Despite progress, challenges remain on child soldiers in Sudan, UN official reports

Despite progress in Sudan in the past two years in tackling the problem of children in armed conflict, many challenges remain, ranging from reintegrating child soldiers to dealing with youngsters abducted by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who have been brainwashed into killing their own parents, a senior United Nations official said today.

Afghanistan: Unbeatable Nationalist Resolve

Afghans: Unbeatable nationalist resolve

From Reason Wafawarova in MELBOURNE, Australia
Zimbabwe Herald

THE US-led Western Alliance faces a daunting political and military quagmire in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the odious reality is now dawning that the imperial misadventure has turned out to be a disastrous start to the millennium.

The undeniable reality is that the Taliban will not be defeated, and must now be included in shaping the face-saving package that the West wants as a veil to sanitise this unavoidable pending defeat.

The unpalatable fact of a defeat at the hands of the Taliban is leading to a ferocious debate in the West on a number of questions. Western governments do not know whether to escalate the war in Afghanistan or to scale it down.

The most visibly confused of the lot is US President Barack Obama. He is as indecisive as a village girl dabbling with two marriage proposals.

Others in the West are asking if the Taliban should be invited to the negotiating table. This is despite George W. Bush’s repeated rant that “we do not negotiate with terrorists”. Yet others wonder if it is possible to declare a truce with the Afghan militants without providing a new launch pad for Al-Qaeda’s war on the imperial West, the so-called war on terror.

It is now eight years into the conflict and the resolute band of resistance groups that are collectively known as the Taliban is undeniably winning the war.

According to the London-based International Council on Security and Development, the Taliban now has a permanent presence in 80 percent of Afghanistan, and they have their own civilian administration, courts, economy and even a taxation system in place.

An Afghan-born and Australian-based director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University recently said the Taliban are now “a de facto alternative government”.

Amin Saikal must be in the know of what he is talking about because he has strong ties with the Western-backed Karzai government, his own brother being a former cabinet minister under Karzai.

The West prematurely celebrated the “wiping out” of the Mullah Mohammed Omar-led Taliban regime after the 2001 US-led invasion, and George W. Bush promised to go after “everyone of them” that was remotely linked to “the terrorists”.

The gallant resistance cadres in the Taliban have clearly regrouped to lead a broad-based uprising against the presence foreign occupiers and the Western-created Karzai government in Kabul.

In an almost stupid attempt at identifying with public opinion, Karzai recently began his second five-year term as president by sheepishly saying he also wanted a decrease in foreign troops; stating that security must be in Afghan hands “within five years”.

Amin Sakail explained Karzai’s latest position saying: “The people following Mullah Omar have one line of thinking: ‘We are fighting for our country, we are fighting for our honour, we are fighting for our religion. We see these foreign forces as invaders, and we see the Karzai government as a puppet’.”

This philosophy is largely the key line followed by Zanu-PF supporters in Zimbabwe.

They take great exception to British-co-ordinated and US-led Western interference in the internal affairs of the country and they view the MDC-T as a puppet outfit that has been treacherously spoilt with Western moneybags. They view the honour, dignity and national interest of Zimbabwe as under threat. Theirs is the fight for the liberation legacy and the resolve to defend this legacy is undoubtable, as led by veterans of the liberation war.

The Taliban have an inspiration. Their renaissance is a product of their own liberation legacy — that undying resolve to thwart foreign invaders, as was achieved when they defeated the British colonialists in the 19th century, and as they ended a decade of Soviet occupation in 1989.

The inspiring message from Omar rests in the mind and soul of every Taliban fighter. It says: “Your country is occupied by infidels. Your forefathers drove them out, now they are coming back and occupying your land, and you as an Afghan and a Muslim have an obligation to stand up against these people.”

This is the resolve that has pumped up the fight in the heart and minds of Afghans, and the result has been a sharp increase in American soldiers returning home in body bags. The West can no longer convince their home population that the “war on terror” is still a credible cause for which so many of their fellow citizens should be dying.

With George W. Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair gone into political oblivion there has not been any Western politician too keen to mislead the people about the credibility of the “war on terror” and as it is such a pretext is now laughable if said publicly.

