Saudi with UK residency likely to be released from Guantanamo soon

Shaker Aamer, a Saudi with residency status in Britain, is expected to be released from Guantanamo in June. He has a British wife and four children in London.

+ Add Image

The UK has made repeated requests for Aamer's release. The 48-year-old Aamer is accused of having been a key recruiter and financier for Al Qaeda while in Britain and to have worked for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. However, he has been held in Guantanamo for 13 years without charge. A US government officialtold AFP that Aamer would be released along with up to 10 other detainees.

A new commander Rear Admiral Fernandez Ponds will take over the command of the facility in July. There are still 122 men held prisoner. 57 have been classified as "releasable" by a review committee, including Aamer. Obama promised to close the prison even during his first presidential campaign. Congress has continually blocked Obama's attempts to take actions that could lead to closing the base. The base is technically Cuban territory but has been leased from Cuba since 1903 at a cost of just over $4,000 annually but the Cuban revolutionary government has refused to cash the checks. Cuba considers the lease arrangement not binding. Recent normalization of relations with Cuba do not include the return of the base to Cuba. Recently considerable investment and upgrades to the base have been made indicating the prison is not likely to close for some time even if the plan is to transfer the 57 cleared for release out of the facility Lieutenant Colonel Myles Caggins, a Pentagon spokesperson said: "The goal is to transfer all 57. We're going to support the president's mission of closing Guantanamo through transfers of detainees and prosecutions through military commissions,"The transfer of the ten in June would be after a thirty day notice period to the US Congress and then Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, would sign off on the transfer.

48 of those to be transferred are Yemenis who will not be repatriated in spite of continual protests for them to be returned to Yemen. With the present conflict in Yemen, the US will be even less likely to allow them back to Yemen. The US has had trouble finding host countries but Uruguay accepted a number and Oman, Estonia, Slovakia, and Georgia have also accepted prisoners. The one place you can be sure will not accept them is the United States which jailed them in the first place.

Campaigners in the UK for Aamer's release were heartened by the news but noted that Aamer had been cleared for release eight years ago by the Bush administration and then again under Obama in 2009 but nothing has happened. Karla McLaren, of Amnesty International in the UK, noted: ‘These reports are obviously encouraging but we’ve been here before.There have been so many false dawns over the release of Shaker that we won’t believe it until a plane bringing him back actually touches down here in Britain. Guantanamo has always been a complete travesty of justice and whoever is in government must ensure... Shaker is returned to his family as soon as possible if he’s not going to be charged.’

Supporters of Aamer claim that he was detained in Kabul in 2001 while doing volunteer work for an Islamic charity. They say he was handed over to US military in exchange for money and then tortured at a secret "black site" prison. He denies accusations he helped finance Al Qaeda. Aamer wants to return to the UK but Washington wants to send him to Saudi Arabia. He fears he would be tortured there. Given that he has a wife and four children in the UK it surely makes sense to send him there. Aamer's lawyer say UK and US authorities want to silence Aamer who claims to have witnessed abuse in the presence of UK security official.The Daily Mail in the UK has long campaigned on behalf of Aamer. Aamer's family says that if he comes to the UK he will be quite willing to face a UK to answer any charges he is a dangerous extremist. Apparently, Washington does not want that either.

The Mail discovered documents that showed, David Milliband, when foreign secretary in the Labor government, had plotted to hand Aamer over to Saudi authorities if he were released while leading his UK family to believe he was trying to have him returned to them in Britain. It will be interesting to see where Aamer ends up, in the UK, or Saudi Arabia. Given past experience he may even end up staying in Guantanamo. The appended video deals with another detainee in Guantanamo who wrote and published a diary about his experiences in the facility well over 12 years.

Raul Castro's daughter Mariela campaigns for LGBT rights in Cuba

Democracy Now has a rare interview with Mariela Castro the daughter of Raul Castro the Cuban president and Vilma Espin. As well as campaigning for the rights of gays, lesbians and transgendered people Mariela is director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana.

Mariela was recently granted a visa to make a trip to the U.S to attend two conferences and this provided the opportunity for the interview in the Cuban consulate in New York city. Mariela has been urging the U.S. to release five Cubans arrested for spying on violent anti-Cuban militants in return for releasing U.S. citizen Alan Gross who was convicted and sentenced to 15 years for subversion in 2009.

Amy Goodman asked Mariela why she was working for gay, lesbian and transgender rights when she herself is heterosexual, married with three children. Mariela sees herself as carrying on work begun by her mother. When she saw the problems encountered by LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) people she began to sympathize with their problems and became involved.

