Todays Top Storiesddd
Sunday, April 25, 2004
-Poison in your Shrimp: Public Citizen Launches New Campaign to Warn Consumers of Health Effects and
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 20, 2004
11:46 AM
CONTACT: Public Citizen
Newsroom: 202-588-7742
Public Citizen Launches New Campaign to Warn Consumers of Health Effects and Social Concerns of Farmed Shrimp
WASHINGTON - April 20 - Using this week’s World Bank protests as a launching pad, Public Citizen today announced a new campaign aimed at educating U.S. consumers about the myriad environmental, health and economic problems surrounding farm-raised shrimp. The consumer advocacy organization will highlight the real costs of shrimp, which has become the most popular seafood choice in the United States.
In 2003, 1.1 billion pounds of shrimp, worth nearly $3.8 billion, were imported to the United States from as far away as Thailand. Foreign, farm-raised shrimp comprises 80-90 percent of the shrimp consumed in the United States, and it typically is not labeled as farm-raised. Top producers include Brazil, China, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam. Popularized in restaurants like Red Lobster, the cheap, farm-raised shrimp often sell for less than $10 a pound, enticing consumers to eat large amounts of what was once considered a delicacy.
“Shrimp aquaculture is following the path of the greater industrial food model, which means profits are being prioritized over consumer benefits,” said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s food safety program. “Our campaign will focus on urging consumers to buy sustainably caught shrimp to better benefit their health.”
Farmers raise shrimp in large, polluted coastal ponds, continuously pumping sea and groundwater to keep the ponds cleaner. Because diseases run rampant, these farms depend on staggering amounts of antibiotics, fungicides and pesticides. The continual, long-term use of antibiotics breeds disease-resistant bacteria, which can later be spread to humans.
“Shrimp farms produce a wretched cocktail of chemicals, shrimp feed and shrimp feces,” said Andrianna Natsoulas, field director for Public Citizen’s new shrimp campaign. “We want consumers to understand the real cost of shrimp and what it’s doing to their health.”
Wild-caught shrimp from U.S. seacoasts such as North Carolina and California do not pose the same health risks as farm-raised shrimp, Natsoulas said.
To assist in the launch of the campaign, well-known Honduran shrimp activist Jorge Varela is in Washington, D.C., during the week of protests leading to the World Bank’s spring meeting, scheduled for April 24 and 25, to conduct educational workshops on shrimp aquaculture. For 15 years, Varela has worked to expose the World Bank’s promotion of shrimp aquaculture in Honduras. He co-founded The Committee for the Defense and Development of Flora and Fauna of the Gulf of Fonseca (CODDEFFAGOLF) in 1988, as part of an emerging grassroots movement challenging the appropriation of natural resources.
Between 1995 and 1998, the Honduran government enacted several moratoria on the construction of new shrimp farms, citing environmental destruction to coastal communities; however, international investors, the World Bank and other international finance institutions prevented the execution of these moratoria by cautioning the Honduran government that the Honduran economy could be harmed if it reduced one of its larger export industries.
“World Bank officials disrespected our national laws by continuing to finance shrimp expansion despite the shrimp farming moratoria,” Varela said. “Honduras has become a classic example of what is happening in many of the countries that produce farm-raised shrimp.”
For more information about Public Citizen’s shrimp campaign, and to download an educational brochure and more information about Varela, please go to
[url=http://www.shrimpactivist.org]http://www.shrimpactivist.org[/url]
-Iraq: A Deepening Tragedy
By David McReynolds (former Chair, War Resisters International, Socialist Party candidate for President 1980, 2000. He visited Baghdad in 1991, just before the start of the first Gulf War as part of a team from the Fellowship of Reconciliation) // this article can be used in whole or part without permission. April 22, 2004
Note from Paul. As David says,” The actions of the US government have not only been foolish and arrogant, they also qualify as evil, as wars of aggression are, by the definition of international law, evil” and “I understand those who feel that it would be irresponsible “to turn and run”. But to think the US can ‘fix’ things now is like thinking a rapist is the ideal person to stay and provide therapy to the victim. “
This is part of the reason why we must reject the arguments of Prime Minister Koizumi, who uses the pretext of making an international contribution and aiding the Iraqi people to help the U.S. carry out its crimes, making Japan complicit in those crimes. He is also trying to change this natioon’s peace constitution by legimitiming the sending of SDF troops to a foreign battlefield. Meanwhile, the government and the media shift the blame to the peacemakers. We must tell Japan, too: Out. NOW!
