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437개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.

  1. 2010/05/13
    [5.13] 방콕 뉴스 (#3)
    no chr.!
  2. 2010/05/09
    [5.07] 네팔 총파업
    no chr.!
  3. 2010/05/06
    그리스: 총파업/화재참사
    no chr.!
  4. 2010/05/05
    네팔뉴스: 총파업, 제4날
    no chr.!
  5. 2010/05/03
    네팔뉴스: 노동절/총파업
    no chr.!
  6. 2010/04/28
    네팔뉴스 #51
    no chr.!
  7. 2010/04/25
    [4.25] 방콕 뉴스 (#2)
    no chr.!
  8. 2010/04/19
    [4.19] 방콕 뉴스 (#1)
    no chr.!
  9. 2010/02/28
    묘한 이야기: 하마스-신벳
    no chr.!
  10. 2010/01/11
    이탈리아: 인종 차별 명사
    no chr.!

리비아: 反카다피 혁명(#1)


 

Armed forces, incl. many foreign mercenaries, loyal to Muammar Gaddafi are waging a bloody operation - i.e. a COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY MASSACRE - to keep his clan's dictatorship in power, with residents reporting gunfire in parts of the capital Tripoli and other cities, while other citizens, including the country's former ambassador to India, are saying that warplanes were used to "bomb" protesters.
   Between 300 and 500 people are reported to have been killed in continuing anti-democratic terror campaign across the north African country as demonstrations enter their second week.


Today's Asia Times(HK) has a very impressive piece, written by P. Escobar:


'Brother' Gaddafi, you're going down
 

You know the fat lady is about to sing when a dictator unleashes hell from above over his own unarmed, civilian compatriots, and bombs parts of his capital city. That's a bridge too far even by the unspeakable standards of Western-backed dictators in the Arab world.


You know the (ghastly) show may be over when Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, one of the most popular Sunni authorities in the world, not least because of his weekly show on al-Jazeera, issues a fatwa - "I am issuing a fatwa now to kill [Muammar] Gaddafi. To any soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger and kill this man to do so" - and then prays live, on al-Jazeera, for the end of the Libyan dictator ("O Lord save the Libyans from this pharaoh." When he finishes, the al-Jazeera anchor says "Amen").


You know the bells are ringing when your "Abu Omar Brigade", responsible for your protection, is still on a rampage; but your ambassadors around the world defect en masse; your own deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Omar al-Dabashi, says your government is carrying out genocide; your fighter pilots refuse to bomb your cities; your military officers, in a statement, ask all members of the army to head to Tripoli and depose you; a coalition of Islamic leaders tells all Muslims it is their duty to rebel against you because of your "bloody crimes against humanity"; and to top it off, people are calling for a "million man march" following the Egyptian model.


And what about the Maltese Falcons? In a day of volcanic activity, it's hard to beat the spectacular defection of two colonels of the Libyan Air Force, who flew their Mirages to Malta. They had refused to bomb protesters in Benghazi, telling Maltese authorities they had come so close to carrying out their mission that they could see the crowds on the ground. They also passed "classified" information about what the Libyan military has been up to.


And all this in just one day - Monday.


It was not enough to deploy "black African" mercenaries in a shoot-to-kill rampage in Benghazi. Already on Sunday, Sheikh Faraj al-Zuway, leader of the crucial al-Zuwayya tribe in eastern Libya, had threatened to cut oil exports to the West within 24 hours unless what he called the "oppression of protesters" in Benghazi was stopped.


Akram Al-Warfalli, a leader of the al-Warfalla tribe, one of Libya's biggest, in the south of Tripoli, had told al-Jazeera Gaddafi is "no longer a brother, we tell you to leave the country". The 500,000-strong Berber, Tuaregs from the southern desert, are also against him. When you have four of your key tribes - the spine of your system - marching on Tripoli to get rid of you, you better watch out.


History may eventually register how Gaddafi's appalling 41-year rule in Libya (he was already in power when "Tricky Dicky" Richard Nixon was the United States president) virtually collapsed in only 24 hours. There will be blood - a lot of blood; but "brother" is about to go down...