Obama still thinks Afghanistan is a “war of necessity”, perhaps because it is necessary to avoid a humiliating defeat for the world’s number one terrorist state.

Obama wants to send about 40 000 more troops, otherwise the US operation will “result in failure”, according to the US Commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChristal.

This move may prolong the occupation but will not help win the war.

In fact, the surge will be met by a higher surge in moral outrage by young Muslims across the world. Marc Sageman is a former CIA operative and now a counter-terrorism analyst.

He recently warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a troop boost “may result in moral outrage in young Muslims in the West, who would take it upon themselves to carry out terrorist operations at home in response. So far from protecting the homeland, the surge may actually endanger it in the short term”.

Sageman argued that his studies had shown that the majority of the 60 sampled Al-Qaeda-related plots were homegrown and had nothing to do with either the Afghan or Iraq insurgencies.

He lamented the reigning confusion in the West that says trying to thwart insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan is synonymous with destroying Al-Qaeda. Sageman called such confusion “insidious”.

He argued that Afghan fighters were “parochial” and were “happy to kill Westerners in Afghanistan, but they are not a threat to Western homelands”. Not too many rational people would quarrel with this assertion — largely treated as common sense outside Western circles.

Obama may add 40 000 more troops and all he will get in return are more body bags back to American families. The reality is that he is sending 40 000 invaders to a people that, in Omar’s own words, “fought against the British for 80 years from 1839 to 1919 and ultimately got independence by defeating them”.

That means resilience is a natural calling for the Afghans. To reiterate this, Omar said: ” If you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and are braced for a long war.”

The reports on the ground are that Karzai has been tasked by the United States to talk to the Taliban and such talks have been happening in secret. The Taliban pulled out of such talks recently demanding that talks could only resume after “the Americans leave our country”.

Omar is comfortably confident because he knows that inevitably the foreign forces will have to leave Afghanistan eventually. The Taliban can wait, and they have all the time in the world. All they need to do is to keep the battle fires burning.

The US-led Western invaders know very well that if they left now Karzai will be following them to some Western capital within a couple of days if he is lucky to be alive.

They also know that if they left in three years’ time or in five years’ time, there is no chance whatsoever that Karzai would last longer than a week in office.

The Taliban is a name widely and loosely used in describing any group of people opposed to the Western-backed governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan and this opposition is broad-based and very popular among ordinary Afghans and Pakistanis.

The West will rely on the doctrine of Taliban demonology where they insist that both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban-e Pakistan (TTP) are inherently and intractably twinned to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

This has not been proven at any time although it is the only way the West can manufacture consent among Westerners if the certain defeat at the hands of the Taliban can be delayed by prolonging the losing war as much as can happen.

The war has to be supported by public opinion and the public need to be scared for them to support a war. So why not scare them stiff!

So we are told that the TTP has become one with Al-Qaeda after the killing of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed through a US dawn strike in August.

Despite the statesmanlike and reconciliatory tone of Omar, the West will insist on labelling the Taliban a band of “terrorists” because such a label will alienate the Taliban from public opinion in the West.

Some in the West have argued that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are inseparable and will have to be destroyed together. This is the propagandist approach that George W. Bush established but reality is beginning to dawn on many people that the Taliban are no more than a nationalist movement solely after the sovereignty of their invaded homeland.

Now the West might be forced to avoid further humiliation by negotiating peace with the Taliban. It is absolutely hopeless to hope that Karzai will one day run Afghanistan without being guarded by American soldiers for the execution of his duties.

No manner of weapon sophistry can defeat the national resolve by the Taliban.

There is no weapon formed against a national resolve to defend one’s homeland that will ever prosper.

It is very important for those Zimbabweans who might be thinking highly of Western political backing and those who might be thinking that the resolve in the war veterans that liberated the country will die with the cadres as we keep losing them one by one to natural ending — it is important that they realise that the resolve to defend one’s own country cannot be defeated.

This resolve was not formed by Zanu-PF. It is Zanu-PF that was formed by this resolve, and that is why the hope that if Zanu-PF collapsed as a political party then all is over is just an absolutely baseless sense of misguided optimism.

