CND in the News
CND in the News: 3-10 December 2005
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1 Mayor of London Calls Bushies "A Gang of Thugs"
8th December 2005
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/2346/1/32/
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, England, threw a bash for anti-war
activists this evening and denounced the Bush Administration as "a
gang of thugs." He praised the work of those present from the US
and the UK who have worked to end the war, including offering high praise
for Cindy Sheehan, who also spoke.
"You are the majority of Londoners," Livingstone said, referring
to those who want the war ended and who view the behavior of the Bush
Administration as criminal. In reference to reports that Bush wanted to
bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera, Livingstone said "Anywhere else
we call that Murder Incorporated."
He said that next year he planned to hold an international conference
against the clash of civilizations. He cited London as an example of a
city where there is no clash, where people of various ethnic and religious
backgrounds live together. After the bombings in the Underground, he said,
"not one person in London attacked another person." (Presumably
he was making an exception for the police.)
Kate Hudson of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament also
addressed the crowd this evening, praising "the Mayor for Peace,"
for his opposition to the war, his support for nuclear disarmament, and
for building harmony and equality among communities in London. Hudson
also praised Sheehan, before asking us to remember absent friends, including
the Christian Peace Team hostages, one of whom, Norman Kember, is known
to many London peace activists, and Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association
of Britain, who has gone to Iraq to try to help free the hostages. Before
Livingstone introduced Cindy, he mentioned that the media sometimes calls
him "anti-American." He said: "I'm not anti-American. I
love America. I love Americans' competence, their lack of deference, their
belief that they can achieve their best. I hope some day we can get a
government as good as the American people, a government with the morality
of Cindy."
Cindy began her remarks by saying "I've been called anti-American
too! What happens is that they can't attack our message, so they attack
the messenger."
Nobel prizewinning playwright Dario Fo has written (or is still writing
up to the last minute) a play about Cindy, which will be performed in
London on Saturday night. Cindy said she planned to go to the debut of
"Peace Mom" and sit in the front row and heckle herself with
calls of "Traitor!" Cindy returned the Mayor's praise, saying
that she hoped we could get his bravery and integrity into our government
at home.
"The Mayor did call them gangsters," Cindy said of the Bush
Administration, "and that's right. But, " she told the crowd,
"your prime minister is an accomplice."
Cindy discussed various US war crimes, including the admitted use of
chemical weapons on Fallujah. She condemned these actions, but said she
wanted Londoners to know that "Most Americans wholeheartedly oppose
what our government is doing. And we're fighting to take back our government!"
But, "we're complicit," she added. "Why weren't we in the
streets in 2000 when the Supreme Court put Bush in the White House?"
"We condemn the random killings on 9-11," Cindy added. "And
the London bombings. And we condemn the insurgents in Iraq for killing
our soldiers, but we do not blame them. In every foreign occupation through
history, there has been an insurgency. If you want to end the insurgency,
you end the occupation."
Cindy also discussed the Downing Street Memos, which six months ago so
angered her with their frank revelations of duplicitous war-making by
the Bush and Blair administrations. "We thought the Downing Street
Memo would be the turning point," she said. "But today I was
on a radio show in London, and a guy said 'Bush and Blair didn't know
that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction before the war.' "
Cindy concluded: "We need an investigation! We are fighting for
impeachment of these criminals!" That line got huge applause.
The Mayor closed by quoting a remark that William Jennings Bryan made
in response to Carnegie claiming he loved America: "We're glad you
love America. When you're done with it, can we have it back?"
Livingstone said that Cindy was heir to that tradition.
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2 Hope continues as Iraq captive deadline looms
10th December 2005
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_051210hopes.shtml
As today’s deadline looms for the Christian peace campaigners abducted
in Iraq on 26 November 2005, the unprecedented wave of appeals for their
release continues – but frustration remains over lack of direct
contact with the Swords of Righteousness (Truth) Brigades.
In the last hour (17.15 GMT Anas Altikriti, a senior sponsor of the British
anti-war movement and a member of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB)
told the BBC of negotiators' "frustration" that no direct contact
had been established with the kidnappers.
