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Today's
Stories
October 25,
2004
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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October 25, 2004
Her Solidarity
is with the Poor
Lori
Berenson's Story
By
WILLIAM J. NOTTINGHAM
The story of Lori Berenson and the political
prisoners of Peru, held under discredited "antiterrorist"
legislation, should make us vigilant about civil rights and due
process in our own society. The Patriot Act has precedence all
over Latin America in the form of so-called national security
systems of the late 20th century supported by Washington. A Kerry
victory in November would not be reassuring in itself, because
since 9/11 we have seen a repressive infrastructure develop and
estrangement of police powers which have been tolerated overseas
wherever they served our alleged national interest. Like other
policies abroad, they come home to haunt us. We are challenged
to educate for peace and justice in a particularly crucial time
and to try to raise the public consciousness of rights too precious
to surrender.
I became interested in Lori
Berenson as soon as I read about her arrest in Lima, November
30, 1995, two weeks after her 26th birthday and only about a
year after she had arrived in Peru. From the description of charges
that she had some acquaintance with members of the Tupac Amaru
guerilla movement (MRTA), I knew that she could have been any
one of the young people we had sent overseas as global mission
personnel and interns for the mainline churches since the 1970's.
Disciples of Christ and the UCC had people held in jail in the
Philippines and Paraguay. Some had their lives threatened in
Guatemala, Honduras, and Lesotho and one was killed in South
Africa. Young men and women went out to work with ecumenical
human rights groups, councils of churches, and Christian activist
organizations from South Korea to the Middle East. Risks were
strong in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and eventually Chiapas and
Haiti. They were well-educated, politically aware, non-violent,
and committed to global justice.
I knew that Lori's solidarity
with the poor of the so-called Third World was the same as ours,
whether her motivation was religious or not. And after all, how
could it not be?
I have visited her five times
in prison in Peru since the request of her parents to be part
of a clergy delegation in 1999. Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Rabbi
Balfour Brickner, and Dr. James Lawson participated in one of
those visits, which included meetings with the American ambassador,
Peruvian officials, and Roman Catholic church leaders. The delegations
served a purpose, but obviously they did not succeed in obtaining
her release.
On June 19, I spent a day with
Lori in the penitentiary near Cajamarca. Mostly I conveyed the
affection and support of the Free Lori Committee and many friends.
As always, I was deeply impressed by her stamina and commitment
to justice. Among other things she wanted to know of the visits
I had made at her request to MRTA prisoners in Lima. These men
and women are totally abandoned by Peruvian human rights organizations
and ignored internationally by progressive political parties
of Europe and the Americas.
Lori went to Peru because of
her experiences in El Salvador, where she was committed for several
years to bringing an end to the war there. I told students at
Butler University that to understand Lori, you have to know how
Americans were affected by our government's involvement in El
Salvador during the 1980's. While she was a student at MIT, she
visited that country in 1988 with a group of Quaker women and
subsequently left MIT to work with organizations like CISPES.
At that time, those letters meant "Churches In Solidarity
with the People of El Salvador." Then she went to Nicaragua
to help refugees in a program sponsored by the Jesuits. She met
Comandante Leonel Gonzalez of the FMLN, became his secretary,
and accompanied him to negotiations in Mexico and New York to
conclude the peace process in 1992. Dropping his nom de guerre,
today he is Congressman Salvador Sanchez Cerén,
member of the legislature in San Salvador. Wherever armed struggle
has given way to peace and democracy in Latin America, former
revolutionaries of the 1980's are members of the government,
except in Peru, where they rot in jail.
