Tacoma, WA
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Tacoma, WA |
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An Open Letter to the US Congress From Members of the British Parliament About Guantanamo  As a group of elected members of Parliament (MP) from all the main parties represented at Westminster, we are outraged by the current position of the US Congress which, apparently, means that Guantanamo Bay prison will never be closed, and, of particular concern to us, that a British resident who was cleared for release more than two years ago, cannot return here.
The US official document given to him states, Mr. Shaker Aamer, who has a British wife and four children, has now been held for nine and a half years, despite the fact that officials in the US governments of both President Bush and President Obama have been aware for several years that there was never a case for him to answer. During this period Mr. Aamer has been tortured by US agents - for example, by having his head repeatedly banged against a wall - and has witnessed the torture of another UK resident. In January of this year, with eight other prisoners, Mr. Aamer started a new hunger strike to press for his release. In a scribbled note to his lawyers on the official paper saying he could be released, he urged them to work fast and get him home to his wife and kids "before it's too late." In recent days, new evidence has emerged via a legal representative who has visited Mr. Aamer about his fragile state of health, including extreme kidney pain and serious asthma problems. He is clearly in urgent need of an independent medical assessment. The British foreign secretary has raised this appalling case with the US secretary of state, stressing its high importance to the UK government and to many people in Britain who are shocked by the painful injustice Mr. Aamer and his British family have suffered at the hands of our ally. In Britain, we have seen nine UK citizens and five UK residents returned from Guantanamo, after prolonged negotiations and court action, and the UK government took the responsibility for those men's conduct on their return. All have been exemplary members of our society ever since. There is no reason to believe Mr. Aamer would be any different, and the UK government is responsible for verifying that. Mr. Aamer was not returned with the others during the Bush period, perhaps because he knew too many terrible stories from the prison. As a Saudi citizen, educated in the US, with a warm and outgoing personality, he had language and social skills that made him a chosen leader in several negotiations with the US authorities in Guantanamo Bay prison - notably over ending earlier hunger strikes. The negotiations failed when the prison authorities did not keep the bargains made, according to lawyers familiar with that period in the prison. Mr. Aamer's prominence among the prisoners has been reported by former prisoners, by several US guards and a number of lawyers with experience in his case. We understand that the US government at one point planned to return him, against his will, to Saudi Arabia. Once there, he would have entered a re-education program, and it is likely his British family - who do not speak Arabic - would not have had the necessary status to be able to join him. He has told his family - in two phone calls in the entire period - his wish is to return to them in London and recover from his ordeal by living a quiet family life. For all these years, his family have kept as far as possible out of the public eye, maintaining their privacy and dignity in very difficult times, without husband and father. This unimaginable pain has gone on longer than anyone should have to bear. It is difficult for us to understand this is going on in our country because of the attitude of the elected leaders of US friends and allies. The loss of their father came after the family was living quietly among aid workers in Kabul where Mr. Aamer was building schools and digging wells. When the US bombing of Kabul began a month after 9/11, he took his family to Pakistan for safety and returned to look after their home and effects in Kabul. We do not know how he then came to be in US custody, but we know enough about the bounties paid then by the US for foreigners to be extremely uneasy about what may have triggered his long incarceration - unprotected by the Geneva Conventions, which are the common heritage of our nations that fought together in World War II to defend a world free of fascism and injustice. We know that the National Defense Authorization Act 2011, which came into force in January of this year, means that detainees from Guantanamo must be "certified" before being transferred, and that new draft legislation is currently being debated in the Senate for when this act lapses in September. What "certification" beyond the word of our foreign secretary do you need to send home a man your own military authorities have cleared as innocent? We strongly urge members of Congress to take action on Mr. Aamer's case to end this intolerable situation, which casts a dark shadow over America's reputation here.
Jeremy Corbyn, MP House of Commons, London SW1
ABOUT FACE BOOK TOUR & MILITARY RESISTANCE PANEL DISCUSSION Download the event flyer. Jeff Paterson was the first GI to publicly refuse orders to the first Gulf War and is an active member of Courage to Resist. He and others are touring the country to promote Courage to Resist's new book, About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War, and in support of antiwar GI, Bradley Manning. Manning is a 24-year-old Army soldier accused by the military of leaking classified information, including a video dubbed "Collateral Murder," to Wikileaks. The video shows the killing of civilians by US troops in Iraq. Corporal Paterson recently attended Bradley Manning's pre-trial hearing, in Ft. Meade, Maryland, and will be giving an update on his case. Two Public Events: What: Book Reading and Signing with Jeff Paterson What: Panel Discussion: Courage to Resist!
___________________________________ 3 women share Nobel Peace Prize 
Nobel Peace Prize winners Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee (left), Tawakkul Karman of Yemen and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf hold hands in solidarity at the Grand Hotel in Norway on Saturday. (FREDRIK VARFJELL / Scanpix Norway / AP) BJOERN H. AMLAND & LOUISE NORDSTROM AP: 12/11/2011 "My sisters, my daughters, my friends - find your voice," Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said after collecting her Nobel diploma and medal at a ceremony in Oslo.
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___________________________________ None of Us Were Like This Before: 11/19/11 - Journalist and author Joshua Phillips has written a book about torture entitled “None of Us Were Like This Before”. He delivered a lecture on 11/16 at the UW Tacoma campus, sponsored in part by VFP. 
Lamenting the use of torture by American and allied forces in the “War on Terror”, Phillips wishes to promote deeper public discussion of the issue. He began his talk by referring to a recent Presidential debate in which Republican hopefuls promised to reinstate an official policy of torture. According to Phillips, public support for government-sanctioned torture has risen lately in the polls. Given this trend, he says, it is easy to see that a change in presidents or another 9-11 attack would likely result in a regression back to reinstatement. __________________ DRONES ON TRIAL: 38 Found Guilty of Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks Upstate Drone Action, December, 2011 
Verdict Reached VFP Board President Elliott Adams and member Ann Wright were among the 38 arrested last April at Hancock Airport opposing the use of drones in warfare and specifically the remote piloting from Hancock Airport of drones in Afghanistan. On November 5th, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark testified for more than 4 hours at the non-jury trial. “Drones inherently violate the laws of the United States and international law,” Clark said in an interview before taking the stand. “They are associated with the concept of assassination and murder.” For more information, contact |
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