'Rivers of blood will run through Libya'
The beginning of the end was classic Arab dictator stuff; Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, looking like an upscale bouncer in suit and tie, went on Libyan state TV on Sunday night instead of his father to deliver a threatening/repellent/pathetic speech that only infuriated the Libyan masses even more, after six days of protests in the historic Cyrenaica region.


After threatening to "eradicate the pockets of sedition" (echoes of Iran's leadership eradicating protests last week) Gaddafi's "modernizing" son said Libyans risked igniting a civil war in which Libya's oil wealth "will be burned".


In 2009, Said received a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) with a thesis titled "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making". Last year he delivered a lecture about it at the LSE (listen to it here.)


Isn't wonderful that the ghastliest dictators in the world may send their offspring to the best schools in the world where they can appease the West's false consciousness while back at home they openly threaten their own people and go for sniper fire, automatic weapons and heavy artillery against their unarmed compatriots?


It's doubtful the LSE taught Saif how to ignite a flash civil war with just a rant. But that's what he accomplished.


Libyan writer Faouzi Abdelhamid - comparing the name Saif al-Islam ("sword of Islam") with Saif al-I'dam ("sword of execution") came out all guns blazing, calling the whole Gaddafi clan criminals and thieves; "You don't even have the right of living among us as ordinary citizens, because you're guilty of high treason".


By the time Saif was delivering his threats, the eastern city of Benghazi had already fallen to the protesters. Tripoli was next, on Monday. With the regime blocking all phone lines, all day Monday occasional, frantic tweets relayed all sorts of terrifying rumors and facts - inevitably clouded by the ominous sound of live ammunition. Helicopters raining bullets down on people in the streets below. Fighter jets launching strikes. Snipers firing from building tops.


Schools, government offices and most stores in Tripoli were closed, with armed "Revolutionary Committees", ie regime thugs, patrolling the streets hunting for protesters in Tripoli's old city. According to Salem Gnan, a London-based spokesman for the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, 80 people may have died when protesters surrounded Gaddafi's residence and were shot at from inside the compound.


As the People's Hall - where the parliament meets when it is in session in Tripoli - was set on fire and all cities south of Tripoli were progressively being "liberated", al-Jazeera managed to trace the source of jamming of its Arabsat satellite frequency to a Libyan intelligence building south of the capital.


Ahmed Elgazir, a human-rights researcher with the Libyan News Center (LNC) in Geneva, later told al-Jazeera he got a call for help from a woman witnessing a massacre in progress on a satellite phone. Eyewitnesses reported to Agence France-Presse another "massacre" in the Fashloum and Tajoura districts of Tripoli. By late Monday night, the (unconfirmed) death toll in Tripoli alone had reached at least 250.


Among Libyans, virtually all information all around the country was and remains word of mouth. But tweets that reached al-Jazeera or the BBC also emphasized a profound disgust with the deafening silence of the "international community" ("Are we only worth mentioning when it has to do with oil and terrorism?")


Round up the oily condemnations
Said "international community" indeed started noticing when the Libyan Quryna newspaper reported protests had broken out in the northern city of Ras Lanuf, whose oil refinery processes 220,000 barrels a day.


Yes, apart from Gaddafi's antics, Libya registers in the West because it exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. Its gross domestic product is US$77 billion - number 62 in world rankings; that theoretically implies a per capita income of over $12,000 a year, more, for instance, than BRIC member Brazil. But profound inequality is the norm; roughly 35% of Libyans live below the poverty line, and unemployment is running at an unbearable 30%. The oil wealth stays in Tripolitania. Eastern Libya - Cyrenaica - where the anti-Gaddafi revolution started, is dirt poor.


In the high-stakes front, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) - also owner of a London-based hedge fund - has invested more than $70 billion around the world. It's a major shareholder, for instance, in the Financial Times, Fiat and one of Italy's top soccer clubs, Juventus. LIA invests - and plans to invest - billions in Britain.


