Krisanne Johnson’s “I love you real fast”

I intended to put up a post about funding Krisanne Johnson’s amazing Swaziland work via Kickstarters, but her work is already funded. She’s that good. The money was raised prior to the deadline so she’ll be headed back there soon to continue work on I love you real fast. UPDATE: She’s also continuing to collect funds so as to have additional resources for her upcoming trip.

Her project “chronicles young women coming of age amidst the H.I.V/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland. Coming of age for Swazi girls is tough. A tiny African kingdom of 1 million, Swaziland reports the highest percentage of H.I.V positive people in the world, with the hardest hit being women aged 15-29.” The images are startling - both intimate and universal, and a testament to the power of visual storytelling in the hands of a committed documentarian. Be sure to check out her work, and if she needs funding anytime in the future and and head over there and make a donation. I can’t think of a better way to spend $10.

2011-12 Contest

The 2011-12 Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, offering $1500 and publication with Starcherone Books, will begin accepting entries October 1, 2010

Contest is open to story collections, novels, or indeterminate prose works up to 400 pages. Manuscripts will be blind-judged; the author's name should appear on the first of two title pages and nowhere else in the manuscript. There is an administrative fee of $35. Please do not send cash. The postmark deadline is February 15, 2011. The winner will be announced in August 2011. All finalists will be considered for publication with Starcherone Books. See our ad in the January-February 2011 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

 

Final Judge Zachary Mason

We are thrilled to have as judge for our prize for innovative fiction not only a previous winner of the prize but an author whose first novel "is on many critics' short-lists for literary debut of the decade" (Buffalo News), Zachary Mason. Mason's acclaimed novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey won our 4th prize competition in 2007. Now out in a second edition from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, The Lost Books has been acclaimed described as a "dazzling debut ... stunning and hypnotic," by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times, and has been lauded in the Wall Street Journal, The London Review of Books, and practically everywhere else. Now, Zachary returns to help Starcherone find our newest prizewinner.

As Final Judge, Mason will make his selection out of a group of 5-10 finalists selected by our staff readers, and may request additional manuscripts from which to choose a winner.

As always, one manuscript will be selected as winner of our prize. Starcherone does not believe in holding competitions that do not select a winning book.

 

Entry Directions

Snail Mail
There will be a reading fee of $35. Please do not send cash. The contest is blind-judged, so the author's name and contact information should appear on title page and nowhere else in manuscript. (Please also remove mentions of previous excerpt publications from manuscripts; do not include acknowledgment pages.) A second title page with only the manuscript title should also be included. Please mail to:
STARCHERONE FICTION PRIZE, Starcherone Books, P.O. Box 303, Buffalo, NY 14201-0303

Electronic
Send your reading fee of $35 to the above snail mail address. Then send your manuscript as an email attachment to publisher@starcherone.com. Please send the manuscript either as an Adobe pdf file or an MS Word file. In your email, give your name and contact information, as well as the title of your manuscript and a short author bio/publication history. Include only the title on your manuscript, with no mention of the author's name. If you wish, include a self-addressed postcard for notification that we have received both your manuscript and fee, as well as the SASE for contest results. Any questions may also be referred to publisher@starcherone.com.

 

Special Offer

a great book and
contest entry
$49.95

Purchase online our most recent contest-winning title, Alissa Nutting's Unclean Jobs for Women & Girls, through this Buy Now offer and we'll enter you in our contest as well -- all for $49.95, which includes postage and handling (altogether, a $59 value)! You can also take advantage of this offer via US mail by sending a $49.95 check or money order to the above address. (Note: if you'd like to take advantage of this special offer and already own this title, you may substitute another Starcherone title -- simply add a note on your PayPal order and we'll make the substitution.)

 

 

Fine Print

Statements on Ethics
We endorse and agree to comply with the following statement on Contest Ethics released by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses in 2005. Starcherone Books helped develop this statement during virtual roundtable discussions facilitated by CLMP in the summer of 2005:
CLMP's community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to
1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines -- defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and
3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public.

This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.

Our statements defining conflict of interest situations:
1) The winner of the Starcherone Fiction Prize cannot be someone whose work that year's Final Judge recognizes during the blind final-judging process.
2) In order that the best manuscript in the contest not be penalized simply because a Final Judge recognizes some aspect of the writing or deduces the author's identity based upon some circumstantial fact, Starcherone agrees to offer to publish the best manuscript received in our contest each year, even if this book is disqualified from winning our Prize. In such a circumstance, the Final Judge agrees to choose a second book as the winner of the Prize, in accordance with #1, above.
3) If anyone knows of any conflict of interest influencing a result in our contest, please make us aware of it and we will investigate and report our findings. Contest fees will be refunded upon request.
4) We ask that contestants realize we are a volunteer-run non-profit, and need the receipts of our contest in order to pursue our mission to seek the best innovative fiction and publish it for the purpose of public education in the art and appreciation of serious fiction. Our contest fees cover costs related to administering our contest and printing and publicizing the winning book only. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, financial statements which verify these statements are subject to federal review.

 

 

 

Chapbook Contest Guidelines

 Each year Gertrude Press publishes two chapbooks; one fiction and one poetry. These attractive collections will include a unique cover in a limited press run. Submit your work for consideration!

Writer Compensation:
$50 cash award
50 complimentary copies of the chapbook

You can purchase chapbooks online here. Chapbooks will be distributed to subscribers, libraries, and bookstores carrying Gertrude, the Press’ annual literary journal.

Poetry Chapbook Guidelines:

• Submit 16-20 pages of poetry via surface mail only.
• Indicate which poems have been previously published and by whom. Unpublished poems are welcome.
• Poetry may be of any subject matter and writers from all backgrounds are encouraged to submit.
• Include a cover letter and SASE for notification. For manuscript returns, please include exact postage.
• Indicate how you learned of the contest in your cover letter.
• Include a $15 submission fee payable to Gertrude Press.
• Submissions accepted beginning August 1, 2010 until February 15, 2011 (postmark deadline).

Fiction Chapbook Guidelines:

• Submit 16-20 pages of short fiction or a self-contained novel excerpt via surface mail only.
• Indicate which selections have been previously published and by whom. Unpublished pieces are welcome.
• Fiction may be of any subject matter and writers from all backgrounds are encouraged to submit.
• Include a cover letter and SASE for notification. For manuscript returns, please include exact postage.
• Indicate how you learned of the contest in your cover letter.
• Include a $15 submission fee payable to Gertrude Press.
• Submissions accepted beginning August 1, 2010 until February 15, 2011 (postmark deadline).

Please send all submissions to:
Gertrude Press
PO Box 83948
Portland OR 97283

Winners will be announced by September 1, 2011.

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

2011 NEW WOMEN’S VOICES CHAPBOOK COMPETITION

A prize of $1,000 and publication for a chapbook-length poetry collection. Open to women who have never before published a full-length poetry collection. Previous chapbook publication does not disqualify. International entries are welcome. Multiple submissions are accepted. Final judge to be announced. All entries will be considered for publication. The top-ten finalists will be offered publication. Submit up to 26 pages of poetry, PLUS bio, acknowledgments, SASE and cover letter with a $15 entry fee (pay by check, money order or pay online to pay using your credit card at http://finishinglinepress.com/submissionguidelines.htm)Deadline: Feb. 15, 2011 (DEADLINE)

NWV

Finishing Line Press
P O Box 1626
Georgetown, KY 40324

 

To pay reading fee with this button (please print out confirmation and mail with submission) :

finishingbooks@aol.com" type="hidden" /> finishingbooks@aol.com" type="hidden" />

If you prefer, it is fine to send a check or money order with your submission

instead of using the buy now button.

All manuscripts are selected by editorial process.  Response time is 3-6 months.

A self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) with the correct postage must accompany all manuscripts. A SASE is needed for any kind of response, even if the writer does not want the material returned.

A good photocopy of the manuscript or a computer printout, rather than the original, should be sent. Finishing Line Press is not responsible for lost manuscripts.

Paris Review: The Art of Fiction

The “Paris Review” has one of the best collections of interviews with authors–and A to Z list, all available online . Among the dozens and dozens of mostly white writers featured, I spotted only five black writers–the Americans Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and John Edgar Wideman as well as the Nigerian, Chinua Achebe. There’s also an interview with the white South African writer, Nadine Gordimer.

 More on the Americans later.

