Joint Press Release Sent by EarthWorksAction and the Coalition to Protect New York:
On June 19, 2010, nearly 140 individuals and representatives from 60 grassroots, regional, and national organizations in four states gathered in Binghamton to share information on legal, scientific, economic, policy, health, and family issues related to hydraulic fracturing for methane gas, or "fracking."
Participants in the Coalition to Protect New York are unified by knowledge of the extensive evidence that gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with toxic chemicals harm water supplies, property values, community infrastructure, the environment, and human health.
At the gathering, people from neighboring states who are living with dire consequences of this process gave testimony, urging New Yorkers to halt fracking and avoid problems that have arisen nationwide. The practice hasn't yet been permitted in New York, and two different bills are currently before the state legislature that would impose a moratorium while certain stipulations are met.
"Many organizations statewide have developed expertise and made great strides; by working together, we can achieve even more in educating the public, assisting landowners, and fostering sound public policies," said Jack Ossont of Yates County, an event organizer. "We need to stop the rush to drill, which would endanger communities across New York." He lauded the many volunteers who labored to convene the statewide summit.
Workshops were led by experts from around New York and as far as West Virginia. Keynote speakers were Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering at Cornell University; Wes Gillingham, Program Director at Catskill Mountainkeeper; and Julia Walsh, founder of FrackAction.org.
Weston Wilson, a retired whistleblowing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineer, paid a surprise visit. In 2004, an EPA study declared that hydraulic fracturing poses no threat to drinking water a conclusion Mr. Weston and others contend is scientifically unsound and resulted from Bush administration pressure to omit critical data. The study greatly contributed to exemption of the gas industry from Safe Drinking Water Act requirements to disclose the toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-22nd District) was another surprise visitor; he encouraged strong oversight of the gas industry and protections for communities, including through passage of the FRAC Act. The bill, which Mr. Hinchey introduced, would require disclosure of the many toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and give the EPA authority to regulate the process.
"We all came to Binghamton with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in mind, and the commitment to preventing such tragic events from ever happening in New York," said Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper. "Today's gathering signifies a new phase of collaboration and effectiveness in ensuring that the gas industry doesn't continue to degrade quality of life across the Marcellus Shale region."
Maura Stephens of Tioga County, another event organizer, said, "We don't blame people who have signed leases. Gas companies don't reveal the potential frightening consequences. But now we know, and we owe it to everyone to share this information. We want to keep our state beautiful, safe, toxin-free, and livable. Many of us feel we are fighting for our very lives."
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Thursday, June 03, 2010
A New Gulf War: Lessons from Mesopotamia
Could we be witnessing the U.S. version of the destruction of the Marsh Arabs’ habitat?
Remember how outraged we were in August 1990 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded his much smaller neighbor, Kuwait?
In response, the United States and about 33 nominal UN allies waged what the George H.W. Bush administration and US media dubbed the Gulf War (or Gulf War I or Persian Gulf War). It lasted less than six months.
We resoundingly defeated our former friend, teaching him a stern lesson -- and then leaving him to his own devices.
Environmental Gulf War I
Saddam Hussein drained the marshes down south in Iraq, near the Gulf, to drive out rebellious Marsh Arabs and starve them to death or kill them outright.
A half million people lived there, fishing and either farming or raising water buffalo. In just a short time, when Saddam’s armies were done, only a few thousand remained. The birds and fish disappeared, too, their habitat destroyed.
Those marshes were already drying up before Hussein’s army invaded; some 30 years of drainage of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (which originate in Turkey) by Turkey and Iran as well as Iraq was helping desertify the marshlands, as were other Iraqi government policies.
Hussein just hastened the region’s demise, the assassination of its wildlife and ecology, and the murder, incarceration, or displacement and dispossession of its people.
I’d say this qualifies as genocide.
The United States and the rest of the world vaguely expressed outrage, but there was little coverage in the media and nobody did anything to help the Marsh Arabs or reverse the environmental and economic damage to the wetlands.
It wasn’t until 2004 that a huge international project, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, was begun to remove dams. By 2006 about half the Marsh Arabs’ homeland was successfully re-flooded, and a few species seemed to be recovering slightly; some people returned to the area to try to reclaim their way of life.
But a drought over the last three years, in which the region received only 30 to 40 percent of previous rain levels, has turned those wetlands back into deserts and made them too hostile an environment for people and wildlife.
Again man stepped in to make matters worse. Drainage of both the Tigris and Euphates upriver in Turkey and northern Iraq has caused a 40 to 60 percent drop in water flow into Iraq and Syria in the last few years.
Turkey claims the water belongs to Turkey. But Turkey, Syria, and Iraq (and Iran to a much lesser extent) share these fragile and diminishing water supplies and are suffering severe water shortages.
The region is warming, like most of the planet. The ongoing drought is probably its new “normal” rather than an aberration.
Iraq remains occupied and, like Syria, has an unstable government. Iraq’s human-built infrastructure is still shattered. Oil exploitation, by BP and others, continues unabated.
And preposterously, the entire area’s population is growing, despite the loss of probably a million Iraqis to war and violence.
Water wars look increasingly possible.
Back in the USA
Now to the United States, where Gulf of Mexico marshlands are being assaulted by BP oil and further poisoned by toxic dispersants. We’re already seeing massive ecosystem destruction, wildlife kills, and livelihood losses, and inevitably we’ll soon see widespread mental health problems and the breakup of families and communities.
A kind of genocide, too, one might argue.
Just like Saddam Hussein and his minions did, BP CEO Tony Hayward and his executive staff are getting away with murder.