Cue to the European Union (EU) foreign ministers issuing the usual, bland, bureaucratic condemnation. At least Italian Prime Minister, "bunga bunga" idol and close Gaddafi pal Silvio Berlusconi, who had said earlier he didn't want to "disturb" his friend, had to qualify the massacre of civilians as "unacceptable" and profess he was "alarmed". To see Berlusconi literally kissing Gaddafi's hands, go here No less than 32% of Libya's oil exports go to Italy.


Then there's another classic - Washington's deafening silence. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued the standard bland condemnation. Libyan-American scientist and activist Naeem Gheriany told the Institute for Public Accuracy the Barack Obama administration "says it's 'concerned' about the situation - there's no real condemnation in spite of the dire situation. People are being massacred in the hundreds, Gaddafi is reportedly using anti-aircraft guns to shoot people. In a few days, more people in Libya have apparently been killed than in weeks in Iran, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen and even Egypt (which has a much larger population) ... Even the oil cannot justify this silence."


Not to mention that Washington and Gaddafi have been the best "war on terror" pals. Captured al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi - the object of a Central Intelligence Agency "rendition" to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Omar "Sheikh al-Torture" Suleiman, who duly tortured him into confessing to a non-existent Saddam-al-Qaeda weapons of mass destruction connection that then-secretary of state Colin Powell used as "intelligence" at his United Nations speech in February 2003 - was later tracked in Libya by Human Rights Watch just to end up his life as an alleged "suicide".


Milan villa or The Hague?

Libyan opposition writer Ashour Shamis has remarked, "For Gaddafi it's kill or be killed". The family told Saudi paper al-Sharq al-Awsat, "We will all die on Libyan soil." That means Gaddafi and a row of hated offspring.


Son Khamis - the commander of an elite special forces unit, trained in Russia - is the mastermind of the repression in Benghazi. Son Saadi is, or was there too, alongside the head of military intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi.


Son Muatassim is Gaddafi's national security adviser and, until now, possible successor. In 2009, he tried to set up his own special forces unit to erode Khamis's power.


Son Saif, the "modernizer" with an LSE diploma, cuts no mustard with the regime's old guard and the dreaded "Revolutionary Committees".


Son Saadi is basically a thug fond of raising hell across nightclubs in Europe. Same applies to son Hannibal.


It all looks and sounds like a cheap blood-splattered gangster movie. What to make of Gaddafi's bizarre 20-second appearance on state TV early this Tuesday ("I'm in Tripoli, not in Venezuela"), clutching an umbrella, sitting inside a cream-colored microvan and sporting a winter hat with ear flaps, with no clue of what is going on? (After all he was supporting his pals, Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and to Mubarak, until the very end). He defined TV channels - such as al-Jazeera - as "dogs" (in the 1980s he had already used hit squads to murder exiled "stray dogs" who challenged his revolution).


Still, Gaddafi should not be underestimated. He controls all the hardware - defense, security, foreign affairs. Plus all those "black African" mercenaries/exterminators paid in gold. Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh said Yemen was not Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi said Libya was not Egypt or Tunisia. Mubarak said Egypt was not Tunisia.


They were all wrong; the entire Arab world now is Tunisia. The Libyan masses hate "their" leader. Even fellow Arab dictators - with the exception of the House of Saud - hate him. He has few expat options. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez would be crazy to offer him asylum and forever destroy his "champion of the poor" credibility.


Well, there's always Berlusconi. Nice villa near Milan, great pasta, and he can pitch his Bedouin tent in the luxurious gardens. And if Berlusconi is sent to jail in his "Rubygate"-related trial in April, Gaddafi may even move up to the main residence. But, after you bombed your own citizens from the air, and hired mercenaries to shoot them, there is only one choice destination: the International Criminal Court in The Hague.


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB23Ak01.html


 

For more (updated)info, reports and analysis please check out:
Uprising in Libya (al-Jazeera's special coverage section)
Libya erupts as Gaddafi clings on - live updates (Guardian, 2.22)
Overthrow of Libya's regime won't look like Egypt or Tunisia (Haaretz, 2.22)


 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이집트: 反정권투쟁 (#6)

Today is the 10th day of the Popular Uprising in Egypt and the 2nd day of organized


 COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY TERROR 


Latest news:


Bursts of heavy gunfire aimed at pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square, left at least five people dead and more than 800 wounded, according to reports from Egyptian television on Thursday.


