Governor Bob Ehrlich, who stole the Maryland election in 2002 using tactics similar to those used by his good friend Bush in 2000, has allowed his state's citizens to be used as "lab rats" in developing a Republican model that may become a national model if unchecked. To save money, Ehrlich has proposed HALF A BILLION dollars in cuts to social service programs serving primarily women and children. More reprehensible still, the cuts systematically target poor blacks in Baltimore, the state's largest city - where 9 in 10 are Democrats (no coincidence here in Ehrlich's scheme, we're sure). "These cuts are just immense and are devastating to public health, not just in Baltimore but in the entire state," said Dr. Peter Beilenson, Baltimore's health commissioner. "The proposal would eliminate health programs for at least one in six city residents." Political insiders say that if the cuts go through in Maryland, they will be promoted in every state governed by a Republican Bush ally.

BBC: "Early one morning last year, Riaz's life changed for good; an armed police raid on his family home marked him out as a wanted man in the UK's war on terror. Dragged out of bed and off for questioning, it was seven days before police accepted he was not a terrorist and allowed him to return home, to a community which continues to regard him with suspicion. While in custody Riaz, who says he still does not know why he was arrested, also became a new dad. The south London house he shares with his wife and parents was sealed off and searched in painstaking detail. "They went over the minutiae of our lives," he says. As the days passed, he began to suspect that the police questioning him twice a day had as little idea of what he was supposed to have done as he did."It was not a search for the truth, it was a search for absolutely anything," he says. After a week of questioning Riaz was released but charged with credit card fraud, allegations which were also dropped."

CBC: "Americans will continue to hold between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners deemed to be a threat to the coalition. Not only that, but the U.S. will also continue operating the Abu Ghraib prison. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday that all Iraqi prisoners of war and interned civilians should be released when sovereignty is transferred. 'In principle all prisoners of war and interned civilians must be released July 1,' said ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger. 'If prisoners remain under the responsibility of the multinational troops, then we'll have to check whom we should report to. We will negotiate directly with the Iraqi authorities over our visits to prisoners in their care,' he said."

AP: "All Iraqi prisoners of war and interned civilians should be released when sovereignty is transferred to a new Iraqi government. 'If we consider that the occupation ends June 30, that would mean it's the end of the international armed conflict,' says Nada Doumani of the International Committee of the Red Cross. According to article 118 of the third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war should be repatriated without delay at the end of hostilities. Article 133 of the fourth convention says that interned civilians should also be released when conflict ends. It remains to be seen whether the occupation effectively ends with the handover of sovereignty, however. [says Doumani]:'This is the legal situation: When the conflict ends the prisoners of war should be released according to the Geneva Conventions,' she explained. 'Therefore ... all people detained in relation to the conflict should be released unless there are penal charges against them.' "

Pinochet was the ruthless dictator installed in Chile in the early 1970s by the CIA under Richard Helms, working with Kissinger and Nixon. The US toppled the democratically elected Allende and set up Pinochet, who quashed all democracy through an unprecedented reign of terror that lasted over a decade. Pinochet has until now managed to slither out of accountability through the aid of friends in high places. Among his cheerleaders was George Bush I, who wrote a personal letter calling for Pinochet to be left alone to enjoy his spoils of tyranny. But now the Chilean government says the game is up: Pinochet will stand trial. The revelations likely to emerge from such a trial will not be welcomed among several top names in the Bush administration - not to mention Bush's daddy. http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/99sa/What's_Behind_the_Bush-Pinochet_Friendship

In predictable fashion, most of the corporate media is using the latest, laughably vague "terrorist alert" to push out the REAL news stories that would reflect badly on Bush. Like the drop in major economic indicators (home starts and factory orders of major items) and the devastating indictment of the Bush administration in the 2004 Amnesty International Report. The Amnesty International report was dismissed by Bush, brushed off by Kimmett ("What report?") and pushed to the rear of most news casts. But here it is in its entirety for those among us who value the truth, painful as it may be.

UPI: "The Army kept a soldier whistle-blower in a locked psychiatric ward at its top medical center for nearly two weeks despite concern from some medical staff that he be released, according to medical records. The Army then charged him nearly $6,000 for the stay at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, billing records show."They are definitely retaliating against me," said Army Reserve Lt. Jullian Goodrum, a 16-year veteran of the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Last summer Goodrum asked for an investigation into the death in Iraq of a 22-year-old soldier in his 212th Transportation Company. He was also quoted in a UPI article about poor medical care at Fort Knox, Ky., that helped spark investigations in Congress." for more on Goodrum see http://www.notinourname.net/troops/denied-health-1mar04.htm for a similar case in Stalinist Russia see http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/andropov/

The U.S.-led war on terror has produced the most sustained attack on human rights and international law in 50 years, Amnesty International said in its annual report." Although Al Qaeda, North Korea, Cuba and other offenders are cited, the US is singled out as leading the way in the scope of its abuses and on manipulating the international system to avoid accountability. "The global security agenda promoted by the U.S. administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle," said Amnesty's Irene Khan. "Violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses have damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place." Perhaps Bush's latest vague terrrorist threat, issued just hours before the public release of the report, was issued as a "preemptive strike" to redirect attention away from HIS abuses.

