbed wire fences and through the police roadblocks into the village. Gathering in the ruins of the primary school, they demonstrated through the village and upon reaching the fields, suddenly charged the barbed wire. Soldiers who were guarding the wire were taken by surprise and overwhelmed. Some people dismantled the fences, others tore apart the military tents and tossed the contents into the muddy fields. Riot police were sent to the scene and began arresting people. A several hour standoff ensued. As night fell, the protesters fled to seek shelter in the woods, abandoned homes, and farm sheds. Police began making door to door searches, and arrested anyone who they found on the streets. A military enforced curfew was declared for Daechuri and the surrounding areas. Anyone leaving their homes was subject to arrest. No one was allowed to enter or leave the village. Outrage at the actions of the police has sparked solidarity rallies in the capitol, Seoul. Over a thousand people demonstrated in solidarity on March 6th. International support is urgently needed.
Besides community displacement, other concerns of base expansion are the detrimental environmental impact of U.S. bases, the violent crimes committed by US troops stationed here, the massive issue of human trafficking and forced prostitution which surrounds the bases, the U.S.'s arrogant and aggressive foreign policy that threatens to derail Korean reunification and destabilize Northeast Asia, the undermining of local economies through Free Trade Agreements, and a variety of other issues of national sovereignty. 
Daechuri is only one of many communities jeopardized by upcoming military realignment. Besides the expansion of Osan Airforce base and Camp Humphreys, Korean government and business investors have planned a massive development project that connect the two U.S. bases and supplement the influx of people. Named in various contexts an "International Peace City" and an "International Business City", this relatively unknown project will create even more displacement than the military base expansions.
The Guardian, GB, published yesterday following..
Analysis: Haditha Echoes Earlier Stains
Some words are synonymous with military disgrace. Abu Ghraib. My Lai. And now, perhaps Haditha - the Iraqi town where two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly were murdered by U.S. Marines.
Still under investigation, the episode could firm rising American opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq, just as the 1968 My Lai killings helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Vietnam War.
President Bush promised Wednesday that, if an investigation turns up evidence of wrongdoing, ``those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished.''
The case just added to the administration's many Iraq woes. Just when things seem like they can't get any worse, they do.
``When something like Haditha happens, it gives the impression that Americans can't be trusted to provide security, which is the most important thing to Iraqis on a day-to-day level,'' said Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
``It tends to confirm all of the worst interpretations of the United States, and not simply in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and in the region,'' Cordesman said.
The disclosure of the allegedly unprovoked killings of civilians in the Iraqi town comes with the war looming large in this year's congressional elections, and with the administration still struggling to explain the American treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Haditha is an insurgent stronghold 150 mUnited States and from officials of the new Iraqi government.
``Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,'' said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., even though the case is still under investigation and no charges have been filed.
Military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said last week.
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, on Thursday ordered American commanders to conduct core values training with all troops on moral and ethical standards on the battlefield.
``This is just a reminder - for troops in Iraq or throughout our military - that there are high standards expected of them and that there are strong rules of engagement,'' Bush said Thursday.
Many analysts have compared the Haditha incident to the March 16, 1968, My Lai massacre, although the Vietnam killings were on a far larger scale. Then, hundreds of unarmed civilians were shot to death by a U.S. unit led by former Army Lt. William Calley Jr. The village was thought to be a Viet Cong stronghold.
The Vietnamese government set the death toll at more than 500. Calley was convicted in a 1971 court-martial and sentenced to life imprisonment, but President Nixon reduced his sentence and he served three years of house arrest.
Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, compared Haditha to My Lai ``on a smaller scale.''
``My Lai symbolized the wanton reckless use of force that was associated with B-52 bombings, and the use of napalm, and the screaming children with their clothes burned off their skin by American incendiaries,'' O'Hanlon said.
And, while U.S. use of force in Iraq is on a far lower order of magnitude, ``these sort of things do reverberate,'' he said. ``And, yes, Iraqis do pay attention to the media, and they watch TV. Their overall impression of the U.S. is not very favorable, and this will make it a little worse.''
First reported by Time magazine, the Marines allegedly went on a killing spree after one of the men driving a Humvee was killed by a roadside bomb. ``If the allegations turn out to be valid, then of course there will be charges,'' vowed Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham acknowledged the allegations could further tarnish the U.S. image. ``Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of U.S. forces to continue to operate,'' Ham, a former commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told reporters Wednesday.
