#crime_contre_l'humanité

  • #Ukraine, #Israël, quand les histoires se rencontrent

    Dans son dernier livre, l’historien #Omer_Bartov revient sur l’histoire de sa famille et de son voyage de la Galicie ukraino-polonaise à Israël, à travers les soubresauts de l’histoire de la première partie du 20e siècle.

    Alors que les atrocités du conflit israélo-palestinien continuent de diviser les étudiants de prestigieux campus américains, l’universitaire Omer Bartov se propose d’analyser la résurgence de l’#antisémitisme dans le monde à la lumière de sa propre #histoire_familiale.

    Un #antisémitisme_endémique dans les campus américains ?

    L’historien Omer Bartov réagit d’abord aux polémiques qui ont lieu au sujet des universités américaines et de leur traitement du conflit israélo-palestinien : “il y a clairement une montée de l’antisémitisme aux États-Unis, comme dans d’autres parties du monde. Néanmoins, il y a aussi une tentative de faire taire toute critique de la politique israélienne. Cette tentative d’associer cette critique à de l’antisémitisme est également problématique. C’est un bannissement des discussions. Les étudiants, qui sont plus politisés que par le passé, prennent part à cette histoire”. Récemment, la directrice de l’Université de Pennsylvanie Elizabeth Magill avait proposé sa démission à la suite d’une audition controversée au Congrès américain, lors de laquelle elle n’aurait pas condamné les actions de certains de ses étudiants à l’encontre d’Israël.

    De Buczacz à la Palestine, une histoire familiale

    Dans son dernier livre Contes des frontières, faire et défaire le passé en Ukraine, qui paraîtra aux éditions Plein Jour en janvier 2024, Omer Bartov enquête sur sa propre histoire, celle de sa famille et de son voyage de la Galicie à la Palestine : “en 1935, ma mère avait onze ans et a quitté #Buczacz pour la #Palestine. Le reste de la famille est restée sur place et quelques années plus tard, ils ont été assassinés par les Allemands et des collaborateurs locaux. En 1995, j’ai parlé avec ma mère de son enfance en Galicie pour la première fois, des grands écrivains locaux comme Yosef Agnon. Je voulais comprendre les liens entre #Israël et ce monde juif qui avait disparu à Buczacz au cours de la #Seconde_Guerre_mondiale”.

    À la recherche d’un monde perdu

    Cette conversation a mené l’historien à consacrer une véritable étude historique à ce lieu et plus généralement à cette région, la #Galicie : “ce monde avait selon moi besoin d’être reconstruit. Ce qui le singularisait, c’était la diversité qu’il accueillait. Différentes communautés nationales, ethniques et religieuses avaient coexisté pendant des siècles et je voulais comprendre comment il s’était désintégré”, explique-t-il. Le prochain livre qu’il souhaite écrire en serait alors la suite : “je veux comprendre comment ma génération a commencé à repenser le monde dans lequel nous avons grandi après la destruction de la civilisation précédente”, ajoute-t-il.

    https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/france-culture-va-plus-loin-l-invite-e-des-matins/ukraine-israel-quand-les-histoires-se-rencontrent-9022449
    #multiculturalisme #histoire #crime_de_guerre #crime_contre_l'humanité #génocide #Gaza #7_octobre_2023 #nettoyage_ethnique #destruction #déplacements_forcés #Hamas #crimes_de_guerre #massacre #pogrom #occupation

    • Contes des frontières, faire et défaire le passé en Ukraine

      À nouveau Omer Bartov étudie Buczacz, a ville de Galicie qui servait déjà de point d’ancrage pour décrire le processus du génocide dans Anatomie d’un génocide (Plein Jour 2021). Cette fois, il étudie les perceptions et l’imaginaire que chacune des communautés juive, polonaise et ukrainienne nourrissait sur elle-même, ce a depuis les origines de sa présence dans ce territoire des confins de l’Europe.

