ten downing street

In the UK Parliament on July 25th, Tory MP Sir Peter Tapsell broke an unwritten taboo. He denounced the Israeli attacks on the civilian population of Beirut as: '.. a war crime grimly reminiscent of the nazi atrocity on the Jewish quarter of Warsaw.' For six decades 'though shalt not criticise Israel', has been an absolute, who ever is attacked and slaughtered (remember the Sabra and Shatila camps massacre of untold hundreds in 1982, for which Ariel Sharon was convicted of war crimes? Nothing happened and he became his country's Prime Minister. )

Were Amnesty International as brave as Sir Peter. Their mission statement includes demands to :

*Free prisoners of conscience and ensure prompt and fair trials for political prioners.

*End extradudicial executions and disappearances

*(Work) to ensure pepetrators of such abuses are brought to justice

AI is: ' independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest, or religion.' Further, statements (issued by AI) '.. are checked at the highest level for accuracy and political impartiality '(emphasis added.)

Yet below is Amnesty's take on the currenty tragedy in Lebanon, which fails to mention the dual tragedy in Palestine. In Lebanon, with life support of roads, electricity, bridges bombed, the trapped, maimed dismembered, blasted, barricaded, blockaded die without help and if help is at hand, hospitals are running out of all - and if the electricty dies, so does all needed to sustain life, from incubators to life support. What threat did the largest food importer in Lebanon pose? The chocolate and milk factory? The aid convoys, the ambulances, those attempting to dig victims from the ruins, those attempting to rescue four slaughtered UN peacekeepers, who had reportedly called the IDF ten times to tell them how close missiles were falling to their (marked) base. Only to be hit by a 'precison guided missile'. Collective punishment comes to mind. Illegal. So was the Warsaw ghetto - and many responsible hanged after the Nuremberg trials. Israeli Command has reportedly ordered the destruction of ten multi-story buildings for every (1937 designed) Katyusha rocket fired into Israel by Hizbollah. Palestine's airbrushed plight does not include bombed picknicking families on the beach, its ninety six kidnapped legislatures, bombed and demolished government buildings (including the Ministry of Agriculture, which last week, a first hand report says took the IDF three days to demolish with bulldozers.)

Also airbushed is: In January 2006, over 8200 Palestinians were held in Israeli custody: 3,111 held by the army (of whom 741 were in administrative detention), and 5,127 in Israeli prisons (53 in administrative detention). In March 2005, 19 prisoners were serving sentences of 20 years, and 140 serving 15 years or more. (Islamonline.net.) According to London based Palestine Solidarity Campaign,of these apporoximately 1,000 are women and currently 50-60 minors. A few years ago the Israeli Authorities used blue markers to write prison number on prisoners arms and legs, further reminiscent of Nazi horrors and degridations, writes William Blum, author of the definitive wake up call, 'Rogue State,'

Amnesty's letter to the meeting of Foreign Ministers in Rome on Wednesday refers not to the destruction of virtually the entire Lebanese nation by Israel (who has invaded Lebanon seven times in thirty years) but that: ' ...serious violations of the laws of war have been committed by both sides (any serious follower of events would surely have concluded that like Iraq and Palestine, this was an illegal invasion) launching indiscriminate attacks are war crimes.' So are wars of aggression. Also unadressed are the now numerous - many very credible - reports, that this is a long planned action and that the 'kidnapped soldiers' had infact been seized inside Lebanon, not snatched from Israel. Nevertheless:




Urge Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora to take measures to ensure that Hizbullah immediately ends its targeting of Israeli civilians, notably its firing of Katyusha rockets and other projectiles into Israeli towns and villages, and that Hizbullah fighters do not initiate armed attacks from residential civilian areas and avoid locating military objectives within civilian areas. Call on him to ensure that Hizbullah treats the two captured Israeli soldiers humanely and allows them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Take action!

Write to Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora


Dear Prime Minister,
I am writing to express my concern about the killing of civilians both in Lebanon and Israel. Since 12 July, some 300 Lebanese civilians, including dozens of children have been killed by Israeli air strikes against Lebanon and hundreds more have been injured. Amnesty International condemns unreservedly the massive attacks carried out by the Israeli army against civilians and civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon, and is calling on Israel to immediately cease such attacks and to respect international humanitarian law.

We are also concerned about Hizbullah attacks against Israeli civilians, some 15 of whom have been killed by rocket launched by Hizbullah. Such attacks have also caused substantial damage to homes and other civilian properties.
I urge you to take measures to ensure that Hizbullah immediately ends its targeting of Israeli civilians, notably its firing of Katyusha rockets and other projectiles into Israeli towns and villages, and that Hizbullah fighters do not initiate armed attacks from residential civilian areas and avoid locating military objectives within civilian areas. I also call on you to ensure that Hizbullah treats the two captured Israeli soldiers humanely and allow them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).