The MDC-T leadership must learn attentively and fast that doing a Karzai is a thankless ambition that would never work in a nation where people know what it is to liberate a country.

It is impossible to become a successful puppet.

You can be Nouri-al-Maliki of Iraq, or Saddam Hussein, you can be Idi Amin of Uganda or Joseph Mobutu of Congo, you can be Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan or Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe; but the result will always be the same — shame, humiliation and defeat. That is inescapable.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

–Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@ rwafawarova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.co

UN, Government data shows women and children on decline in Zimbabwe

Some 100 children under five years of age will die today in Zimbabwe, a bleak statistic that is part of new social development data released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Government, revealing that the situation there for women and children has deteriorated in the past five years.

How to ‘unlock’ the brains of coma patients

Rom Houben, a conscious man presumed brain dead for 20 years, won’t be the last person found to be imprisoned in their bodies, says Celeste Biever

Darfur: over 300 former combatants discharged through UN-backed programme

More than 300 former combatants in Darfur, including women and disabled persons, have participated in a three-day discharge programme organized by the Government of Sudan with support from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur.

UN peacekeepers introduce local Congolese to the cow-drawn plough

United Nations peacekeepers are going beyond the call of duty in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), not only protecting local civilians from rebel militia but also helping them boost agricultural output as well as resurfacing roads and refurbishing a school.

UN boosts food aid to thousands uprooted by tribal violence in DR Congo

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today it is ramping up efforts to feed tens of thousand of Congolese who fled a recent outbreak of tribal violence in north-western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Today on New Scientist: 25 November 2009

Today’s stories on newscientist.com, at a glance, including: two radical new approaches to interstellar travel, what those hacked climate research emails really said, and the man behind the Pharyngula blog

Trial of Serb politician to resume at UN war crimes tribunal in January 2010

The United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the worst war crimes committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s has ordered that the trial of Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj, which had been adjourned in February amid allegations that witnesses had been intimidated, resume on 12 January 2010.

Detroit Demonstration Against Repression Outside Renaissance CenterDuring Attorney General Holder’s Visit

Demonstration in Detroit Demands Justice For Slain Imam and 10 Muslim Defendants

MECAWI, grassroots groups protest outside dinner while Attorney
General spurns meeting with local leaders

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Detroit–United States Attorney General Eric Holder was the keynote
speaker at the Marriot Hotel at the Renaissance Center located in
downtown Detroit on November 17. The speech was the highlight of the first awards dinner for the Advocates and Leaders for Police and
Community Trust (ALPACT), an organization that consist of 50 groups representing the Arab, Muslim, African-American, Asian and civil rights constitutiencies along with 50 officials from local, state and federal law-enforcement agenices.

ALPACT has been in existence for 13 years and promotes itself as a
medium for dialogue between the Detroit community and law-enforcement officials. The awards dinner came in the aftermath of the assassination of African-American Muslim leader Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was killed by FBI agents in Dearborn on October 28.

Another ten members of the Masjid Al-Haqq, which was led by Imam
Abdullah, have been indicted on criminal charges of alleged illegal
firearms possession, dealing in stolen goods and tampering with
vehicle identification numbers. A 44-page criminal complaint issued by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District
contained language which described Imam Abduallah as a radical with links to Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, formerly known as H.Rap Brown.

Imam Al-Amin is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison
after being framed-up in 2000 for the killing of a deputy sheriff in
Georgia. Al-Amin was the former Chairman of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee during 1967-68 and was a victim of the FBI’s counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO).

Al-Amin was driven underground in March 1970 after two other leaders of SNCC, Ralph Featerstone and Che Payne Robinson were killed when a bomb was placed in their vehicle in Maryland. Al-Amin was to stand trial in 1970 in connection with an arson charge during a rebellion in Cambridge in July 1967.

Al-Amin was captured in New York in 1971 and sentenced to prison. He was released in 1976 and continued his activism as a leader of the Islamic community in the United States. After his conviction in the
Georgia case in 2002 involving the death of a deputy Sheriff, he has
been held on lockdown 23 hours a day.