      Comment des voisins partageant un sol commun ont-ils élaboré des récits fondateurs de leurs #identités jusqu’à opposer leurs #mémoires ? comment se voyaient-ils les uns les autres, mais également eux-mêmes ; quels #espoirs nourrissaient-ils ? Les #mythes ont ainsi influencé a grande histoire, le #nationalisme, les luttes, et de façon plus intime les espoirs individuels, voire les désirs de partir découvrir un monde plus arge, nouveau, moderne. Ce livre, qui traite de ces récits « nationaux », de a construction de l’identité et de l’opposition qu’elle peut induire entre les différents groupes, apparaît comme une clé de compréhension du passé autant que du présent. Aujourd’hui avec a guerre en Ukraine, sa résonance, son actualité sont encore plus nettes.

      https://www.editionspleinjour.fr/contes-des-fronti%C3%A8res
      #livre #identité

    • Anatomie d’un génocide

      Buczacz est une petite ville de Galicie (aujourd’hui en Ukraine). Pendant plus de quatre cents ans, des communautés diverses y ont vécu plus ou moins ensemble – jusqu’à la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, qui a vu la disparition de toute sa population juive. En se concentrant sur ce seul lieu, qu’il étudie depuis l’avant-Première Guerre mondiale, Omer Bartov reconstitue une évolution polarisée par l’avènement des nationalismes polonais et ukrainien, et la lutte entre les deux communautés, tandis que l’antisémitisme s’accroît.

      À partir d’une documentation considérable, récoltée pendant plus de vingt ans – journaux intimes, rapports politiques, milliers d’archives rarement analysées jusqu’à aujourd’hui –, il retrace le chemin précis qui a mené à la #Shoah. Il renouvelle en profondeur notre regard sur les ressorts sociaux et intimes de la destruction des Juifs d’Europe.

      https://www.editionspleinjour.fr/anatomie-d-un-g%C3%A9nocide

  • ‘Our country has lost its moral compass’ : #Arundhati_Roy

    From Arundhati Roy’s acceptance speech at the P. Govinda Pillai award function held in Thiruvananthapuram on December 13.

    Thank you for bestowing this honour on me in the name of P. Govinda Pillai, one of Kerala’s most outstanding scholars of Marxist theory. And thank you for asking N. Ram to be the person who graces this occasion. I know he won this prize last year, but he also in many ways shares the honour of this one with me. In 1998 he, as the editor of Frontline—along with Vinod Mehta, the editor of Outlook—published my first political essay, “The End of Imagination”, about India’s nuclear tests. For years after that he published my work, and the fact that there was an editor like him—precise, incisive, but fearless—gave me the confidence to become the writer that I am.

    I am not going to speak about the demise of the free press in India. All of us gathered here know all about that. Nor am I going to speak of what has happened to all the institutions that are meant to act as checks and balances in the functioning of our democracy. I have been doing that for 20 years and I am sure all of you gathered here are familiar with my views.

    Coming from north India to Kerala, or to almost any of the southern States, I feel by turns reassured and anxious about the fact that the dread that many of us up north live with every day seems far away when I am here. It is not as far away as we imagine. If the current regime returns to power next year, in 2026 the exercise of delimitation is likely to disempower all of South India by reducing the number of MPs we send to Parliament. Delimitation is not the only threat we face. Federalism, the lifeblood of our diverse country is under the hammer too. As the central government gives itself sweeping powers, we are witnessing the sorry sight of proudly elected chief ministers of opposition-ruled States having to literally beg for their States’ share of public funds. The latest blow to federalism is the recent Supreme Court judgment upholding the striking down of Section 370 which gave the State of Jammu and Kashmir semi-autonomous status. It isn’t the only State in India to have special status. It is a serious error to imagine that this judgment concerns Kashmir alone. It affects the fundamental structure of our polity.

    But today I want to speak of something more urgent. Our country has lost its moral compass. The most heinous crimes, the most horrible declarations calling for genocide and ethnic cleansing are greeted with applause and political reward. While wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, throwing crumbs to the poor manages to garner support to the very powers that are further impoverishing them.

    The most bewildering conundrum of our times is that all over the world people seem to be voting to disempower themselves. They do this based on the information they receive. What that information is and who controls it—that is the modern world’s poisoned chalice. Who controls the technology controls the world. But eventually, I believe that people cannot and will not be controlled. I believe that a new generation will rise in revolt. There will be a revolution. Sorry, let me rephrase that. There will be revolutions. Plural.