Friends have heard me say I could not believe the Bush Administration would launch the Iraq war - until the moment when “shock and awe” illuminated the night sky of Baghdad. My reasoning had nothing to do with the fact the US actions would violate international law (would be, in fact, criminal) but rather my conviction the war would be an act of stupidity almost without parallel.
We had known that the “Vulcans” - that perplexing coalition of neoconservatives which draws its strength from almost equal parts of former Trotskyists, sharply pro-Israel American Jews such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle (who would do anything for Israel except go and live there), and a group of evangelical Christians, often privately anti-Semitic, led by the likes of Pat Robertson - had been in control of the Administration from the moment of Bush’s appointment by the Supreme Court in 2001. We had seen them seize upon the tragedy of 9.11 as an excuse to curtail our own civil liberties and put the nation on a war footing, and invade Afghanistan.
But the idea that the United States would actually attack Iraq, that it would be supported in this action by Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and would think it’s Christian troops would somehow be welcomed as liberators by a deeply Islamic nation . . . this was such obvious folly that I keep thinking some committee of smart Wall Street bankers would tap Rumsfeld on the shoulder and say “Sorry, Rumfeld - no way. Saddam is a nasty man, but there are no weapons of mass destruction there, no links to terrorism - this war would be genuinely crazy”.
(Let not forget the wave of massive demonstrations around the world in February of 2003 - demonstrations on a scale never seen before. And the urgent efforts of political leaders in almost every nation - Israel excepted - to dissuade Bush. And the extraordinary steps taken by the Pope to use his moral force - even sending a special Papal envoy to meet with Bush).
The Iraq of Babylon and Baghdad, of the Euphrates and Tigris, the cradle from which Western civilization had sprung, a land which had, early in the 20th century, defeated the British - at that time the greatest Empire in the world. The US really thought it would be welcomed with flowers? That it would be seen as the liberator? After it had, for ten years, caused enormous suffering for the civilian population of Iraq by its economic sanctions?
With others, I was surprised at the relative ease of the first phase - the military conquest of Saddam’s forces. I had assumed there would be grinding battles in the cities, that the loss of civilian life there might cause the world to demand the US withdrawal. But with the US Occupation we saw the beginning of a “dual reality” - the “reality of Iraq” as seen by the White House and transmitted by the US media, and the “reality of Iraq” as seen from foreign news sources, reaching us in the US either by BBC or the internet. (In fairness, much of the truth was there in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers - but not in that part of the media which most shapes public opinion - the world of “Fox News").
It is possible those around Bush believed their own news reports. It is said that April is the cruelest month - for many American and Iraqi families this has been an unusually cruel and bloody month. April clearly caught the Pentagon by surprise. Even Rumsfeld admitted he didn’t expect things to be this difficult a year after “victory”.
Listening tonight to David Burns, of the New York Times, as he reported from Baghdad, it was clear there has been a breakdown of the Occupation. As Burns pointed out (and he is not a reporter tainted by ideology - just a journalist doing his job), travel is now extremely difficult and dangerous in Iraq, most roads are closed, there is no commercial air travel, and even in Baghdad things are not safe. He admitted it was almost impossible to know what was happening “on the ground” in any Iraq city outside of Baghdad.
Americans in Iraq rarely venture outside the “green zone” in Baghdad, which is as secure as modern technology can make it. Paul Bremer resides in the palaces and buildings Saddam had built, strides the imperial offices in combat boots, issuing orders which are erratic (such as the dissolution of the Iraqi army - which instantly left tens of thousands of armed men unemployed!).
The hearings from Washington D.C. this month, the flood of books that have come out, have defined the reality there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there was no link with Al Queda, there had never even been any plans for “post-invasion” Iraq, and - most devastating of all - Bush and the Vulcans had used 9.11 as the basis for their war planning, even diverting funds from Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden to plotting the war in Iraq.