In the 1950 No Gun Ri killings, American soldiers from the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment killed dozens of South Korean refugees over a three-day period, although the number slain varies according to the witnesses. U.S. soldiers' estimates ranged from under 100 to ``hundreds'' dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles southeast of Seoul.
The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in 1999, which prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry. The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings were ``an unfortunate tragedy'' but ``not a deliberate killing.''
The Haditha killings, if confirmed, show vividly that ``war is very dangerous and dehumanizing,'' said Stephen Wayne a Georgetown University political science professor. ``It can take good people, like these Marines, and it can turn them into something that goes against the human rights and the liberty and all the things we're fighting for.'' http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5859432,00.html More about this issue I will write in the coming days..
About the Haditha massacre Time magazine published following last Sunday..
The Shame Of Kilo Company
Sparked by a TIME report published in March, a U.S. military investigation is probing the killing of as many as 24 Iraqi civilians by a group of Marines in the town of Haditha last November. Several Marines may face criminal charges, including murder. And new revelations suggest that their superiors may have helped in a cover-up
The outfit known as Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, wasn't new to Iraq last year when it moved into Haditha, a Euphrates River farming town about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. Several members of the unit were on their second tour of Iraq; one was on his third. The men in Kilo Company were veterans of ferocious house-to-house fighting in Fallujah. Their combat experience seemed to prepare them for the ordeal of serving in an insurgent stronghold like Haditha, the kind of place where the enemy attacks U.S. troops from the cover of mosques, schools and homes and uses civilians as shields, complicating Marine engagement rules to shoot only when threatened. In Haditha, says a Marine who has been there twice, "you can't tell a bad guy until he shoots you."
But one morning last November, some members of Kilo Company apparently didn't attempt to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Instead, they seem to have gone on the worst rampage by U.S. service members in the Iraq war, killing as many as 24 civilians in cold blood. The details of what happened in Haditha were first disclosed in March by TIME's Tim McGirk and Aparisim Ghosh, and their reporting prompted the military to launch an inquiry into the civilian deaths. The darkest suspicions about the killings were confirmed last week, when members of Congress who were briefed on the two ongoing military investigations disclosed that at least some members of a Marine unit may soon be charged in connection with the deaths of the Iraqis--and that the charges may include murder, which carries the death penalty. "This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them," said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials. "This is going to be an ugly story."
With the U.S. struggling to hold on to public support for the war and no end to the insurgency in sight, the prospect of possible indictments has induced an aching dread among military and government officials. As the military launched another probe--into the April 26 killing of an Iraqi civilian by Marines--General Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, headed to Iraq to address Marines on the growing crisis. Marine Corps public-affairs director Brigadier General Mary Ann Krusa-Dossin says the allegations "have caused serious concern at the highest levels" of the corps.
A military source in Iraq told TIME that investigators have obtained two sets of photos from Haditha. The first is after-action photos taken by the military as part of the routine procedure that follows any such event. Submitted in the official report on the fighting, the photos do not show any bodies. Investigators have also discovered a second, more damning set of photos, taken by Marines of the Kilo Company immediately after the shootings. The source says it isn't clear if these photos were held back from the after-action report or were personal snapshots taken by the Marines. The source says a Marine e-mailed at least one photo to a friend in the U.S.
Almost as damaging as the alleged massacre may be evidence that the unit's members and their superiors conspired to cover it up. "There's no doubt that the Marines allegedly involved in doing this--they lied about it," says Kline. "They certainly tried to cover it up." Three Marine officers, including the company commander and battalion commander, have been relieved of duty in part for actions related to the deaths in Haditha. A lawmaker who has been briefed on the matter says the investigations may implicate other senior officers.
In hindsight, it seems remarkable that the Marines were able to conceal such a horrific event for so long. It began, as so many things in Iraq do, with an explosion. At about 7:15 in the morning on Nov. 19, a string of four humvees were on routine patrol in a residential area when a white taxicab approached from the opposite end of the street. The Marines made hand and arm signals for the taxi to stop. But as the taxi halted near the first humvee, a bomb under the fourth humvee exploded, killing its driver--Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas--wounding two of his comrades and shattering windows 150 yards away. Marines said the convoy almost immediately began to take fire from several houses on either side of the road. Locals dispute that, claiming the only firing after the explosion was done by the Marines. Suspecting that the four students in the taxi either triggered the bomb or were acting as spotters, the Marines ordered the men and the driver, who by then had exited the taxi, to lie on the ground. Instead, they ran, and the Marines shot and killed them.