BP is still running the “cleanup operation,” which everyone knows is a sham, just as Saddam Hussein was left to “clean up” after the Gulf War.
BP has insisted, even against EPA orders, on using a highly toxic dispersant (in a procedure that has never been tried before) that is less effective than others. (There’s a good reason for this: BP owns the company that makes Corexit, and Corexit breaks the oil particles into smaller particles that make it harder to see how much oil BP has unleashed.) The United States and the world community looked away when Saddam Hussein used nerve gas and other toxins to combat the rebels in 1991.
BP has not allowed the low-paid cleanup workers who are standing in broiling sun while raking oil-soaked sand 12 hours a day to wear face masks, let alone the full haz-mat protection suits they should be provided. Bush I ordered U.S. soldiers to stand by as Saddam Hussein’s army helicopters strafed Shiite communities with sarin and other chemical weapons.
Today, fishers, boaters, and residents of Gulf of Mexico shore communities are being forced to construct homemade barriers to try to save their beautiful beaches and coastal marshes. Many of them, no doubt, will flee the region, just as hundreds of thousands of the Marsh Arabs and 1991 rebels who survived Saddam’s slaughter became permanent refugees.
BP has banned journalists, camera wielders, and the public from vast areas where they could be documenting the crude spill. In 1991, Saddam kept journalists out of the rebel areas, and Bush I was eager to keep them out as well. Bush didn’t want the U.S. public to know about the brutal repression of the rebels, who were rebelling because he had urged them to. It was easier to let Saddam crush them; their religion made the U.S. uncomfortable, and they might have formed an alliance with Iran that was unfavorable to U.S. interests. As Barry Lando wrote in Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush (Other Press), "Anonymous government figures, wise in the ways of Realpolitik, were making statements such as, 'It is far easier to deal with a tame Saddam Hussein than with an unknown quantity. ' "
If the journalists at Grist, Mother Jones, and other good news organizations keep on this story, and the rest of us step up the pressure to make oil and gas companies accountable and transparent in all their actions, and if enough people continue working on the cleanup in a sensible way, perhaps the marshlands of southern USA will survive.
It will take all these actions together. The alternative is unthinkable but not impossible. They could end up like the marshlands of southern Iraq: permanently uninhabitable.
Remember how outraged we were in August 1990 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded his much smaller neighbor, Kuwait?
In response, the United States and about 33 nominal UN allies waged what the George H.W. Bush administration and US media dubbed the Gulf War (or Gulf War I or Persian Gulf War). It lasted less than six months.
We resoundingly defeated our former friend, teaching him a stern lesson -- and then leaving him to his own devices.
Environmental Gulf War I
Saddam Hussein drained the marshes down south in Iraq, near the Gulf, to drive out rebellious Marsh Arabs and starve them to death or kill them outright.
A half million people lived there, fishing and either farming or raising water buffalo. In just a short time, when Saddam’s armies were done, only a few thousand remained. The birds and fish disappeared, too, their habitat destroyed.
Those marshes were already drying up before Hussein’s army invaded; some 30 years of drainage of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (which originate in Turkey) by Turkey and Iran as well as Iraq was helping desertify the marshlands, as were other Iraqi government policies.
Hussein just hastened the region’s demise, the assassination of its wildlife and ecology, and the murder, incarceration, or displacement and dispossession of its people.
I’d say this qualifies as genocide.
The United States and the rest of the world vaguely expressed outrage, but there was little coverage in the media and nobody did anything to help the Marsh Arabs or reverse the environmental and economic damage to the wetlands.
It wasn’t until 2004 that a huge international project, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, was begun to remove dams. By 2006 about half the Marsh Arabs’ homeland was successfully re-flooded, and a few species seemed to be recovering slightly; some people returned to the area to try to reclaim their way of life.
But a drought over the last three years, in which the region received only 30 to 40 percent of previous rain levels, has turned those wetlands back into deserts and made them too hostile an environment for people and wildlife.
Again man stepped in to make matters worse. Drainage of both the Tigris and Euphates upriver in Turkey and northern Iraq has caused a 40 to 60 percent drop in water flow into Iraq and Syria in the last few years.
Turkey claims the water belongs to Turkey. But Turkey, Syria, and Iraq (and Iran to a much lesser extent) share these fragile and diminishing water supplies and are suffering severe water shortages.
The region is warming, like most of the planet. The ongoing drought is probably its new “normal” rather than an aberration.
Iraq remains occupied and, like Syria, has an unstable government. Iraq’s human-built infrastructure is still shattered. Oil exploitation, by BP and others, continues unabated.
And preposterously, the entire area’s population is growing, despite the loss of probably a million Iraqis to war and violence.
Water wars look increasingly possible.
Back in the USA
Now to the United States, where Gulf of Mexico marshlands are being assaulted by BP oil and further poisoned by toxic dispersants. We’re already seeing massive ecosystem destruction, wildlife kills, and livelihood losses, and inevitably we’ll soon see widespread mental health problems and the breakup of families and communities.
A kind of genocide, too, one might argue.
Just like Saddam Hussein and his minions did, BP CEO Tony Hayward and his executive staff are getting away with murder.
BP is still running the “cleanup operation,” which everyone knows is a sham, just as Saddam Hussein was left to “clean up” after the Gulf War.
BP has insisted, even against EPA orders, on using a highly toxic dispersant (in a procedure that has never been tried before) that is less effective than others. (There’s a good reason for this: BP owns the company that makes Corexit, and Corexit breaks the oil particles into smaller particles that make it harder to see how much oil BP has unleashed.) The United States and the world community looked away when Saddam Hussein used nerve gas and other toxins to combat the rebels in 1991.