So we are here, a year after the invasion. Those of us who opposed the invasion are the Cassandras, as we were in the 1960’s when we warned against deepening US involvement in Indochina.
We are in the midst of a disaster - one which the US cannot repair or make right. What course is open to us, to Iraqis, to the community of nations? I can even ask what course might be open to the leadership of the US if it could come to its senses as easily as, a year ago, it lost them.
First, the one course open to the Administration - the only possible course - would be to turn the entire matter over to the United Nations, with the understanding all US and British forces would be withdrawn within 90 days, that UN peace keeping forces, drawn from Islamic, Arab, and neutral countries (which might include Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Finland, Sweden, etc.) would be in place for a period of no more than six months, to organize national elections, that such UN forces would begin immediately to open dialogue with all parties in Iraq - excluding the present US-appointed governing council.
However, this won’t happen. It isn’t simply a matter that the United Nations might want to avoid so difficult a job - might, in fact, be totally unable to carry it out. It is that the United States will not for an instant consider “turning tail and running”. And why should it? Bush might yet win re-election as a war president. John Kerry isn’t pressing for withdrawal. Those who run this country have no sons and daughters serving in Iraq - indeed, for the most part the Vulcans are made of up draft evaders from the Vietnam period (or, in the case of Bush, men who were AOL). Those who died this April, and will die in May, June, July, August, and into the dismal months of autumn and winter of the year ahead, are working class youth, in many cases from communities of color. A handful of them have already begun to resist, to desert, to apply for Conscientious Objectors status, but these are yet only a handful (though they deserve our full support). In the Vietnam War military resistance did not begin on a serious scale until quite late.
Ironically, if the US did want to negotiate its way out of Iraq, it has no one with whom to negotiate, making any potential withdrawal doubly embarrassing. The “Governing Council” the US set up is in no position to negotiate for the people of Iraq.
In India, in 1947, when Great Britain withdrew, it had the Congress Party with which to negotiate an honorable departure. The French, both in Indochina and in Algeria, had organized opposition forces with whom it could negotiate an end of the fighting. The US, sadly, rejected the chance to negotiate its way out of Vietnam but it could have done so at almost any time. (There are two other notable failures to negotiate when negotiations were possible - the Russians have destroyed Chechneya but still cannot control it, while Israel has rejected the negotiations it could have had with the PLO).
What we have is a war with no early way out. Many, particularly in the liberal community, will argue that while it was wrong to go into Iraq “we can’t just leave now”. Their feeling cannot be dismissed out of hand. There is a danger of civil war - though at the moment the US Occupation seems to have done more to unite the warring religious factions. There is danger of a rigid Islamic government coming to power, one which would strip women of the freedoms they enjoyed under Saddam and which the US says it is committed to guaranteeing. (Ironic that brutal as Saddam’s regime was, for women it was far freer than the current regime of Saudi Arabia, Bush’s closest ally in the Arab world).
No one in the peace and justice movement should have illusions about the kind of Islamic fundamentalism to which the US invasion has helped give new life - and which might easily win Iraq’s first “free election”. The tragedy is that serious as these problems are, the US cannot solve them. Our government has done a great evil in its aggression, and if international law had any force, we would not be discussing what the US should do, but rather what the world should do about preparing war crimes trials for the US and British leaders who opened the gates of this particular hell, and about what reparations these two nations must pay to Iraq.
However international law is weak - as Bush and Blair demonstrated by their actions of a year ago. The international community might hope that Bush would concede his actions were a monstrous miscalculation, and turn the matter over to the UN, but he will not do that. The loss of that pool of oil, the loss of funds to be made by private corporations from public funds “rebuilding” an Iraq we have destroyed, and the humiliation of admitting error - too much to ask.
We are in need of facing the reality. Which is that every day the Occupation continues, so will the
violence, and as the violence continues, it will become legitimized in the eyes of the people of Iraq. The resistance may not represent a majority of Iraqis, but neither did the French resistance truly represent the majority in France. Yet it was a real and honorable resistance. That, with each passing day, is what the US is creating in Iraq - a resistance that is morally legitimate.