"The real casualties taken to hospital were 836, of which 86 are still in hospital and there are five dead," Health Minister Ahmed Samih Farid told state television by telephone. According to independent sources: more than 1,500 people were injured since y'day afternoon...


Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots began at around around 4am (local time) and was ongoing more than an hour.


Today's gunfire marks an escalation of tensions, which began y'day afternoon when well-organized supporters (incl. hundreds of plain-clothed police and "state security" officers) of the "ruling" regime charged into Tahrir Square - some on horses and camels - clashing with pro-democracy demonstrators gathered there.


The situation right now (3pm, local time) in Cairo: "According to eye witnesses in Abdelmonaem Ryad square next to Tharir square Mubarak loyalists are preparing firebombs to attack protesters in the area", al-Jazeera reports.


3:30pm (local time) Al-Arabiya reports: "Heavy gunfire on bridge leading to Tahrir Square".


 

For more about today's latest news please check out:
Egypt protests - live updates (Guardian)
Live blog Feb 3 - Egypt protests (al-Jazeera)


 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이집트: 反정권투쟁 (#5)

Today is the 9th day of the  UPRISING IN EGYPT


But - to cut a long story short - it seems that today the "ruling" regime wants to smash the uprising by inciting a kind of CIVIL WAR!


1PM(local time in Egypt): "There is a massive fight of some kind of going on right in front of me. I'm assuming that it's pro and anti Mubarak supporters," an eyewitness reported  from Tahrir Square. The security services are just sitting on their tanks watching, he says. "You can't help feeling that it has all been heavily coordinated," he says. "It's an extraordinary turnaround."


2PM(local time in Egypt): "Hundreds of well organized armed (with iron rods, rocks and knifes) pro-Mubarak forces, supported by riot police, are attacking the unarmed anti-gov't protesters", al-Jazeera reports. CNN, at the same time: "The army stays on the sidlines, just watching the battles."


Already in the morning the army ordered the anti-gov't protesters to stop the demonstrations and to go home immediately...



Related reports from the "front Line":
Clashes break out in Tahrir Square (al-Jazeera, 2.02)
Egypt protests - live updates (Guardian, 2.02)

 

 


 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이집트: 反정권투쟁 (#4)

Today is the 8th day of the


UPRISING IN EGYPT


Here (some of) the latest news:


At noon (local time in Egypt) al-Jazeera reported that  "About 1,000,000 people have gathered for the planned  'Million Man March'  (MMM) in the Egyptian capital, calling for Hosni Mubarak, to step down."


Despite the Egyptian "authorities'" attempts to disrupt the anti-gov't protests by blocking the entire public traffic, the country prepared since last night for the MMM expected to leave central Cairo in the afternoon.

 
Tens of thousands of people arrived at the Tahrir Square since the early morning, joining about 10,000 protesters who violated the curfew and spent the night there.

 

Many protesters spent the night on the square, unbowed by the presence of troops and tanks

 
AFP reported in the morning: "Several hundred thousand Egyptians massed Tuesday for the biggest outpouring of anger yet in their drive to oust President Hosni Mubarak, on day eight of a revolt in which an estimated 300 have died".


Meanwhile al-Arabiya reported that "ElBaradei, one of the leaders of the Egyptian uprising, set a deadline for President Hosni Mubarak, calling on him to leave the country by Friday".



"Mubarak will fall!!"



For more updated news please check out
[2.01] Egypt protests - live updates (Guardian)

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이집트: 反정권투쟁 (#3)

Today is the 6th day of the


UPRISING IN EGYPT


Since the early morning: Thousands of anti-government protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square are standing their ground, despite troops firing into the air in a bid to disperse them.

 



The protestors are complete unsatisfied with the moves "promised" by Mubarak. They're also protesting against the appointment of Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman as Mubarak's deputy. The demonstrators calling on the two leaders to resign. "Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, you are both American agents", "Mubarak, Mubarak, your plane awaits you!" they're chanting. 


And the death toll rises. Al-Jazeera reports 150 protesters killed since Friday in Egypt's demonstrations and more than 2000 people were injured until now...