BP has not allowed the low-paid cleanup workers who are standing in broiling sun while raking oil-soaked sand 12 hours a day to wear face masks, let alone the full haz-mat protection suits they should be provided. Bush I ordered U.S. soldiers to stand by as Saddam Hussein’s army helicopters strafed Shiite communities with sarin and other chemical weapons.
Today, fishers, boaters, and residents of Gulf of Mexico shore communities are being forced to construct homemade barriers to try to save their beautiful beaches and coastal marshes. Many of them, no doubt, will flee the region, just as hundreds of thousands of the Marsh Arabs and 1991 rebels who survived Saddam’s slaughter became permanent refugees.
BP has banned journalists, camera wielders, and the public from vast areas where they could be documenting the crude spill. In 1991, Saddam kept journalists out of the rebel areas, and Bush I was eager to keep them out as well. Bush didn’t want the U.S. public to know about the brutal repression of the rebels, who were rebelling because he had urged them to. It was easier to let Saddam crush them; their religion made the U.S. uncomfortable, and they might have formed an alliance with Iran that was unfavorable to U.S. interests. As Barry Lando wrote in Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush (Other Press), "Anonymous government figures, wise in the ways of Realpolitik, were making statements such as, 'It is far easier to deal with a tame Saddam Hussein than with an unknown quantity. ' "
If the journalists at Grist, Mother Jones, and other good news organizations keep on this story, and the rest of us step up the pressure to make oil and gas companies accountable and transparent in all their actions, and if enough people continue working on the cleanup in a sensible way, perhaps the marshlands of southern USA will survive.
It will take all these actions together. The alternative is unthinkable but not impossible. They could end up like the marshlands of southern Iraq: permanently uninhabitable.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Marcellus Shale: Are the Risks Worth the Rewards?
"Update: PEMA urges residents to prepare now for possible flooding.”
“DEP directs gas drillers to replace water.”
“Man killed by fall off Towanda drilling rig.”
I read these three stories in that order. The first two were in the
“The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) . . . ordered Schreiner Oil and Gas Co. to provide a permanent solution to water supply issues at two homes the company’s drilling activity impacted near
“DEP previously determined that the company, based in
Does this not terrify everyone who lives in the huge gas-drilling and potential gas-drilling region? (The Marcellus Shale encompasses large swaths of
Here are some facts:
1) The horizontal, slick-water hydraulic fracturing process of gas drilling (“chemo-fracking”) uses and releases numerous toxic chemicals — carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, naturally occurring radioactive materials.
2) Accidents happen.
3) People make mistakes.
4) Floods occur.
Anyone who has ever experienced a flash flood knows that you’re going to run for your life and your loved ones' lives first, and for your most expensive and/or most precious possessions next.
Even if gas companies had our best interests at heart — and you’d have to be a total naïf to think they do — there is simply no way to protect us from all these toxins that would go streaming into our water systems in the event of a flood, let alone the inevitable accidents and mistakes that will occur.
Because they will.
In the cases where the gas companies have to “replace” water, what are we talking about?
You can’t “replace” water that has been contaminated with poisons. You can bring in huge “water buffaloes” with 300 or 500 gallons of “fresh” water from elsewhere (and who is monitoring that water? Where does it come from?) to resupply a family with drinking, cooking, and bathing water, but the ground is still contaminated.
The vegetables and flowers and shrubs in the family’s garden are still reliant on that water for survival. The squirrels, bunnies, and raccoons . . . the chickadees, warblers, and woodpeckers . . . the frogs, fish, and turtles . . . the crickets, bees, and peepers . . . the family cat and dog . . . all drink the water from that contaminated ground. Toddlers in sandboxes eat the dirt. Kiddie pools and grown-ups’ pools, bird baths, ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes . . . all can be contaminated from just one spill.
You can’t “replace” bad water with good. Period.
There is not enough recompense in the world to mitigate this kind of permanent damage to a person’s home and property or to our surrounds, or to our own health and our children’s health.
It is up to communities to decide if the risks are worth the riches that will go to the gas companies and to a few members of the communities.
Let’s think about these risks for a moment: Someone in my community will die because of fracking. It’s inevitable. The man who was killed on a gas rig in
Are the risks worth the rewards? How many lives are worth how many dollars? The job (remember the many promised to Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers) came, no doubt, with pretty good pay to bring a Tennesseean so far from home. But was it enough for Greg Henry's family? Will it help ease their grief?
Will you be getting free energy for life, if you lease your land and it’s fracked? Will you ever feel safe drinking the water? Will the royalty fees cover the loss of your home’s value? Where will you go if you are forced to leave your valueless home? What will happen to the investments of time, equity, sweat, and tears—let alone cash—you’ve poured into it? How much money is enough? Are the risks worth the rewards?
Is a
Whose risks? Whose rewards?
Are the risks worth the rewards?
Every community must come up with its answer.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Nuclear Power Lobbyists, Marcellus Shale Gas Lobbyists
My response to a story in Mother Earth: “Nuclear Power and the Lobbyists Behind It”
Find it at http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/Nuclear-Power-Lobbyist-Influence.aspx#comments
The gas industry is equally aggressive in its marketing to Congress members and the public. That's why you may think natural gas is a safe, clean fuel that will save us from reliance on dirty fuels such as coal and oil (that nasty "foreign" oil) and make the USA "energy independent." When an industry is spending upwards of $120 million to convince us, it's likely to get the message across to many who don't know better.
