------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AFGHANISTAN: U.S. TERROR TACTICS DEEPEN By Leslie Feinberg Afghan police have fired on protesting students in Kabul, killing as many as six and seriously wounding dozens more. The clashes came as thousands were protesting because electricity and water had been cut off to their dormitory for a week. The demonstrations began on Nov. 11, when the students marched to the palace of Hamid Karzai, the president installed by Washington after it attacked Afghan istan and ousted the Taliban regime. Students said the police attack was unprovoked and that four died in the hail of bullets. The government claims students had thrown rocks--certainly no excuse for firing on them--and admits to only one death. The next day the protests continued. A report from Kabul by the Irish RTE News says students reported two more deaths when the protests resumed the next morning, bringing the total to six. This bloody suppression of the students gives the lie to the rosy public relations effort to prettify life in Afghanistan under U.S. occupation. Bush, his generals, and the media establishment that amplifies their message around the world have tried to market their military onslaught as a battle "against terrorism." The bonus was supposed to be the liberation of the Afghani people. However, the Pentagon's actions in this war, toward civilians and prisoners alike, are those of imperialist occupation troops, not a liberation army. The people of Naray recall the recent raid by U.S. soldiers in their mountain village. (Associated Press, Nov. 4) It began at twilight with the terrifying thunder of Blackhawk helicopters setting down in a tornado of dust. Troops from the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army piled out. U.S. troops had passed through Naray before; they had never been attacked and the people put up no resistance. Yet the soldiers rounded up the villagers and separated the women and men in compounds of the local mosque. When an entire wedding party in festive clothes arrived at the mosque, they were ordered to sit down. All were threatened that if they moved, the helicopter gunships would kill them. To terrify the population, mortar teams discharged illumination artillery rounds into the night sky and fired explosive shells into the mountainside. The soldiers tore up people's humble homes, upending trunks of clothing, overturning bins of flour and chopping up the plaster walls. According to the AP report, "Cash, passports and pictures of anyone with a gun were collected in a trash bag." Cash. Now there's a dangerous weapon that needs to be impounded for security reasons. Five people, including the village elder, were interrogated throughout the night. Col. David Gerard boasted, "They talk a lot better after some sleep deprivation; makes them feel sorry for themselves." Later the five were loaded into helicopters with bags over their heads and taken away. No reason given. Nothing was found except a few AK-47s, which many, many Afghani people have in their homes. As the warships lifted up, chopping the air with their roar, they left anger below. "They came rushing into our homes, they kept us prisoner all night, and we were cold and hungry," said Noorbad Shah. "We had no bad will against the Americans, but now how are we supposed to feel?" WHERE THE REAL TERROR AWAITS Prisoners are transported 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Afghanistan to Camp X-Ray, a U.S. naval base in the Caribbean. Several electronic images of the detainees strapped into a half-sitting, half-prone position on the floor of a C-130 plane were leaked to news organizations the week of Nov. 8. The men's hands are bound behind their backs, legs chained, heads hooded. Earlier photos showed prisoners on their knees on the tarmac at Guantanamo, Cuba. They were deprived of sensory input, their eyes and ears covered by hoods and earphones. In a stunning display of sophistry, Defense Department officials have ordered the media to censor photos of prisoners, arguing that it is the photographs themselves, not the brutal treatment they document, that violate the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners. As of Oct. 23, reports the Washington Times, about 70 percent of the 598 prisoners are Afghani, Saudi and Yemeni; a small number are Pakistani. The newspaper adds that even more cells are being constructed "to house suspected terrorists from 43 countries." Suspected. This is Bush's endless war. The brass at the Pentagon vow to imprison the great majority "indefinitely." "House" is a diplomatic word to describe conditions. U.S. journalist Jeffrey Kofman described the tiny chain link cells open to the elements, with just a foam mat, two towels and a chamber pot. "It was a far more bare-bones facility than frankly I expected to see. They say they will be holding the detainees in cells, but really they are cages." (BBC News, Jan. 16) The tropical camp, bordered by bales of razor wire, is cold at night, lit up with halogen floodlights, and swarming with mosquitoes in the day. Marines and military police run the facility. CIA and military intelligence officers conduct repeated intense interrogations. Leaks about torture can't be confirmed because the military exerts iron control without civilian scrutiny. Military officers told journalists they wouldn't even be allowed to bring tape-recording devices to record the sound of a plane landing. (Fox News, Jan. 11) A LIMBO WHERE NO LAW EXISTS Even bourgeois law, whose main purpose is to protect the property-owning classes, is a casualty in this untrammeled military aggression. The U.S. high command refuses to grant prisoner-of-war status to the prisoners it takes in this war. The Pentagon labels the detained with the military double-speak "unlawful combatants," and thereby strips them of the limited protections established by the Geneva Convention. A panel of three British judges delivered a surprisingly strong ruling the week of Nov. 8. They stated that the detention of prisoners at Camp X-Ray "appears" to be a violation of international law as well as the right of habeas corpus won centuries ago in England with the Magna Carta. The panel, roughly similar to a federal appeals court in the United States, ruled in the case of a 23-year-old detainee who has been held at Guantanamo for 10 months. Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent British attorney and human- rights expert, told the New York Times in a phone interview that the court was trying to send a message to influence a case pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. That court is scheduled to hear arguments on Dec. 2 in an appeal of a July ruling that was an important legal victory for the Bush administration. In the July ruling, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly decided that the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo is formally outside this country's sovereign territory, so the prisoners can be denied rights under the U.S. Constitution and have no right of appeal to federal courts. Not U.S. territory? The base was established in 1903 after Marines hit the shores of Guantanamo during the 1898 Spanish- American war at the birth of U.S. imperialist expansion. After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the new government demanded the U.S. relinquish the base and respect Cuba's sovereignty. But President Dwight Eisenhower refused. Washington continues to pay annual "rent," set a century ago at 2,000 gold coins--about $4,000. The Cubans refuse to cash the insulting check. Setting up a military prison on the tiny portion of land the United States claims as its own on the island of Cuba is also a Yankee imperialist threat to the population trying to build socialism there as the U.S. attempts to re-colonize the planet. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