 



 

Here you can follow today's developments:
Egypt protests - live updates (Guardian)
Live blog 30/1 - Egypt protests (al-Jazeera)

The Egypt uprising in pictures:
The Egypt Protests (Totally.Cool.Pix, 1.28)
Cairo Protests Escalate (Spiegel.Online, 1.28)


 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이집트: 反정권투쟁 (#2)

Today's "Day of Rage and Freedom" in Egypt



 

Here you can follow the latest updated news:
Protests in Egypt - live updates (Guardian)
Friday protests liveblog (al-Jazeera)
Liveticker zum Aufstand in Ägypten (Spiegel Online)

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

이집트: 反정권투쟁 (#1)


"REVOLUTION IN TUNIS, AS WELL IN EGYPT"

 

Egypt mass protests against the dictatorial Mubarak regime continue into third day despite ban and STATE TERROR!


Today's latest news:


Angry demonstrators in Egypt have torched a police post in the eastern city of Suez as unrest continues to spill over onto the streets of several cities despite a security crackdown. Witnesses told the Reuters news agency that police fled the post before the protesters burned it using petrol bombs on Thursday morning.
   Dozens more gathered in front of a second police post later in the morning demanding the release of their relatives who were detained in unprecedented protests that authorities have failed to quell since Tuesday.
   Meanwhile, activists are clashing with thousands of riot cops in the capital, Cairo, since the early hours of Thursday.
   2:30pm (local time/9:30pm KST): Right now at least 500 protesters clash with riot cops in demonstrations in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia...


Here a summary of yesterday's/last night's "events":


The Interior Ministry warned Wednesday that police would not tolerate any gatherings, and thousands of security forces were out on the streets poised to move quickly against any unrest. Many were plainclothes officers whose leather jackets and casual sweat shirts allowed them to blend in easily with protesters.

 

 

 

Thousands of policemen in riot gear and backed by armored vehicles also took up posts in Cairo, on bridges across the Nile, at major intersections and squares, as well as outside key installations, including the state TV building and the headquarters of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party.

 
Hussein Megawer, head of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), requested heads of syndicates to thwart any labor demonstrations at this stage.


But despite the official ban by the government on protests and gatherings, running battles between police and anti-government protesters continued.

 

 

Activists trying to oust the Egyptian regime played cat-and-mouse with cops on the streets into the early hours of Thursday, as unprecedented protests against Mubarak's 30-year rule entered a third day.

 
Prominent reform campaigner Mohamed El-Baradei, who lives in Vienna, was expected to return to Egypt on Thursday, an arrival that could galvanize protests that so far have lacked a leader.

 
At least six protetesters have died in clashes since they erupted on Tuesday. The protests, inspired by a popular revolt in Tunisia and unprecedented during Mubarak's strong-handed rule, have seen police fire rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators throwing rocks and petrol bombs.

 

 
In central Cairo on Wednesday demonstrators burned tires and hurled stones at police.

 
In Suez, protesters torched a government building. There, short before, a peaceful gathering turned violent at sunset when protesters threw rocks at a morgue where they were waiting for the body of a man killed a day earlier. Police broke up the crowd with tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition fired into the air.

 
Demonstrations continued well into the night. By the early hours of Thursday, smaller groups of protesters were still assembling in both cities and being chased off by police.


Protesters are promising to hold the biggest demonstrations yet on Friday after weekly prayers.


"Egypt's Muslims and Christians will go out to fight against corruption, unemployment and oppression and absence of freedom," wrote an activist on a Facebook page.

 
Protesters say they have seen demonstrators dragged away, beaten and shoved into police vans. The Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that 500 had been arrested. Since last night the number indreased to at least 850 people, according to the police. An independent coalition of lawyers said at least 1,500 were detained.

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

[1.25] 이집트:'혁명의 날'

Jan. 25, in Egypt:


"DAY OF REVOLUTION"


Yesterday's Guardian (UK) reported the following:


Egypt's authoritarian government is bracing itself for one of the biggest opposition demonstrations in recent years tomorrow, as thousands of protesters prepare to take to the streets demanding political reform...