The two-part interview with Gordimer (in between inane questions such as “Do you have seasons in South Africa, or is it hot all year round?”) reveals that, indeed, she seems to have “distill[ed] passion” in the “forty-odd years” that she’s been a writer. We learn that her mother, stuck in an unhappy marriage, called the doctor in frequently to look in on this delicate daughter: it was Gordimer’s mother’s way of carrying on an unconsummated love affair. She was prevented from any physical activity, including dance, for which she  had a passion; and taken out of school altogether at 11: she became “a little old woman.”

But it’s Achebe’s vivid humour that got my attention.

Achebe’s interview takes place at his home in upstate New York – he appears in “traditional Nigerian clothes,” reminding the interviewer, Jerome Brooks, more of the “priest in Arrow of God than Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart.” (Someone should tell Brooks about Yinka Shonibare’s Dutch wax cotton work.)

Achebe talks about how he “foolishly” sent his manuscript (handwritten, and the only copy there was in the world) for Things Fall Apart to a typing agency in London – one that was advertised in the Spectator – because he’d “learned that if you really want to make a good impression, you should have your manuscript well typed.” They charged him thirty-two pounds, and never replied, though he write them over and over, getting “thinner and thinner and thinner.” Finally, his boss at the broadcasting house, a Mrs. Beattie, went to check up on the manuscript while she was on leave in London. The frightened typing house finally sent him one copy – with no explanation. He sent it to Heinemann – who had “never seen an African novel.” At John Mcrae (a professor at the London School of Economics, who had “just come back from those places”)’s urging, they published a few copies – it was a risk.

And that was how the Heinemann African Writer’s Series came into being.

As for the African-American writers, there are some surprises. Among the usual annoying questions that writers usually hate to be asked (“What is your creative process?”), there are gems of unintended hilarity and insight. Angelou’s interview, conducted by George Plimpton on the stage of the YMHA on Manhattan’s upper East Side, reveals that she has “kept a hotel room in every town [she’s] ever lived in.” She insists that all decorations are removed – no tacky paintings of milkmaids or flowers –“nothing to “hold [her] to anything”. She wants nothing in the room changed for the duration of her stay – not even the sheets (though the hotel staff tell her that the sheets must be getting mouldy). She leaves home at six, and writes while lying across the bed, till about 12:30 or 1:30.  She has a “proper, quiet, lovely dinner”; she is a “serious cook”. And on language itself, she says that though she can “mumble around in about seven or eight languages,” it is still English that draws her with its ability to “do anything” – she reads the Psalms, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gerard Manly Hopkins, Shakespeare, Poe, or James Weldon Johnson not so she can “imitate” them, but to “remind [her] what a glorious language [English] is” before she might begin a day of writing. What she hates? Being called a “natural writer” – for Angeou, those are the critics whom she wants to “grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor” because “it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.”

It is the black American minister’s voice she still hears, melodying sentences like “God stepped out, the sun over his right shoulder, the moon nestling on in the palm of his hand” – it is this voice that helped her formulate lyrics during the years in which she was mute, after her rape, and the subsequent killing of her rapist. Here, we also realise how ill prepared Plimpton is for the interview: he does not have a clue that Angelou was raped, or that she did not speak for some years of her life. When Angelou refers to those years, Plimpton asks, dumbly, “Mute?” Angelou graciously explains, and adds, “Of course, I’ve written about this in the Caged Bird”.

Morrison uses number two pencils to write her first drafts, and can switch from “raging about the violence in the United States to gleefully skewering the hosts of trash TV talk shows though which she confesses to channel surfing sometimes…punctuating her sonorous, deep voice” with “rumbling laughter,” smacking her hand on the desktop.

John Edgar Wideman is introduced as “a big man” who, “though slightly stooped at sixty…still has a basketball player’s body – long arms, huge hands, legs that seem to rise nearly to his chest” before the interviewer speaks about “the rhythms and cadences of black vernacular and music” in Wideman’s work. Yes, the author loves basketball – but from this introduction, you might think it’s some tamed version of Bigger Thomas writing poetry here. Plus, there’s some pointed questions (vaguely connected to Wideman’s focus on the “political”) about Wideman’s brother being in jail, and about his son, who is also in prison for murder – the author says, simply, “My son doesn’t like me to talk about his situation, so I don’t. Period.”

Jame’s Baldwin’s interview, by Jordan Elgrably, is more nuanced, focusing on the author’s “explosive relationship with himself and America,” and the city of Paris, where he first came to grips with the complexities he would have to face. We find that he writes in longhand, because it allows one to “achieve shorter declarative sentences.” Baldwin also speaks freely about the much ado made of his sometimes-antagonistic relationship with Richard Wright, and his criticism of Native Son – on a “technical objection”: “I could not accept the performance of the lawyer at the end of the book…I think it was simply absurd to talk about this monster created by the American public, and then expect the public to save it!” If anything, “the American way” says Baldwin, is not to “recognize it [the monster]” but to “destroy it.” However, he is insistent that he reserves “utmost respect” for Wright’s work – especially his posthumously published novel, Lawd Today (Baldwin tells the interviewer to “look it up”).–Neelika Jayawardane.

Louis Reyes Rivera,

an Exclusive Interview, November 1st, 2010

http://peaceandjustice2005.blogspot.com/

Louis Reyes Rivera,
an Exclusive Interview, November 1st, 2010 

ab: Louis, what's new? 

Louis: I just got a phone call yesterday (October 31) from the interim Program Director at WBAI (Tony Bates) informing me that, as of the week of November 15, 2010, I will no longer be hosting my weekly radio program. 

ab: What were the reasons given for your dismissal? 

Louis: I was informed simply that changes in programming were being made and that with the new grid (i.e., the programming schedule) in place, I was not on it and my program would no longer be aired.

I'd be allowed two final segments and that after the 15th, that's it.

 I asked if I could be given a different time slot (my show airs from 2 to 3 p.m., on Thursdays).

The answer was a resounding, No!

You won't be on the air at all. 

ab: Please tell us about the reasons for the firing and about your program on WBAI. 

Louis: It's got nothing to do with quality or performance.

I've been at WBAI hosting a weekly show, "Perspective," for nine years with a focus on a blending of the arts and the social politic that drives the artist.

With this format and a concentration on both poetry and Jazz, I've been able to interview poets, journalists, novelists, social activists, librarians, arts administrators and educators, promoters, social activists, musicians, composers, et al.

"Perspective" is the only Arts program that does this.

 In addition, I've brought to the station live bands (as many as 22-person orchestras) to perform on the air at no cost to the station.

In addition, I'm among the very few producers with direct ties to performing artists, and I've produced a number of programs that featured contemporary poets, Spoken Word Artists, etc., as specials. 

I've had the youngest performers (as young as six years old) and among the elders in arts (as old as 86 and still working).

In effect, by the time WBAI would be finished with me, I'd have established a genuine oral history of this period in relation to both the performing arts and the social activism that drives them.

In effect, throughout its nine-year stint, "Perspective" has enjoyed a huge following (relative to the station's listener base) from the New York Greater Metropolitan Area.  

As well, you should know that I have served as one of the five Shop Stewards of the Unpaid Staff Organizing Committee, the contractual union for all unpaid staff, for the past seven years.

Please take note that the staff at WBAI consists of less than 40 paid employees covered under AFTRA and well over 200 unpaid employees who have no other bargaining voice outside of USOC.

The overwhelmingly majority of those 200 are the producers and staff of the programs aired.   

ab: What do you believe led to your being dismissed?   

Louis: It happens that, this year, I ran for one of the staff representative positions serving on WBAI's local station board (the station's basic governing body).

One of the requirements for running was to submit a 500-word statement on my candidacy.

I did so and in an unfettered manner. 

Consequently, my statement was the only one of eight that was literally censored [see below -- ab] and not permitted to be posted in full on the station's web page for three weeks.   

I pursued a series of email exchanges with the National Election Supervisor over this censorship.

Eventually (three weeks later), she recanted her earlier position and posted my full statement fully restored back on the WBAI web page.

  You should know that, along with four other sister-stations, WBAI is owned and governed by the Pacifica Foundation and that, roughly two years ago, a reactionary moderate-right wing had won a new majority on both the Pacifica National Board and WBAI's Local Station Board.

Since then, more than 21 people have been eliminated from the several sister stations, a dozen of which were from WBAI alone.   

During the course of this year's election and the events surrounding the censorship of my candidate's statement, the National Election Supervisor met with the Pacifica Election Committee (a network-wide committee).

The committee raised questions concerning the censoring of my candidate's statement.