Rusticus blogs: "'There's growing opposition to this resolution and it's going to be reflected in an increase in the number of abstentions over last year', said Mr Dicker. 'Last year, it was more of an abstract question, but this year with the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq it takes on a more sinister meaning.' The matter was due for discussion at the Security Council in New York on Friday. But the vote has been delayed until Monday at the request of the Chinese UN ambassador, who is awaiting instructions from Beijing on how to vote. The US needs nine votes for the resolution to be adopted - and no veto from the other four permanent members, Britain, France, China and Russia. I honestly hope China does Veto. There is no valid reason we should be immune from the same International Law we expect everyone else to abide by. "

News24.com: "Mistreatment of prisoners by US military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan is 'systemic', Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, a day after the United States launched a probe into alleged abuse. The watchdog called for the immediate release of results of past investigations into misconduct by US personnel in the war-torn country, including details about three Afghan detainees who died in US custody. 'Afghans have been telling us for well over a year about mistreatment in US custody,' HRW's Afghanistan researcher John Sifton said in a statement, adding that the group had repeatedly alerted US officials to the problem. 'It's time now for the United States to publicise the results of its investigations of abuse, fully prosecute those responsible, and provide access to independent monitors.' "

"The CIA has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses. At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning... [For] Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used ... a technique known as 'water boarding,' in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown. These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners... endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees."

"US military forces in Afghanistan have mistreated detainees, arbitrarily detained civilians and used excessive force in arrests of non-combatants, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The rights watchdog said it concluded 'the US-administered system of arrest and detention in Afghanistan exists outside of the rule of law'... 'The United States is setting a terrible example in Afghanistan on detention practices,' said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. 'Civilians are being held in a legal black hole - with no tribunals, no legal counsel, no family visits and no basic legal protections.'"

"The oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan, eagerly courted by the Bush administration, is suffering its worst repression since it became an independent state, according to a new report released today by New York-based Human Rights Watch. 'Crushing Dissent: Repression Violence and Azerbaijan's Elections,' details hundreds of arbitrary arrests, widespread beatings and torture, and politically motivated firings of opposition activists and supporters following October 15 presidential elections widely denounced as unfair and fraudulent by observers." Right after the elections, in December, Rummy visited the country. Did he demand justice? Hardly. "Rumsfeld personally congratulated the younger Aliev on his election victory, but otherwise refused to make any comment on the political situation."

"Key U.S. civil liberties and social justice groups marked International Human Rights Day Wednesday by launching a new 'U.S. Human Rights Network' dedicated to raising awareness about international human rights standards and focusing attention on the U.S. failure to enforce them. More than 50 groups, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the New York-based Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), said they had agreed to join forces to address what they said was 'the alarming rate of human rights violations in the U.S.', particularly as it pursues its 'war on terrorism'. They called for U.S. citizens to speak out against these abuses, as well as to fight 'U.S. exceptionalism', the view pushed strongly by the administration of President George W. Bush, that the United States should not be constrained by international law or human rights standards, especially relating to economic and social rights."

Army Times: "At a time when the U.S. State Dept. and the UN labor to combat the international trafficking in women, the U.S. military supports a flourishing trade in sex slaves in South Korea. Hundreds of trafficked women, mostly from former Soviet bloc countries and the Philippines, are forced by local bar owners to work as prostitutes in bars that cater to American servicemen. The women are typically lured to Korea with promises of high-paying jobs but end up being held against their will and coerced into working as prostitutes in circumstances that both the State Department and the United Nations condemn as a form of sexual slavery. The U.S. military leadership in Korea says it is powerless to put a stop to the practice, which they claim is the responsibility of the Korean police... While U.S. troops continue to be the sex-slave racket's best customers, U.S. commanders turn a blind eye. And there's no end in sight."

Associated Press: "An elite unit of American soldiers mutilated and killed hundreds of unarmed villagers over seven months in 1967 during the Vietnam War, The Blade reported Sunday. Soldiers of the Tiger Force unit of the Army's 101st Airborne Division dropped grenades into bunkers where villagers -- including women and children -- hid, and shot farmers without warning, the newspaper reported. Soldiers told The Blade that they severed ears from the dead and strung them on shoelaces to wear around their necks. The Army's 4 1/2-year investigation, never before made public, was initiated by a soldier outraged at the killings... William Doyle, a former Tiger Force sergeant now living in Willow Springs, Mo., said he killed so many civilians in 1967 he lost count... Two investigators pretended to look into the allegations while encouraging soldiers to keep quiet, soldiers told The Blade."