I understand those who feel that it would be irresponsible “to turn and run”. But to think the US can “fix” things now is like thinking a rapist is the ideal person to stay and provide therapy to the victim. It is possible our pressure, combined with the military reality in Iraq, will cause the Administration to pursue a drastically different course of action. And if so, that is good. If it ends the military actions, if it announces plans for withdrawal, if it enters into negotiations directly with the Sunni and Shiite religious leaders, fine.
But what we must demand is withdrawal. Withdrawal without conditions. To those who say we are not supporting our troops, we respond that we are giving them far more support than Bush and Cheney, who sent them there. To those who say we would weaken American influence, we respond that we hope that is the case - the US needs to learn humility, as it briefly learned it after the war in Indochina (a war which did not end until over three million Vietnamese had been killed).
The actions of the US government have not only been foolish and arrogant, they also qualify as evil, as wars of aggression are, by the definition of international law, evil. One cannot argue that launching such a war was wrong but that having launched it we must “stay the course” - what course is being stayed? What purpose is being served? When we hear Bush speak now of the evils of Saddam, as he once spoke with such certainty of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction, those of us with memories would not quibble about the evils of Saddam, but rather ask why Rumsfeld and others chose to do business with Saddam even after he had used poison gas. When did these men learn morality? And who can believe they can teach the world - or the men and women of Iraq - morality, or democracy? These are words and concepts deeply stained by the Bush Administration.
Out. Now.
-Wheat Biopiracy: WILL “GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD” BECOME A PRAYER TO MONSANTO?
by Vandana Shiva (Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers’ rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her most recent books are Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Other articles include: The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation (02/19/04), Towards A People Centred Fair Trade Agreement On Agriculture (12/24/03), River Linking Project (11/19/03), Victory In Cancun (10/18/03), Coke : Hazardous Even Without Pesticides (09/26/03), W.t.o. Agreement On Agriculure (09/11/03), Biotech Wars: Food Freedom Vs Food Slavery (06/25/03), and more. A full list is here:
http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=90
(This comes from Znet). Please visit the following site to get more information about how you can help:
[url=http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm]http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm[/url]
WILL “GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD” BECOME A PRAYER TO MONSANTO?
Wheat the Golden grain, is called “Kanak” in North Western India. It is the staple of a large majority. Wheat diversity has been evolved by Indian farmers over millennia for taste, for nutrition, for ecological adaptation to cold climates and hot climates, dry regions and wet regions.
Barely four years after starting work, in December 1909, the book entitled “Wheat in India” was published. By 1924 no fewer than thirty one papers exclusively on wheat had appeared. A survey of work was presented to the Royal Society of Arts in 1920.
In 1916-1920 indigenous Indian varieties won prizes in International Grain Exhibitions. Indian Wheat was so important a crop for the British Empire that an important Resolution of the Government of India no. I - 39-50 of March 17th, 1877 was passed on the wheat question requiring the Governor General to provide all information on Indian wheat including “local names for the varieties of wheat cultivated and three description in English”. More than 1000 wheat samples in bags of 2 pounds each were sent to the India office, examined by Forbes Watson, and a detailed report provided to the Secretary of the State.
Sir Albert Howard, the founder of Modern Organic Farming and his wife G.L.C. Howard started to document and systematize India’s wheat diversity. They identified 37 separate botanical varieties of wheat belonging to 10 sub-species.
The Ghoni, Kanku, Rodi, Mundli, Retti, Kunjhari, Sindhi, Kalhia, Sambhergehna, Sambhau, Kamla, Laila, Dandi, Gangajali, Pissia, Ujaria, Surlek, Manipuri, Anokhla, Tamra, Mihirta, Munia, Gajia, Mundia, Merdha, Dudhia, Lurkia, Jamali, Lalka, Harahwa, Galphulia?c.
An amazing diversity of indigenous wheat was evolved by farmers through their indigenous innovation and knowledge. In 1906, the Howards began to select and systematize Indian wheat in Pusa (Bihar) and Lyallpur in Punjab (now Pakistan) and made Indian wheat known worldwide. Howard’s work on wheat paid full tribute to the genius of Indian peasants. As he wrote in his plan to study and improve Indian wheat.