    I said we, as a country, have lost our moral compass. Across the world millions of people—Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Communist, Atheist, Agnostic—are marching, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. But the streets of our country, which once was a true friend of colonised people, a true friend of Palestine, which once would have seen millions marching, too, are silent today. Most of our writers and public intellectuals, all but a few, are also silent. What a terrible shame. And what a sad display of a lack of foresight. As we watch the structures of our democracy being systematically dismantled, and our land of incredible diversity being shoe-horned into a spurious, narrow idea of one-size-fits-all nationalism, at least those who call themselves intellectuals should know that our country too, could explode.

    If we say nothing about Israel’s brazen slaughter of Palestinians, even as it is livestreamed into the most private recesses of our personal lives, we are complicit in it. Something in our moral selves will be altered forever. Are we going to simply stand by and watch while homes, hospitals, refugee camps, schools, universities, archives are bombed, a million people displaced, and dead children pulled out from under the rubble? The borders of Gaza are sealed. People have nowhere to go. They have no shelter, no food, no water. The United Nations says more than half the population is starving. And still they are being bombed relentlessly. Are we going to once again watch a whole people being dehumanised to the point where their annihilation does not matter?

    The project of dehumanising Palestinians did not begin with #Benyamin_Netanyahu and his crew—it began decades ago.

    In 2002, on the first anniversary of September 11 2001, I delivered a lecture called “Come September” in the United States in which I spoke about other anniversaries of September 11—the 1973 CIA-backed coup against President Salvador Allende in Chile on that auspicious date, and then the speech on September 11, 1990, of George W. Bush, Sr., then US President, to a joint session of Congress, announcing his government’s decision to go to war against Iraq. And then I spoke about Palestine. I will read this section out and you will see that if I hadn’t told you it was written 21 years ago, you’d think it was about today.

    —> September 11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East, too. On the 11th of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. (At the time, the Empire on which the Sun Never Set was free to snatch and bequeath national homelands like a school bully distributes marbles.) How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilisations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world. Both are fault lines in the raging international conflicts of today.
    –-> In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, I quote, “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” That set the trend for the Israeli State’s attitude towards the Palestinians. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.” Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eschol said, “What are Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine), there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was a desert, more than underdeveloped. Nothing.” Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts”. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers” who could be crushed. This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people.

    Thus began that terrible myth about the Land without a People for a People without a Land.

    –-> In 1947, the U.N. formally partitioned Palestine and allotted 55 per cent of Palestine’s land to the Zionists. Within a year, they had captured 76 per cent. On the 14th of May 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Minutes after the declaration, the United States recognized Israel. The West Bank was annexed by Jordan. The Gaza Strip came under Egyptian military control, and Palestine formally ceased to exist except in the minds and hearts of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who became refugees. In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Over the decades there have been uprisings, wars, intifadas. Tens of thousands have lost their lives. Accords and treaties have been signed. Cease-fires declared and violated. But the bloodshed doesn’t end. Palestine still remains illegally occupied. Its people live in inhuman conditions, in virtual Bantustans, where they are subjected to collective punishments, 24-hour curfews, where they are humiliated and brutalized on a daily basis. They never know when their homes will be demolished, when their children will be shot, when their precious trees will be cut, when their roads will be closed, when they will be allowed to walk down to the market to buy food and medicine. And when they will not. They live with no semblance of dignity. With not much hope in sight. They have no control over their lands, their security, their movement, their communication, their water supply. So when accords are signed, and words like “autonomy” and even “statehood” bandied about, it’s always worth asking: What sort of autonomy? What sort of State? What sort of rights will its citizens have? Young Palestinians who cannot control their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel’s streets and public places, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people, injecting terror into daily life, and eventually hardening both societies’ suspicion and mutual hatred of each other. Each bombing invites merciless reprisal and even more hardship on Palestinian people. But then suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic. Although Palestinian attacks strike terror into Israeli citizens, they provide the perfect cover for the Israeli government’s daily incursions into Palestinian territory, the perfect excuse for old-fashioned, nineteenth-century colonialism, dressed up as a new-fashioned, 21st century “war”. Israel’s staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the US.
    –-> The US government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every UN resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict. It has supported almost every war that Israel has fought. When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes. And every year Israel receives several billion dollars from the United States—taxpayers’ money.