But he said that it was certain that appeals for mercy from Muslim and
militant Islamic groups across the region and throughout the world were
getting through to them via television.
Their own only known statements have come in videos released to Arab
media outlet al-Jazeera, which has also publicised calls and petitions
for the release of the four men.
Today another former British detainee, Palestinian Mohammed Abu Reeder,
went on an Arabic news station to ask for the Christian Peacemaker Team
associates to be freed.
Yesterday, prominent Sunni Arab clerics and residents of a Baghdad neighbourhood
where Tom Fox, Harmeet Sooden, James Loney and Norman Kember had aided
people appealed for their release.
Sunni clerics used the opportunity of Friday prayers to urge mercy for
the four, and to demand a big Sunni turnout in the upcoming 15 December
Iraqi elections, saying that voting was a "religious duty" and
would hasten the departure of American troops.
Dr Daud Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain, a respected specialist
in human rights, told the BBC he was hopeful that appeals for the three
hostages to be released would be successful.
"You've heard from Hamas, from Hizbollah, from Islamic Jihad. These
are the pre-eminent resistance groups in the regions, and so I am sure
that their message will be heard, it will get across," he declared.
"What we hope now is that the response will be matched by the passion
and by the logic that has been conveyed by these appeals."
Meanwhile, leading cleric Ahmed Hassan Taha told worshippers in the predominantly
Sunni Azamiyah district of Baghdad: "We ask those who have authority
and power to do their best to release the four European people who work
in Christian peace organisation. In fact those activists were the first
who condemned the war on Iraq."
Ironically, many leading Christian commentators have been less than overwhelming
in their support for the men. Terry Waite, who was taken hostage in Beirut
1987 while acting as an envoy for then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert
Runcie, called for their release but criticised them for going into a
"highly polarised" situation in Iraq.
Mr Waite was also accused of being foolish in his mission to Lebanon.
His critical stance has been echoed by Canon Andrew White, an Anglican
priest in Baghdad. But Christian Peacemaker Teams and their supporters
point out that the group has considerable experience in situations of
conflict, works to clear guidelines, and only recruits people who know
and accept the danger they will be facing.
Bruce Kent, a former CND general secretary, ex-Catholic
priest and long-time friend of Dr Kember, defended the visit in a BBC
News 24 interview.
Said Mr Kent: "He went, I am sure, as a convinced Christian to try
and show the ordinary people of Iraq that people here wanted bridges of
friendship in practical ways and they wanted to be able to tell people
here how they were suffering."
He added: "I think it's much to the honour of the Muslim religion
that [so many Muslims] have actually rallied in this way to save these
innocent people."
Prayers were said on Friday at Finsbury Park mosque in north London for
the safe return from Iraq of Dr Kember and his colleagues, as well as
for the 295 Iraqi hostages held in the country. The vast majority of people
abducted in the country are Iraqi.
Earlier, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, British citizen Moazzam Begg,
had called for the hostages' release.
A year ago last month, Rinaldy Damanik, a falsely arrested Christian
peacemaker imprisoned in Indonesia walked free 12 months earlier than
his original release date after Muslim advocates campaigned for him.
Writing on Ekklesia and Mother Jones magazine, Dr Mark LeVine, Associate
Professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies
at the University of California praised the courage and example of CPT.
He said: “My last images of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Baghdad
was of their holding a vigil in Tahrir Square to protest against the detention
and mistreatment of Iraqis by the US military in Abu Ghraib. This was
months before anyone in the United States had even heard of Abu Ghraib,
or bothered to consider how our armed forces were treating detainees in
the war on terror.”
“But CPT knew full well what was going on in Abu Ghraib - that's
why they were in Iraq, to ‘witness’ the realities of the occupation
- and they were determined to make sure that the Iraqis saw that there
were Americans, and westerners more broadly, who were willing to put their
bodies on the line to protest against such abuses. It's too bad that it's
taken this tragedy to get the rest of us to listen.”
A candlelit vigil for the detainees will be held from 6-7pm on Monday
outside St Martin’s-in-the-Field Church in London’s Trafalgar
Square. The event is being organised by Pax Christi, the Fellowship of
Reconciliation and others.
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