“The present condition of Indian agriculture is the heritage of experience handed down from time immemorial by a people little affected by the many changes in the government of the country. The present agricultural practices of India are worthy of respect, however strange and primitive they may appear to Western ideas. The attempt to improve Indian agriculture on Western lines appears to be a fundamental mistake. What is wanted is rather the application of Western scientific methods to the local conditions so as to improve Indian agriculture on its own lines.”
Millennia of breeding by millions of Indian farmers is however now being hijacked by Monsanto which is claiming to have “invented” the unique low-elasticity, low gluten properties of an indigenous Indian wheat, rice lines derived from such wheat and all flours, batters, biscuits and edible products made from such wheat.
On 21st May, 2003, the European Patent Office in Munich granted a patent to Monsanto with the number EP 445929, with the simple title “plants”, even though plants are not patentable in European Law. The patent covers wheat exhibiting a special baking quality, derived from native Indian wheat. With the patent, Monsanto holds a monopoly on the farming, breeding, and processing of a range of wheat varieties with low elasticity. Earlier in a patent (EP 518577) filed in 1998 Unilever and Monsanto have claimed “invention” of an exclusive claims to the use of flour to make traditional kinds of Indian bread such as “chapattis”.
And it is not just in Europe that Monsanto has filed and obtained patents based on the biopiracy of Indian wheat. In the U.S on May 3, 1994 patent number 5,308,635 was given for low elasticity wheat flour blends, on June 9, 1998 patent number 5,763,741 was given for wheat which produce dough with low elasticity, and on January 12, 1999, patent number 5,859,315 another patent was granted for wheats which produce dough with low elasticity.
Through these global patents based on biopiracy, Monsanto is literally seeking to control our daily bread. The wheat variety which has been pirated from India, has been recorded as NapHal in the gene banks from which Monsanto got the wheat and in Monsanto’s patent claims. The name NapHal is not the name of an Indian variety. Indian varieties were fully documented by Howard in Wheats of India. NapHal means “no seeds”, and is not, and cannot be an indigenous seed variety because farmers bred seed to produce seed.
They did not breed “Terminator seeds” for which the Indian name could be “NapHal”. This is clearly a distortion that has crept into the gene bank records because the original variety was stolen, not collected. NapHal is the name given by W.Koelz, USDA. However Koelz clearly did not make the collections himself, but was handed over the varieties, since the locations are inaccurate. The altitudes and longitude / latitudes do not match. According to our search, W.Koelz made the following collections :
Date of Collection Locality
10.4.48 Marcha, Uttar Pradesh, India Elevation - 3050 meters Latitude - 28o mm N Longitude - 80o mm E 10.7.48 Subu Uttar Pradesh, India Elevation - 3050 meters Latitude - 28o mm N Longitude - 80o mm E 19.7.48 Nabi, Uttar Pradesh, India Elevation - 2745 meters Latitude - 29.50o mm N Longitude - 79.30o mm E 21.7.48 Saro, Nepal Elevation - Not given Latitude - 28o mm N Longitude - 84o mm E
The latitude 28o N and longitude 80o E lies in the plains near Shajahanpur. The elevation here is clearly not 3000 meters. This altitude is in the higher Himalayan ranges with different latitude and longitude. In any case Marcha is not the name of the village but a sub tribal category of the Bhotias who are Tibetans speaking Buddhist living in the upper regions of the Himalayas. The terms Bhotia came from Bo which is the native Tibetan word for Tibet.
The discrepancy in the location and in the name indicate that the variety referred to as NapHal was pirated, not collected. Probably the name is a distortion of Nepal, since one sample was from Nepal and indigenous varieties names Nepal are in the NBPGR collection.
We have challenged Monsanto wheat biopiracy both in the Indian Supreme Court and in the European Patent Office in Munich with Greenpeace. As our challenge submitted to the EPO on 17th February, 2004, stated,
“The patent is a blatant example of biopiracy as it is tantamount to the theft of the results of endeavours in cultivation made by Indian farmers. In the countries of the southern hemisphere, it is frequently the small farmers who make a decisive contribution to agricultural diversity and secure sufficient food supplies by freely swapping seeds and breeding regionally modified forms of crops.
Monsanto is now unscrupulously exploiting the fruits of their labour. The company is able to restrict not only the farming and processing of crops, but also trade in them, in the countries for which the patent has been granted. At the same time it can block the free exchange of the seed, thus preventing other growers and farmers from working with the patented seeds.