"The proliferation of weaponry, in particular small arms, is so widespread that it is responsible for the death of one person every minute and more than 500,000 killings a year. Leading industrialised countries including [the US and] Britain are blamed for much of the increase in the trade. They are said to sell weaponry to favoured nations to protect their defence industries and do too little to stop the flow of arms to countries paralysed by internal conflict." Since 9/11 the "anti-terrorism" Bush administration has increased its military aid to over 10 nations officially recognized as having poor human rights records. In 2002, "security assistance" (the euphemism for gun sales) to Uzbekistan rose by $45m while in Pakistan it increased from $3.5m to $1.3bn - despite allegations of torture and extra-judicial killings in both countries."

Nigerian single mother Amina Lawal was cleared of adultery by an Islamic court, releasing her from a sentence that she be stoned to death... 'Amina is free. Amina has been discharged. Amina can have her life back,' she told reporters outside the court, as Lawal and her baby daughter Wasila were whisked away in a police vehicle with a heavily armed escort. Lawal, a 31-year-old old village housewife, was last year convicted of adultery under the strict Sharia legal code, and faced becoming the first person to be stoned to death since its controversial reintroduction in Nigeria, mainly in the northern, predominantly Muslim states... 'Amina's struggle is the struggle of one person, one highly mediatised combat. But there are other such struggles around this country,' said Catherine-Danielle Mabille of Doctors Without Borders. Even as the Katsina court was sitting, officials in nearby Bauchi State announced that a young man had been sentenced to be stoned to death for sodomy."

"A San Francisco-based human rights group filed a landmark lawsuit yesterday in the case of slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, accusing a former Salvadoran Air Force officer of involvement in the 1980 assassination of the revered Roman Catholic leader. The suit, filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability in federal court in Fresno, Calif., accuses Alvaro Rafael Saravia, 57, of playing a key role in organizing the assassination, perhaps the most notorious killing during a decade of repression in which as many as 75,000 people were reported slain in El Salvador by right-wing death squads. The lawsuit was welcomed by Salvadoran human rights activists, who said they hope it will strike a blow for justice on behalf of death-squad victims. 'When I heard the news, I wanted to cry, I wanted to dance,' said Juan Romagoza Arce, a Salvadoran doctor and torture victim who heads the Clinica del Pueblo, a clinic for the poor in the District."

AP reports: "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that most suspected terrorists at a U.S. prison camp in Cuba will probably be detained for the course of the global war on terrorism rather than face trial. That sparked criticism from lawyers who said U.S. legal tradition insists on a transparent and open judicial process. Rumsfeld said he expects some trials but prefers that most continue to be held at the Guantanamo Bay facility... Erwin Chemerinsky, law professor at University of Southern California, said there is no authority in American or international law to hold these people indefinitely with no judicial process. 'It's outrageous,' Chemerinsky said. 'There are no signs that the war on terrorism is nearing an end, so the government is saying it can hold people indefinitely and likely for the rest of their lives without complying with the requirements of international law.'"

"The human rights organisation says that the thousands of children have been forced to become soldiers in the army and in militias, and are often forced to kill and rape. In a report titled 'Democratic Republic of Congo: Children at War', the international rights group said that groups in Ituri province were still recruiting in a conflict that has killed 50,000 people. Amnesty International wants those involved in the recruitment to be investigated and prosecuted." Their push for justice has been severely hurt by the Bush administration's failure to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by Clinton in 1995. Why won't Dubya sign? Because his rightwing fundie pals are afraid it will impede their 'God-given right' to do whatever they see fit with their own children. (see http://www.amnestyusa.org/children/crn_faq.html)

Jonathan Turley writes: "In fact, the use of the stun belt in such a circumstance is unlawful but not unique. Stun belts have been denounced internationally as a violation of basic human rights. Local government and Congress should insist on new guidelines, if not a ban, on the use of these devices... The guard holds a simple remote control that sends an eight-second, 50,000- to 70,000-volt surge through a prisoner, causing immediate loss of muscular control and incapacitation. When shocked, many individuals will defecate or urinate on themselves. Some can experience fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Muscular weakness and temporary paralysis or weakness continue for 30 to 45 minutes. Last spring Wisconsin sheriffs held a public display to show the media how harmless tasers (stun guns) and stun belts are by shocking one of their own deputies, appropriately named Krist Boldt. Boldt was hit with a five-second jolt and was sent to the hospital with a head wound after he hit the floor."

"Washington DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey announced yesterday the district is under a crime emergency, following the recent onslaught of violence, including the murder of two trangendered women this week. ... Early Thursday morning, authorities discovered the body of an unnamed transgender murder victim in a Southeast DC field. The finding came less than 24 hours after another transgendered woman was shot and injured on Wednesday and a third-Bella Evangelista-was killed last weekend. Police arrested Antonie Jacobs, 22, on charges of first-degree murder and a gender-bias hate crime, reported the Advocate. Jacobs purportedly became angered after he paid Evangelista, a drag show entertainer, for oral sex and then discovered her biological sex. Meanwhile, the DC shooting deaths last year of Deon 'Ukea' Davis and Wilbur 'Stephanie' Thomas - each sprayed with more than 10 bullets-remain unsolved."