The ALPACT dinner was co-chaired by FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge Andrew Arena of the Detroit Field Office and Nabih Ayad, Chairman of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes ALPACT as “an organization that examines issues affecting police and community relations and the discriminatory enforcement of laws, such as racial profiling, police discretion and use of force, recruitment and training, citizen complaint processes, community partnering and police leadership and management of disciplinary practices; to develop recommendations and best practices; to develop recommendations and best practices designed to enhance the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.” (Michigan Citizen, Nov.8-14)

MECAWI, Grassroots Groups Hold Protest

Outside the Renaissance Center on November 19, members of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), the Detroit MLK Committee, Latinos Unidos, the family and friends of Imam Abdullah, members of Masjid Al-Haqq, and others, protested against the murder of the Muslim leader and the government prosecution of the other defendants.

Imam Luqman’s son, Omar Regan, expressed his appreciation for the work being done by MECAWI in organizing a political response to the assassination. Members of the family of Imam Luqman have set up a web site to build a legal defense campaign in support of the defendants. The website, Detroit10.org, has been up and running since early November.

MECAWI in its call for a demonstration at the Renaissance Center
proclaimed that “We Don’t Dine With FBI Killers! The ALPACT dinner at the Ren Cen comes at a time when the FBI has shot down a respected Detroit Muslim leader…. They have arrested 10 other Muslims on wild charges and media hysteria reminiscent of the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that tried to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and others.”

This statement went on to say that “United States jails are filled
with victims of frame-ups, and death row inmates are legally lynched.
Political prisoners languish in lock up such as Mumia Abu-Jamal,
Leonard Peltier and the Cuban 5–all victims of police frame-ups. This is no time to break bread with the FBI.”

In conclusion, the MECAWI statement demanded justice for Imam Abdullah and the conducting of a real independent investigation into his death, freedom for the Detroit 10, an end to the ICE raids and deportations, freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, the Cuban 5 and all political prisoners, and the end to racial profiling, harassment and police killings.”

The demonstration on November 19 was covered by the Detroit Free
Press, Michigan Public Radio, the Michigan Citizen, the Huffington
Post and a film crew from Eastern Michigan University that is shooting a documentary on the life of Imam Abdullah.

Inside the ALPACT dinner Attorney General Holder was reported to have emphasized the Obama administration’s opposition to racial profiling and the targeting of Muslims for selective prosecutions and frame-ups.

However, the Attorney General refused a request from the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for a special meeting to discuss the murder of Imam Luqman and other issues. Holder said that he had a scheduling conflict that did not allow him to meet with the community leaders.

Imam Dawud Walid, the executive director of the CAIR Michigan office, stated in an interview on the “Fighting for Justice” radio program aired over 1310 AM on November 22, that “we had sent a letter to Attorney General Holder requesting a meeting” However, the meeting never took place and Holder was rushed out of the Renaissance Center and flown back to Washington.

MECAWI is working with the Abdullah family to launch an online
petition campaign demanding justice for the late Muslim leader as well as the dropping of all charges against the Detroit 10. There are plans for a public meeting in December in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago.

The public forum will point to the continuation of the federal
government’s targeting of African-American leaders and other groups
within the Islamic community as evidenced by the murder of Imam
Abdullah and the prosecution of Muslims on false charges.

Hampton, who was 21 years old when he was killed in his sleep by the Chicago police, had been a victim of the FBI’s COINTELPRO efforts which targeted the Panthers and other revolutionary groups during the time period. The FBI had infiltrated the Panther chapter in Chicago.

An informant William O’Neal provided to the FBI the floor plan of the
apartment where Hampton was killed. O’Neal also drugged Panther
members and other occupants of the apartment so they would not be able to defend themselves against the violent police attack which resulted in the murder of both Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of Peoria.

Four other people were wounded in the police raid and residents of the apartment were charged with felonies even though the police and FBI staged the entire operation. The charges were eventually dropped against the Panthers and their supporters.

Many years later an out-of-court settlement was paid to the survivors
of the December 4, 1969 raid on the Panther residence where Hampton and Clark were killed. However, the federal government, the Illinois State Attorney’s Office and the local Chicago police never accepted responsibility for the attack on the Panthers or was anyone ever prosecuted for these crimes.