Natural gas is being extracted in 31 states. In the Marcellus Shale, stretching through 7 states from New York to Tennessee, and elsewhere, it's being extracted via slick-water horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "chemo-fracking," a messy, destructive process that involves mixing many highly toxic chemicals (neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens) and millions of gallons of water to blast through rock to get the gas. Nothing clean about the process or the waste it leaves (and no safe way to dispose of it), which poisons watersheds.
Ya can't drink gas.
Let's demand an end to such highly dangerous energy sources. We need to get on solar, wind, and geothermal now, as we simultaneously transform our transportation system from the individual motor vehicle to a national high-speed public transportation network.
In doing so, our national health costs will go down, green jobs will be created, we'll have fewer car-related headaches (and accidents). We'll all benefit!
Nuclear & fossil fuels: No
Renewable & sustainable energy: Yes
It's that simple.
Find it at http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/Nuclear-Power-Lobbyist-Influence.aspx#comments
The gas industry is equally aggressive in its marketing to Congress members and the public. That's why you may think natural gas is a safe, clean fuel that will save us from reliance on dirty fuels such as coal and oil (that nasty "foreign" oil) and make the USA "energy independent." When an industry is spending upwards of $120 million to convince us, it's likely to get the message across to many who don't know better.
Natural gas is being extracted in 31 states. In the Marcellus Shale, stretching through 7 states from New York to Tennessee, and elsewhere, it's being extracted via slick-water horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "chemo-fracking," a messy, destructive process that involves mixing many highly toxic chemicals (neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens) and millions of gallons of water to blast through rock to get the gas. Nothing clean about the process or the waste it leaves (and no safe way to dispose of it), which poisons watersheds.
Ya can't drink gas.
Let's demand an end to such highly dangerous energy sources. We need to get on solar, wind, and geothermal now, as we simultaneously transform our transportation system from the individual motor vehicle to a national high-speed public transportation network.
In doing so, our national health costs will go down, green jobs will be created, we'll have fewer car-related headaches (and accidents). We'll all benefit!
Nuclear & fossil fuels: No
Renewable & sustainable energy: Yes
It's that simple.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Update on Iraqi family and a little about Burma work
I have been so busy that I have not posted in months. Wonder why I keep this blog. For the moment it suffices as my place to post items of interest, until I find a new publisher.
In any case, the situation with Andy and Alice and their children is an exercise in frustration. I have been stymied by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who now insist that we provide letters from generals from the army units with which Andy served. But of course there are no generals in most of Iraq. The highest ranking officers in the units Andy served with were l. Despite the fact that many highest ranking officers from the units he was with have written to the USCIS to vouch that there were no higher ranking officers in their units, the USCIS insists still that we provide letters from generals.
The whole situation is Kafkaesque to the extreme. Meantime, I am about to send out an appeal for money in the hope that we will get them out soon; I'll have to find them housing, a car, food, clothing, etc., as well as a job for Andy. I look forward to that challenge and hope to heaven they make it through while the bureacrats do all they can to ensure the worst. The prevalence of stupidity, heartlessness, arrogance, callousness, and cluelessness -- sometimes all bundled into one -- in our fellow human beings, despite my growing exposure to government on the local, national, and international levels, still astonishes me, as does the willful ignorance of so many U.S. Americans.
Last weekend we were in NYC on Sunday, December 10, for International Human Rights Day. A small group of Burmese and I did a demonstration in front of the UN headquarters (Ralph Bunche Park) demanding UN action on Burma. The biggest purpose of our demonstration was to get media from other countries (esp. Norway, Denmark, Thailand, and the BBC that covers Burma) to air the footage, which will then make its way, we hope, via independent/pirate media to Aung San Suu Kyi in her house prison and to the Burmese people, who are living in terror under the country's brutal regime. We hope our actions will hearten and inspire them to continue resisting.
I'll try to be better about updating news in future. I'll try.
In any case, the situation with Andy and Alice and their children is an exercise in frustration. I have been stymied by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who now insist that we provide letters from generals from the army units with which Andy served. But of course there are no generals in most of Iraq. The highest ranking officers in the units Andy served with were l. Despite the fact that many highest ranking officers from the units he was with have written to the USCIS to vouch that there were no higher ranking officers in their units, the USCIS insists still that we provide letters from generals.
The whole situation is Kafkaesque to the extreme. Meantime, I am about to send out an appeal for money in the hope that we will get them out soon; I'll have to find them housing, a car, food, clothing, etc., as well as a job for Andy. I look forward to that challenge and hope to heaven they make it through while the bureacrats do all they can to ensure the worst. The prevalence of stupidity, heartlessness, arrogance, callousness, and cluelessness -- sometimes all bundled into one -- in our fellow human beings, despite my growing exposure to government on the local, national, and international levels, still astonishes me, as does the willful ignorance of so many U.S. Americans.
Last weekend we were in NYC on Sunday, December 10, for International Human Rights Day. A small group of Burmese and I did a demonstration in front of the UN headquarters (Ralph Bunche Park) demanding UN action on Burma. The biggest purpose of our demonstration was to get media from other countries (esp. Norway, Denmark, Thailand, and the BBC that covers Burma) to air the footage, which will then make its way, we hope, via independent/pirate media to Aung San Suu Kyi in her house prison and to the Burmese people, who are living in terror under the country's brutal regime. We hope our actions will hearten and inspire them to continue resisting.
I'll try to be better about updating news in future. I'll try.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Burmese hunger strike in full swing: Please take easy action!!!
