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Invisible victims in Lebanon - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128132020633932.html

Based on prevalent experiences reported by abused workers, this is the typical chronology of the vicious cycle that entraps domestic help entering Lebanon. The process of systematic discrimination starts at the port of entry, where immigration authorities hand over the worker to the sponsoring ’owner’ who is then advised to withhold the passport of the worker as a precautionary measure. If at any point during the contractual period, the worker is faced with issues such a non-payment of wages, abuse or inhumane treatment, he or she would usually take it up with the employer who is then free to terminate the contract without legal repercussions. In cases where the worker is able to file a complaint against the employer with the police, the authorities are required to conduct an investigation, the average response time from law enforcement agencies has been 21 days. In rare instances where the case reaches Lebanese courts, the worker is faced with a protracted trial, expensive fees and little to no support from the state or the local recruitment agencies that brought the worker into the country.

At any stage of this cycle the foreign worker’s permit to remain in the country can be made null and void on the employer’s sole discretion due to a Kefala or sponsorship system that bestows disproportionate amount of power to the sponsor. ’Sitting on the bench’ is not a legal option for workers who are in the process of challenging their employers.

The Kefala system adopted by some of the largest receivers of migrant workers in the Gulf states and Lebanon, has become synonymous with ’modern-day slavery’ amongst human rights groups. […]

Research by Ray Jureidini at The Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies claims that 52 per cent of MDWs are verbally abused, 14 per cent physically abused, 7 per cent sexually violated. These figures are shockingly high and underline the proliferated nature of violations.

Militias rearming in the DRC - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112074454189674.html

Reports have begun to emerge over the few weeks that rebel groups in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are reforming, recruiting new members and possibly rearming. Some commentators assume that this is related to the upcoming elections, but it seems equally likely that it is linked to disruptions in the mining sector in the eastern DRC over the past few months.

#RDC #mines #pauvreté #milices

Arab revolts - past and present | Joseph Massad (Al Jazeera English)
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011111810259215940.html

The US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance in the region today is following the same strategies they followed in late 1960s and early 1970s and continuing the strategy they followed with the PLO in the early 1990s. They are crushing those uprisings they can crush and are co-opting those they cannot. The efforts to fully co-opt the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings have made great strides over the last few months, though they have not been successful in silencing or demobilising the populations. On the other side, Bahrain’s uprising was the first to be crushed with the efforts to crush the Yemenis continuing afoot without respite. It was in Libya and in Syria where the axis fully hijacked the revolts and took them over completely. While Syrians, like Libyans before them, continue their valiant uprising against their brutal regime demanding democracy and social justice, their quest is already doomed unless they are able to dislodge the US-British-Saudi-Qatari axis that has fully taken over their struggle - which is very unlikely. (...) Source: Al Jazeera English

The struggle for Syria - Joseph Massad - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011111555722772798.html

It was the United States that destroyed Syrian democracy in 1949 when the CIA sponsored the first coup d’état in the country ending democratic rule. It is again the United States that has destroyed the possibility of a democratic outcome of the current popular uprising. My deep condolences to the Syrian people.

Le dernier billet de Joseph Massad, à lire absolument (comme toujours) :
Arab revolts - past and present - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011111810259215940.html

As for the larger Arab context, those who call what has unfolded in the last year in the Arab World as an Arab “awakening” are not only ignorant of the history of the last century, but also deploy Orientalist arguments in their depiction of Arabs as a quiescent people who put up with dictatorship for decades and are finally waking up from their torpor. Across the Arab world, Arabs have revolted against colonial and local tyranny every decade since World War I. It has been the European colonial powers and their American heir who have stood in their way every step of the way and allied themselves with local dictators and their families (and in many cases handpicking such dictators and putting them on the throne).

The US-European sponsorship of the on-going counterrevolutions across the Arab world today is a continuation of a time-honoured imperial tradition, but so is continued Arab resistance to imperialism and domestic tyranny. The uprisings that started in Tunisia in December 2010 continue afoot despite major setbacks to all of them. This is not to say that things have not changed and are not changing significantly, it is to say, however, that many of the changes are reversible and that the counterrevolution has already reversed a significant amount and is working hard to reverse more. Vigilance is mandatory on the part of those struggling for democratic change and social justice, especially in these times of upheaval and massive imperial mobilisation. Some of the battles may have been lost but the Arab peoples’ war against imperialism and for democracy and social justice continues across the Arab world.