An unlikely alliance of youth activists, political Islamists, industrial workers and hardcore football fans have pledged to join a nationwide "Day of Revolution (against torture, corruption, poverty and unemployment)" on a national holiday to celebrate the achievements of the police force...


Tomorrow's events were initiated by two dissident movements, both based online. One is dedicated to the memory of Khaled Said, an Alexandrian man beaten to death by police last year, while the other, "6 April", is a youth group named after the date of an uprising two years ago in the Nile delta town of El-Mahalla El-Kubra, in which three people were killed by police...


Today's reality on the Egyptian streets


At noon (local time/8pm KST) Reuters reported:


Hundreds of anti-government protesters are marching in the Egyptian capital chanting against President Hosni Mubarak and calling for an end to poverty. The demonstrators are singing the national anthem, carrying banners denouncing Mubarak and saying Egyptian elections are fraudulent. The protesters are heavily outnumbered by back-clad riot police, as security forces deployed in a massive operation across Cairo ahead of the first Tunisia-inspired rally in Egypt. No violence was immediately reported.


About one hour later J. Shenker, reporting for The Guardian, wrote the following:


Remarkable scenes in Cairo as thousands and thousands are marching with apparent freedom on the streets after years of seeing every anti-government protest immediately shut down by police. Riot troops are following close behind but seem uncertain as to what to do - three major demonstrations are now ongoing in different parts of the Egyptian capital, all of whom have broken through police cordons, but there seems to be little coordination between protest leaders about what to do next.
I'm downtown outside the offices of the government newspapers where hundreds are chanting 'Mubarak, your plane is waiting' and appealing for passers-by to join them, many of whom are taking up the offer.
Ahmed Ashraf, a 26 year old bank analyst, told me this was his first protest, and that he had been inspired by events in Tunisia. "We are the ones controlling the streets today, not the regime," he said. "I feel so free - things can't stay the same after this."


A half hour later Al-Masry al-Youm (Egypt intependend news organisation) reported the following:


After a short period of non-interference, Egyptian police have started to crack down on several protests in downtown Cairo.
On the Kasr al-Aini street, security forces cordoned off around 400 activists and started to beat those who tried to break in siege.
To the north, eyewitnesses said that the police have beaten several demonstrators who gathered in front of Cairo’s judicial complex.


And once again J. Shenker, just few minutes later:


Reports spreading of protesters attacking the council of ministers building downtown, while several thousands are marching towards Mubarak's presidential palace in Heliopolis. In Dar El Salaam, a densely-populated neighbourhood in southern Cairo, demonstrators claim they have taken over the police station...

 

 

Related (updated) reports:
Egypt protesters clash with police (al-Jazeera)
Live updates: Opposition groups protest... (al-Ahram)

 

PS: Two days ago an activist, involved in the preparation of today's "Revolution Day" vowed: ""It will be the start of something big!!"

 

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

(주말) 독서를 즐기다!!

"Enjoy" the weekend reading, although the subject is almost unbearable!!!
The following nasty feature has been published last Monday in Germany's notable (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel:


The Village Where the Neo-Nazis Rule


Hitler salutes in the street and firing practice in the forest: Neo-Nazis have taken over an entire village in Germany, and authorities appear to have given up efforts to combat the problem. The place has come to symbolize the far right's growing influence in parts of the former communist (i.e. "real socialist" and NOT communist!!) east.


Horst and Birgit Lohmeyer have been working on their life's dream for six years, renovating a house in the woods near Jamel, a tiny village near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Birgit Lohmeyer writes crime novels, her husband is a musician, and both try to pretend everything is normal here in Jamel.


It wasn't easy to find their new home. The Lohmeyers spent months driving out to the countryside every weekend, heading east from where they lived in Hamburg, but most of the houses they saw were too expensive. Then they came across the inexpensive red brick farmhouse in Jamel. Slightly run-down, but not far from the Baltic Sea, the house sits surrounded by lime and maple trees, near a lake.