Mariela thought that Obama coming out in favor of same sex marriage was quite valuable since the U.S. was the most powerful country in the world and his endorsement would have a global impact.

In Cuba Mariela and CENESEX is promoting educational and legislative initiatives to promote LGBT rights. Although Mariela pushed for legalizing same sex marriage in Cuba she noted that there was a great deal of resistance. She is now promoting the legalization of same sex unions with the same rights as married couples. For much more see the full interview.

U.S. and Canada only countries in favor of excluding Cuba from Summit of Americas

Canada and the U.S. stand alone on the issue of excluding Cuba from the Summit of the Americas and the two united also against decriminalizing drugs. The host country and a U.S. ally Colombia spoke out against excluding Cuba. President Juan Santos said that holding another meeting while excluding Cuba would be unacceptable.

Canada and its faithful ally Canada were the only two countries not to lobby for including Cuba. Interesting that a die hard conservative Stephen Harper and liberal Barack Obama see eye to eye on the matter. At one time Canada developed relations with Cuba in spite of U.S. objections. Even now we do not have travel or trade restrictions as does the U.S. Sherrit Gordon mines has extensive investments in Cuba.

Santos said: "The isolation, the embargo, the indifference, the looking the other way don't work," . "It's an anachronism that keeps us anchored in a Cold War era that was overcome decades ago." No doubt the U.S. position has to do with internal politics and expatriate Cuban voters.Canada's position is probably a function of Harper's wanting to curry favor with the U.S.

President Santos also wanted to have a debate on decriminalizing drugs. Stephen Harper said that he would not entertain any policy changes that would decriminalize drugs. In Canada Harper has consistently opposed even harm reduction strategies such as safe injection sites. Obama also claimed that legalization was not the answer. This liberal president again follows the same policies as our reactionary Canadian prime minister.

Harper waas mainly trying to sell Canada as a good source of natural resources for Latin America's growing economies. He stressed the fact that he has streamlined environmental regulations to make it easier and quicker for projects to be approved.

Of course Harper spins his "reforms" positively:"We cannot allow valid concerns about environmental protection to be used as an excuse to trap worthwhile projects in reviews without end," He also noted that Canadian banks were among the strongest in the world.

Meanwhile Latin American leaders have founded their own group that excludes Canada and the U.S. The group is called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states. No doubt this will be a competitor to the Summit of the Americas In fact a number of nations have said that they will not even come to the next meeting of the Summit of the Americas if Cuba is still excluded. For more see this article.

Fidel Castro: "Stephen Harper's Ilusions"

Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter at funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau

A CBC report here by David Common comments on Fidel Castro.s recent remarks called ""Stephen Harper's Illusions". Common trying to be fair and balanced calls the remarks a rant. While it is true that it is rambling and sometimes polemical the meaning of most of it is not difficult to grasp. The parts critical of the environmental records of Canadian companies in South America are certainly not off base.

There is a video interview with John Kirk a professor of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie which is far more balanced and informative than Common's commentary. Among the comments on the Common's piece is this:"Did anybody actually read Castro's writing? Whether you agree with it or not, what Castro was getting at is really simple to understand." This commentator gives a link to Castro's actual remarks translated into English. You can read for yourself.

David Common finds Castro's ending bewildering and apparently not connected to anything. Here is a quote from Common's article.

""The topic, it seems, is the upcoming Summit of the Americas that Cuba has evidently not been invited to.

"Who could hold back from laughing?" Castro poses, "We must hurry up and tell Harper."

Tell him what exactly? ""

Apparently the meaning of the rambling old man escapes Common who surely must have all his faculties but somehow misses what Castro implies in his ending. Harper has the illusion that he is accepted as an equal by the U.S. But when push comes to shove and Canada is no longer of use to the U.S. or goes against U.S. policy--not a likely scenario under Harper-- he will find out he is not. No doubt the U.S. president could wear a beaver skin hat made in Canada to the summit of the Americas but Harper would not be invited to the meeting. Here is what Castro said on the issue. This puts the ending with reference to Harper in the context necessary to understand what it implies.

"""The guayabera shirts to be worn by Obama in Cartagena has become one of the main issues covered by the news agencies: "Edgar Gomez [...] has designed one for the U.S. President, Barack Obama, who will be wearing it during the Summit of the Americas," said the daughter of the designer, who added: "It is a white, sober guayabera, with a handiwork that is more striking that usual..."

Immediately after that, the news agency added that the Caribbean shirt was first made by the banks of the Yayabo River in Cuba; that is why they were originally called yayaberas.

