Organizing your writing life

THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 2005 REPORT: Amnesty International has come out swinging against the USA in its 2005 report for allowing human rights to devolve even further since 2001. The report on abuses in the Americas begins with this quote: The US-led “war on terror” continued to undermine human rights in the name of security, despite growing international outrage at evidence of US war crimes, including torture, against detainees.

And here's a bit more:

The blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in the “war on terror” continued to make a mockery of President George Bush’s claims that the USA was the global champion of human rights. Images of detainees in US custody tortured in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. War crimes in Iraq, and mounting evidence of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody in other countries, sent an unequivocal message to the world that human rights may be sacrificed ostensibly in the name of security.

President Bush’s refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to those captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan and transferred to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was challenged by a judicial decision in November. The ruling resulted in the suspension of trials by military commission in Guantánamo, and the government immediately lodged an appeal. The US administration’s treatment of detainees in the “war on terror” continued to display a marked ambivalence to the opinion of expert bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and even of its own highest judicial body. Six months after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts had jurisdiction over the Guantánamo detainees, none had appeared in court. Detainees reportedly considered of high intelligence value remained in secret detention in undisclosed locations. In some cases their situation amounted to “disappearance”.

America is in serious trouble. We have allowed Bush and his cronies to lead this country so far astray, that I believe there should be a move to have him impeached. Newsweek was forced to fall on its sword a month back after releasing the story on desecration of the Koran at US prison camps, but now it is slowly coming to light that desecration of holy texts and torture of prisoners who are being held without charge is common at Guantanamo Bay and other sites. Amnesty has started a petition to denounce the USA's torture of prisoners. I encourage you to sign the petition here.

Also in the report is an update on the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Africa, which America and most of the world continues to ignore as the focus remains on Iraq. I want to close this post with a poem I still read often:

War For Oil (Darfur, Africa)

The skies over Darfur are quiet,
save for the wind in wings of vultures
waiting for that almost meatless child,
clinging to its mother’s shriveled breast.
The gunfire is sporadic, off to the east
where soldiers of misfortune round up
those who ran from the camp.
There is no fear of bombs, this place
barely exists, offers no kickbacks
to presidents, their kin or commanders.
There’s only scrabbled ground
wet with blood as women are raped
or a skull is cracked.
No liberation force is coming,
no toppling of statues or searches
for weapons of mass destruction.
Here is famine, genocide,
dark skin pouring black oil
that holds no currency.