Sincerely,

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL


Where are the letters to Prime Minister Olmert of Israel, to President Bush whose military industrial complex supplies the weapons and is rushing more as this is written, including , according to former Pentagon Advisor who headed the US Army Depleted Uranium Project, Doug Rokke, one hundred BLU 12 'bunker busters' loaded with depleted uranium and other nuclear waste, since it comes from the nuclear fuel cycle (which will further poison the Middle East including Israel's citizens - 'where the wind blows ...' for four and a half billion years, till beyond: ' when the sun goes out') and to the supine Prime Minister Blair who jumps only to his Washington master's voice. Where is the demand for halt of all weapons to Israel? Where was the demand for Syria,Iran and Israel to be represented at the (pathetic just three hour Rome meeting .) Peace cannot be made without all parties being involved.

Is Amnesty, with its remarkable ability to mobilise thousands on behalf of one prisoner if it chooses, as impartial as it seems, or is it sometimes, simply gullible? One story is worth revisiting again, in detail.

In September 1990, a month after Iraq invaded Kuwait, a story surfaced in the London Daily Telegraph, with a claim from the exiled Kuwaiti housing Minister, Yahya al-Sumait (the Kuwaiti government, who had done much to incite invasion, ran away when it happened - unlike Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine - and came skulking back when all was safe) that babies in a hospital premature unit had ben thrown out of their incubators by Iraq soldiers who had then stolen the incubators to take to Baghdad, They had also switched off life support units. The story spread and grew, 312 babies in three hospital, left to die on the floor.

This against the backdrop of Saddam Hussein being the 'butcher of Baghdad', 'another Hitler', '... a mad dog, a killer ..' (Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York, sounding not fully bolted down himself.) Unknown to the public was the Bush Snr., Administration had enlisted the help of two vast PR companies. Hill and Knowlton and the Rendon Group, to sell an attack on Iraq (after the then US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had told Saddam regarding Kuwait : 'We have no view on Arab-Arab conflicts'; ie any dispute between Iraq and Kuwait was of no interest to the US.)

Amnesty had long campaigned against human rights violations in Iraq and more used to battling governments, suddenly found themselves '..admired and quoted by the Bush Administration and Hill and Knowlton.' Incredibly, on October 10th 1990, Amnesty presented evidence against Iraq with Hill and Knowlton at the congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill. Had they no clue as to a (mega buck) PR company's aims, employed by the Bush Administration? Hill and Knowlton produced a fifteen year old girl called 'Nayirah', 'allegedly a Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of ... her tortured land.'

'I volunteered (tears) at the Al Addan Hospital .. I saw the Iraqi soldiers ..with guns', they took fifteen babies out of incubators, leftthem on the cold floor and took the incubators. Oddly no one asked why she didn't pick them up and wrap and tend to them. No one checked who she really was. She was the daughter of Saud al Sabar, the Kuwaiti Ambassador to US. The incubators story of course, turned out to be complete fabrication (as with stories of germans cutting off and eating childrens' hands in WW1. Propoganda changes little.) Amnesty trustingly endorsed the incubator story. Apparently never investigating who 'Nayirah' was and in a charged situation, whether propoganda might not be rampant.

The full duplicity of the incubator story is an article in itself, but Amnesty's endorsement certainly contributed to the onslaught on Iraq and the thirteen years of subsequent, murderous sanctions, leading to possible one and a half million 'sanctions related' deaths, according the the UN., on which Amnesty was disproportionately silent. Further : 'Amnesty US Exective Director, John Healey, had compounded the incubator baby error in testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on January 8th (1991.) Amnesty had even, earlier signed up the the 'Nayirah' testimony without even bothering to mention her name, the little identity the world had. The carpet bombing of Iraq began nine days later.

Aziz Abu-Hamad of Middle East Watch had asked Amnesty on 6th January (1991) if they had : '.. the names of any of the families of the reported (now 350 plus) dead premature babies.They have, as we do, names of people killed in other ways and names of detainees, but I have yet to come across the name of one family, whose premature baby was allegedly thrown out of an incubator.'*

A story that has never gone away is that Amnesty was given $500.000 in gratitude by the government of Kuwait for their support. Letters over some years met with neither confirmation or denial. But some highly knowledgeable, influential and impartial people made - and continue to make the claim. Amnesty states that where it cannot gain access, it relies on others in the region or country. Perhaps this leads to manipulation, even of the well meaning.

*All detail from 'Selling babies' : Second Front : Censorship and Propoganda in the Gulf War, John R. Macarthur, California Press. - link