The Lohmeyers knew that a notorious neo-Nazi lived nearby -- Sven Krüger, a demolition contractor and high-level member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). What the Lohmeyers didn't know was that other neighbors felt terrorized by Krüger. He and his associates were in the process of buying up the entire village.


Jamel is an example of the far-right problem that has plagued Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for years. The rural region, once part of communist East Germany, has a poor reputation in this regard -- the NPD, which glorifies the Third Reich, has been in the state parliament since 2006 and neo-Nazi crimes are part of daily life. In recent months, a series of attacks against politicians from all the democratic parties has shaken the state. Sometimes hardly a week goes by without an attack on another electoral district office, with paint bombs, right-wing graffiti and broken windows.


Norbert Nieszery, leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the state parliament, calls it an "early form of terror." Nieszery's own office windows have been smashed twice. State Interior Minister Lorenz Caffier of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) says he has registered a "new level" of right-wing extremist violence. He believes the NPD is trying to raise its profile through aggressive behavior ahead of the state parliament election in September. One local mayor requested police protection after receiving repeated right-wing threats. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, has warned that the NPD is becoming increasingly influential in local municipalities and that the neo-Nazis are trying to entrench themselves in daily life.


Mounting Concern About Far-Right Influence


Nowhere have they succeeded as well as in Jamel. If the right-wing extremists left, the village would be empty. Jamel is no longer just a problem at the regional or federal state level -- even Berlin is growing concerned about the situation.


SPD member Wolfgang Thierse, vice president of Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag, visited the village a few months ago. He spent half an hour in the Lohmeyers' living room and promised to support them in their fight against the neo-Nazis. So far, nothing has changed. Jamel has come to symbolize the fact that there are places in Germany where right-wing extremists can do virtually whatever they want.


When the Lohmeyers moved here in 2004, they started to fix up their country house and to make contact with the neighbors -- although not with the neo-Nazi Krüger. They were sure right-wing extremists wouldn't be the only people in Jamel.


Only gradually did they realize just where they had ended up. Plaster crumbled from many of the houses in the village and one roof had collapsed completely. Beer bottles, car tires and gas canisters were littered behind the bus stop. There were metal fences surrounding some properties and attack dogs strained against their chains in the front yards. No one bothered to remove the swastika scribbled on the sign at the entrance to the village.


Children Giving Hitler Salute


There were young men with shaved heads and army trousers in the village and Nazi rock music could be heard from across the fields on the weekends. Shots sounded from the woods, where the neo-Nazis practiced their shooting -- police later found bullet casings in trenches there. When the Lohmeyers walked through the village, children raised their hands in the Nazi salute.


Krüger has shaped the village. He grew up here, with a father who was known as a right-wing radical and who used to make his son salute each morning in the snow. Young Krüger was an outsider at school, an acquaintance remembers, and didn't find friends until he joined the skinhead scene. As a young man, he incited right-wing thugs to attack a campsite and spent time in pre-trial detention on suspicion of burglary. Still, for a long time, the Krügers were the only neo-Nazis in the village.


"Now," says Horst Lohmeyer, "they see Jamel as a 'nationally liberated zone'" -- a neo-Nazi term for places foreigners and those of foreign descent must fear to tread. The extremists took over the village in just a few years. They now own seven of the 10 houses and have driven out anyone who couldn't come to terms with them. They battered down doors and broke windows, slashed tires, flew the German imperial war flag and celebrated Hitler's birthday. In the 1990s, they stuck dead chickens on one family's garden fence with the warning, "We'll smoke you out."


The village emptied and Krüger encouraged his right-wing friends to buy the available houses. Few others dared to venture into Jamel anymore. Neo-Nazis greeted one couple that wanted to move there with "Piss off" -- and the couple's house burned down shortly before they planned to move in. One new property owner dared to set foot in the village only accompanied by police.


The Lohmeyers have made it their life's work not to let themselves be driven out of Jamel. Each year, they host a rock festival on a field behind their house. Governor Erwin Sellering of the SPD has been patron of the festival since 2009. Police fence in the area and guard the entrance, and in past years, things remained largely calm.


Help is Far Away


This summer, though, neo-Nazis jumped over the fence, yelling slurs and attacking concertgoers. Police stepped in and stopped the troublemakers. But police can't always protect the Lohmeyers -- the nearest station is 12 kilometers away.