Under prodding from the country's new president, Argentina's Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to revoke a pair of longstanding amnesty laws that have protected hundreds of military officers [and others] from prosecution for the kidnapping, torture and killing of opponents and critics during the 'dirty war' here in the 1970's," reports the International Herald Tribune. "The senators voted 43 to 7, to support the legislation. As many as 30,000 people are estimated to have disappeared and died during the military dictatorship that ruled this country from 1976 to 1983. The day before the lower house vote, Kirchner also announced that Argentina would sign a UN convention that eliminates any statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity." To read about Kissinger's role in the Dirty War, see http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/argentina/kissinger.htm

"International human rights groups have denounced as inadequate the three-year prison sentence announced Tuesday in Jakarta against the most senior military officer indicted by Indonesian prosecutors for serious abuses committed against East Timorese civilians in connection with the 1999 plebiscite on independence...International said Damiri should be immediately removed from his position in Aceh, and called on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to convene a group of experts to determine whether there were other mechanisms, including an ad hoc UN tribunal, that could be used to try those responsible for the 1999 abuses, which included murder, arson, rape, and the forced expulsion of as many as half a million people."

"With the expiration of its July 1 deadline to cut off military aid to states supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Bush administration should end its ill-conceived campaign to weaken the court, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) revokes military assistance to countries that have ratified the ICC unless they conclude a separate bilateral agreement with the United States by July 1, agreeing never to hand over U.S. personnel to the ICC. Despite a yearlong campaign by the U.S. diplomatic corps, only about 48 countries have signed such agreements so far, the majority of them small and poor countries that have not ratified the ICC treaty anyway and therefore have no obligation to transfer U.S. personnel to the court. 'U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies,' said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch.'"

NY Times News Service reports: "In a symbolic rebuke to the Bush administration, the member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) have for the first time voted to exclude the US from representation on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, considered the most prestigious human rights monitoring body in the Western Hemisphere... But the negative vote also reflected widespread doubts about the qualifications of the American candidate, Rafael 'Ralph' Martinez. 'Clearly, the person they put forward, whatever his merits, did not have a very impressive background in human rights,' said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at Inter-American Dialogue, a research group in Washington. Martinez's nomination, he added 'showed not just a sort of indifference to a major regional political organization on the part of the administration, but also the growing distrust on the other side about what the US agenda and motives are.'"

AP reports: "Guantanamo officials are working on plans to provide a courtroom, a prison and an execution chamber if the order comes to try terror suspects at the base in Cuba, the mission commander said. Although no new directive has been given and no plan has been approved, a handful of experts are looking at what it will take to try, imprison and, if need be, execute detainees accused of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or to the al-Qaida terror network. 'We have a number of plans that we work for short-term and long-term strategies but that's all they are -- plans,' Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller said in a telephone interview Monday."

"United Nations Security Council is coming under pressure to reject Washington's upcoming request to exempt all its soldiers and officials from the jurisdiction of the new body for a second straight year. The administration of ... Bush says that it needs more time to negotiate bilateral agreements with more countries around the world that would bar them from surrendering US nationals to the International Criminal Court (ICC), set up under the 1998 Rome Statute to investigate and prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity... Representatives of many countries have complained that Washington's campaign against the ICC and its efforts to exempt US nationals from its jurisdiction is yet another illustration of the unilateralist trajectory [of] the Bush administration... They have warned that the US attitude toward the ICC only increases resentment abroad and makes Washington vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy about the rule of law."

The Christian Science Monitor reports: "The US Justice Department and its top officials could be open to lawsuits by former immigration detainees for everything from wrongful detentions to physical abuse - and the best evidence may come from the Justice Department itself... But now the department's own Inspector General's Office, which functions as an internal watchdog unit, has shed light on what it characterizes as a flawed process under which 762 foreigners were detained without bond or any criminal charges being introduced against them. As a result, Attorney General John Ashcroft is likely to face tough questions about whether Congress has ceded too much authority to the Justice Department over surveillance and immigration since Sept. 11. It will give ammunition to critics who are trying prevent the department from further expanding its powers - and may bring at least more attempts at legal action against DOJ."

"Some of the hundreds of foreigners held after the Sept. 11 attacks were abused by guards and kept under harsh conditions, spending 23 hours a day in cells and sleeping under bright lights, according to a report released Monday. The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General described 'significant problems' in the Bush administration's actions toward the 762 foreigners held on immigration violations... it found the FBI took too long to determine whether the detainees were involved with terrorists... Only one, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been charged publicly with any crime related to terrorism. Government officials say 505 were deported. Others are awaiting deportation or have been charged with nonterrorism crimes... Inspector General Glenn Fine identified a 'pattern of physical and verbal abuse' by guards, especially at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y... Guards were accused of slamming prisoners against walls and walking on their leg shackles."