    Today every bomb that is dropped by Israel on the civilian population, every tank, and every bullet has the United States’ name on it. None of this would happen if the US wasn’t backing it wholeheartedly. All of us saw what happened at the meeting of the UN Security Council on December 8 when 13 member states voted for a ceasefire and the US voted against it. The disturbing video of the US Deputy Ambassador, a Black American, raising his hand to veto the resolution is burned into our brains. Some bitter commentators on the social media have called it Intersectional Imperialism.

    Reading through the bureaucratese, what the US seemed to be saying is: Finish the Job. But Do it Kindly.

    —> What lessons should we draw from this tragic conflict? Is it really impossible for Jewish people who suffered so cruelly themselves—more cruelly perhaps than any other people in history—to understand the vulnerability and the yearning of those whom they have displaced? Does extreme suffering always kindle cruelty? What hope does this leave the human race with? What will happen to the Palestinian people in the event of a victory? When a nation without a state eventually proclaims a state, what kind of state will it be? What horrors will be perpetrated under its flag? Is it a separate state that we should be fighting for or, the rights to a life of liberty and dignity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion? Palestine was once a secular bulwark in the Middle East. But now the weak, undemocratic, by all accounts corrupt but avowedly nonsectarian PLO, is losing ground to Hamas, which espouses an overtly sectarian ideology and fights in the name of Islam. To quote from their manifesto: “we will be its soldiers and the firewood of its fire, which will burn the enemies”. The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers. But can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they have arrived at this destination? September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002—80 years is a long time to have been waging war. Is there some advice the world can give the people of Palestine? Should they just take Golda Meir’s suggestion and make a real effort not to exist?”

    The idea of the erasure, the annihilation, of Palestinians is being clearly articulated by Israeli political and military officials. A US lawyer who has brought a case against the Biden administration for its “failure to prevent genocide”—which is a crime, too—spoke of how rare it is for genocidal intent to be so clearly and publicly articulated. Once they have achieved that goal, perhaps the plan is to have museums showcasing Palestinian culture and handicrafts, restaurants serving ethnic Palestinian food, maybe a Sound and Light show of how lively Old Gaza used to be—in the new Gaza Harbour at the head of the Ben Gurion canal project, which is supposedly being planned to rival the Suez Canal. Allegedly contracts for offshore drilling are already being signed.

    Twenty-one years ago, when I delivered “Come September” in New Mexico, there was a kind of omertà in the US around Palestine. Those who spoke about it paid a huge price for doing so. Today the young are on the streets, led from the front by Jews as well as Palestinians, raging about what their government, the US government, is doing. Universities, including the most elite campuses, are on the boil. Capitalism is moving fast to shut them down. Donors are threatening to withhold funds, thereby deciding what American students may or may not say, and how they may or may not think. A shot to the heart of the foundational principles of a so-called liberal education. Gone is any pretense of post-colonialism, multiculturalism, international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Gone is any pretence of Free Speech or public morality. A “war” that lawyers and scholars of international law say meets all the legal criterion of a genocide is taking place in which the perpetrators have cast themselves as victims, the colonisers who run an apartheid state have cast themselves as the oppressed. In the US, to question this is to be charged with anti-Semitism, even if those questioning it are Jewish themselves. It’s mind-bending. Even Israel—where dissident Israeli citizens like Gideon Levy are the most knowledgeable and incisive critics of Israeli actions—does not police speech in the way the US does (although that is rapidly changing, too). In the US, to speak of Intifada—uprising, resistance—in this case against genocide, against your own erasure—is considered to be a call for the genocide of Jews. The only moral thing Palestinian civilians can do apparently is to die. The only legal thing the rest of us can do is to watch them die. And be silent. If not, we risk our scholarships, grants, lecture fees and livelihoods.