Horst Lohmeyer sits in his kitchen, bent over a map, and runs his finger along the roads and through the towns -- Gressow, Neu Degtow, Grevesmühlen. It takes a quarter of an hour to reach the nearest police station. When Krüger got married this summer, the village was inundated with several hundred right-wing extremists from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, including a number of high-ranking NPD politicians such as Stefan Köster, NPD party head for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.


Jamel has become a right-wing pilgrimage site -- they come from all over Europe to see the village where neo-Nazis call the shots. They celebrated Krüger's wedding until late in the night, with nationalist rock music and fireworks. The Lohmeyers lay awake in bed, frozen with fear.


Mayor Uwe Wandel is helpless in the face of the right-wing movement in his community. He sounds bitter when he talks about Jamel. "The police, the authorities, no one dares to intervene," he says. "The Nazis are laughing in our faces." Wandel says he has repeatedly asked the state government for help. The interior minister and a parliamentary delegation came by one time, he adds. "They stayed for 20 minutes, expressed concern -- then they left again."


No One Responsible


Jamel has become a lawless place, Wandel complains, and the authorities don't take decisive enough action against the right-wing extremists. He says Krüger is allowed to dump demolition waste and burn trash in the village with impunity. The head of the department of public order in nearby Grevesmühlen says higher-level officials at the district level need to tackle the problem. They in turn say the local authority is responsible for Jamel.


Krüger, meanwhile, has much bigger plans. He has been a member of the district council for the NPD since 2009 and has bought parts of a concrete factory in Grevesmühlen, which he uses for his NPD office and his demolition company. The company logo shows the outline of a Star of David being smashed; the slogan is, "We do the dirty work." Barbed wire encloses the factory premises and dogs bark. A sign above the entrance reads, "Better dead than a slave." Krüger prefers not to comment on the accusations against him. All he says is, "Nothing that's written about me is true. I don't stand a chance against the system."


Krüger has hired new employees in the last few months. He gets contracts from fellow members of the far-right scene, but also from local businesses. Mayor Wandel says he's appalled by how far these right-wing structures now extend. "I'm afraid of a second, third, fourth Jamel," he says.


Neo-Nazis placed a boulder at the entrance to the village. A plaque attached to the rock reads, "Village of Jamel - free, social, national." Signs next to it point the way to Hitler's birthplace ("Braunau am Inn 855 km") and to the formerly German cities of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) and Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). No one has removed the rock. "We've given up on Jamel," Wandel says.


Only the Lohmeyers are left.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,737471,00.html

 

 

진보블로그 공감 버튼트위터로 리트윗하기페이스북에 공유하기딜리셔스에 북마크

'가자 청년 성명서'

GAZA YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE


An anonymous group of young people, men and women, in Gaza have issued a manifesto what they called "Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change" to vent their anger about the current situation in Palestine, especially the Gaza Strip. On Facebook, the group calls itself "Gaza Youth Breaks Out" (*).


One activist explained "We are supposed to be the engine of change in this society, but our voices are muted. In the press, at university, there is no room in our society to talk freely, out of the frame, without putting yourself and your family at risk," He adds: "In Gaza, you feel watched at school, in the streets, everywhere. You can be thrown into jail at any time. [Hamas] will threaten you with ruining your family reputation and that would be it."


These youngsters do not represent anybody except themselves, but their call for change has resonated strongly, not only abroad but also inside Gaza. Their Facebook page already has thousands of supporters.


Here you can read the full text of the "Manifesto":


Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck the UN. Fuck the USA!

 
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

 
We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.

 
We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

 
There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope. The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened 30rd November, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working. A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

 
We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them? We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war. We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

 
History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

 
We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

 
We want three things:

 
We want to be free!
We want to be able to live a normal life!
We want peace!


Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.


This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

 
We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect. We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under. We will build dreams where we meet walls.


We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.

 
FREE GAZA YOUTH!

 


* For more info please check out:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679

 

 

Related article:
Gazan youth issue manifesto... (Guardian, 1.02)


 


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