Lori went to Peru in 1994 as
a writer and had contact with persons under assumed names and
construed identities who turned out to be part of the Movimiento
Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA). In November 1995, she was
arrested on a city bus in Lima, while siege was laid to a house
she had rented and which had been used by the guerilla movement,
she says unbeknownst to her. She was sentenced the following
January to life imprisonment for "treason" by a secret
military tribunal of hooded judges, literally sin rostro ("without
a face"). Lori and twenty other defendants had no opportunity
to cross-examine witnesses or to defend themselves legally. After
conviction, Lori was sent to the infamous Yanamayo prison, located
in a remote region of the Peruvian Andes at over 12,000 feet
altitude. She suffered from serious medical problems, and after
nearly three years, she was moved to a prison at a somewhat lower
altitude near Arequipa. Then she taken to the maximum security
women's prison in Los Chorrillos, near Lima, and now is in a
penitentiary near Cajamarca.
In August, 2000, with the international
scandal of President Fujimori's corrupt spy chief Vladimir Montesinos,
who was later captured in Venezuela and is now in a prison he
had built for others, Lori's life sentence was overturned and
the military tribunal officially disavowed by the Peruvian High
Court. Instead of being released, however, she was kept in custody,
tried again, convicted, and sentenced on June 20, 2001, to twenty
years in prison. This time, she was not accused of being a member,
much less a leader, of the MRTA but a "collaborator."
The same tainted evidence was used to reconvict her by the same
unreformed judiciary in total disregard of double jeopardy. Lori's
military trial in 1996 was carried out during the regime of Alberto
Fujimori, who fled the country in the fall of 2000 and is successfully
avoiding extradition from Japan in spite of an Interpol warrant
for his arrest.
In March 2003, at Lori's urging,
a friend and I visited nearly 60 MRTA political prisoners in
five different penitentiaries, both men and women. In January,
2003, all of their trials and life sentences were declared unconstitutional
by the Toledo government, and new trials are underway. In June
2004, I again visited them and their Family Association, with
Pastor Felix Ortiz, executive for Latin America and the Caribbean
for Global Ministries of the Disciples of Christ and the United
Church of Christ. Our churches are providing funds through the
Family Association for legal assistance and for support upon
release.
With Lori's encouragement,
a new NGO has been organized this year, called ALAS, the Spanish
word for "wings." Its purpose is to monitor the hearings,
provide lawyers, and to assist ex-prisoners to form a cooperative
for mutual support, mental health, and common purpose in the
community. The Association for Legal Aid and Social Action assists
former and current political prisoners to empower themselves
through cooperatively managed programs and reintegration services.
Former political prisoners and a few committed human rights defenders
willing to take the risk founded ALAS so that this group formed
in the armed struggle could help itself and engage in constructive
social dialogue with others.
Lori Berenson's various involvements
in Latin America were motivated by her concern for social justice
and her understanding of the oppression of the poor. Her humanitarian
and political sympathies made her the target of an oppressive
right-wing government. She has maintained her innocence in the
face of many inducements. She neither condones nor justifies
violence of any kind. For this reason, her imprisonment and deprivation
are not seen by her as meaningless. Like many others confined
unjustly, she depends on a spiritual and moral strength that
is an example to those who know her.
In July, 2002, the Inter American
Commission on Human Rights vindicated Lori and called for her
release and compensation, but due to the refusal of Peruvian
authorities to release her, her case has taken two more years
to be heard last May 7 and 8 by the InterAmerican Court in Costa
Rica. The question is not guilt or innocence but whether she
had a fair trial. It appears that a decision will not be announced
until November.
We like to think that the present
government in Peru is struggling towards a better future with
justice and democracy. The report of the Truth and Reconciliation
Committee last August was a hopeful sign, but not much has come
of it because of President Toledo's low standing in the polls--about
8%. The call for Lori's release on humanitarian grounds is worthy
of Peru's attention, and some officials recognize the injustice
of her imprisonment. Hundreds of US members of Congress have
signed letters on her behalf.
We can help by writing the
Bush administration and supporting the Committee to Free Lori
Berenson. Above all, we can understand the vulnerability of our
own society and be alert to demand protection for the rights
of everyone. Her website is www.freelori.org
William J. Nottingham is president emeritus, Division of
Overseas Ministries Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in
the US and Canada.
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
|