"The United States and Britain are using the 'war on terror' as a pretext to abuse human rights and their oppressive actions have made the world 'more insecure than since the Cold War', Amnesty International said yesterday... the watchdog body claimed that Washington and London had used the 11 September terrorist attacks to introduce draconian laws. 'What would have been unacceptable on 10 September 2001 is now becoming almost the norm', said Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general... 'What would have been an outrage in Western countries during the Cold War - torture, detention without trial, truncated justice - is readily accepted in some countries today... Amnesty said the detention of more than 600 foreign nationals, including Britons, at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was a 'human rights scandal' and the prisoners should either be released or charged. Two prisoners were killed at Bagram air base, north-east of Kabul, under American interrogation."

"In a move that has provoked outrage from human-rights groups here, ... John Ashcroft has asked a federal appeals court in effect to nullify a 214-year-old law that has provided foreign victims of serious abuses access to US courts for redress. Ashcroft's Justice Department has filed a 'friend of the court' (amicus curiae) on behalf of California-based oil giant Unocal in a civil case brought by Myanmese villagers who claimed that the company was responsible for serious abuses committed by army troops who provided security for a company project... 'I don't think this has anything to do with the war on terror," said [Human Rights Watch's] Malinowski. 'I think this is motivated by a very hardcore ideological resistance within the Justice Department to the whole concept of international law being enforced' Collingsworth agreed..., 'With all this talk of the war on terror, to remove one of the few tools we have to address human-rights violations is the epitome of hypocrisy.'"

Actress Sally Field is working with Sen. Joe Biden to push through legislation aimed at aiding women and children caught in war's crossfire. Of course, this is a good idea. However, two glaring facts should be pointed out: First, if we didn't insist on declaring war on nations and thus catching women and children in the crossfire, we could focus on improving, rather than just preserving life for women and children. Second, special legislation would not be necessary if G.lobal W.reckingball Bush would do the right thing and sign the Geneva Protocols and the UN's Convention for the Rights of the Child. These documents cover all of the issues Fields is addressing. What a sad pass, that private citizens must come forward and try to do with blood, sweat, and tears what their so-called "leader" could do with the stroke of a pen.

Cheryl Seal writes, "While Bush is trying to present himself and the US government as 'great and kindly liberators,' the US stand on international law has made us Earth's biggest hypocrites. The U.S. is one of the only 'advanced' nations on Earth not to ratify the Protocols (I and II) of the Geneva Convention. These protocols, first proposed in 1977, are designed SPECIFICALLY to reduce civilian suffering Yet they were not ratified by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, because, he claimed, it would give leftwing uprisings too much of an edge (ie., make it more difficult for the CIA to overthrow 'inconvenient' governments, like Allende's in Chile). The Protocols were again rejected by the GOP-dominated Congress in the 1990s when Clinton submitted them for reconsideration. Now with Bush and his rightwing Congress at the helm, with war as their chief agenda, the chances of passing any humanitarian protocols passing is nil."

Human Rights Watch reports that the U.S. government's violation of human rights in its conduct of the war on terrorism is discouraging other countries from cooperating. In key countries involved in the campaign against terrorism, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, even lip-service support for human rights has been rare. When the United States does try to promote human rights, its authority is undermined by its refusal to practice what it preaches. The Human Rights Watch report says, "Washington's tendency to ignore human rights in fighting terrorism is not only disturbing in its own right ... it is dangerously counterproductive." And it's about what we can expect from George W. Bush, who apparently doesn't care about anything except making his rich buddies richer and picking fights with other nations.

From the WashPost: "The U.S. military violated international law in Afghanistan by indiscriminately dropping cluster bombs on populated areas, killing at least 25 civilians and injuring numerous others, Human Rights Watch said in a report scheduled for release today. The group also said that another 127 civilians have been killed or injured in Afghanistan by unexploded cluster 'bomblets' that have become 'de facto antipersonnel landmines' across large areas of the country. Sixty-nine percent of those killed or injured, the group said, were children." Of course, the military calls the report false. But then, this is the same military that plans to launch a campaign of calculated lies in ALLIED countries! (see http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3047703&thesection=news&thesubsection=world)

"Of the more than 6 billion people on the planet, some 240 million - or 1 in 25, a staggering number -are uprooted, mostly as a result of armed conflict, religious or political persecution, racism, poverty, or ecological destruction," writes Michael Flynn. "Fewer than 20 million of the uprooted receive assistance. But what about the rest? The fact is, the vast majority of refugees live in hastily established camps located in the world's most underdeveloped countries. As the Forced Migration Review reports on its Web site, Refugee burden-sharing is highly unequal. At the end of 2001, Iran was hosting one refugee for every 26 citizens; Lebanon, one for every 11. In Britain, however, the number is one for every 972.." Yet Britian and the U.S., who bear the least brunt of the people displaced by war, are the most eager to great yet another wave of refugees.