    Post 9/11, the US War on Terror gave cover to regimes across the world to dismantle civil rights and to construct an elaborate, invasive surveillance apparatus in which our governments know everything about us and we know nothing about them. Similarly, under the umbrella of the US’ new McCarthyism, monstrous things will grow and flourish in countries all over the world. In our country, of course, it began years ago. But unless we speak out, it will gather momentum and sweep us all away. Yesterday’s news is that Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, once among India’s top universities, has issued new rules of conduct for students. A fine of Rs.20,000 for any student who stages a dharna or hunger strike. And Rs 10,000 for “anti-national slogans”. There is no list yet about what those slogans are—but we can be reasonably sure that calling for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Muslims will not be on it. So, the battle in Palestine is ours, too.

    What remains to be said must be said—repeated—clearly.

    The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza are crimes against humanity. The United States and other countries that bankroll the occupation are parties to the crime. The horror we are witnessing right now, the unconscionable slaughter of civilians by Hamas as well as by Israel, are a consequence of the siege and occupation.

    No amount of commentary about the cruelty, no amount of condemnation of the excesses committed by either side—and no amount of false equivalence about the scale of these atrocities—will lead to a solution.

    It is the occupation that is breeding this monstrosity. It is doing violence to both perpetrators and victims. The victims are dead. The perpetrators will have to live with what they have done. So will their children. For generations.

    The solution cannot be a militaristic one. It can only be a political one in which both Israelis and Palestinians live together or side by side in dignity, with equal rights. The world must intervene. The occupation must end. Palestinians must have a viable homeland. And Palestinian refugees must have the right to return.

    If not, then the moral architecture of Western liberalism will cease to exist. It was always hypocritical, we know. But even this provided some sort of shelter. That shelter is disappearing before our eyes.

    So please—for the sake of Palestine and Israel, for the sake of the living and in the name of the dead, for the sake of the hostages being held by Hamas and the Palestinians in Israel’s prisons—for the sake of all of humanity—stop this slaughter.

    Thank you once more for choosing me for this honour. Thank you too for the Rs 3 lakhs which comes with this prize. It will not remain with me. It will go towards helping activists and journalists who continue to stand up at huge cost to themselves.

    https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/india-has-lost-its-moral-compass-arundhati-roy-on-israel-palestian-gaza-war/article67639421.ece

    #Gaza #à_lire #Palestine #Israel #boussole_morale #déshumanisation #11_septembre_1922 #responsabilité #occupation #Cisjordanie #USA #Etats-Unis #effacement #anéantissement #génocide #crime_contre_l'humanité #abattage

  • Quei bambini chiusi in trappola a Gaza. Il racconto di #Ruba_Salih
    (une interview de Ruba Salih, prof à l’Université de Bologne, 5 jours après le #7_octobre_2023)

    «Mai come in queste ore a Gaza il senso di appartenere a una comune “umanita” si sta mostrando più vuoto di senso. La responsabilità di questo è del governo israeliano», dice Ruba Salih antropologa dell’università di Bologna che abbiamo intervistato mentre cresce la preoccupazione per la spirale di violenza che colpisce la popolazione civile palestinese e israeliana.

    Quali sono state le sue prime reazioni, sentimenti, pensieri di fronte all’attacco di Hamas e poi all’annuncio dell’assedio di Gaza messo in atto dal governo israeliano?

    Il 7 ottobre la prima reazione è stata di incredulità alla vista della recinzione metallica di Gaza sfondata, e alla vista dei palestinesi che volavano con i parapendii presagendo una sorta di fine dell’assedio. Ho avuto la sensazione di assistere a qualcosa che non aveva precedenti nella storia recente. Come era possibile che l’esercito più potente del mondo potesse essere sfidato e colto così alla sprovvista? In seguito, ho cominciato a chiamare amici e parenti, in Cisgiordania, Gaza, Stati Uniti, Giordania. Fino ad allora si aveva solo la notizia della cattura di un numero imprecisato di soldati israeliani. Ho pensato che fosse una tattica per fare uno scambio di prigionieri. Ci sono più di 5000 prigionieri palestinesi nelle carceri israeliane e 1200 in detenzione amministrativa, senza processo o accusa. Poi sono cominciate da domenica ad arrivare le notizie di uccisioni e morti di civili israeliani, a cui è seguito l’annuncio di ‘guerra totale’ del governo di Netanyahu. Da allora il sentimento è cambiato. Ora grande tristezza per la quantità di vittime, dell’una e dell’altra parte, e preoccupazione e angoscia senza precedenti per le sorti della popolazione civile di Gaza, che in queste ore sta vivendo le ore piu’ drammatiche che si possano ricordare.

