Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 26. februar 2006 / Time Line February 26, 2006
Version 3.525. Februar 2006, 27. Februar 2006
02/26/2006
PRESS RELEASE: 26 February 2006 (Anne Feeney)
By Christian Bartolf
The US American singer, songwriter and Labor, Peace and Justice
activist Anne Feeney from Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA) signed the
"Manifesto against conscription and the military system" on 26
February 2006. In the noble tradition of Malvina Reynolds and Peggy
Seeger, her musical contributions and public performances have
encouraged her audience to resist oppression and injustice. Her
song "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" is the Civil Disobedience
song of today following the tradition line of Henry David Thoreau
and commemorating the legacy of nonviolent resistance: "Was it
Cesar Chavez? Maybe it was Dorothy Day / Some will say Dr. King or
Gandhi set them on their way / No matter who your mentors are it's
pretty plain to see / That, if you've been to jail for justice,
you're in good company // Have you been to jail for justice? I want
to shake your hand / Cause sitting in and lyin' down are ways to
take a stand / Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that
picket line? / Have you been to jail for justice? Oh, you're a
friend of mine! // You law abiding citizens, come listen to this
song / Laws were made by people, and people can be wrong / Once
unions were against the law, but slavery was fine / Women were
denied the vote and children worked the mine / The more you study
history the less you can deny it / A rotten law stays on the books
til folks like us defy it // The law's supposed to serve us, and so
are the police / And when the system fails, it's up to us to speak
our peace / It takes eternal vigilance for justice to prevail / So
get courage from your convictions / Let them haul you off to jail!"
(copyright 1998 Anne Feeney, BMI) - This inspiring, fresh song was
performed by the famous singer trio Peter, Paul and Mary during the
Tribute Concert for late Harold Leventhal on Thanksgiving Day 2003
at Carnegie Hall, New York (you see in the 2004 music concert
documentary "Isn't This a Time"). You find Anne Feeney's website:
http://www.annefeeney.com
02/26/2006
REPORT DOCUMENTS 18 YEARS OF "DIRTY WAR" IN MEXICO
National Security Archive Update
Special Prosecutor: State Responsible for Hundreds of Killings,
Disappearances
Washington D.C., February 26, 2006 - The National Security Archive
posts on its Web site today a work of history in progress -- a
draft of an unprecedented report by Mexico's government on the
nation's "dirty war" of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
This document is the result of four years of work by the office of
Mexico's Special Prosecutor for Social and Political Movements of
the Past (Fiscalía Especial para Movimientos Sociales y
Políticos del Pasado - FEMOSPP), Dr. Ignacio Carrillo
Prieto. The office was created in 2002 by President Vicente Fox to
investigate human rights crimes.
The crimes detailed in the draft report were committed during the
administrations of Presidents Diaz Ordaz (1964-1970),
Echeverría (1970-1976) and López Portillo
(1976-1982). In those years, hundreds of Mexican citizens --
uncounted innocent civilians as well as armed militants -- were
murdered or "disappeared" by military and security forces.
Thousands more were tortured, or illegally detained, or subjected
to government harassment and surveillance.
The report has not yet been made public, although its authors -- a
group of 27 researchers, historians and activists contracted by the
Special Prosecutor in 2004 to write it -- gave it to Dr. Prieto on
December 15. But this draft of the report is currently circulating
in Mexico. A reporter for a national magazine, Eme Equis, has a
copy, and today is publishing an in-depth analysis of the section
concerning state-sponsored counterinsurgency operations in Guerrero
during the 1970s. Others have the report too, including the
prominent writers and historians Elena Poniatowska, Carlos
Montemayor and Carlos Monsivais.
Since 2000, when Fox's election ushered in a political transition
after more than 70 years of one-party rule by the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institutional-PRI), the
Mexican government has acted forcefully in favor of greater
openness, transparency and accountability.
Although the Special Prosecutor's final report has not yet been
made public, the National Security Archive is posting this draft
version in the spirit of the public's right to information. As soon
as we obtain a copy of the final version it will be posted on the
Archive Web site.
Kate Doyle, Director of the Mexico Project of the National Security
Archive, made the following statement: "We are posting the draft
report because the families of the victims of the "dirty war," and
the Mexican public, have a right to know. These same citizens may
read in Eme Equis today about the violence visited upon their own
relatives by the Mexican government 30 years ago. But in Mexico
they could not until now obtain the text that contains the evidence
of the state's responsibility.
"The fact that a version of the Special Prosecutor's final report
is circulating among a handful of prominent people -- yet remains
closed and inaccessible to those most affected by the violence --
is a state of affairs reminiscent of Mexico's past, when citizens
were routinely shut out of civic participation by a government
determined to keep them in the dark. Information was power, and the
right to information did not exist for ordinary Mexican men and
women. The National Security Archive's commitment to openness has
prompted us to make this draft report available to the public in
Mexico and across the world."
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