The military's initial report stated that Terrazas and 15 civilians were killed in a roadside blast and that shortly afterward, the Marines came under attack and returned fire, killing eight insurgents. But as TIME reported in March on the basis of interviews with 28 individuals, including military officials, the families of the victims, human-rights investigators and local doctors, much of that account is dubious. Members of Congress, as well as military sources, have confirmed the critical details of TIME's initial report--that after gunning down the five fleeing the taxi, a few members of Kilo Company moved through four homes along nearby streets, killing 19 men, women and children. The Marines contend they took small-arms fire from at least one house, but as TIME's story detailed in March, only one of the 19 victims was found with a weapon.
The day after the killings, an Iraqi journalism student videotaped the scene at a local morgue and the homes where the shootings had occurred. "You could tell they were enraged," the student, Taher Thabet, said last week. "They not only killed people, they smashed furniture, tore down wall hangings, and when they took prisoners, they treated them very roughly. This was not a precise military operation." A delegation of angry village elders complained to senior Marines in Haditha about the killings but were rebuffed with the excuse that the raid had been a mistake. TIME learned about the Haditha action in January, when it obtained a copy of Thabet's videotape from an Iraqi human-rights group. But a Marine spokesman brushed off any inquiries. "To be honest," Marine Captain Jeff Pool e-mailed McGirk, "I cannot believe you're buying any of this. This falls into the same category of AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) propaganda." In late January, TIME gave a copy of the videotape to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing it, he recommended a formal investigation. The ensuing probe, conducted by a colonel, concluded that Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of "collateral damage," not deliberate homicide. Nevertheless, after reviewing the initial probe, senior military officials launched a criminal investigation.
A military source in Iraq says the men of Kilo Company stuck by their story throughout the initial inquiry, but what they told the first military investigator raised suspicions. One of the most glaring discrepancies involved the shooting of the four students and the taxi driver. "They had no weapons, they didn't show hostile intent, so why shoot them?" the military source says. Khaled Raseef, a spokesman for the victims' relatives, says U.S. military investigators visited the alleged massacre sites 15 times and "asked detailed questions, examined each bullet hole and burn mark and took all sorts of measurements. In the end, they brought all the survivors to the homes and did a mock-up of the Marines' movements." As the detectives found contradictions in the Marines' account, "the official story fell apart and people started rolling on each other," says the military source.
Military sources told TIME that the first probe is focusing on the unit's leader, who was at the scene of virtually every shooting that day in Haditha. Pentagon officials say the sergeant has served more than seven years in the corps and was on his first Iraq tour. At least two other enlisted men may be directly involved, Pentagon officials say, and perhaps as many as nine others in the 13-man unit witnessed the shootings but neither attempted to step in nor reported them later.
Among the mysteries still unsolved is what caused such a catastrophic collapse in the Marines' discipline. U.S. troops are trained to make the deliberate distinction between friend and foe and are aware that the enemy has completely mixed into the civilian population. Marine Sergeant Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in Fallujah two years ago, said it's natural "to want to kill the guys who killed your buddy." But, he adds, "you don't lash out at innocent people."
So why did some men in Kilo Company apparently snap? Perhaps because of the stress of fighting a violent and unpopular war--or because their commanders failed them. Military psychiatrists who have studied what makes a soldier's moral compass go haywire in battle look first for a weak chain of command. That was a factor in the March 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when U.S. soldiers, including members of an Army platoon led by Lieut. William Calley, killed some 500 Vietnamese. Says a retired Army Green Beret colonel who fought in Vietnam: "Somebody has failed to say, 'No, that's not right.'" No one, apparently, was delivering that message last November in Haditha.