Sorry it's been so long. I'm frantically (still) trying to get Andy and Alice and their children out of Iraq, along with several other families. Nothing happy to report yet, but I am hopeful something will happen soon.
Meantime I've been distracted with Burmese news and other pressures. Today I sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as the 11th day of the Burmese hunger strike begins in Washington, DC. The group moves tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 16, to UN Headquarters in NYC and hopes to get an interview with Mr. Annan or his representative.
We'd really love your help in our efforts to get the UN Security Council to act on Burma! Please customize the letter below and send it to Mr. Annan at the fax number listed--and let me know if you have done so. Please also feel free to publicize our efforts or send donations; we're running on a shoestring and all funds are coming out of the pockets of the (mostly underemployed, certainly underpaid) Burmese hunger strikers.
Thank you! Write me for more info: mstephens [at] ithaca.edu
Meantime I've been distracted with Burmese news and other pressures. Today I sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as the 11th day of the Burmese hunger strike begins in Washington, DC. The group moves tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 16, to UN Headquarters in NYC and hopes to get an interview with Mr. Annan or his representative.
We'd really love your help in our efforts to get the UN Security Council to act on Burma! Please customize the letter below and send it to Mr. Annan at the fax number listed--and let me know if you have done so. Please also feel free to publicize our efforts or send donations; we're running on a shoestring and all funds are coming out of the pockets of the (mostly underemployed, certainly underpaid) Burmese hunger strikers.
Thank you! Write me for more info: mstephens [at] ithaca.edu
Name
Address
Country
E-mail address
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
Via fax to 1-212-963-4879 and 1-212-963-7055
cc:
Saturday, July 29, 2006
the column on Iraq that got me fired
This was my submission in April 2006 for my regular column at openDemocracy.net; a month later the column still had not been posted. Finally the editors there told me they no longer wanted to run my column. See if you can figure out why.
Note: it was written for a UK-based publisher, hence the English spellings and usage. Also remember that it was written in March; there have been developments since. I will soon post an update about Andy and Alice.
Where Can They Turn?
Iraqis are targets in their own homes. But no countries—including those that brought this upon them—seem willing to offer them asylum.
Note: it was written for a UK-based publisher, hence the English spellings and usage. Also remember that it was written in March; there have been developments since. I will soon post an update about Andy and Alice.
Where Can They Turn?
Iraqis are targets in their own homes. But no countries—including those that brought this upon them—seem willing to offer them asylum.
“The debate over civil war has shifted from when and if to how bad and how long,” wrote a friend working in
When I received Marie’s e-mail I was visiting
I have heard similar remarks from numerous US Americans of different means, ages, political leanings, and geographical locations, as well as from people from
People in the
In their defence, most US Americans don’t ever hear the real stories of Iraqi people. Instead they are spoon-fed via the corporate-controlled media just what the Bush administration wants them to hear, and that certainly doesn’t include acknowledgment that millions of ordinary Iraqis have had their lives turned into nightmares because of the ineptitude, ignorance, and arrogance of the Bush administration, which, phenomenally, become more pronounced daily.
Glimpses into their lives are all we can share these days, as it is too dangerous for most
I have a friend I’ll call Andy, who lives in a city some distance from
In a conversation last July he reported, as all my friends had been reporting without fail for more than two years, that there was still hardly any electricity, and the water was still polluted. “And now,” Andy said, “we have to worry about the militias. There is one which belongs to the Shi’a leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakeem [head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), whose military arm is known as the Badr Brigade]. I am a Sunni, and for sure they hate us. But you know, my Mom is a Shi’a, and I don’t think there is a difference because all of us are Muslim people. But there are crazy people from both sides. They just want to kill each other. I am afraid. I mean, I am a Sunni guy, and if they knew I worked with the U.S. Army maybe one of those crazy people will shoot me. That is what I am scared of.”
Andy begged me to help him and his family get out of the country. “There must be ways to help people get rid of this bad life,” he said. “Surely you Americans can help.”
My heart sank, as it had so many times over the past few years, listening to Iraqi friends’ terrible fears, yet knowing how nearly impossible it is to help them. “So many people are in dangerous situations like you,” I told him. “There are so many it is impossible to find places for all of them.”
“I know,” he replied. “But I am ready to work as a teacher or a cleaner or whatever. Just please, I want to go outside of
That was ten months ago. In the interim, I have had no luck finding them a way out, despite numerous attempts with different countries’ immigration offices and consulates. I even learned from the European Council on Exiles and Refugees’ Guidelines on the Treatment of Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Europe that last year
So Andy is still stuck in
Six weeks ago he got in touch after nearly three months of silence, during which I had been quite worried. First he told me the good news: He and his wife are expecting a new baby, due in May. But then he confirmed some of my worst fears: “Our house was bombed,” he said, “and my father and brother were killed. My wife and I were not at home. Now we are chased by the militia, those terrorists. I am planning to flee the country to
Again, despite the urgency of Andy’s family’s situation, I was stymied in my attempts to help them find a way out. Neighbouring
My initial inquiries at the U.S. State Department, even going through my Congressional representatives’ offices, were met by the same cold response: “Contacting UNHCR is the first step to obtaining refugee status. Many Iraqis have traveled to
A couple of weeks later, on April 5, I received word that the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1815, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, and it was signed by George W. Bush. It contained a provision, in Section 1059, authorizing special immigrant status for a maximum of 50 Iraqi translators per year. These translators must have “worked directly with United States Armed Forces as a translator for a period of at least 12 months”; and “obtained a favorable written recommendation from a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien”; and “before filing the petition . . . cleared a background check and screening, as determined by a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien.”