Violence erupted in East Timor this week as angry citizens took to the streets to protest what they believe to be the indifference of their leaders to the welfare of their countrymen. Tensions have been building for years - the nation is impoverished and human rights violations by the Indonesian military and, some allege, the U.S. military have fanned the flames. Now, less than a month ago, the East Timorese Prime Minister bowed to pressure from the Bush Administration and said he would not expect the American military to obey East Timorese laws (see http://www.etan.org/news/2002a/11sofa.htm). This development, and the reemergence of Henry Kissinger as a figure in Washington (Kissinger is implicated in the deaths of at least 200,000 East Timorese) was apparently too much.

"The recent appointment of Henry Kissinger to head the commission on the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon demonstrates the continued need to hold U.S. officials accountable. Kissinger, whose persistent lies about his role in the invasion of East Timor are contradicted by well-documented evidence, should never have been appointed to any body whose mission is to uncover the truth. His appointment is a stark reminder that U.S. officialdom has yet to absorb the lessons of Kissinger's secret and destructive policies in East Timor and elsewhere." So reports the East Timor Action Network.

"Amnesty International has today written to the President of the United States, George Bush, to express its deep concern at reports that the six men blown up in a car in Yemen on 3 November were killed allegedly by a missile launched by a CIA-controlled Predator drone aircraft. The organization has also written to the President of Yemen, asking whether there had been attempts by the Yemeni authorities to arrest these persons, and urging them to provide clarification about the cooperation and possible knowledge of the Yemeni government in this incident. 'If this was the deliberate killing of suspects in lieu of arrest, in circumstances in which they did not pose an immediate threat, the killings would be extra-judicial executions in violation of international human rights law,' Amnesty International said today."

"As you probably know, the CIA engineered the murder of a man and five companions in Yemen. A missile fired from one of our drones killed them. If indeed they were al-Qaida operatives, I have no sympathy for them. They have chosen to wage a campaign against us, and they are now casualties of that war. At the same time, I don't approve of the method used. The problem is that they are described as 'suspected' al-Qaida. To execute suspects is to use the method of the death squad. It appeals to our childish sense of adventure, to our desire for quick and simple justice, but, unfortunately, it erodes the moral values of the United States. When you give up the law and proper procedures, you give up everything." So writes Charles Reese.

"We are deeply disturbed and angered that the U.S. government pressured East Timor to exempt U.S. troops from the International Criminal Court, said John M. Miller of the East Timor Action Network, a NYC-based human rights group. 'The East Timorese suffered greatly during the U.S.-supported illegal occupation of their homeland when the Indonesian military committed the very crimes that the ICC is designed to discourage. Recent acquittals by the Indonesian ad hoc court on East Timor of Indonesian security officers accused of crimes against humanity have strengthened calls for genuine justice for East Timor. This dramatically illustrates the need for international mechanisms to address serious crimes including an ad hoc international tribunal for past crimes in East Timor and an uncompromised permanent international court for current and future crimes."

From the AP: "Thousands of documents released by the U.S. government are shedding new light on Argentina's 'dirty war' against suspected leftists in the 1970s and 1980s. In more than 5,000 pages of State Department cables, memoranda and reports released Tuesday, U.S. officials document how security forces under the command of former Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri allegedly rounded up and killed dissidents. The 72-year-old general has long been linked to deaths during the military junta's 1976-83 rule and is currently under house arrest in Buenos Aires for allegedly taking part in the abduction, torture and execution of 20 leftist guerrillas and others. Experts hope that study of the documents will also help clarify the U.S. government's internal debates over the regime's abuses. In the past, advocates for victims of the regime have accused the United States of ignoring abuses [and worse] in its desire to check the spread of communism in Latin America during the Cold War."

Bush & Co deliberately trampled constitutional rights after Sept. 11 in a crackdown that saw immigrants jailed without cause, tried in secret and, in some cases, physically abused, says Human Rights Watch in a 99-page report released this week. The group concludes that Bush has shown "a stunning disregard for the democratic principles of public transparency and accountability" since 9/11. The report says authorities rounded up at least 1,200 people because of their religion or ethnic background, jailed them on immigration charges to deny them rights normally enjoyed by accused persons, and held many in harsh isolation conditions. In short, Bush's government has violated the same principles of freedom that Bush said were attacked by hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and "The country has witnessed a persistent, deliberate and unwarranted erosion of basic rights against abusive governmental power." Impeach Bush Now!

Is there NOTHING this administration won't attempt to inflict on civilians in the name of "freedom" and "national security"? This week alone, the Bush Reich tried to derail a UN resolution to outlaw torture and to apparently enforce a news blackout of the largest military operation/test in American history. Now New Scientist reports that the DOD is pressing ahead, via one of its corporate pork scoopers (Lockheed/Raytheon) to develop a high-tech weapon that slithers around the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of weapons that will blind citizens. The DOD found a loophole - the blinding that its laser weapon will cause could potentially be widespread - but because the weapon wasn't specifically designed for that purpose, it is currently exempt from its anti-humanitarianism by way of technicality. Which sums up the modus operandi for this administration and all its corporate pals.