The wheat exhibiting these special baking qualities is the result of the labours of cultivators and farmers in India who originally grew these plants for their own regional requirements, growing them to bake traditional Indian bread (chapatis). As it is natural for these farmers to freely swap seeds, it comes as no surprise that this wheat seed has been stored in various international gene banks outside India for many years.
Thus, samples of the seed can be found in the collections held by the US agricultural administration as well as in Japan and Europe. The patent owner uses these features to achieve his own business goals in a way which can only be regarded as indecent.
Unilever and Monsanto also have unrestricted access to these seed banks. They took the wheat to their laboratories, where they searched for the genes responsible for the special baking qualities. And, indeed, they were able to find the gene sequences which they had been looking for in the plant. In this connection, they were aided by the research results of various scientists as the corresponding gene regions had been undergoing examination for quite some time. It is this natural combination of genes which has now been patented by Monsanto as an “invention"."
This patent needs to be challenged on the following grounds :
The traits of low elasticity, low gluten which are being patented are not an invention, but derived from an Indian variety. The crossing with a soft milling variety is an obvious step to any breeder. The patent is based on piracy, not on non-obvious novelty, and hence needs to be challenged to stop legal precedence being created on false claims to invention.
The broad scope of the patent covering products made with Indian wheat robs Indian food processes and biscuit manufacturers of their legitimate export market and could in future affect our domestic food sovereignty. The Governments 2020 vision refers to making India a “global food factory”.
However if Monsanto has the patent based on piracy of Indian wheat, India’s “food factory” will be controlled by Monsanto, not Indian food processors and producers. The governments policy if it has to be successful, must have the Monsanto patent revoked in order to bring market benefits for our unique food products to the country’s producers - both farmers and food processors.
With an estimated annual turnover of US$ 1.5 billion, the baking industry in India is one of the largest manufacturing sectors in India, production of which has been increasing steadily in the country. The two major bakery industries, viz. Bread and biscuit account for about 82 percent of the total bakery products. With overall annual growth estimated at 6.9%. According to ASSOCHAM India, a business support services firm, there are almost 85,000 bakeries in the country. Approximately 75,000 of these operate in the unorganised sector, which has a 60% market share. The remaining 1,000 bakeries operate in the organised sector, which has a 40% market share.
Packaged Food in India, a recently released report from Euromonitor, recorded year 2000 volume sales of the organised biscuit sector at 500,000 MT, or approximately US$492 million in value terms. The unorganised sector, which supplies 60% of total production, has an annual turnover of nearly US$718 million. If combined, the two sectors would bring overall biscuit sales to more than US$ 1.2 billion annually, or 1.3 MMT, making India the world’s second largest biscuit manufacturer and consumer behind the US.
Further, the patent covers not just biscuits but all edible products and flours with low elasticity. India Chapatis are in effect covered by the patent.
If such biopiracy based patents are not challenged, and crop lines and products based on unique properties evolved through indigenous breeding become the monopoly of MNC’s, in future we will be paying royalties for our innovations especially in light of the Patent Cooperation Treat and upward harmonization of patent law.
Monsanto’s wheat biopiracy patent should be a wake up call to citizens and governments of the world. It is yet another example of why the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) of W.T.O needs to be changed, and why traditional knowledge and community rights need to be legally recognized and protected.
Saturday, April 10, 2004
-Chinese Slave Laborers Win Redress in Landmark Ruling
Niigata. The Niigata District Court ordered the state and a Japanese company Friday to pay 88 million yen ($760,000) in compensation to Chinese who served as slave-laborers in Japan during World War II.
It is the first time for a Japanese court to order both the state and a firm to pay compensation for wartime slave labor. A Fukuoka District Court ruling in 2002 did uphold a compensation claim, though it only ordered the defendant firm to provide redress....
http://www.japanfocus.org/101.html
-Independent Reporting from Iraq: Correspondent Dahr Jamail
Last December/January, while most news coming out of Iraq was gleaned from official press conferences and the conservative and liberal press alike were seeking out interviews with US-appointed administrators and council members, an independent journalist operating in Iraq got the other side of the story from the people living under occupation. On dozens of websites, Dahr Jamail’s important work reached tens of thousands of people who were desperate to hear real stories about people living under occupation in Iraq.....
