World Social Forum: Participants Declare Bush “Guilty”

At the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, January 29th, an international women’s tribunal found U.S. President, George W. Bush, guilty of violating the human rights of people in countries like Iraq and Cuba.

Another 10 person panel of religious leaders, human rights lawyers and activists held a trial and condemned ‘state terrorism’ committed by Washington in Iraq.

Host, President Chavez, addressed some 15,000 participants and called the Bush administration,

"the most perverse, murderous, genocidal and immoral empire in history. “
As for U.S. imperialism, "we will surely bury it this century.”

(Although, I don’t agree with him there- that it’s THE MOST, it is ONE of the MOST.)

"Mr. Danger talks about human rights, but there are people in Guantanamo (Cuba) who are tortured, and people who disappear in the CIA jails in Europe and elsewhere in the world," Chávez told a cheering crowd.

The Women’s Tribunal heard testimony from: Irma González, the daughter of one of the "Cuban Five" - the five Cuban men in prison in the United States on espionage charges and Ramia Masi. Ramia Masi, an activist with the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq, presented a documentary that contains personal accounts and testimony on atrocities committed in the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq.

"Fundamentalism is a new thing in Iraq," said Masi. "The occupation drew out the greatest enemy of my country, the fundamentalists, who have destroyed our identity." She called for the construction of a secular alternative, in which women can be free.

A 10 person panel tried and condemned Washington for state terrorism after hearing from witnesses to the atrocities of the Bush administration: Fernando Suárez, a Mexican-American whose son was killed in Iraq; Javier Couso from Spain, whose brother José, a journalist, was killed when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which was being used as a base by many independent reporters; and Colombian parliamentary candidate Lilia Solano.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31957

An interesting story, which illustrates just how this administration is interfering and causing chaos in Latin America by having a policy that deviates from our stated goals of pursuing democracy. This is an excellent NYTimes report of what has transpired in Haiti after Aristide was kidnapped and exiled to South Africa by U.S. agents.

Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos

Interviews and a review of government documents show that a democracy-building group close to the White House, and financed by American taxpayers, undercut the official United States policy and the ambassador assigned to carry it out.

As a result, the United States spoke with two sometimes contradictory voices in a country where its words carry enormous weight. That mixed message, the former American ambassador said, made efforts to foster political peace "immeasurably more difficult."

The International Republican Institute (IRI), a so-called democracy-building organization, supported groups opposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and encouraged them to stonewall and avoid a compromise that could have stabilized the government. A gang of 200 armed thugs from the Dominican Republic invaded and the government collapsed. The war criminal leaders of this movement had links to the U.S.-supported opposition and the corrupt Haitian elites. The IRI claims to know nothing about them. U.S. special forces escorted Aristide to a plane that took him into exile.

Aristide was guilty of raising the minimum wage and trying to help the poor; as a result, the Bush Administration had no use for him.

After Aristide left, Haiti is virtually paralyzed by kidnappings, spreading panic among rich and poor alike. Corrupt police officers in uniform have assassinated people on the streets in the light of day. The chaos is so extreme and the interim government so dysfunctional that voting to elect a new one has already been delayed four times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/americas/29haiti.html?_r...