The curious thing about this, dear readers, is that Cuba has been forbidden to attend that meeting, but not the guayaberas. Who could hold back from laughing? We must hurry up and tell Harper. ""

 Actually there are many views as to where these shirts originated. Some say the Philippines, others Mexico, others still Spain. At any rate they are quite popular in those countries as well as Cuba. See this wikipedia entry. Certainly Castro has to tell us a story to together with his message but it is hardly that opaque and it fits in quite well with the title Stephen Harper's Illusions.

Rice arrives in Spain, criticizes hosts over Cuba

There did not seem much fence mending going on. To start right off criticising your host and then not even staying overnight doesn't sound as if much fence mending got accomplished.

Rice arrives in Spain, criticizes hosts over Cuba
Fri Jun 1, 2007 11:59AM EDT
By Sue Pleming

MADRID (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Spain for what is meant to be a fence-mending trip on Friday but her first words were of reproach for its policy of engaging Cuba.

"Democratic states have an obligation to act democratically, meaning to support opposition in Cuba, not to give the regime the idea that they can transition from one dictatorship to another," she told reporters on her plane shortly before touching down in the Spanish capital.

"There is a major transition coming in Cuba."

Rice is the highest-level U.S. official to visit here since Spain withdrew troops from Iraq in 2004 following the election of Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, giving relations between Washington and Madrid a chill.

"I expect that the issue of Cuba will continue to be an issue between us, and it will continue to be one in which we will make our views known. I am sure the Spanish want to make their views known," said Rice said, who was to meet Zapatero.

The United States has a policy of isolating Cuba and its ailing President Fidel Castro while Spain favors engagement.

Cuba and its former colonial power Spain held talks on human rights in Havana this week but, in a joint statement, did not say whether they discussed 59 dissidents in Cuban prisons.

Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos visited Havana last April and met acting President Raul Castro, passing on a get-well note from Spain's King Juan Carlos to his brother Fidel.

Rice also criticized Spain for not doing more in Afghanistan, where it has up to 690 troops at any one time.

"I would like to see all of the allies do more, and Spain is included in that list," she said.

Rice's visit will be noticeably brief -- just six hours without the symbolic overnight stay reserved for close allies.

Asked about Rice's comments on Cuba, Zapatero was keen to play down any differences earlier this week, saying it was "understandable and normal" that two countries had varying points of view on some issues.

SPAIN FAVOURS ENGAGEMENT

Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother Raul in July last year after emergency surgery and the United States has been strongly critical of the move, calling for free elections and an end to the Castro era.

Europe expert Reginald Dale of the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank in Washington said the State Department had been arguing hard with the White House for closer ties with Spain.

Spain had been also pushing for an official visit by Zapatero to the United States but this had not been granted, he said. "Bush is not a forgive and forget type," he said.

The two nations cooperated on Afghanistan but there are differences on Iraq and Spain's ties with Venezuela's anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez has irked the Bush administration.

Rice's first appointment on Friday was with King Juan Carlos, who she described as a U.S. friend and praised for his role in thwarting an attempted coup in 1981, just six years after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

"He is obviously an important historic figure in the role that he plays in allowing the transition of Spain from authoritarianism," Rice said.

U.S.-Spanish disagreements on Cuba have a long history, In 1898, U.S. forces landed on the island and ousted Spain, then Cuba's colonial ruler, leading to Cuban independence in 1902 and a period of U.S. influence.

(Additional reporting by Jason Webb

The Iraq Oil Law: A view from Cuba

The author is an American. I wonder how he manages to be in Cuba. I thought that in general the US did not allow travel there. I guess he does not intend to go home! Given the tone of his articles he probably will not be regarded as a refugee fleeing Cuba and welcomed back with open arms.

US-Iraq Pullout Bad for Business
Por Etchegaray / Jueves, 24 de Mayo del 2007 / 12:10:14 / rene@ahora.cu


By Circles Robinson*

A US pullout from Iraq would jeopardize the windfall profits for a host of well-placed corporations specializing in oil, weapons, construction, security, and other war services.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at a record high, so it’s no surprise that Exxon, Chevron, Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Parsons, BP, Shell, etc., are firmly behind President Bush in his efforts to maintain and extend the Iraq occupation as long as possible.

With the corporations’ security expenses and investment risks being picked up by the US taxpayers, what incentive is there to hurry up any eventual withdrawal?
To keep the profits flowing, Bush has just named Lt. General Douglas E. Lute as the new “war czar” for Iraq and Afghanistan. In appointing Lute -who must be confirmed by the Senate- Bush said he is “a tremendously accomplished military leader who understands war and government and knows how to get things done.”