For more exclusive coverage of the killings in Haditha, including reaction from local residents, visit time.com [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see a hardcopy or pdf.] THE SCENE At 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2005, Marine Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, was killed when a bomb exploded under his humvee on a road just south of Haditha. Within hours, Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians, including women and children
HUMVEE CONVOY
To central Haditha
Movement of Marines
Hay al-Sinnai Road
1 Bomb explodes 2 Taxi Four teens and driver killed
3 Waleed house Seven killed, including two women and a child
4 Younis house Eight killed, including six women
5 Ayed house (son) Group of women and children guarded
6 Ayed house (father) Four men killed in adjoining house TIME Graphic by Jackson Dykman and Joe Lertola; satellite image from Digital Globe via Google Earth
For more exclusive coverage of the killings in Haditha, including reaction from local residents, visit time.com
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198892,00.html
Another very strange report you can read here..
http://www.antiwar.or.kr/maybbs/view.php?db=antipabyeong&code=board&n=7340&page=207
More you can read here..
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski153.html
In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre
Washington Post
Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.
Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052602069.html
PS..
According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, 5.31, a internal report by the US Army confirmed the massacre.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,419064,00.html
Iraq witnesses tell of killings by marinesIHT, NYT published yesterday. |
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Hiba Abdullah survived the killings by U.S. troops in Haditha last Nov. 19, but she said seven others inside her father-in-law's home did not.
She said U.S. troops shot and killed her husband, Rashid Abdul Hamid, with gunshots to the head and shoulder. They killed her father-in-law, Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, a 77-year-old in a wheelchair, shooting him in the chest and abdomen, she said.
Her sister-in-law, Asma, "collapsed when her husband was killed in front of her eyes," Abdullah said. As Asma fell, she dropped her 3-month-old infant. Abdullah said she picked up the baby girl and sprinted out of the house, and when she returned, Asma was dead.
Four people who survived the killings in Haditha, including some who had never spoken publicly, described the killings to an Iraqi writer and historian who was recruited by The New York Times to travel to Haditha and interview survivors and witnesses of what military and Pentagon officials have said appear to be unjustified killings of 24 Iraqis.
Some in Congress fear that the killings could do greater harm to the image of the U.S. military around the world than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Military officials declined on Sunday to comment on details of the killings described by survivors. "The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process," said Lieutenant Colonel Sean Gibson, a U.S. Marine spokesman.
The four survivors' accounts could not be independently corroborated, and it was unclear in some cases whether they actually saw the killings.
But much of what they said was consistent with broad outlines of the events of that day provided by military and government officials who have been briefed on the military's investigations into the killings, which the officials have said is likely to lead to charges that may include murder and a cover-up of what really happened.
The name of the Iraqi who conducted the interviews for The New York Times is being withheld for his own safety, because insurgents often target any Iraqis deemed to be collaborators.
Haditha, a sandswept farming village flecked with date palms on the upper Euphrates River, is in one of Iraq's most dangerous areas, ridden with insurgents in the heart of Sunni-dominated Anbar Province.
Three months earlier, 20 marines from a different unit were killed around Haditha over a three-day span. Fourteen were slain by a bomb that destroyed their troop carrier. Six others, all snipers, were ambushed and killed on a foot patrol.
Insurgents appeared to later rejoice and boast about the sniper ambush, releasing a video over the Internet that appeared to show both the attack and the mangled and burned body of a dead American serviceman.
Haditha is under the control of insurgents that include Tawhid and Jihad, a name that has been used by the terrorist organization of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said Miysar al-Dulaimi, a human rights lawyer who has relatives in Haditha and who returned there two days after the killings and spoke to witnesses and neighbors.
Dulaimi said that outside of their bases, the Americans control almost nothing.
"People are so scared," he said. "They have lost confidence in the Americans. If the Americans show up in the neighborhood, the insurgents will come and take away people they accuse of being stooges of the Americans."
But just over six months ago, 24 people in the Subhani district of Haditha faced a different death, witnesses and survivors say.
The killings began after 7:15 a.m., as the neighborhood was stirring awake, when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in Subhani that killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Texas, as his patrol drove through the area.
According to one U.S. defense official, most of the subsequent killings are believed to have been committed by a handful of marines led by a staff sergeant who was their squad leader, although other marines are also under investigation.
In the home that Abdullah escaped from, she said, U.S. troops also shot in the chest and killed a 4-year-old nephew named Abdullah Walid.
She said her mother-in-law, Khumaysa Tuma Ali, 66, died after being shot in the back. Two brothers-in-law, Jahid Abdul Hamid Hassan and Walid Abdul Hamid Hassan, were also killed, she said.
