Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 28. november
2005 / Timeline November 28, 2005
Version 3.5
27. November 2005, 29. November 2005
11/28/2005
Compensating Colonial Lepers, Slave Laborers and Hibakusha:
Troubling Legacies and Evolving Standards of Postcolonial Justice
in Japan
By Jeff Kingston
On Oct 25, 2005 a three-judge panel of the Tokyo District Court
upheld a lawsuit filed by 25 leprosy (Hansen's disease) patients
from Taiwan claiming compensation from the Japanese government for
being forcibly segregated during Japanese colonial rule. On the
same day, another panel of judges ruled against 117 South Korean
leprosy patients seeking compensation who had also been quarantined
during the colonial era.[1] All of the plaintiffs were forcibly
institutionalized under the aegis of Japanese colonial
administrations. Previously these plaintiffs had unsuccessfully
approached the Japanese government for the same redress awarded to
all leprosy patients in Japan in a 2001 decision by the Japanese
government to offer compensation ranging from 8-14 million yen.
This compensation, it should be noted, was granted regardless of
ethnicity to all those segregated in Japan, writes Japan Focus.
11/28/2005
Pacifist and aid workers kidnapped in Iraq
By: David Mumford
IFOR has been informed that Norman Kember, a long standing member
of FOR England and of the Baptist Peace Fellowship, who is in his
70's, was kidnapped in Iraq on Saturday together with three other
American aid workers from Canada and the USA. I have known Norman
for many years and valued his faith and his commitment to
peace.
Norman, a long time worker for non-violence and who strongly
opposed the invasion of Iraq, was hoping to visit the Christian
Peacemaker team in Iraq and use the information and experience from
his visit to Iraq to continue his work in the United Kingdom for
peace and reconciliation.
Please keep him, and his wife Pat in London, in your prayers.
At present IFOR has not been asked to initiate any further action
but information and suggestions would be welcome.
David Mumford
International Coordinator
International Fellowship of Reconciliation
Spoorstraat 38
1815 BK Alkmaar,
Netherlands
tel: +31 72 512 3014
fax: +31 72 515 1102
11/28/2005
The Abuse of 'Democracy'
By
Lawrence S. Wittner
George W. Bush's recent claim that the U.S. war in Iraq is part of
an attempt to spread "democracy" to the Middle East should not
surprise anyone familiar with the use of that word to camouflage
sordid realities.
When, in the aftermath of World War II, Stalin had the Soviet Union
gobble up the nations of Eastern Europe, he christened them
People's Democracies -- although they were neither democratic nor
meant to be. This debasement of "democracy" and other noble terms
such as "freedom" and "peace" to crude propaganda was undoubtedly
what George Orwell had in mind when he wrote his powerful novel,
1984, which portrayed a nightmarish society in which words were
turned inside out to justify the policies of cynical and
unscrupulous rulers.
Unfortunately, however, "democracy" has also been abused throughout
American history. In the nineteenth century, land-hungry
politicians, slaveholders, and businessmen defended the U.S.
conquest of new territory by claiming that it would extend the area
of democracy and freedom. In the twentieth century, President
Woodrow Wilson grandly proclaimed that U.S. participation in World
War I would "make the world safe for democracy." A few decades
later, Washington officials again sanctified U.S. policy by
invoking democracy, for they declared repeatedly that the U.S. role
in the Cold War was designed to defend the "Free World." Indeed, it
would be hard to find a U.S. war or expansionist enterprise that
was not accompanied by enthusiastic rhetoric about supporting
democracy.
In fairness, it should be noted that the U.S. government has
economically and militarily supported many democratic nations.
After World War II, it forged alliances with a good number of
them.
But it has also provided military and economic assistance to
numerous nations ruled by bloody dictatorships, including Franco's
Spain, Chiang Kai-Shek's China, the Shah's Iran, Somoza's
Nicaragua, Batista's Cuba, Sukarno's Indonesia, the Saud family's
Saudi Arabia, Diem's South Vietnam, Duvalier's Haiti, Marcos's
Philippines, the Colonels' Greece, and many other tyrannies.
Indeed, the term "Free World" originally included Stalin's Russia.
And, not so long ago, the U.S. government had no scruples about
providing military assistance to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Furthermore, on occasion the U.S. government has sought to
overthrow democratic governments. Three of its success stories
along these lines occurred in Mossadeq's Iran, Arbenz's Guatemala,
and Allende's Chile, where democratic governments were succeeded by
vicious dictatorships. Based upon this record, observers might well
conclude that, for U.S. officials, the defense of democracy has
been less important as a motive than as a marketing device.
A good example of "democracy" as a marketing device is its
employment in selling the U.S. program of military and economic aid
to Greece in 1947. This program had arisen out of the U.S.
government's fear that the Soviet Union, then at loggerheads with
the United States, stood on the verge of breaking through the
Western defense line to the oil-rich Middle East. To plan President
Truman's address to the nation on the new policy, Francis Russell,
the director of the State Department's Office of Public Affairs,
met on February 27 with the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee.
The meeting records indicate that, when Russell asked if the speech
should emphasize the conflict with the Soviet Union, he was told
that it should avoid "specifically mentioning Russia." Then
perhaps, said Russell, the administration "should couch it in terms
of [a] new policy of this government to go to the assistance of
free governments everywhere." This proposal was greeted
enthusiastically, for it would be useful to "relate military aid to
[the] principle of supporting democracy." Or, as one participant
put it, the "only thing that can sell [the] public" would be to
emphasize the threat to democracy. Ultimately, then, the
president's March 12, 1947 address, which became known as the
Truman Doctrine, did not mention the conflict between two rival
nations, the United States and the Soviet Union, but instead
emphasized "alternative ways of life," in which the United States
was defending the "free" one.
This approach not only misrepresented the motives of U.S.
government officials, but the realities in the two nations targeted
for the military and economic aid. Joseph Jones, who drafted the
president's address, recalled: "That the Greek government was
corrupt, reactionary, inefficient, and indulged in extremist
practices was well known and incontestable; that Turkey . . . had
not achieved full democratic self-government was also patent."
According to the minutes of the State-War-Navy Coordinating
Committee meeting, participants agreed that the Greek government
was a rotten one, though "not basically fascist."
Thus, President Bush's recent contention that his war in Iraq is
designed to further the cause of "democracy" is not out of line
with the statements of past U.S. government officials, who have not
been very scrupulous about how they have packaged their policies.
Nor is it out of line with the behavior of other governments,
always eager to put the most attractive face on their ventures.
Even so, given the long-term abuse of the word "democracy" as a
public relations device -- as well as the collapse of the
president's earlier justifications for the Iraq War -- we might be
pardoned for viewing his sudden enthusiasm for democracy with a
good deal of skepticism.
11/28/2005
Vanunu loses libel suit against Israeli paper
By Dan Williams
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28283314.htm
TEL AVIV, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
on Monday lost a libel suit against an Israeli newspaper that said
he had advised Palestinian fellow inmates on making bombs while
serving an 18-year jail term for treason. The ruling was a fresh
setback for Vanunu, 51, who was released last year only to be
barred indefinitely from leaving Israel by Defence Ministry
officials who accuse him of planning to reveal more state secrets.
He denies the accusation, writes Reuters.
11/28/2005
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