April 8, Blood Bags of Solidarity
http://blog.zmag.org/iraqdispatches/archives/000128.html#more
April 6, US Crackdown vs. Shi’ite Demonstrations
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=168
-Tell PM Koizumi to Pull Out of Iraq/Appeal Also to Iraqi Resistance
APPEAL ONE
>[Forwarded from Kurasawa Nanami,
][url=http://homepage1.nifty.com/IKAN/]]http://homepage1.nifty.com/IKAN/][/url]
4/9/04
Dear friends,
Urgent news from Japan.
In Iraq, three young Japanese, one woman and two men, are now captured
as hostages by an Islamist armed group which insists they will kill the
hostages if Japanese Self-Defence Forces currently stationed in Samawa,
southern Iraq, don’t leave Iraq within three days.
One of three, Mr. Noriaki Imai, is a very enthusiastic young
journalist-in-making, just graduated from high school in March. He went
to Iraq to check over DU contaminations and radioactivity affected
illnesses.
Another woman, Naoko Takatoh, has been doing volunteer medical aide for
Iraqi children for some time. The third man, Sohichiro Kohriyama, is a
reporter from Asahi Shimbun, one of the major newspapers in Japan.
Many peace-loving and Constitution-respecting Japanese who have opposed
the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the deployment of JSDF
[i.e., Japanese military] to occupied Iraq, are asking our government to
engage in negotiations with the Islamist group even if Japan needs to
retreat its troops even momentarily in order to save lives of the three
hostages.
I sincerely plead you to do what you can, such as letting people know
what is happening in relation to JSDF in Iraq. If you can phone or send
email to the contact points below asking that the Japanese government work
to spare the lives of these hostages, we may be able to make a difference.
The latest news regarding this story may be found at the Japan Times and
Japan Today websites.
Thank you,
Kurasawa Nanami
Japan Prime Minister home page: http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/forms/goiken.html
TEL 03-3581-3883
Japan Foreign Minister:
TEL 03-5501-8430
Japan Defense Minister: (also)
TEL 03-3502-5174
APPEAL TWO
Friends and co-workers,
All of you, I know, oppose the US actions in Iraq, and the actions of the Japanese government in supporting the US.
Tonight, with news that Japanese civilians have been taken hostage and their lives placed in immediate danger by the resistance forces in Iraq, I want to send a short note of regret that any citizen of Japan has been placed in the path of harm by actions stirred up by the United States.
I’ve seen the photos of these frightened men and women, with knives at their throats. I know this is a terrible shock for all Japanese - and for all people of good will anywhere.
Let us hope, of course, that the United States withdraws from Iraq, and let us hope the Japanese government changes its own policy. But tonight let us join in an appeal to the Iraqi resistance that in their struggle against the Occupation they not target civilians, and that they release the Japanese they hold hostage.
Peace,
David McReynolds
APPEAL THREE
Hello,
in addition to spreading the word we can bombard the Japanese Prime
Minister’s office. Here is a link to send an email in English:
http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment.html
And in Japanese: http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/forms/goiken.html
This is the letter I wrote:
==============
Subject: End Appeasement
Dear Prime Minister,
The kidnapping of three Japanese Nationals in Iraq is a shock. I am not a
Japanese citizen so I’m writing to you as a citizen of the World. Please use
your power to withdraw the Japanese Self Defense Force from Iraq. This would
be an act of liberation. Appeasing the United States government by sending
Japanese forces to Iraq was an act of folly.
Through various actions, including the shooting of unarmed protesters in
Falluja and the closing of the newspaper al-Hawza, the Coalition Provisional
Authority has shown contempt for democracy. Through the restructuring of the
economy, the creation of ‘independent regulators’ which limit the power of
Iraqi Ministries and the subordinating of the Iraq army under US commander
Lieut. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez (through a manipulation of UN Security Council
Resolution 1511) it is clear that to maintain Japanese Forces in Iraq is to
support imperialism and aggression.
Take the noble and difficult decision and follow the Spanish Government’s
lead. Withdraw from Iraq,
Yours sincerely,
Christopher A. Hunt