A letter by Reps Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Lane Evans (D-IL) and signed by over 50 Congresspersons protested moves by the Rumsfeld Pentagon to circumvent Congressional restrictions on U.S. engagement with the Indonesian Military's "special forces," the TNI. The TNI has a long history of outrageous human rights offences. Karen Orenstein of East Timor Action Network praised the letter. "[It] demonstrates Congressional recognition that the impunity enjoyed by Indonesian security forces for crimes against humanity committed in East Timor jeopardizes the new country's long-term security and threatens democratic reform in Indonesia." We urge all Congressional Democrats to sign the McGovern/Evans letter.

David Corn writes "Why are villagers in the Aceh province of Indonesia--or their lawyers--worrying about contributions from ExxonMobil to George W. Bush and the Republicans? A year ago, [a lawsuit was filed] against the energy behemoth, claiming the Mobil half of the conglomerate in the 1990s paid and supported Indonesian military troops that committed human rights abuses in the war-torn province. Representing eleven unnamed residents of Aceh who say they or their husbands were brutalized by troops underwritten by ExxonMobil, the ILRF maintained that under the Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Victims Protection Act, the oil company and its Indonesian subsidiary could be held liable for the murder, torture, sexual crimes, and kidnapping conducted by these soldiers."

A bill that Bush pit bull Tom DeLay is ramming through Congress will drag America's principles into Bushland - a place where no one is ever held accountable for any crime, no matter how large... a dark little swamp land where anything goes, but no consequences ever befall the guilty. The extremely deceitfully named bill, The American Servicemembers' Protection Act, is not designed to protect servicemen - it is designed to protect the Bush administration from prosecution for crimes committed in its name. We find it extremely interesting that as news of U.S. atrocities in Afghanistan begin to hit the news, the slimy pursuit of this bill by Bush and DeLay has been whisked out of newspapers. How can America hold its head up if its leaders set themselves above the law - their own country's and that of every other nation?

TomPaine.com reports, "The State Department has put out its annual report documenting human rights violations around the world. [The story] reads like this: 'Government's human rights record remained poor; security forces continued to commit serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings'... the State Department also issued [another report] documenting the 180 countries whose security forces were trained last year by the U.S. military. It's a funny thing: in more than 50 cases, including all the ones I just listed, these countries are the same. The U.S. is training many armies around the world that have terrible human rights records. And there's no evidence that U.S. training is successfully teaching them American ideals of democracy and human rights. There's much talk these days about failures to connect the dots -- referring to intelligence clues that 9/11 was coming. Some other dots that need connecting are the ones between these two State Department reports."

Amnesty International blasted the Bush and Blair regimes for their abuse of civil rights in the name of 'fighting terrorism.' "Undermining human rights in the name of security was something we had seen before ... what was new was the way in which democratic [sic] states, based on the rule of law, jumped as eagerly on the bandwagon as autocratic regimes, to create shadow criminal justice systems," Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, said in London. In true Bushian style, mouthpiece Victoria Clarke defended the Reich, citing the "excellent" conditions at Camp X-Ray, while failing to mention the Auschwitz-like prisoner camps in Afghanistan.

"Over the past decade one of the principal means by which the U.S. has interacted with almost all governments in the world is by training their military forces. In recent years U.S. forces have been training approximately 100,000 foreign soldiers annually. This training takes place in at least 150 institutions within the U.S. and in 180 countries around the world... Each of the military training programs has been justified, at least partially, as strengthening human rights and democratization. In truth, most of the programs have had no discernible focus on human rights and have been carried out in a highly, if not completely, unaccountable manner. The State Department’s 2002 Human Rights Report cited the security forces in 51 of the countries receiving IMET training (38% of the total) for their poor human rights records." So writes Lora Lumpe in a comprehensive study of US military training overseas.

Enough is enough! That is what 40 internationally-respected human rights/religious leaders have declared in a strong statement to the Bush administration. For 50 years, Indonesia has been the playground of the CIA and corporations. They have been responsible for fomenting bloody civil wars in which an estimated one million civilians have died, in which environmental pillage was unrestrained, and systematic atrocities of natives became routine. Under Clinton, military support and arms sales were discontinued because of human rights abuses. Now with Bush, under the guise of "fighting terrorism" the pattern is being revived. Indonesian Civilians are once more under a U.S.-supported reign of terror, with civilians routinely tortured, raped, beaten, and arbitrarily detained without any accountability - all condoned by G.W. Bush.

"A report by Amnesty International claims some detainees in US jails have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse. The report also claims they have been denied access to lawyers and were given poor health care in the months following the September 11 attacks. Although the report notes some recent improvements in New Jersey, where most of the 326 detainees still in custody are being held, it cites continuing problems with the way detainees are being treated. The most serious accusations involved allegations of physical abuse of detainees by guards in the Passaic jail from September through November. The report claims a detainee who spoke no English and was slow to comply with an order to get out of bed had his head rammed into a table by a guard, chipping a tooth." So reports Ananova.