At that meeting, the Election Supervisor accused me of perpetuating lies (she described my statement as consisting of a bunch of lies).

When pushed by the committee to explain the basis for such an accusation, she admitted that her information was based on what she was told by both Pacifica's Chief Financial Officer and its interim Executive Director -- in short, that each of the censored sections of my statement had been deleted by her (subject to my rewriting those sections) at the direction of these two Pacifica executives.

This, of course, is a violation of election guidelines and Pacifica by-laws regarding the conduct of the NES and its fairness doctrine.

The Elections Committee members were outraged, to say the least.

She was instructed by the committee to produce a copy of my candidate's statement so that its members could evaluate my statement themselves.

Immediately after that meeting was adjourned, the election supervisor notified me that my statement had been fully restored and downloaded onto WBAI's web page for all staff to read.

The meeting, by the way, was taped.

So, it's easy to verify. When election results were finally announced, it happens that I did too well in the first round ballot count to be ignored...

Enough people voted me as their number one choice to raise all manner of eyebrows.

Both my candidacy and the election results speak to the fact that I do have support among the producers.   

The short of it is this: I almost won a full seat and did garner enough votes to place me as the First Alternate.

The moment a staff representative vacates any one of the staff seats, I automatically take office.

In such a position, I become too much of an intimidating factor. 

 Couple this with the fact that I refused to water down my candidate's statement, and that all of the staff, paid and unpaid alike, was able to read it in its entirety, the obvious becomes eventual -- get rid of Rivera. 

 It boils down to basic arithmetic. 

As it stands now, the right of center wing that now constitutes a majority numbers 13 out of 24. If I take my seat, the left wing minority increases its weight to a 12/12 distribution.

Any single one of the truly independent board members on the LSB would turn the tide against right-wing policies.

This would conceptually alter the template.   

ab: What by-laws can you turn to that would make your removal subject to review, etc.? 

Louis: The answer is about process and the extent to which we willingly accept violation of due process.

Before any program can be removed, it must be reviewed by a Program Council that consists of all affected parties (the unpaid staff, the administrators, members of the Local Station Board).

No one can arbitrarily remove or change programming.

This is written in stone and can be accessed via the Internet.

 I was not evaluated. 

No Program Council has met to discuss changes in the schedule, my programming skills and personal/professional contacts have not been assessed, and, more importantly, neither USOC Shop Stewards nor LSB members have been consulted prior to the action.

Of course, I'm not the only one who's being arbitrarily removed, and that's the central issue. 

These changes are rooted in a right wing agenda flavored with serious vindictive motives that are both detrimental to the station and to the Foundation.  

Understand that Pacifica is supported by its listeners at each of the five sister stations (Los Angeles, Berkeley, Houston, Washington, D.C., New York).

Accordingly, it is governed by those local station boards -- i.e., those who are elected to act on behalf of the listeners. That's what makes all of this subject to scrutiny and objection.

No one can be simply removed from the air without due process and without adherence to both by-laws and contractual agreements.    

ab: What can the community do to support you in this struggle?

Louis:

One: listeners and supporters can call WBAI and demand that my program and I be placed back on the air.

The phone number is 212.209.2800.   

Two: they can email the following people to insist that due process is adhered to, that all program changes should be tabled until their own by-laws are followed, and to insist that the decision to dismiss me be rescinded:   

Program Director at WBAI/ Tony Bates at tony@wbai.org;

The Pacifica National Board at pnb@pacifica.org, 

The interim General Manager at WBAI, Bertolt Reimers at breimers62@earthlink.net ,

The Chairperson of WBAI's Local Station Board atmitchelcohen@mindspring.com, 

Justice and Unity at info@justiceunity.org ,

and the Coalition to Take Back WBAI at info@takebackwbai.org . 

Pacifica supporters, particularly in New York can accompany their insistence with the promise of continued financial support and with the threat of ceasing to continue to support the station directly because its managers are in direct violation of both the Pacifica Mission and its own by-laws. 

 The point here is that both Pacifica and its five stations are supported by subscriptions donated to the stations.

Thus, WBAI, et al, are virtually owned by its listeners (its stockholders), who are duly represented by those who sit on the Local Station Board. 

Arbitrary governance is directly against the interests of those stockholders, and each of the five LSBs have an obligation to both the respective station and its listener base. 

ab: Louis, thanks so much for taking the time to inform the community of this development. 

Louis: And thank you for allowing me this opportunity. 

http://peaceandjustice2005.blogspot.com/

Behind the cholera epidemic

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 02:48PM

This is an emergency

Cholera is killing at least one person every 30 minutes in Haiti.

Over 2,000 people, and probably many more, succumbed to cholera during the first six weeks of the epidemic. Almost 100,000 people reached hospitals, but countless others never made it due to the country’s abysmal roads and lack of adequate health centers. On Dec. 17, the offical number of dead stood at 2,535, with a 2 percent fatality rate.

Killed by cholera? Or by the lack of clean water and sanitation? Photo taken from the "On The Goatpath" blog entry that documents how victims are buried in mass graves.

But in the Grande Anse, fatality is more like 12 percent. Sick people there are carried on a piece of plywood for up to four hours to the one clinic by groups of men, the victims’s diarreah and vomit running off the plank and onto the bearers and the paths, infecting new communities along the way.

Near the capital, a giant, unlined, uncovered “excreta pool” [front page of this dossier] contains thousands of gallons of feces, some of it likely infected with cholera. The pool a mile or so from the Bay of Port-au-Prince, and on top of the Plaine de Cul de Sac aquifer.

Anywhere from 200,000 to up to a million people will get the illness – and thousands will die – before cholera is eradicated, or rather, if it is eradicated.

Hasn’t this been covered already?

Many news reports have covered the outbreak already.

They’ve investigated who brought cholera to the Haiti. They’ve discussed how cholera is “ravaging” the country, written countless stories about elections, protests, and other events all “in the time of cholera,” in the “beleagured” and “stricken” Haiti. This piece on Palin jammed both adjectives into the title, saying she visited “earthquake-ravaged, cholera-striken Haiti.” The use of the passive voice makes it seem as though these ravages and strikes happen all on their own, like a lightening bolt.

But they don’t.

And not all Haitians face the same risks. Cholera is a disease of the poor, of the disenfranchised. Poor people in poor countries. Cholera thrives where there is no clean water, where there is inadequate sanitation, where there are poor health systems.

Cholera epidemics since 2000. The Lancet, vol. 376, 11-12-2010.

While it’s now clear that UN soldiers likely brought Vibrio cholera to Haiti, and while it is also clear that good health care, access to a clean water and sanitation, good hygiene practices  and a vaccine can keep it at bay, it’s not clear how to achieve all of that before many thousands more die.

And even if cholera is beaten, dozens of other waterborne diseases threaten Haiti. According to the World Health organization, every year 1.4 million people die from waterborne diseases – about four per minute – most as a result of unsafe and inadequate water and sanitation.

Haiti Grassroots Watch decided to dig into the why and the how of Haiti’s “ravaged” and “striken” situation and asked

•    Why has cholera taken hold so easily?
•    Why don’t Haitians have access to clean water and adequate sanitation?
•    And if all $164 million the UN is seeking is rounded up and cholera eradicated, what will keep another water-borne disease from sweeping ghrough the country?

Read:

•    Excreta
•    The Water Problem
•    From Emergency to Self-Sufficiency?

 

Watch:

Haiti Grassroots Watch - Ayiti Kale Je | Post a Comment | Share Article

via haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com

Cholera Forces Haiti to Face Sewage Dilemma
By Correspondents*

A"desludging truck" shoots excreta into the pit at Trutier.  Credit:WASH Cluster, Haiti

Haiti lynch mobs murder 45 accused of spreading cholera with sorcery

 

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 4:23 PM on 23rd December 2010

 

•  Comments (0)
•  Add to My Stories

 

Lynch mobs have murdered 45 people in Haiti after accusing them of spreading cholera by using sorcery.

Most of the victims have been hacked to death with machetes or stoned in the streets before their killers set fire to their corpses.

The savage scenes have occurred across the earthquake-ravaged island over the last week.

Prosecutor Kesner Numa said that the dead were accused of spreading the disease in regions which had been unaffected by the outbreak to date.

Murdered: The body of Ti Panyol, described as a mystic activist, after an attack by a machete-wielding mob

'We have had cases every day since last week,' he said 'People really believe that witches are taking advantage of the cholera epidemic to kill.'

