Hands off Syria, activists demand (Niagara This Week)

https://www.niagarathisweek.com/news-story/4066313-hands-off-syria-activists-demand/

NEWS

Hands off Syria, activists demand

Paul Forsyth

Niagara This Week - Niagara Falls

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Peace activists demanding Canada’s federal government steer clear of any military involvement in war-torn Syria targeted Niagara Falls riding MP and federal defense minister Rob Nicholson’s constituency office in Niagara Falls on Friday.

The afternoon rally saw a couple of dozen people with the Niagara Coalition for Peace, an umbrella organization of peace and social justice groups across the region, carrying signs and having some passing motorists on Portage Road beeping their horns in support.

The United States has been threatening military action against the Syrian regime of president Bashar Assad, accusing his government of a poison gas attack last month that allegedly killed some 1,400 people including children. The country has seen two years of brutal fighting between government and rebel forces.

France has said it supports a U.S.-led strike. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last week that his country supports its allies who are contemplating action against the Syrian regime, but said Canada has no plans for military intervention.

Saleh Waziruddin, spokesman for the Niagara peace coalition, said he fears Canada could get dragged into military strikes in Syria because of this country’s close ties to the U.S. military after the Afghanistan war.

“The Canadian military has become so integrated with the U.S. military,” he said. “Canada doesn’t have full sovereignty any more.”

Waziruddin said even a so-called ‘no-fly zone’ to keep Syrian government aircraft from launching attacks could be deadly for civilians, noting a bomb from a plane struck and destroyed a school when a no-fly zone was imposed on Libya.

Waziruddin said claims that military action in Syria could be quick and decisive may be misleading. He also said American military intelligence can’t be trusted, as shown by the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — which didn’t pan out — that led to the American invasion of that country.

“In every war they tell us it’ll be quick, and the other guy’s the monster,” he said.

“We can’t believe them (Americans). They said the same thing in Iraq.”

Waziruddin called on Niagara residents to contact their MPs to demand that Canada not get involved in any military involvement in Syria.

Paul Forsyth is a veteran of more than 30 years of community journalism who covers a wide range of issues in Niagara Falls and other parts of south Niagara, as well as topics of regional significance in Niagara.

Native Informants (Communist Party of Canada 37th Central Convention Contribution)

“Native Informants”

Our Iran policy is wrong because, in the name of solidarity with the people against the government, we objectively echo imperialist propaganda (I’ll show you), using anti-war declarations as a cover. Remember, the German Social Democrats said they were anti-war when they voted for war credits! This mistake has now born bad fruit with Libya and Syria, which unlike Iran did/do have progressive governments, because we automatically “copied and pasted” our Iran position. We are silent on anything progressive about Libya and Syria, and vilify them while reaching for anything redeeming about the “opposition”. Life is exposing our mistake.

Instead of doing our own research and thinking, we have “outsourced” to “native informants” (see http://is.gd/LKNflX), a racist idea where just because someone is from somewhere they must be right about their country. But communists from one country have many views (check out our convention!), inevitably we listen only to “informants” who confirm our own prejudices, or worse exploit them for their own agendas.

In 2005 the PV reprinted the Tudeh Party’s statement saying Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe out Israel (http://is.gd/0Mujuz). Even if you don’t speak Persian (which Tudeh does) you’ll see this is wrong as Ahmadinejad specified elections, not war, as the answer. This echoes imperialist propaganda and doesn’t help the Iranian people. To our credit, in 2007 and 2012 we printed a debunking (http://is.gd/KVs0UH http:// is.gd/hyaMnc) but at the 2014 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties we signed a statement (http://is.gd/GVfyLI only 2/3 parties signed, e.g. Cubans didn’t) vaguely referring to Iran’s “reckless gestures”, which only plays into this same propaganda.

Our first People’s Voice article on Syria (http://is.gd/wAwlHW) vilified the government (with better poverty rates than neighbors) for “actively and purposefully pauperising” the people.  The comrade who supplied this article at first denied it said this, but when I showed him the quote he conceded this was wrong and he hadn’t read the article! When I asked a party leader, who at first didn’t even know correctly who wrote it, they defended themself saying they hadn’t read it either! But that’s not a defense, it only condemns our blind “native informant” recipe.

There is a racist willful ignorance about the Arab and Muslim world, as if we are exotic creatures who cannot be understood by the Anglo mind. If you cut us we bleed just like you, it’s not complicated. I’m no expert, but a few minutes of looking things up exposes our policies as embarrassingly misinformed. The biggest casualty: demoralized members who see obliviousness to mistakes from outsourcing to “native informants” with their own agenda.