    E quando ha visto quello che succedeva, con tantissime vittime israeliane, violenze terribili, immagini di distruzione, minacce di radere al suolo Gaza?

    Colleghi e amici israeliani hanno cominciato a postare immagini di amici e amiche uccisi – anche attivisti contro l’occupazione- e ho cominciato dolorosamente a mandare condoglianze. Contemporaneamente giungevano terribili parole del ministro della Difesa israeliano Gallant che definiva i palestinesi “animali umani”, dichiarando di voler annientare la striscia di Gaza e ridurla a “deserto”. Ho cominciato a chiamare amici di Gaza per sapere delle loro famiglie nella speranza che fossero ancora tutti vivi. Piano piano ho cominciato a cercare di mettere insieme i pezzi e dare una cornice di senso a quello che stava succedendo.

    Cosa può dirci di Gaza che già prima dell’attacco di Hamas era una prigione a cielo aperto?

    Si, Gaza è una prigione. A Gaza la maggior parte della popolazione è molto giovane, e in pochi hanno visto il mondo oltre il muro di recinzione. Due terzi della popolazione è composto da famiglie di rifugiati del 1948. Il loro vissuto è per lo più quello di una lunga storia di violenza coloniale e di un durissimo assedio negli ultimi 15 anni. Possiamo cercare di immaginare cosa significa vivere questo trauma che si protrae da generazioni. Gli abitanti di Gaza nati prima del 1948 vivevano in 247 villaggi nel sud della Palestina, il 50% del paese. Sono stati costretti a riparare in campi profughi a seguito della distruzione o occupazione dei loro villaggi. Ora vivono in un’area che rappresenta l’1.3% della Palestina storica con una densità di 7000 persone per chilometro quadrato e le loro terre originarie si trovano a pochi metri di là dal muro di assedio, abitate da israeliani.

    E oggi?

    Chi vive a Gaza si descrive come in una morte lenta, in una privazione del presente e della capacità di immaginare il futuro. Il 90% dell’acqua non è potabile, il 60% della popolazione è senza lavoro, l’80% riceve aiuti umanitari per sopravvivere e il 40% vive al di sotto della soglia di povertà: tutto questo a causa dell’ occupazione e dell’assedio degli ultimi 15 anni. Non c’è quasi famiglia che non abbia avuto vittime, i bombardamenti hanno raso al suolo interi quartieri della striscia almeno quattro volte nel giro di una decina di anni. Non credo ci sia una situazione analoga in nessun altro posto del mondo. Una situazione che sarebbe risolta se Israele rispettasse il diritto internazionale, né più né meno.

    Prima di questa escalation di violenza c’era voglia di reagire, di vivere, di creare, di fare musica...

    Certo, anche in condizioni di privazione della liberta’ c’e’ una straordinaria capacità di sopravvivenza, creatività, amore per la propria gente. Tra l’altro ricordo di avere letto nei diari di Marek Edelman sul Ghetto di Varsavia che durante l’assedio del Ghetto ci si innamorava intensamente come antidoto alla disperazione. A questo proposito, consilgio a tutti di leggere The Ghetto Fights di Edelman. Aiuta molto a capire cosa è Gaza in questo momento, senza trascurare gli ovvi distinguo storici.

    Puoi spiegarci meglio?

    Come sapete il ghetto era chiuso al mondo esterno, il cibo entrava in quantità ridottissime e la morte per fame era la fine di molti. Oggi lo scenario di Gaza, mentre parliamo, è che non c’è elettricità, il cibo sta per finire, centinaia di malati e neonati attaccati alle macchine mediche hanno forse qualche ora di sopravvivenza. Il governo israeliano sta bombardando interi palazzi, le vittime sono per più della metà bambini. In queste ultime ore la popolazione si trova a dovere decidere se morire sotto le bombe in casa o sotto le bombe in strada, dato che il governo israeliano ha intimato a un milione e centomila abitanti di andarsene. Andare dove? E come nel ghetto la popolazione di Gaza è definita criminale e terrorista.