Forty of the murders have been in the Grand Anse region, in the far south-west of Haiti.

While 2,500 people had died across the island since cholera broke out in mid-October, the area had been the least affected to date.

 

More...

• A new hope: Hundreds of Haitian children given chance of fresh start with adopted French families

 

Police say many communities are refusing to co-operate with investigations.

Voodoo is widespread in Haiti with at least half of the population practicing the religion in some form.

But the island's catastrophic misfortunes over the last 12 months have caused a backlash against its practitioners.  

 

Epidemic: Cholera victims rest at the hospital Medecins sans Frontieres in Sarthe, a suburb in the north of Port-au-Prince

Victims of the lynch mobs have included a number of so-called sorcerers and mystics.

Haiti, already one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, was left crippled by a massive earthquake in January. An estimated 250,000 died in the Haiti. 

More than a million people are still living in tent cities dotted across the landscape. 

Despite millions of pounds of aid pouring in from around the world, very little has been done to either clear the devastation or begun reconstruction. 

The terrible conditions have provided an ideal crucible for the water-borne disease to spread. Aid agencies have been fighting a desperate battle against the cholera outbreak which has already claimed many lives. So far 121,51 have been treated for the disease.

Desperate battle: A worker with a protective mask and clothing stands outside the hospital of Medecins sans Frontieres

 

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Wikileaks, analysis and speculative fiction