Interview with a Security Certificate Detainee (People's Voice)

Interview with a Security Certificate Detainee
by Saleh Waziruddin
(People's Voice, March 16-31 2013)

PV's Saleh Waziruddin recently interviewed Mohammed Mahjoub, the "security certificate" detainee who was finally freed from having to wear a GPS bracelet. Mohammed Mahjoub, a refugee from Egypt, was arrested in 2000, without being charged with a crime or given access to evidence against him. Mahjoub has been on a speaking tour about his case after being released from having to wear a GPS. He claims he has found evidence that Canada has spent over $1 billion on all security certificate cases, and that CSIS had used criminal records of five people with his name in Egypt who were convicted of various crimes to confuse the justice system.

     Although cleared of any charges in Egypt, Mahjoub has been unable to find out why he was arrested in Canada, other than the possibility that another security certificate arrestee, unknown to him, may have mentioned his name in a phone call. His house arrest conditions were so onerous and invasive that he initially went back to prison on his own, and his wife divorced him in 2011 when he was going to be released back into house arrest. His defense committee's website is www.supportmahjoub.org/. 

People's Voice: What would you say to someone who thinks what happened to you could never happen to them?

Mahjoub: I have never thought it will happen to me, but it happened.  It can happen to anybody here in Canada. My advice to them is: don't take everything granted forever. It happened to me today, it can happen to anyone else, especially minority people.

What have you found was most effective for the victories you've won in your struggle, such as being free from the GPS bracelet?

     The most thing effective in my case is speaking out, raising my voice, sharing my story with Canadians. Find other Canadians who have hope in their life to assist you.

What are things people in Canada can do to help win justice for you?

     They can do a lot of things. They can share the story in the internet, they can write to their MPs, they can share this information with human rights organizations. There are many, many things they can do, not only one thing. (They) can make events such as what happened today for instance here in St. Catharines.

What changed in your opinion about Canada after your experience?

     Again, the law is (supposed to) apply to every individual, whether they are citizen or non‑citizen. If someone commits a crime, he or she should face a fair trial, but in the security certificate cases there are no charges laid on me or any other security certificate individual. We didn't have a fair trial in the first place. We have to fight hard. Why there is (such a situation in) Canada? I am not angry, but I have to fight hard to clear my name. The individual who put me in this position, should be held accountable for what they did to me and my family as well.

Do you have advice to anyone facing a similar situation?

     My advice to them (is) to be patient, to fight through legal avenues, not do anything to make their case more miserable or more difficult. There are many ways to fight through the law, to hire a good lawyer to speak out, to have contacts with organizations (which) can raise your voice. They can share your story with other organizations - human rights groups, parliament, media.

(The above article is from the March 16-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive,Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)

In defence of Walberg article (letter to People's Voice)

In defence of Walberg article

(Letter to People's Voice, Feb 1-14 2013)

A letter to the editor (“Article gives wrong impression of the Iran regime”, People’s Voice, Dec. 1- 31, 2012) complains that the article “Canada’s toxic spill of anti-native racism” by Eric Walberg from November, about Canadian native activists getting a voice in OPEC, portrays Iran “in a very positive light and characterizes it as democratic.” But the article doesn’t anywhere call Iran democratic. Rather, the article exposes the imperialist double standard in calling Iran undemocratic while Harper suppresses Native voices and the EU bans Iranian television, something very different from characterizing Iran as democratic.

Further, the letter-writer mischaracterizes “vilayet-e-faqih” (vice-regency of jurists) as being appointed by “fellow mullahs” and above parliament. In fact the Assembly of Experts is directly elected by the voters, and while there is a law specifying they have to be religious scholars, this is not in the Constitution and is being legally challenged. There is also a Guardian Council, which is above parliament, but only half the members are appointed religious scholars, the rest are lawyers with secular specialties elected by parliament itself.

The letter-writer expresses concern about communists losing credibility, but surely credibility requires being accurate about facts? Inaccurate information does not serve the cause of international solidarity with the Iranian people. Rather, both international solidarity and our credibility are best served by countering imperialism’s propaganda, as Eric Walberg has done.

The letter-writer suggests that Walberg and others have joined “that league of the enemy of my enemy is my friend” because they are bribed by Iran’s public relations budget. Perhaps instead of speculating about Walberg’s motives we should pay more careful attention to the suppressed information he is bringing us. This is why I hope you print more articles by Walberg and PressTV.

Perhaps Walberg was right the first time, that Iran is not the enemy the demonization of war propaganda would have us believe.

S. Saleh Waziruddin,

Niagara Falls, ON