There are thousand of Iraqis who worked as translators for the
I shared this good news with Andy, and explained that he would need to provide a considerable amount of paperwork. He was frightened that he would have to return to his bombed-out home secretly to sift through the rubble for some of the important papers he needed to file the petition, and warned me that it might take up to a month.
Two weeks later he surprised me by sending all the necessary papers electronically. He had risked his life several times, but he had managed to retrieve his and his wife’s and son’s birth certificates; his marriage certificate; his university degree; several letters of commendation and appreciation from U.S. Army officers; his official coalition translator ID cards; several photographs of Andy with his U.S. soldier friends; photos of his family, and of their bombed-out house and car; and, horrifyingly, a short video clip of a fellow translator’s assassination.
Now the challenge is, how does one submit a petition for asylum for an Iraqi translator with all the correct paperwork to be admitted to the
This is essentially a death sentence for this family. Just traveling to
As I scramble to find anyone who can help me find an alternative way for them to get asylum in the
Andy is just one of many kind, decent, good, hardworking, loving, generous Iraqi people who are stuck in a never-ending nightmare in their country, which has descended into chaos thanks to the blundering of not only the
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Text of Ithaca's Burmese Democracy Day Resolution
Resolution was introduced by Common Council member Robin Holtham Korherr and seconded by Michelle Berry; it was voted upon at the city of Ithaca
WHEREAS, abuses by Burmese government security forces are well documented and include rape, torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, infringements on citizens’ privacy, forced relocations, and conscriptions of child soldiers; and
WHEREAS, the ruling junta continues to detain hundreds of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace prize laureate of 1991, who has continued to champion the causes of democracy and justice for the people of Burma, despite having been in and out of arrest and detention ever since she became the people’s leader in the 1988 democracy uprisings; and
WHEREAS, on
WHERAS, they were violently oppressed when the military opened fire on the peaceful demonstrators, killing hundreds and forcing many more into exile (including many of our Ithaca Burmese community members); and
WHEREAS, the 1988 protests paved the way for the 1990 elections in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party won a landslide parliamentary victory; and
WHEREAS, the current junta in Burma has been condemned for ignoring the results of the 1990 elections that resulted in a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party; for severely restricting fundamental human rights as put forth in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights; for ethnic violence against its people, including torture, displacement, and murder; for further abuse of its people including failure to put an end to the trafficking of women and children; and
WHEREAS, the people of
WHEREAS, we note with admiration that several members of our
RESOLVED, That the City of
RESOLVED, That copies of this Resolution be sent to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, and the U.S. President’s office at the White House.
Carried Unanimously
8888 New Blood Comrades and Subsequent News
Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to this topic. I've been pretty insane, trying to help Iraqis escape the country. So far, very little luck. Things there are, unimaginably, getting even worse. More on the situation there soon.
Meantime, back to Burma and the earlier notes. I guess I didn't make it clear in my last posting that I had no personal lament. The very small group (only a few people altogether) of Burmese who complained about the Ithaca city resolution apparently simply misunderstood the Common Council's intention -- an easy thing to misunderstand, given the vast differences between the English and Burmese languages and the vast cultural differences -- and thought the city leaders were proclaiming that Burma was already democratic. In hindsight, maybe choosing the name "Burmese Democracy Day" wasn't such a great idea; but that is what the Burmese community chose, and so it stands.
What was misunderstood by our 8888 friends was that we were proclaiming solidarity with the Burmese people in their continuing struggle for Democracy that will surely be theirs SOMEday; we all hope it is sooner than later.
It is time for the United States and the United Nations to demand action on Burma. Stop paying lip service!!! Stop trying to pacify us!!! ASEAN, the EU, and the UN must all join with the USA to demand regime change in Burma. Not via machine guns and tanks and bombs, but by political and economic pressure. The military regime must step down and hand over the reins of the government to the democratically elected majority party, the National League for Democracy, and its leader, the rightful president, Aung San Suu Kyi. And it must happen now.
They must start by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and allowing the rightful parliament to convene. Then the hardest work begins: forging a democracy from the disparate groups -- the many tribes and political parties -- that make up Burma, and building a lasting peace, with forgiveness and reconciliation and forward planning.
I remind my Burmese friends that democracy is messy, very messy. It means compromise, and occasionally conceding a point that means a lot to you. It means listening to opposing points of view, respecting them, and trying to negotiate something that both sides can live with. It means acceding to what may be an antithetical majority view. It means swallowing pride and anger, and working with those you might disagree with. It is, as I say, very messy, and painful, and sometimes even tedious.
Reconciliation and peace-building are equally difficult and require prodigious amounts of patience, forgiveness, and optimism.
There is a lot of work ahead, even once Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are freed. Are the Burmese ready for the tasks?
I sincerely hope so. The world could use some happy news. And the Burmese need to try democracy on for size. They are very ready.
Meantime, back to Burma and the earlier notes. I guess I didn't make it clear in my last posting that I had no personal lament. The very small group (only a few people altogether) of Burmese who complained about the Ithaca city resolution apparently simply misunderstood the Common Council's intention -- an easy thing to misunderstand, given the vast differences between the English and Burmese languages and the vast cultural differences -- and thought the city leaders were proclaiming that Burma was already democratic. In hindsight, maybe choosing the name "Burmese Democracy Day" wasn't such a great idea; but that is what the Burmese community chose, and so it stands.