_____________________________

Who's Who at Wikileaks? by Julie Lévesque
Global Research, December 20, 2010
Global Research Editor`s Note Progressive organizations have praised the Wikileaks endeavor. Our own website Global Research has provided extensive coverage of the Wikileaks data banks and their implications, particularly with regard to US-NATO war crimes.   The Wikileaks Project is heralded as an immeasurable victory against corporate media censorship, without examining its organizational structure.  A distinction should be made between the Wikileaks data banks, which constitute a valuable source of information in their own right, and the mechanisms whereby the leaks, used as source material by the corporate media, are transformed into news.  Wikileaks from the outset has collaborated closely with several mainstream media.  This article by Julie Lévesque focusses on the nature and organizational structures of the Wikleak project.   “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” --Franklin D. Roosevelt After the publication of a series of confirmations rather than revelations, there are some crucial unanswered questions regarding the nature and organizational structure of Wikileaks.  Shrouded in secrecy, the now famous whistleblowing site and its director Julian Assange are demanding "transparency" from governments and corporations around the world while failing to provide some basic information pertaining to Wikileaks as an organization.    Who is Julian Assange? In the introduction to the book Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (1997), by Julian Assange and Suelette Dreyfus, Assange begins with the following quotes:   "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." -- Oscar Wilde   "What is essential is invisible to the eye." -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery   From the start, Assange states that he undertook the research for the book; however, he fails to mention that he was actually one of the hackers analyzed in the book, going by the name of Mendax, a Latin word for “lying, false...”.  Although we cannot confirm that the above quotes referred to him, they nonetheless suggest that Assange, at the time, was hiding his true identity.  We know very little about the cryptographer Julian Assange. He is indeed very cryptic when it comes to revealing who he is and where he worked prior to the Wikileaks project. On the list of board members published previously by Wikileaks, we can read that Julian Assange:   n  has “attended 37 schools and 6 universities”, none of which are mentioned by name; n  is “Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker”. A court case from 1996 cited abundantly in the mainstream press isavailable on the Australasian Legal Information Institute. Contrary to all the other cases listed on the afore mentioned link, the full text of Assange’s case is not available; n  “in the first prosecution of its type... [he] defended a case in the supreme court for his role as the editor of an activist electronic magazine”. The name of the magazine, the year of the prosecution, the country where it took place are not mentioned; n  allegedly founded “'Pickup' civil rights group for children”. No information about this group seems to be available, other than in reports related to Wikileaks. We don’t know if it still exists, where it is located and what are its activities. n   “studied mathematics, philosophy and neuroscience”. We don’t know where he studied or what his credentials are; n  “has been a subject of several books and documentaries”. If so, why not mention at least one of them?   One could indeed argue that Assange wishes to remain anonymous in order to protect himself, the whistleblowers and/or the members of his organization. On the other hand, he cannot realistically expect people to trust him blindly if they do not know who he really is.   The most interesting thing about Julian Assange is that his former employers remain unknown. His bio states that he is a “prolific programmer and consultant for many open-source projects and his software is used by most large organizations and is inside every Apple computer”. Was he working freelance? Who did he work for?   An old email exchange from 1994 between Julian Assange and NASA award winner Fred Blonder raises questions regarding Assange’s professional activities prior to launching Wikileaks. This exchange is available on the website of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:   Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 03:59:19 +0100 From: Julian Assange <proff@suburbia.apana.org.au> To: Fred Blonder <fred@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov> Cc: karl@bagpuss.demon.co.uk, Quentin.Fennessy@sematech.org,         fred@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov, mcn@c3serve.c3.lanl.gov, bugtraq@fc.net In-Reply-To: <199411171611.LAA04177@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov> On Thu, 17 Nov 1994, Fred Blonder wrote: [EXCERPT]   >          From: Julian Assange <proff@suburbia.apana.org.au> > >                     . >          Of course, to make things really interesting, we could have n files, >          comprised of n-1 setuid/setgid scripts and 1 setuid/setgid binary, with >          each script calling the next as its #! argument and the last calling the >          binary. ;-) > > The '#!' exec-hack does not work recursively. I just tried it under SunOs 4.1.3 > It generated no diagnostics and exited with status 0, but it also didn't execute > the target binary.... > Proff   Julian Assange's e-mail to Fred Blonder was sent to an address ending with “nasirc.hq.nasa.gov”, namely NASA. The e-mail was also sent (cc) to Michael C. Neuman, a computer expert at  Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), New Mexico, a premier national security research institution, under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Energy.    At the time, Fred Blonder was working on a cyber security programme called “NASA Automated Systems Incident Response Capability” (NASIRC), for which he won the NASA Group Achievement Award in 1995. A report from June 2, 1995 explains:   NASIRC has significantly elevated agency-wide awareness of serious evolving threats to NASA's computer/network systems through on-going threat awareness briefings and in-depth technical workshop sessions and through intercenter communications and cooperation relating to the responsive and timely sharing of incident information and tools and techniques. (Valerie L. Thomas, “NASIRC Receives NASA Group Award”, National Space Science Data Center, June 2, 1995)   Is there any relation between Assange’s prosecution for hacking in 1996 and this exchange?  Was he collaborating with these institutions?  For example, in his e-mail, Assange updates Blonder on his work, referring to “other platforms I have not as yet tested”, seemingly indicating that he was collaborating with the NASA employee. One thing we can confirm is that Julian Assange was in communication with people working for NASA and the Los Alamos Lab in the 1990s.  Who's Who at Wikileaks? The Members of the Advisory Board   Here are some interesting facts about several members listed in 2008 on the Wikileaks advisory board, including  organizations to which they belong or have links to.  Philip Adams:   Philip Adams, among other things, “held key posts in Australian governmental media administration” (Wikileaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008), chaired the Australia Council and contributed to The Times, The Financial Times in London and The New York Times. Confirmed by several reports,  he is the representative of the International Committee of Index on Censorship. It is worth mentioning that Wikileaks was awarded the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award. (Philip Adams, Milesago.com)   Adams worked as a presenter for ABC (Australia) Radio's Late Night Live and as columnist for The Australian since the 1960s. The Australian is owned by News Corporation, a property of Rupert Murdoch, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).  Adams also “chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Mind at Sydney University and the Australian National University”. CFR member Michael Spence also serves on this board and Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, has served as well until 2001. The 2008 Distinguished Fellow of the Center for the Mind was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has faced a slew of accusations for war crimes. Does Adams have conflicting allegiances: serving on the advisory board of the Wikileaks organization whose mandate is to expose war crimes, yet at the same time sitting on another board which honors an accused war criminal.   According to an article in The Australian:   Adams, who has never met Assange, says he quit the board due to ill-health shortly after WikiLeaks was launched and never attended a meeting. “I don't think the advisory board has done any advisoring,” he quips.    CJ Hinke:   CJ Hinke, “writer, academic, activist, has lived in Thailand since 1989 where he founded Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) in 2006 to campaign against pervasive censorship in Thai society.” (Wikileaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008)  FACT is part of Privacy International, which includes among others on its Steering Committee or advisory board, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Index on Censorship.   In the US, Privacy International is “administered through the Fund for Constitutional Government in Washington DC.”(About Privacy International, 16 December 2009).  One of the board members of this fund is Steven Aftergood, who wrote one of the first articles on Wikileaks before the website was even functional. In a report from Technology Daily dated January 4, 2007, it is stated that “Wikileaks recently invited Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy researcher at the Federation of American Scientists [FAS], to serve on its advisory board.”   Ben Laurie:  “’WikiLeaks allegedly has an advisory board, and allegedly I'm a member of it... I don't know who runs it...’ Laurie says his only substantive interaction with the group was when Assange approached him to help design a system that would protect leakers' anonymity.” (David Kushner, Inside Wikileaks' Leak Factory, Mother Jones, 6 April, 2010)   This article appeared in Mother Jones in April 2010. An article of the New York Daily News dated December 2010  quotes Ben Laurie as follows: “‘Julian's a smart guy and this is an interesting tactic,’ said Ben Laurie, a London-based computer security expert who has advised WikiLeaks.”    Despite his denial of being an advisor to Wikileaks, his name still appears on the list of advisory board members, according to reports. It is also worth noting that Ben Laurie is a “Director of Security for The Bunker Secure Hosting, where he has worked since 1984 and is responsible for security, cryptography and network design.” He is also a Director of Open Rights Group, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd and the Open Society Foundation.   Chinese and Tibetan Dissidents on the Advisory Board Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang: Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang, a “Tibetan exile & activist” is a former President of the Washington Tibet Association, and was a member of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. In July of this year he was appointed by the Governor of Washington State to the State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs. (A Tibetan Appointed to the Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, Tibetan Association of Washington, 17 July 2010)  Wang Youcai Wang Youcai co-founded the Chinese Democracy Party and is another leader of the Tienanmen Square protests. Imprisoned for “conspiring to overthrow the Government of China... he was exiled in 2004 under international political pressure, especially from the United States. He is also a “member of Chinese Constitutional Democratic Transition Research and a member of the Coordinative Service Platform of the China Democracy Party” (Wikileaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008) Xiao Qiang:   Xiao Qiang, is one of the Chinese dissidents listed on the Wikileaks board. He “ is the Director of the Berkeley China Internet Project...[He] became a full time human rights activist after the Tienanmen Massacre in 1989... and is currently vice-chair of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy”, according to Wikileaks’ description. He received the MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2001 and is a commentator for Radio Free Asia. (Wikilieaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008)  Xiao Qiang is also the "founder and publisher of China Digital Times" (Biographies, National Endowment for Democracy), which is a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (Directives from China's Ministry of Truth on Liu Xiaobo winning Nobel, Democracy Digest, October 8, 2010).    The Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy is an initiative of the Washington, DC-based NED. (World Movement for Democracy). In 2008, Xiao Qiang was part of a discussion panel intitled "Law Rights and Democracy in China: Perspectives and Leading Advocates", held by NED before the Democracy Award Ceremony. (2008 NED Democracy Award Honors Heroes of Human Rights and Democracy in China, National Endowment for Democracy, June 17, 2008).       Radio Free Asia is funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which describes itself as a body that “encompasses all U.S. civilian international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television.” Eight of its nine members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate; the ninth is the Secretary of State, who serves ex officio”. (Broadcasting Board of Governors)    RFE/RL no longer hides its covert origins: “Initially, both RFE and RL were funded principally by the U.S. Congress through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)... In 1971, all CIA involvement ended and thereafter RFE and RL were funded by Congressional appropriation through the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) and after 1995 the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). (A Brief History of RFE/RL)    Interestingly, in a report from 2002, the CFR suggested “creating a Public Diplomacy Coordinating Structure (PDCS) to help define communications strategies and streamline public diplomacy structures. ‘In many ways, the PDCS would be similar to the National Security Council’... PDCS members would include the secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury and Commerce, as well as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and BBG chairman”, a suggestion officially objected by the BBG “to preserve the journalistic integrity.” (BBG Expresses Concern With Report Recommendations on U.S. International Braodcasting, 31 July 2002) Wang Dan: Among the Chinese dissidents once listed on the board is Wang Dan. He was a leader of the Tienanmen Square democracy movement, which “earned him the top spot on China’s list of ‘21 Most Wanted Beijing Student Leaders’.” He was imprisoned for his subversive activities and “exiled in 1998 under international political pressure to the United States.” (Wikilieaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008)    He is chairman of the Chinese Constitutional Reform Association, and sits on the editorial board of Beijing Spring, a magazine funded by NED, the “chief democracy-promoting foundation” according to an article by Judith Miller in The New York Times. One of the founders of NED was quoted as saying “A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” (quoted in William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, 2000, p. 180). In 1998, Wang Dan was granted the NED's Democracy Award "for representing a peaceful alternative to achieve democracy and for [his] courage and steadfastness in the cause of democracy". (1998 Democracy Award honors Heroes of Human Rights and Democracy in China, National Endowment for Democracy)     The Battle for "Transparency" In 2007, Wikileaks described itself as an “uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.” Its priority? “[E]xposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.” Like the advisory board member list, this description no longer appears on Wikileaks’ website. The organization also claimed to be “founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.” (Wikileaks.org, 17 December 2007)   In the currently available description, the reference to the Chinese dissidents and the origins of the other members has been removed. Wikileaks rather puts the emphasis on not being a covert operation.   Assange encourages blind faith in Wikileaks as he puts a lot of emphasis on the trustworthiness of his opaque organization. In the words of Assange:     “Once something starts going around and being considered trustworthy in a particular arena, and you meet someone and they say ‘I heard this is trustworthy,’ then all of a sudden it reconfirms your suspicion that the thing is trustworthy. So that’s why brand is so important, just as it is with anything you have to trust.”(Andy Greenberg, An Interview with Wikileaks' Julian Assange, Forbes, 29 October, 2010, emphasis added)   "People should understand that WikiLeaks has proven to be arguably the most trustworthy new source that exists, because we publish primary source material and analysis based on that primary source material," Assange told CNN. "Other organizations, with some exceptions, simply are not trustworthy."(The secret life of Julian Assange, CNN, 2 December 2010, emphasis added) While Wikileaks no longer discloses the names of the members of its advisory board, nor does it reveal its sources of funding, we have to trust it because according to its founder Julian Assange, it “has proven to be the most trustworthy news source that exists”. Moreover, if we follow Assange’s assertion that there are only a few media organizations which can be considered trustworthy, we must assume that those are the ones which were selected by Wikileaks to act as "partners" in the release and editing of the leaks, including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, El Paìs, Le Monde.  Yet The New York Times, which employs members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) including Wikileaks’ collaborator David E. Sanger, has proven more than once to be a propaganda tool for the US government, the most infamous example being the Iraqi WMD narrative promoted by Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller.   In an interview, Assange indicates that Wikileaks chose a variety of media to avoid the use of leaks for propaganda purposes.  It is important to note that although these media might be owned by different groups and have different editorial policies, they are without exception news entities controlled by major Western media corporations.     A much better way to avoid the use of leaks for disinformation purposes would have been to work with media from different regions of the world (e.g. Asia, Latin America, Middle East) as well as establish partnership agreements with the alternative media. By working primarily with media organizations from NATO countries, Wikileaks has chosen to submit its leaks to one single "worldview", that of the West.    As a few critics of Wikileaks have noted, the Wikileaks project brings to mind the "recommendations" of Cass Sunstein, heads the Obama White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein is the author of an authoritative Harvard Law School essay entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures”. As outlined by Daniel Tencer in Obama Staffer Calls for "Cognitive Infiltration" of " 9/11 Conspiracy Groups":   Sunstein “argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via ‘chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine’ those groups”.   Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public — the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.   Sunstein, whose article focuses largely on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggests that the government “enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts.” (emphasis added) Links to The Intelligence Community Wikleaks feels the need to reassure public opinion that it has no contacts with the intelligence community. Ironically, it also sees the need to define the activities of the intelligence agencies and compare them to those of Wikileaks:  "1.5 The people behind WikiLeaks   WikiLeaks is a project of the Sunshine Press. It's probably pretty clear by now that WikiLeaks is not a front for any intelligence agency or government despite a rumour to that effect. This rumour was started early in WikiLeaks' existence, possibly by the intelligence agencies themselves. WikiLeaks is an independent global group of people with a long standing dedication to the idea of a free press and the improved transparency in society that comes from this. The group includes accredited journalists, software programmers, network engineers, mathematicians and others.   To determine the truth of our statements on this, simply look at the evidence. By definition, intelligence agencies want to hoard information. By contrast, WikiLeaks has shown that it wants to do just the opposite. Our track record shows we go to great lengths to bring the truth to the world without fear or favour." (Wikileaks.org, emphasis added)   "Is Wikileaks a CIA front?   Wikileaks is not a front for the CIA, MI6, FSB or any other agency. Quite the opposite actually. […] By definition spy agencies want to hide information. We want to get it out to the public." (Wikileaks.org, 17, December 2007, emphasis added)    Quite true. But by definition, a covert operation always pretends to be something it is not, and never claims to be what it is. Wikileaks' Entourage. Who Supports Wikileaks?    The people gravitating around Wikileaks have connections and/or are affiliated to a number of establishment organizations, major corporate foundations and charities. In the Wikileaks’ leak published by John Young, a correspondence dated January 4, 2007, points to Wikileaks' exchange with Freedom House:   "We are looking for one or two initial advisory board member from FH who may advise on the following:    1. the needs of FH as consumer of leaks exposing business andpolitical corruption  2. the needs for sources of leaks as experienced by FH  3. FH recommendations for other advisory board members  4. general advice on funding, coallition building and decentralised operations and political framing   These positions will initially be unpaid, but we feel the role may be of significant interest to FH."   The request for funding from various organizations triggered some doubt among Wikileaks collaborators.  John Young became  very sceptical concerning the Wikileaks project specifically with regard to the initial fund-raising goal of 5 million dollars, the contacts with elite organzations including Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy and the alleged millions of documents:    "Announcing a $5 million fund-raising goal by July will kill this effort. It makes WL appear to be a Wall Street scam.  This amount could not be needed so soon except for suspect purposes. I'd say the same about the alleged 1.1 million documents ready for leaking. Way too many to be believable without evidence. I don't believe the number. So far, one document, of highly suspect provenance."   Young finally quit the organization on January 7, 2007. His final words: “Wikileaks is a fraud... working for the enemy”. Four years after its creation, we still don’t know who funds the whistleblower site.    Wikileaks, Hackers, and “The First Cyberwar”   The shady circumstances around Julian Assange’s arrest for “sex crimes” have triggered what some mainstream media have called the “first cyberwar”. The Guardian for instance, another Wikileaks partner, warns us with this shocking title: “WikiLeaks backlash: The first global cyber war has begun, claim hackers".  Some people suspect that this is a false flag operation intended to control the Internet.   It is no secret that hackers are often recruited by governmental authorities for cyber security purposes. Peiter Zatko a.k.a. “Mudge” is one of them. Here is an excerpt of a Forbes interview with Assange regarding his connection to Peiter Zatko:   Assange:Yeah, I know Mudge. He’s a very sharp guy.   Greenberg: Mudge is now leading a project at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to find a technology that can stop leaks, which seems pretty relative [sic] to your organization. Can you tell me aboutyour past relationship with Mudge?   Assange: Well, I... no comment.   Greenberg: Were you part of the same scene of hackers? When you were a computer hacker, you must have known him well.   Assange: We were in the same milieu. I spoke with everyone in that milieu.   Greenberg: What do you think of his current work to prevent digital leaks inside of organizations, a project called Cyber Insider Threat or Cinder?   Assange: I know nothing about it.   Peiter Zatko is an expert  in cyber warfare. He worked for BBN Technolgies (a subsidiary of Raytheon) with engineers “who perform leading edge research and development to protect Department of Defense data... Mr. Zatko is focused on anticipating and protecting against the next generation of information and network security threats to government and commercial networks.” (Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, Information Security Expert Who Warned that Hackers "Could Take Down the Internet in 30 Minutes" Returns to BBN Technologies, Business Wire, 1 February 2005, emphasis added)   In another Forbes interview, we learn that Mr. Zatko is “a lead cybersecurity researcher at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA], the mad-scientist wing of the Pentagon.” His project “aims to rid the world of digital leaks”. (Forbes, emphasis added)   There also seems to be a connection between Zatko and former hacker Jacob Appelbaum, a Wikileaks spokesperson. Zatko and Appelbaum were purportedly part of a hacker group called Cult of the Dead Cow.   Appelbaum currently works for the Tor Project, a United States Naval Research Laboratory initiative. The sponsors of that project listed on its website are:   NLnet Foundation (2008-2009), Naval Research Laboratory (2006-2010), an anonymous North American ISP (2009-2010), provided up to $100k. Google (2008-2009), Google Summer of Code (2007-2009), Human Rights Watch, Torfox (2009) and Shinjiru Technology (2009-2010) gave in turn up to $50k. Past sponsors includes: Electronic Frontier Foundation (2004-2005), DARPA and ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (2001-2006), Cyber-TA project (2006-2008), Bell Security Solutions Inc (2006), Omidyar Network Enzyme Grant (2006), NSF via Rice University (2006-2007). Zatko and Assange know each other. Jacob Appelbaum also played a role at Wikileaks.  The various connections tell us something regarding Assange's entourage. They do not, however, provide us with evidence that people within these various organizations were supportive of the Wikileaks project.  Recent Developments: The Role of the Frontline Club Over the last seven months, the London based Frontline Club has served as de facto U.K "headquarters" for Wikileaks. The Frontline Club is an initiative of Henry Vaughan Lockhart Smith, a former British Grenadier Guards captain. According to NATO, Vaughan Smith became an "independant video journalist [...] who always hated war, but remained [...] soldier-friendly". (Across the Wire, New media: Weapons of mass communication, NATO Review, February 2008)  Upon his release from bail, Julian Assange was provided refuge at Vaughan Smith's Ellingham Manor in Norfolk.  The Frontline Club is an establishment media outfit. Vaughan Smith writes for the NATO Review. (See NATO Web TV Channel and NATO Nations: Accurate, Reliable and Convenient). His relationship to NATO goes back to 1998 when he worked as a video journalist in Kosovo. In 2010, he was "embedded with a platoon from the British Grenadier Guards" during Operation Moshtarak in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. (PBS NewsHour, February 19, 2010). According to the New York Times, The Frontline Club "has received financing for its events from the Open Society Institute". (In London, a Haven and a Forum for War Reporters - New York Times, 28 August 2006) Concluding Remarks: The Cyber Warfare Narrative Wikileaks is now being used by the authorities, particularly in the US, to promote the cyber warfare narrative, which could dramatically change the Internet and suppress the freedom of expression Wikileaks claims to defend.  Peter Kornbluh, analyst at The National Security Archive, argues that "there's going to be a lot of screaming about Wikileaks and the new federal law to penalize, sanction, and put the boot down on organizations like Wikileaks, so that their reactions can be deemed illegal."  Ultimately, Wikileaks could spark off, intentionally or not, entirely new rules and regulations. Julie Lévesque is a journalist at Global Research, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Julie Lévesque is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Julie Lévesque

