Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 21. november 2006 / Timeline November 21, 2006
Version 3.520. November 2006, 22. November 2006
11/21/2006
The Lives & Deaths of Iraqi Gays
Anti-Gay Death Squads in Iraq
by Peter Tatchell
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m28448
Tuesday, November 21, 2006 -- Another five gay men were abducted at
gun-point by Iraqi police in Baghdad on 9 November. Nothing has
been heard of them since then. It is feared that they may have been
murdered.
These disappearances are the latest "sexual cleansing" operation
mounted by Islamist death squads who have infiltrated the police.
They are systematically targeting gays and lesbians for
extra-judicial execution, as part of their so-called moral
purification campaign.
The kidnapped men are Amjad 27, Rafid 29, Hassan 24, Ayman 19 and
Ali 21. All were members of Iraq's clandestine gay rights movement,
Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender). For the last
few months, they had been documenting the killing of lesbians and
gays, relaying details of the barbaric homophobic murders to the
outside world and providing safe houses and support to queers
fleeing the death squads.
At the time of the police raid, the five men were holding a secret
meeting in a safe house in the al-Shaab district of Baghdad. They
were communicating with the founder and head of Iraqi LGBT, Ali
Hili, who operates from London, UK. "Suddenly there was a lot of
noise, then the connection ended," recalls Mr. Hili.
Earlier, in June this year, lslamist death squads burst into the
home of two lesbians in city of Najaf. They shot them dead, slashed
their throats, and also murdered a young child the lesbians had
rescued from the sex trade. The two women, both in their mid-30s,
were members of Iraqi LGBT. They were providing a safe house for
gay men on the run from death squads. By sheer luck, none of the
men who were being given shelter in the house were at home when the
assassins struck. They have now fled to Baghdad and are hiding in
an Iraqi LGBT safe house in the suburbs.
These latest horrific homophobic kidnappings and murders are a
snapshot of the rapidly growing power and menace of Iraq's death
squads, many of which belong to militias that are hell-bent on
turning the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state. Some
operate within the police and others independently. All owe their
allegiance to firebrand, militant clerics.
Large parts of Iraq, including many Baghdad neighborhoods, are now
under the de facto control of these fundamentalist militias and
their death squad units. They enforce a harsh interpretation of
Sharia law, summarily executing people for what they denounce as
"crimes against Islam." These "crimes" include listening to western
pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling
videos, working in a barber's shop, homosexuality, dancing, having
a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled
or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.
Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed
wings of major parties in the Bush and Blair-backed Iraqi
government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is
the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad's
government coalition. Both militias want to establish an
Iranian-style religious dictatorship -- or worse.
Some of the anti-war left in Britain and the US support Muqtada
al-Sadr, despite his goal of clerical fascism and his militia's
involvement in death squad killings. They hail him as a national
resistance hero for fighting the US and UK occupation of Iraq;
totally ignoring his militia's sectarian murder of innocent Sunni
Muslims, women and gay people. The allied occupation of Iraq is bad
enough. But victory for the Madhi or Badr militias would result in
a reign of religious terror many times worse.
The execution of lesbian and gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads
and militias is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis
if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence. The summary
killing of queers is the 'canary in the coal mine' -- a warning of
the barbarism to come...
11/21/2006
National Security Archive Update, November 21, 2006
Offical Report Released on Mexico's "Dirty War"
Government Acknowledges Responsibility for Massacres, Torture,
Disappearances and Genocide
Washington, DC, November 21, 2006 - Mexican authorities released a
groundbreaking report over the weekend on the government's use of
violent repression to crush its opponents during the 1960s-80s. The
National Security Archive posted the full report today on the
Mexico Project Web page.
The report by the Office of Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo
Prieto, named by President Vicente Fox in 2002 to investigate past
human rights crimes, accuses three Mexican presidents of a
sustained policy of violence targeting armed guerrillas and student
protesters alike, including the use of "massacres, forced
disappearance, systematic torture, and genocide." The report makes
clear that the abuses were not the work of individual military
units or renegade officers, but official practice under Presidents
Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970), Echeverría (1970-1976) and
López Portillo (1976-1982).
The document's release marks the first time the Mexican government
has accepted responsibility for waging a secret and illicit war
against its perceived enemies. Unlike prior investigations into the
Mexican "dirty war," the Special Prosecutor's report draws on
thousands of secret records from the vaults of Mexican military,
intelligence and police agencies. It traces for the first time the
flow of orders from the President, the Defense Secretary and the
Interior Ministry down to the soldiers and security agents in the
field, and the returning flow of reports back to Mexico City. The
official sources are complemented by testimonies and eyewitness
accounts gathered by the investigators.
Last February, the National Security Archive posted an earlier
draft of the report, when it became clear that the Fox government
was hesitating to publish the official document. Today's version
was released late on Friday night, November 17, at the start of a
long weekend in Mexico, and posted on the website of the Mexican
Attorney General's office. It is over 800 pages long, and contains
photographs, declassified government records, and lengthy indexes
to organizations and names.
The report includes chapters on the 1968 and 1971 student massacres
in Mexico City, the counterinsurgency waged against armed
guerrillas in Guerrero during the 1970s, and the broader attack on
dissidence throughout the country over the almost two decades
covered by the investigation. The report details with names 645
disappearances, 99 extrajudicial executions, and more than two
thousand cases of torture, among other human rights violations
documented.
"The Special Prosecutor's report release is a direct result of the
demand of Mexican citizens to know what happened during the dirty
war," Kate Doyle, Director of the Archive's Mexico Project, said
today, "and is unique in the annals of Latin American truth
commissions for the access investigators had to government records.
In the past, not only did the authoritarian regime violently attack
its opponents, it sought to cover up its role through lies, terror
and intimidation for years afterwards. But while the report takes
an important step toward reversing Mexico's legacy of impunity, the
Fox administration failed in its attempts to prosecute those
responsible for the crimes described in it. That job is left to the
new government of Felipe Calderón, who takes office on
December 1."
11/21/2006
CONTRACTS from the United States Department of Defense
Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a
$1,046,165,392 firm-fixed-price contract modification. This action
provides for (23) F-22 aircraft and (1) F-22 replacement test
aircraft. This action supports the F-22 Lot 6 Full Production
contract. At this time, $1,466,447,970 have been obligated. This
work will be complete February 2010. PA POC for this contract is
Aeronautical Systems Center Media Division, (937) 255-2250.
Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity
(FA8611-05-C-2850).
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