Gen David H. Petraeus, commander of the multinational force in Iraq said Lute would be “a great addition to the team that is striving for success in Iraq.”

What “success” means at this point in the war has never been fully explained to the people of the United States.


OIL FOREVER

Washington’s current top agenda item in Iraq is getting the puppet Iraqi government and legislature to approve a bill that would assure that private foreign corporations control the Iraqi oil industry and hundreds of billions in profits for decades to come.

Author and oil analyst Antonia Juhasz says the law being pushed by the Bush administration for Iraq, “opens up at a minimum, two thirds of Iraq’s oil to private, foreign corporate investment on terms that are literally the most generous available, just about anywhere in the world. Generous to the oil companies that is.”

The law is so slanted to favor the transnational corporations that it has little support even among the Iraqis that have collaborated with the occupation forces. The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU),-not the resistance- are threatening to strike if it proceeds.

BUSH IS NO PUSHOVER FOR CONGRESS

The charade over why Iraq had to be attacked ended shortly after the 2003 occupation began. The pretexts of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein being on a first name basis with Osama Bin Laden collapsed like a house of cards. Congress overwhelmingly supported the first hundreds of billions of dollars for the war. Now, the President is betting that when push comes to shove many critics on Capitol Hill will buckle to the fear of being accused of deserting the troops.

The 67-29 Senate vote last week against stopping funding for major combat operations within a year has bolstered the President’s hand, at least temporarily. There is still grumbling in the House of Representatives and among Democratic Party presidential candidates in the Senate but a prolonging of the war and related profits is almost guaranteed.

ROSY PICTURE, CLOUDY REALITY

For years now, the US news media has published one Pentagon report after another boasting of scores of “insurgents” killed in Iraq and rejoicing at the death of supposed “top ranking” Al Qaeda leaders. The hanging of Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi officials was also supposed to mark a turning point. If killing Iraqis was the solution, the war would have been over a long time ago. Instead, for every “militant” or “leader” killed, many more Iraqis are willing to take their place. Kill five today and fight fifty tomorrow.

To counter the would-be quitters, the State Department and its supporters on Capitol Hill warn of a civil war and possible large-scale bloodbath if the US forces leave Iraq. I wonder what they call the 50 to a 100 dead and hundreds more wounded every day; month after month, year after year?

As was the case in the early years of the Vietnam War, the vast majority of major US newspapers rushed to support the war on Iraq. Three hundred fifty billion dollars later with $90 billion more on the horizon, and public opinion turning against the war, several major newspapers are now calling for some sort of pullout.

The L.A. Times made its about face in a recent editorial stating: “The longer we delay planning the inevitable, the worse the outcome is likely to be. The time has come to leave.”

But the California daily misses the point: Worse for whom? If the real reason for being in Iraq is to help US corporations make a buck than every day the troops remain in place is another day that the dollars flow. Isn’t the motto: What’s good for business is good for the nation?

*Circles Robinson is a US journalist living in Havana. His reports and commentaries can be read at www.circlesonline.blogspot.com

Disculpa, los comentarios no están activados para esta noticia.

Castro compared to Chavez

This is an interesting article. I am no expert on either Castro or Chavez but from my limited knowledge Whitford's article conforms with what I know (or think I know!)
By the way Castro has not smoked cigars for some time now. If Whitford gets that wrong what else might he get wrong!


http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ben_whitford/2007/03/chvez_is_no_castro.html

Chávez is no Castro

Neither the excesses nor the achievements of the Venezuelan leader are
in the same béisbol-park as his cigar-puffing neighbour.

Ben Whitford

March 1, 2007 9:30 PM

Hugo Chávez likes to style himself as a revolutionary. When he won
reelection last year, having finally broken the back of the domestic
opposition, he dedicated the victory to "the Bearded One": his friend
and mentor, Fidel Castro. Since then he's painted himself as the aging
Cuban's heir apparent, nationalizing Venezuela's largest
telecommunications and electricity companies and moving to take a
majority share in foreign-owned oil-drilling operations along the
Orinoco belt.

From his bombastic policies to his trademark red beret, everything
about the Venezuelan leader's revolutionary streak is carefully
calibrated to stir up strong feelings in supporters and critics alike.
The American right's demonization of Chávez is in large part a
knee-jerk reaction to his outspoken praise for Castro and mimicry of
the Cuban's brand of revolutionary socialism. For much the same
reasons, as George Galloway showed yesterday, Chávez inspires
something close to infatuation among certain sections of the British
left. In Chávez's Bolivarian revolution, both sides hear echoes of
Havana, 1959, and are respectively appalled or enthralled.