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Côte d’Ivoire Issue

Abidjan skyline.

Today I want to write something about Côte d’Ivoire. Why is this relevant on an Afro-European blog? Because the current situation in Côte d’Ivoire is about conflicting interest between Africa and Europe. Because the Ivoirian community of France is clearly expressing its frustration in the way France (and generally the West) is involved in local issues in Africa (see video's below). In this post I will try to clarify what is exactly going on as I think this story is relevant for most ex-colonies in relation to their past and Europe, this story is relevant for all Europeans of ex-colonial origin.

Rich but poor

Côte d’Ivoire is on the brink of a civil war. Again. People disappear, others are threatened. Côte d’Ivoire has long been considered an example of how it should be. But while being the greatest cocoa exporter in the world, while being a economically prosper country, Côte d’Ivoire still has its majority population living in utter poverty. Many countries in Africa have the poorest populations in the world while they often are very rich countries. The reason for this is complex. There is the colonial heritage, there are Western financial interests, there are disloyal and corrupt leaders, demographic explosion, … Côte d’Ivoire is today another victim of all these elements. Big boys with different interests are using the African people to gain their advantage, whether black or white, Ivoirian or French.
Côte d’Ivoire has long been a prosperous country. It is the world’s lead cocoa exporter and Africa’s biggest palm oil producer (palm oil is an important raw material in the manufacture of soaps, washing powder and other hygiene and personal care products, besides biodiesel).