What was misunderstood by our 8888 friends was that we were proclaiming solidarity with the Burmese people in their continuing struggle for Democracy that will surely be theirs SOMEday; we all hope it is sooner than later.
It is time for the United States and the United Nations to demand action on Burma. Stop paying lip service!!! Stop trying to pacify us!!! ASEAN, the EU, and the UN must all join with the USA to demand regime change in Burma. Not via machine guns and tanks and bombs, but by political and economic pressure. The military regime must step down and hand over the reins of the government to the democratically elected majority party, the National League for Democracy, and its leader, the rightful president, Aung San Suu Kyi. And it must happen now.
They must start by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and allowing the rightful parliament to convene. Then the hardest work begins: forging a democracy from the disparate groups -- the many tribes and political parties -- that make up Burma, and building a lasting peace, with forgiveness and reconciliation and forward planning.
I remind my Burmese friends that democracy is messy, very messy. It means compromise, and occasionally conceding a point that means a lot to you. It means listening to opposing points of view, respecting them, and trying to negotiate something that both sides can live with. It means acceding to what may be an antithetical majority view. It means swallowing pride and anger, and working with those you might disagree with. It is, as I say, very messy, and painful, and sometimes even tedious.
Reconciliation and peace-building are equally difficult and require prodigious amounts of patience, forgiveness, and optimism.
There is a lot of work ahead, even once Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are freed. Are the Burmese ready for the tasks?
I sincerely hope so. The world could use some happy news. And the Burmese need to try democracy on for size. They are very ready.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
follow-up to Burmese Democracy Day posting
After I sent around that press release (see previous post, below) I received some negative feedback from a group of Burmese activists who seemed to be upset about Ithaca taking the historic step of declaring August 8 "Burmese Democracy Day."
That date was chosen in honor of the fallen from 8-8-88, when the people of Burma rose up in a nationwide call for democracy and freedom from tyranny, but were brutally put down. Many were killed, and many others forced into hiding and eventual exile.
About 50 Burmese refugees resettled in Ithaca. Our city's resolution is intended to bring attention to the struggles still underway in Burma, where the military regime still practices widespread human rights abuses, and to show the people within Burma and Burmese exiles around the world that we support their efforts. We wanted to show solidarity with them and with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, their illegally incarcerated democracy leader.
Excerpts from the letter from the group, which calls itself 8888 New Blood Comrades:
That date was chosen in honor of the fallen from 8-8-88, when the people of Burma rose up in a nationwide call for democracy and freedom from tyranny, but were brutally put down. Many were killed, and many others forced into hiding and eventual exile.
About 50 Burmese refugees resettled in Ithaca. Our city's resolution is intended to bring attention to the struggles still underway in Burma, where the military regime still practices widespread human rights abuses, and to show the people within Burma and Burmese exiles around the world that we support their efforts. We wanted to show solidarity with them and with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, their illegally incarcerated democracy leader.
Excerpts from the letter from the group, which calls itself 8888 New Blood Comrades:
. . . We take this opportunity to oppose the Ithaca Community Council
resolution to acknowledge August 8, 1988, nationwide uprising as Burma's democracy day. . . .
. . . As long as the present ruling military dictatorship is still in place in Burma, no individual or organization in Burma or overseas has the reason or right to claim or name that auspicious day (8-8-88) as anything, much less 'democracy day' as the struggle is stil[l] ongoing and we have not yet achieved our primary objective - freedom and our right to exercise our inalienable rights.My response:
Dear friends,
I feel compelled to reply to this memo, simply as myself and not as a representative of any group. I am an American who is deeply concerned with the terrible human rights situation in Burma, and I have worked closely with the Burmese community of my city, Ithaca, New York, in getting this resolution passed (which I do not think you have read). . . .
The intention of our city's legislators in passing this resolution is to honor the freedom and democracy struggles of the Burmese people both inside Burma and now in exile around the world, including in our own community, where at least 50 Burmese exiles now reside. Contrary to what your memo says, we deeply honor the courage and sacrifice of those who rose up on 8-8-88 and those who carry on the struggle 18 years later. Making a 'Burmese Democracy Day' in Ithaca means simply that we will stand in solidarity until the dreams of 8-8-88 are realized and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners are freed; Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD party take their rightful positions in political leadership of the country; and a peace and reconciliation process, and transition to democracy, are well underway.
My heart broke to read your memo, because it suggests to me that you do not understand that others may be part of the same struggle for human rights and justice. Just because we are halfway around the world does not mean that we do not care about the people of Burma and their terrible hardships. We are all human beings, all the same family, and unless we all realize that there can never be peace, freedom, justice, or equity.
Please take a moment to reflect on what it is you really want: Is it freedom and peace and equality for all, or only those who belong to your particular organization? Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, when she is freed and back in her rightful place as the leader of Burma, would be deeply saddened to know that the factional elements of her supporters cannot work together for the same end.
It is a basic characteristic of human nature that everybody wants his or her own agenda to be at the forefront. And that points to the truth that real democracy is messy. It requires careful negotiation, and equally important it requires respect of others' opinions and desires, even if they are different from our own.
Please do not fall into the trap of division and rancor; that will only hurt your cause. And please accept gracefully the honest desire of a small city in New York State to stand by the cause of democracy and freedom for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma. We made this resolution out of love and respect.
Respectfully, and in solidarity,
Maura Stephens
Ithaca NY USA
Ithaca Makes Burmese Democracy Day permanent, Hours Before a Death Threat
This is the press release sent around after last week's historic vote by the Ithaca Common Council.