She said she saw U.S. troops kick her family members and that one American shouted in the face of one relative before he was killed.
In addition to Abdullah and Asma's baby, two others survived. One, 9-year- old Iman Walid Abdul Hamid, said she ran quickly, still clad in her pajamas, to hide under the bed covers with her younger brother, Abdul Rahman Walid Abdul Hamid, when she saw what was happening.
"My mother was screaming and crying because she was shot and she fell on the ground bleeding in front of the bedroom door, and no one helped her," Iman said. "We were scared and could not move for two hours. I tried to hide under the bed," she said.
But both children were hit by shrapnel.
Abdullah assumed that the two children had died, but she said they were later found at a local hospital.
The U.S. defense official, who described information collected during the investigation, also said that one of the victims was an elderly man killed in his wheelchair. He appeared to have been holding a Koran, according to the official.
Some victims had single gunshot wounds to the head, and at least one home where people were shot and killed had no bullet marks on the walls, inconsistent with a clearing operation that would typically leave bullet holes, the official added.
Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, pledged on Sunday to hold hearings on the Haditha killings as soon as the military investigation was concluded.
"I'll do exactly what we did with Abu Ghraib," he said on ABC television, referring to hearings. He added that there were serious questions of "what was the immediate reaction of the senior officers in the Marine Corps."
In all, 19 people were killed in three separate homes in Haditha, and five were killed after they approached the scene in a taxi, survivors and people in the neighborhood said.
Abdullah said that after the killings in her father-in-law's home, the U.S. troops moved to the house of a neighbor, Younis Salim Nisaif. She said he was killed by gunshots to his abdomen and chest.
His wife, Aida, who was recovering from surgery, was shot in her neck and also died, as did her sister, Huda.
Five children were also killed at that home, shot in their abdomen, head, or chest, she said.
There was one survivor, Safa Younis Salim, 13, who in an interview said she lived by faking her death.
"I pretended that I was dead when my brother's body fell on me and he was bleeding like a faucet," she said.
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Lawmaker: Marines killed Iraqis ‘in cold blood’
Navy conducting war crimes probe into November violence in Haditha
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.
From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.
One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”
On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.
Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.
A videotape taken by an Iraqi showed the aftermath of the alleged attack: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.
The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.
U.S. military officials later confirmed that the version of events was wrong.
Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn't been completed.
One military official says it appears the civilians were deliberately killed by the Marines, who were outraged at the death of their fellow Marine.
“This one is ugly," one official told NBC News.
Three Marine officers — commanders in Haditha — have been relieved of duty, and at least 12 Marines in all are under investigation for what would be the worst single incident involving the deliberate killing of civilians by U.S. military in Iraq.
The Marine Corps issued a statement in response to Murtha's remarks:
"There is an ongoing investigation; therefore, any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process. As soon as the facts are known and decisions on future actions are made, we will make that information available to the public to the fullest extent allowable."
Murtha held the news conference to mark six months since his initial call for "redeployment" of U.S. forces from Iraq.
He said U.S. forces were under undue pressure in Iraq because of poor planning and allocation of resources by the Bush administration.
Please check out Hammurabi Human Right Assn., a Iraqi HR organization.. I am sure they have the .best. informations about the massacre, because they were reporting at first about it..
.........................
Even, for example, CNN yesterday was reporting about this as a massacre..
June 4th, 2006 International Day of Solidarity with the Daechuri Villagers
savePTfarmers.org 25.May.2006 12:03
June 4th, 2006 International Day of Solidarity with the Daechuri Villagers
Sunday, June 4th, 2006
In Korea, there will be demonstrations held in solidarity with the villagers of Daechuri and Doduri, who are being evicted to make way for the expansion of US military base, Camp Humphreys.
We are working to organize solidarity vigils around the world on this day.
If you can organize a vigil or demonstration against war and stand in solidarity with the villagers of Daechuri and Doduri on June 4th, please hold one in your area. Rally at the local Korean or US embassy or in front of a local news media outlet. Let them hear your voice!
E-mail us at savePTfarmers[at]yahoo.com and let us know how the vigil went in your area.
Thank you for your support.
http://www.indymedia.org/de/2006/05/839351.shtml