Even before independence Côte d’Ivoire was economically the most important region of French West Africa (which was administered as one colonial entity, only divided by France during the independence struggle). Many people from all over French West Africa migrated there for work. After independence this trend didn’t stop. These migrations have been going on for decades now, and many people who are born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire have foreign roots in other formerly French West African countries. Many live in the north and urban areas, with a concentration in the economical center of the country: Abidjan (the capital being Yamoussoukro).

Not only Africans moved to Côte d’Ivoire for work. In contrast to many African nations, the presence of French people more than doubled after independence while many other Europeans also came to work in Côte d’Ivoire. Today the white elite is fleeing the country.

Côte d’Ivoire is not just another African republic. Western nations, France first, have many financial and economical interests there. This is why they are getting involved so much. Below I will go deeper into Côte d’Ivoire’s history and the meaning of last elections for the international community.

 

Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Félix Houphouët-Boigny was Côte d’Ivoire’s first president and he stayed in power until his death in 1993. Although having spend large amounts of public money for megalomaniac projects, he was and still is a very much respected and loved figure for the Ivoirian people. Félix Houphouët-Boigny has been instrumental in keeping the Ivoirian nation united, avoiding ethnic tensions and accepting Ivoirians of foreign origin as fellow nationals and Ivoirians.

Félix Houphouët-Boigny is a giant of the African emancipation. He is a name stated next to Senghor and Césaire. He left a stable and relatively prosper country behind him. Things would start to change dramatically after that.

Ivoirité

Bédié followed him up. He succeeded to divide his rivals and held on to power. To do that he emphasized the concept of ‘Ivoirité’, or Ivoirian identity, excluding his main political rival Allassane Ouattara, Houphouët-Boigny’s last prime minister. Although Ouattara was born in Côte d’Ivoire from parents who were also born in Côte d’Ivoire, he has roots from Burkina Faso, which made him in Bédié’s concept of Ivoirité a foreigner.

This excluded Ouattara from presenting himself for the presidential elections of 2000, but also excluded a great many people in Côte d’Ivoire from the Ivoirian nationality. Consequently the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained and a fire was sparked which is still burning today.

Bédié also tried to exclude potential opponents from the army. This led to a military coup in 1999 and the organization of new elections in 2000. That’s when Gbagbo got elected. Still, the concept of Ivoirité persisted in post-Bédié Côte d’Ivoire. Excluding Ouattara from the 2000 presidential election led to the civil unrest during the elections and eventually to a civil war in 2002.

Rebellion in 2002

The rebels controlled much of northern Côte d’Ivoire, where many Ivoirians lived who were excluded from Ivoirian nationality due to the Ivoirité policy. The rebels threatened to seize Abidjan, the economical center, but then France came into the picture. Under the official stance that French soldiers were sent to protect French citizens living there, many consider they were there to protect their financial and economical position. For many Ivoirians today the French actions worsened the situation in the long term. France didn’t learn from what happened then.

Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the French embassy, his home in Abidjan burned down. President Gbagbo stated, in a television address, that some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns of Abidjan where ‘foreign migrant workers’ lived. The police forces bulldozed and burned homes by the thousands, attacking the residents.

Transition under Gbagbo

Eventually a few months later in 2003, Gbagbo and some rebel leaders signed accords creating a government of national unity. But that government prooved unstable. UN peacekeepers and French troops still controlled areas of the country and violent clashes occurred often. When the time for presidential elections came in 2005, it was deemed impossible to hold an election due to the lack of disarmament.

The 2005 elections were postponed until last month, november 2010. This time Ouattara was not excluded because of his so called Burkinabe origins.

The preliminary results announced by the Electoral Commission showed a loss for Gbagbo in favour of Alassane Ouattara who won with 54% of the vote (having received most votes from the Northern departments and the city of Abidjan). Gbagbo’s ruling FPI contested the results before the Constitutional Council, charging massive fraud in the northern departments. These charges were contradicted by international observers.

The Constitutional Council, which consists of Gbagbo supporters, declared the results of seven northern departments unlawful and that Gbagbo had won the elections with 51% of the vote. After the inauguration of Gbagbo, Ouattara, recognized as the winner by most countries and the United Nations, organized an alternative inauguration. These events raised fears of a resurgence of the civil war.

When I heard this news I was tempted to compare Gbagbo’s succes with the re-election of George W. Bush. But I couldn’t remember any official foreign reaction or support for Al Gore at the time.

I am not a Gbagbo fan. Since he came to power he has always used the ethnic card to gain popularity. Besides that he has questioned the French presence and economical interests in his sovereign country. This has led to ethnic tensions and to a worsening of the economical situation.

The first who suffer are the poorest, not the political elite. But Gbagbo blames the ‘foreign immigrants’ and the French. Ouattara represents both at the same time. Considering the election’s official results (51% for Gbagbo) I would think that Gbagbo’s discourse is not that convincing for the Ivoirian masses. Still, considering all this I wonder if it is a good idea to try to oust him from power right now. Certainly, I don’t think that it is the West’s role to do so. Sadam Hussein may have been a ruthless dictator, ousting him from power hasn’t improved the lifes of Iraqi’s. More on the contrary.

Ouattara

Ouattara is considered by Gbagbo as a representative of foreign and Western interests. And he actually is. Ouattara was educated in the US and earned a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for the IMF and the BCEAO (central bank for the east African states) in Paris which makes him an advocate of the Franc CFA.

The Franc CFA is the common currency of most former French colonies. It is pegged to the Euro and according to many critics the cause of many economical problems and the economic dependency of these African states towards Europe. The Franc CFA is controlled and managed from Paris. Ouattara worked for the BCEAO in Paris until becoming its governor in 1988.

During the last years of Houphouët-Boigny’s rule from 1990, he was Côte d’Ivoire’s prime minister and actual leader once Félix Houphouët-Boigny got too ill. Ouattara was the one who announced Félix Houphouët-Boigny’s death to the nation.

After a brief power struggle bewteen Bédié en Outtara, Bédié became president en Ouattara resigned as prime minster. He went back working for the IMF as Deputy Managing Director and stayed there until 1999. After that he re-entered the political arena in Côte d’Ivoire leading up to the elections of last month.

Because of his career and marriage to a French woman (Dominique he often is considered by his critics as a representative of French and Western interests, and considered due to his northern roots and white wife, as not a real Ivoirian.

All these are false arguments of course. While understanding the critique against Western economical interests in Africa I don’t think that confrontation is the best tactic to improve the live of the Africans. It might get you elected, but then?

French Ivoirians and the Ivorian issue

Ivoirians in Paris supporting Gbagbo and protesting against French involvement (nr1):

One of the interviewees says: “Gbagbo is contested because he annoys the Western world, because he wants the wealth of Africa to be for the Africans … He is the man who can raise up Africa.”

Ivoirians in Paris supporting Gbagbo and protesting against French involvement (nr2):

Ivoirians in Paris protesting against Gbagbo in favor of Outtara(nr1):

Ivoirians in Paris protesting against Gbagbo in favor of Outtara(nr2):

Considering the reactions of Ivoirians in France it is clear that even if Gbagbo stole the elections it is not the role of foreign nations to intervene in local matters. According to Ivoirians this can only worsen the situation and divide the nation even more. The Ivoirians have to solve their own problems.

As you can see in the video’s above the Ivoirians are divided, but they areready to talk. Most voices of whatever side are against war and violence and have a peaceful message.

According to me Ouattara should accept his unfair defeat and go into opposition. From there he should teach Gbagbo what is democracy and from there he can either trap him (blame Gbagbo for all problems or show that he doesn’t do what he says) and make himself popular to an even larger electorate.

Gbagbo plays the role of the ‘real African’, fighting against the Western interests and therefore ‘for the African people’. But at the same time he is throwing oil on the ethnic fire that is burning since Bédié’s presidency. Côte d’Ivoire is devided between North and South, between Muslim and Christian, between ‘foreigner’ and ‘autochtones’. But it is a false division that is hiding the deeper laying problems of a rich country with too many poor people, of a rich country where foreigners, big companies and corrupt politician are getting richer, while the masses are living in dire poverty. It sometimes seems to me that Gbagbo is copying French political style, where Frenchness is questioned (refering to Sarlozy’s ‘débat sur l’identité française’) next to the so called ‘immigrant Muslims’.

Today the country has been sealed off from the outside world by Gbagbo. Gbagbo is not considered a lawfull head of state by the UN, EU and US. They only recognize Ouattara as the lawfull president. But a president without power, and the West’s reactions is only worsening the local situation. Everybody is holding their breath.