---------
Ithaca is the world’s first city to declare annual Burmese Democracy Day, less than a day before the life of
Burma's incarcerated democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is been threatened by the country's brutal regime.
At its meeting on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 the city of Ithaca's Common Council
made Ithaca the first city in the world to name an annual day in honor of the
Burmese people and their struggle for freedom and democracy against a tyrannical
military regime.
Just a day later word reached Ithaca's celebrating Burmese community that
the brutal military regime in power has threatened the life of Aung San Suu Kyi,
the democratically elected leader who has been held under house arrest for most of the
last 16 years.
The Common Council voted unanimously to make August 8 — the anniversary
of the peaceful 1988 demonstrations for democracy by millions of Burmese
people in which thousands were killed and many more forced into exile
(8-8-88) — Burmese Democracy Day in Ithaca, permanently.
“To all our knowledge, this makes Ithaca the first city on the planet to
give such strong and unwavering support to the oppressed people of
Burma,” said Maura Stephens, a Tioga County resident who has been
working with the Burmese community.
The Burmese of Ithaca hope that their city’s resolution will encourage
other municipalities, states, and national governments to take similar
actions to bring attention to the desperate plight of the Burmese.
Aung San Suu Kyi has never allowed to take her rightful place as president
since her National League for Democracy Party won a popular election by a landslide —
winning 83 percent of the vote — in 1990. The military regime, which lost that
election, simply refused to hand over power.
“It often feels to us that the world has essentially abandoned Burma to
the brutal regime in control,” Stephens said. “Although the United
Nations, the Association of South East Asian Nations, the European
Union, world leaders such as Vaclav Havel and Desmond Tutu — even the
current U.S. administration — have called for the release of Aung San
Suu Kyi and transition to democracy and reconciliation, the military
junta simply does what it wants, with impunity. There have never been
consequences.”
Ithaca, with about 30,000 full-time residents and another 30,000
students at Cornell University and Ithaca College, last year became the
second U.S. city (after San Francisco) to name a special day in honor of
the 60th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi on June 19.
About a third of the 50 Ithaca-area Burmese exiles attended the Common
Council meeting to witness the historic vote, along with visitors from
as far as Texas. Council member Robin Holtham Korherr introduced the
resolution, which was approved unanimously after favorable commentary
from members Maria Coles, Michelle Courtney Berry, and Daniel Cogan and
from Mayor Carolyn K. Peterson.
Earlier, Stephens pointed out, “Although it may seem like a ‘no-brainer’
to pass a resolution for things as elemental as freedom, justice,
decency, and human rights, this vote has deeper meaning for the Burmese
still in Burma. News will reach them via independent, grass-roots,
unofficial, banned media that people from as far away as Ithaca, New
York, are working on their behalf; that they are not alone.”
That pledge took on all the more urgency when news reached Ithaca via the
news agency BosNewsLife, which on Thursday afternoon that Burma's regime made
an apparent death threat against Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday, warning that
her days "are numbered," and she is "heading for a tragic end" for being guilty
of "betraying the national cause while relying on aliens," including the United States
and the European Union.
"Attempts to translate into reality the 1990 election results are in vain," the military junta
was quoted in its official English-language newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar,
monitored by BosNewsLife from Thailand.
The Burmese community of Ithaca was planning a special day of commemoration,
education, food, and cultural entertainment to be held on Saturday, August 5.
Now they will be even more vigilant in their concern for their beloved leader, the
world's most famous political prisoner.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Welcome
Friends,
Thank you for asking about my situation as a columnist at openDemocracy. It has been gratifying to hear from so many readers, from places such as Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Northern Ireland, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and more.
I am sad to report that the people at openDemocracy, for inexplicable reasons, have terminated our relationship and hence my column. It was a rather precipitate decision, following closely on the heels of the columns on Ireland in which I had a little public disagreement with an economist from the Economist.
I was particularly saddened because I thought I had a good relationship with openDemocracy and believed in its stated mission, which supposedly is all about "open and fair dialogue." I may post the correspondence I had with one of the editors there; I have not received the courtesy of a reply to my last letter to the top editor (which was sent in late May).
I decided to start this blog at the behest of several of you; I will populate it primarily with postings on issues I'm most actively involved with:
Thank you for asking about my situation as a columnist at openDemocracy. It has been gratifying to hear from so many readers, from places such as Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Northern Ireland, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and more.
I am sad to report that the people at openDemocracy, for inexplicable reasons, have terminated our relationship and hence my column. It was a rather precipitate decision, following closely on the heels of the columns on Ireland in which I had a little public disagreement with an economist from the Economist.
I was particularly saddened because I thought I had a good relationship with openDemocracy and believed in its stated mission, which supposedly is all about "open and fair dialogue." I may post the correspondence I had with one of the editors there; I have not received the courtesy of a reply to my last letter to the top editor (which was sent in late May).
I decided to start this blog at the behest of several of you; I will populate it primarily with postings on issues I'm most actively involved with:
- my Iraqi friends and their increasingly horrific lives (I thought a year ago it couldn't get much worse, but alas, it has, and they are barely keeping alive at this point);
- the Burmese freedom activists who are trying to get the world community to act against the tyrannical military regime, which is now apparently threatening the life of Aung San Suu Kyi;
- sustainability efforts;
- water privatization, locally and globally;
- TheocracyWatch issues -- fighting dominionism in US government;
- keeping corporations in check by reclaiming sovereignty of, by, and for the people, in the DemocracySchool model;
- theatrical productions;
- and who knows . . .
Thanks for visiting. I hope to hear from you. Please post comments!
Peace,
Maura
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