"The US state department issued its huge annual report on human rights…amid some evidence of censorship - or at least soft-soaping - involving countries whose support is needed in the fight against terrorism…The report was supposed to have been published last week, but was held up by 'bureaucratic delays'. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, 'reviewed the findings closely' before releasing it. 'There are various contingencies and realities that are addressed in the editing,' a spokesman said. Among the passages causing concern is a comment on military tribunals in Egypt. Last year, the report complained about the absence of due process. This year, after the US itself allowed for such tribunals, the section concludes: 'Nonetheless, judges have guidelines for sentencing, defendants have the right to counsel, and statements of the charges against defendants are made public.' There are also indications of careful positioning over Uzbekistan…which became a crucial staging-post for US operations."

"United States human rights activists are expressing concern about a last-minute and largely unnoticed addition to a 2002 defense bill which they say is a Pentagon maneuver to resume military cooperation with Indonesia as part of …Bush's 'war against terrorism.' At the behest of Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, the U.S. Congress voted to include provision for US $21 million in the bill to set up a Regional Defense Anti-Terrorism Fellowship Program for Southeast Asian armies at the Asia-Pacific Center in Hawaii. Existing curbs on training Indonesian military officers would not apply to this facility, according to activists. 'Counter-terrorism must not be used as an excuse to resume training for a military which terrorizes its own people and continues to enjoy impunity for its scorched-earth campaign in East Timor,' said Kurt Biddle, Washington coordinator for the Indonesian Human Rights Network."

Two Mexican ecologists who were tortured into confessing to bogus drugs and weapons crimes will remain in prison, thanks to new Mexican president Vincente Fox. Breaking earlier promises, Fox refused to intervene in their case, despite pleas from human rights activists, including Ethel Kennedy and the Jesuit Pro Juarez Human Rights Center. Danish physicans who are torture detection experts testified that the men, Rodolfo Montiel (who won the 2000 Goldman Prize for North America) and Teodoro Cabrera had been tortured. "The stunning ruling against [the activists] will have an extreme chilling effect on other environmentalists in Mexico," says Alejandro Queral of the Sierra Club's Human Rights and Environment Program. The men were arrested not on drug charges, but during a protest of devastating logging in the Petatlan region.

Although the citizens of Puerto Rico do not have the right to vote in Presidential elections or the right to elect Congressional representatives, the U.S. maintains the right to draft Puerto Ricans during war time and to use part of the country as a bombing range. The UN Decolonization Committee has condemned this 18th-century-style domination and has called on the U.S. to expedite PR self-determination. Meanwhile, no one in the entire world except maybe Shrub's White House harem of yes-people is fooled by Mr. Photo-Op's pledge to stop bombing Vieques in 2003. In fact, the renewed "business as usual" bombing is being seen in Puerto Rico as "the crudest expression of the dominion of the United States over Puerto Rico" and "the latest expression" of the Bush Administration's "colonial arrogance."

-It's been nearly 140 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, yet black slaves still supply Americans with cotton, coffee, and chocolate. But now the slaves are out of sight and out of mind, across the Atlantic in Africa's Ivory Coast where an estimated 15,000 children (from age 9 to 12), are sold into slavery to toil on plantations. The children are routinely beaten, starved, while cut off from their families. Even the Chocolate Manufacturers Association admits that slaves harvest cocoa on some Ivory Coast farms. But free beans and slave beans are not separated - nor are they required to be. As a result, of the 47,300 tons of cocoa beans entering the U.S. from the Ivory Coast in the first three months of this year, an unknown percentage were tainted by suffering. We demand that legislation be formulated requiring a certification system for cocoa beans and providing funds - and fines - to ensure enforcement. How about you, Tony Hall?

In Sierra Leone, Angola and other areas, the already difficult lives of citizens are made all but unbearable by terrorists struggling for control of diamond mines and trade. One favorite form of intimidation: amputating the limbs of small children. Now a bill formulated by two Dems (Feingold and Durbin) and a Republican (DeWine) and supported by Tony Hall (D-OH) and Frank Wolf (R-VA) calls for an end to the trade in "conflict diamonds." We laud and support this critical effort. We also suggest that the bill include funding for isotopic techniques that can identify the geographic origin of diamonds (which would make it easier to enforce the ban on illegal stones). For more on this new technique, see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010313073810.htm AND/OR http://www.findarticles.com/m1200/11_157/61291653/p1/article.jhtml

Last Thursday in the small town of Tibu, Colombia, the first major grass-roots demonstrations against the US's use of chemical herbicides to eradicate illegally grown coca plants was staged. The villagers want the crops manually removed to avoid exposure to the herbicide, which is being sprayed from planes. An estimated 4,000 farmers took part in the protest, which turned violent over the weekend, when protestors rioted, torching the fumigation chemicals stored in the town. Typical U.S. Fed logic: you might poison everybody for miles! But hey -- you (temporarily) got rid of the drugs! Yet another sorry chapter in the Sisyphean War on Drugs.