Guinea

All this happens today in so exemplary Côte d’Ivoire while Guinea-Conakry, the bad boy of former French colonies (who rejected the Franc CFA and has its own currency), a country with difficult diplomatic relations with France, just had its first free and fair elections since independence (without France or the UN getting involved). The transition from dictatorship to military rule and then elections didn’t happen without problems of course. But it was a transition done by and for the Africans themselves. Let’s now wait and see what freshly elected president Alpha Condé will do for his country and its people.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Electoral Fictions

Shamelessness is an essential component of the how to hand over to yourself blueprint but, as our Ivorian brethren are currently demonstrating, there is still room for innovation within that framework, and depths of crassness that can yet be plumbed. We live in a world of politics as theater and where elections are the ultimate in stage-managed human drama. Suspension of disbelief is essential in any fiction, and disingenuousness mandatory in electoral fictions. 

I write this of course after watching events in Côte D'Ivoire over the past few weeks. The initial emotion was bemusement and indeed laughter - how can one not laugh at the spectacle of someone literally tearing up election results to prevent them from being declared. Still the inept antics only brought back the automatic, unrequited cringe I've had at Ivorian politics for the past decade. I remembered of course that I'd even awarded Laurent Gbagbo, his wife and their death squads an award of sorts, and looking over their 2004-5 citation, all the elements were there: the needless waste of everyone's time, the hubris, the threats and the violence. Still I have been holding my breath, a neighbour's house is still on fire.

Of course we've long since moved beyond laughter to the realm of tears. It's the usual litany, the West African yearning for normalcy: why should the conduct of elections make fraught headlines? Why seal borders? And those death squads and the obligatory evacuation of foreign nationals? And so forth, it's a depressing lament. Most Ghanaians are gearing up to receive the refugees who have already started leaving the place. Sidenote: if refugees are leaving Côte D'Ivoire to go to Guinea and even Liberia, a country recovering from 14 years of civil war, how many more can we expect in ostensibly stable and oil-producing Ghana? 

Incidentally, we were on notice as to how ugly things might turn out. Recall if you will, the September story about that Ivorian man arrested in California attempting to buy arms to smuggle in contravention of the UN embargo. The salient quote:

"$1.9 million wired to the US as a 50 percent downpayment on the weapons... the shipment of 4,000 handguns, 200,000 rounds of ammunition and 50,000 tear gas grenades to Ivory Coast."

As you watch the distressing news footage, imagine the additional damage this consignment would have wrought in light of the violence, reports of militias, mercenaries and nighttime disappearances. The fact also that millions of dollars were so readily transferred surely indicates the importance the old government placed on the military option and indeed the planning that was involved (the International Criminal Court should take note). But anyway all that is a matter of ruthlessness, let's deal with lighter topics: shamelessness, political theater and electoral fictions.

We have seen problematic elections in this season - consider Burma as the archetype, or might you prefer the thuggish Egyptian variant held on the same day, or perhaps even the Belorussian just this past weekend. It is striking Ivory Coast takes the cake even in such abject company. The usual saying goes that "It's not who votes that counts but it's who counts the votes"; we are witnessing new clauses being added to that formulation. Call the Ivorian innovation on this front the Gbagbo Imbroglio, if you will. Their singular contribution to the body of electoral fictions is nothing less than the fictitious election.

The usual practice when handing over to oneself is to hold back declaring results in your strongholds and wait until you know how many votes you need. In Chicago or Kansas City in the past, this was a matter of figuring out how many cemeteries to mine for the requisite names. In Ghana in the 90s, results from the Volta region always came in suspiciously late, later even than the Northern regions, and 98 percent votes in favour of the incumbent and 100 percent turnout (or more) would be the norm - shades of Mobutu or perhaps referendums in Stalin's time.

Gbagbo and company couldn't manage to do this, indeed the electoral commission that this sitting government had put in place took its job seriously and was remarkably independent - as well it should since a tremendous amount of effort had been put in place by Ivorians and the international community to stage these elections. The resort, then, was to say that the electoral commission did not have the right to declare the results. Which brings me again to that video clip I noted earlier that I've been stewing over (and hopefully the BBC won't mind my using their image, I recommend to everyone their closing line: "the elections have been canceled six times in the past five years."). I haven't seen a more perfect piece of political theater in years. Every actor played their part brilliantly. 

When the next day, the head of the electoral commission did manage to sneak out and declare the results, the Gbagbo camp would remark that the declaration was invalid since it hadn't been made within the requisite timeframe. In other words, the declaration that could have been made the prior night had turned into Cinderella's carriage once midnight had passed. 

What then followed would clearly demonstrate that Ivory Coast has had a fictitious election.

It would only be after the election results were declared that a 'Constitutional Council' would throw out the votes of 12 percent of the country so that the "results" would be in Gbagbo's favour. Surely this must be the most innovative response to an electoral contest. I can't imagine a greater slap in the face short of actual physical slaps in the face - and these have since been forthcoming.

First for 15 years ago, you say that a large part of your countrymen are not Ivorians, then you say that they are but that they can't register, then you delay for 5 years, then you allow only some to register as you then delay registration and again delay the vote. Then the whole country votes votes and even your folks vote against you so that the opposition win. And now you go and nullify their votes even though most of the irregularities were in your strongholds. Words fail me.

When Laurent Gbagbo would wrap himself in the flag and declare himself president, it would only bring to mind coronations of yore.

The question at the outset was whether Gbagbo's generals would follow the Burma blueprint and make his opponent, Outtara, an Aung San Suu Kyi of sorts. Burma of course outdoored its own electoral fictions recently - said elections were timed to occur while the Nobel laureate was under house arrest serving her expediently conferred and lengthy sentence. Just to make sure of the outcome, her party was essentially banned in any case.

Earlier on, one wondered if it would it be the Algerian Algorithm of simply don't hold the second round since you know how it would go.

There was also the option of Abacha Abrogation - with Nigerian bluntness, simply call things off.

The Baker barrage - I'm referring to the slickness of the Bush-Gore 2000 business where James Baker was consigliere: run the clock down. Recall that group of Republican lawyer types that stormed counting in Florida. Then the Supreme twist - a legal opinion that should not be construed as a precedent, mutterings about irreparable harm notwithstanding.

A close counterpart is the Mugabe Mutation, a variant of the rope a dope: lose in the first round of elections and resort to the 'or else'.

Finally I suppose there is the Lukashenko option

Perhaps six out of nine Belarusian presidential candidates were in jail. One of them, Uladzimir Neklyayev, was beaten unconscious and then dragged away from the hospital wrapped in blankets.

Laurent Gbagbo has already served an extra term as President - five whole years beyond the end of his mandate. We have been on notice as to his willfulness and are watching in almost despair as he does his worst, hoping against hope. I have a pet theory that someone who has been a political prisoner will do exactly what he wants to do (pace Mugabe, and Mandela notwithstanding). 

The irony is that Gbagbo was on the receiving end of a famously rigged election. When I wrote my 1993 piece, I was in awe of the slick manner in which Houphouët-Boigny had used his considerable powers of incumbency and dealt with his opposition in 1990.

Given all the precedents one had expected a certain finesse or perhaps panache in the electoral strategy. As a Wikileaked cable from the US embassy in Abidjan put it in July 2009, "There will not be an election unless President Gbagbo is confident that he will win it -- and he is not yet confident of the outcome." 

As well he should have been. The cable also noted that it was unlikely the elections would be held in early 2010 as expected since Gbagbo would undoubtedly want to preside over the jubilee ceremonies of 50 years of independence. "The prestige and celebrity that goes with hosting such an historic event" was insufficient as we have seen.

All of that came to pass. This was a long game and Laurent Gbagbo has never missed an opportunity to disappoint. The exasperating and novelistic playbook has been followed to a fault. Delay, suborn, browbeat, bludgeon, deny, wrap yourself in the flag, bluster, and, if need, be suppress and kill - those death squads.

We tell ourselves stories about elections, but it isn't often that the reality surpasses the myth. It has been a colossal waste of everyone's time. We have gone from electoral fictions to fictitious elections.

File under: rogues, Ivory Coast, Côte D'Ivoire, strategy, politics, elections, fraud,culture, observation, Africa, toli

Posted by Koranteng at 4:30 AM  

Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah

From Ghana by way of France and England, technologist, omnivorous reader, sometime writer and music lover... oh, and I'm writing two books of toli

>via: http://koranteng.blogspot.com/2010/12/electoral-fictions.html