The truth of the matter, however, is somewhat more complicated. Chávez
is no Castro: neither his excesses nor his achievements are in the
same béisbol-park as those of his cigar-puffing neighbor. The former
paratrooper is a more moderate breed of caudillo, using the rhetoric
of revolution to manipulate both his enemies and his allies, at home
and abroad.

Chávez has little time for the checks and balances of liberal
democracy. Both the Supreme Court and the National Assembly are
stuffed with his cronies; his knack for gaming the country's electoral
system makes Karl Rove look like Jefferson Smith; and he recently gave
himself the right to govern by decree well into 2008.

But if Chávez loads the decks, he is at least still playing the game.
He welcomes the legitimacy of being the more-or-less
democratically-elected leader of a more-or-less democratic country. He
may occasionally close down a TV station he dislikes, but he also
tolerates a robust and highly critical news media and allows
Venezuelans to gather in their thousands to demonstrate against him.
And while there are unsettling rumors of political detentions,
Venezuela has nothing to rival Cuba's systematic suppression of
dissent.

Venezuela is a troubled nation [aren't they all? -- JD], then, but
hardly a totalitarian one. Neither, however, is it in the throes of
Cuban-style social revolution. Say what you like about Castro: in the
face of overwhelming odds, he gave Cuba a world-class health service,
a thriving biotech industry, and a free and flourishing education
system. Under his rule, despite America's misguided economic blockade
and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Cuba's infant mortality
rates fell below those of America; literacy soared. These achievements
don't begin to justify Castro's awful human rights record, but they
are astonishing feats of social engineering.

Chávez, with far greater resources and in the face of far fewer
obstacles, has accomplished far less. He has presided over a period of
enormous wealth - oil was $12 a barrel when he took office, and stands
at over $60 a barrel today - but has little to show for it besides a
hundred thousand AK47s and a hefty stack of frequent flyer miles [from
Chávez's globe-trotting diplomacy]. By some measures social spending
has actually decreased under Chávez; poverty is still rampant;
inflation remains high; more than a million Venezuelans remain
illiterate; corruption is rife; crime rates are rocketing.

Worse, many of Chávez's "revolutionary" programs fail to make lasting
improvements to Venezuelan society. Take Chávez's most-widely
trumpeted social program, the importation of some 20,000 Cuban doctors
to establish free local clinics for the poor. While the program has
done some good in the poorest barrios, it does little to fix
Venezuela's creaking healthcare system in the long term. When the oil
boom ends and the Cubans go home (or defect), Venezuela's poor will be
left back where they started: with a barely-functioning two-tier
health service.

The truth is that while Chávez's sympathy for the poor is probably
genuine, his "Bolivarian revolution" has sought not to impose seismic
structural changes on Venezuelan society, but rather to leverage the
country's oil wealth to temporarily paper over the cracks. Revolution,
for Chávez, was less an ideology than a gambit; in speaking so long
and so loudly of revolution, he hoped to polarize his own people and
international opinion, and thereby cement his own grasp on power.

Chavez is both a democrat and an authoritarian: opposition is too
widespread to be safely repressed, so he seeks instead to remain
broadly within the democratic mainstream, splitting and antagonizing
his critics, pushing them further to the right and then using their
very virulence to justify the concentration of power in his own hands.
In that light, preaching revolution has served Chávez well. The ragbag
of right-wingers and out-of-work oligarchs who make up the Venezuelan
opposition's leadership were sent into a predictable frothy-mouthed
frenzy by his talk of communist revolution; they now spend the bulk of
their time spluttering in reactionary outrage, attacking the model he
claims to represent rather than putting forward their own solutions to
the country's problems. His supporters, meanwhile, are too caught up
in the fervor of revolution to quibble over the erosion of their civil
liberties.

Hugo Chávez's opponents like to portray him as a clown; in fact, he's
proven remarkably shrewd. He is neither a socialist saviour nor a red
menace; rather, he is a calculating and pragmatic leader who donned
the mantle of Castro-style revolutionary socialism to wrong-foot his
opponents. In attacking America and cosying up to Cuba, Chávez has now
won the support of a broad swathe of the international left, and the
opprobrium of a still-wider tract of the American right. Both sides
are ultimately playing into his hands, validating his revolutionary
sleight-of-hand and overlooking the essential realpolitik that lies,
for good or for bad, at the heart of chavismo.

--