    Anche Franz Fanon, lei suggerisce, aiuta a capire cosa è Gaza.

    Certamente, come ho scritto recentemente, Fanon ci viene in aiuto con la forza della sua analisi della ferita della violenza coloniale come menomazione psichica oltre che fisica, e come privazione della dimensione di interezza del soggetto umano libero, che si manifesta come un trauma, anche intergenerazionale. La violenza prolungata penetra nelle menti e nei corpi, crea una sospensione delle cornici di senso e delle sensibilità che sono prerogativa di chi vive in contesti di pace e benessere. Immaginiamoci ora un luogo, come Gaza, dove come un rapporto di Save the Children ha riportato, come conseguenza di 15 anni di assedio e blocco, 4 bambini su 5 riportano un vissuto di depressione, paura e lutto. Il rapporto ci dice che vi è stato un aumento vertiginoso di bambini che pensano al suicidio (il 50%) o che praticano forme di autolesionismo. Tuttavia, tutto questo e’ ieri. Domani non so come ci sveglieremo, noi che abbiamo il privilegio di poterci risvegliare, da questo incubo. Cosa resterà della popolazione civile di Gaza, donne, uomini bambini.

    Come legge il sostegno incondizionato al governo israeliano di cui sono pieni i giornali occidentali e dell’invio di armi ( in primis dagli Usa), in un’ottica di vittoria sconfitta che abbiamo già visto all’opera per la guerra Russia-Ucraina?

    A Gaza si sta consumando un crimine contro l’umanità di dimensioni e proporzioni enormi mentre i media continuano a gettare benzina sul fuoco pubblicando notizie in prima pagina di decapitazioni e stupri, peraltro non confermate neanche dallo stesso esercito israeliano. Tuttavia, non utilizzerei definizioni statiche e omogeneizzanti come quelle di ‘Occidente’ che in realtà appiattiscono i movimenti e le società civili sulle politiche dei governi, che in questo periodo sono per lo più a destra, nazionalisti xenofobi e populisti. Non è sempre stato così.

    Va distinto il livello istituzionale, dei governi e dei partiti o dei media mainstream, da quello delle società civili e dei movimenti sociali?

    Ci sono una miriade di manifestazioni di solidarietà ovunque nel mondo, che a fianco del lutto per le vittime civili sia israeliane che palestinesi, non smettono di invocare la fine della occupazione, come unica via per ristabilire qualcosa che si possa chiamare diritto (e diritti umani) in Palestina e Israele. Gli stessi media mainstream sono in diversi contesti molto più indipendenti che non in Italia. Per esempio, Bcc non ha accettato di piegarsi alle pressioni del governo rivendicando la sua indipendenza rifiutandosi di usare la parola ‘terrorismo’, considerata di parte, preferendo riferirsi a quei palestinesi che hanno sferrato gli attacchi come ‘combattenti’. Se sono stati commessi crimini contro l’umanità parti lo stabiliranno poi le inchieste dei tribunali penali internazionali. In Italia, la complicità dei media è invece particolarmente grave e allarmante. Alcune delle (rare) voci critiche verso la politica del governo israeliano che per esempio esistono perfino sulla stampa liberal israeliana, come Haaretz, sarebbero in Italia accusate di anti-semitismo o incitamento al terrorismo! Ci tengo a sottolineare tuttavia che il fatto che ci sia un certo grado di libertà di pensiero e di stampa in Israele non significa che Israele sia una ‘democrazia’ o perlomeno non lo è certo nei confronti della popolazione palestinese. Che Israele pratichi un regime di apartheid nei confronti dei palestinesi è ormai riconosciuto da organizzazioni come Amnesty International e Human Rights Watch, nonché sottolineato a più riprese dalla Relatrice speciale delle Nazioni Unite sui territori palestinesi occupati, Francesca Albanese.

    Dunque non è una novità degli ultimi giorni che venga interamente sposata la retorica israeliana?

    Ma non è una novità degli ultimi giorni che venga interamente sposata la narrativa israeliana. Sono anni che i palestinesi sono disumanizzati, resi invisibili e travisati. Il paradosso è che mentre Israele sta violando il diritto e le convenzioni internazionali e agisce in totale impunità da decenni, tutte le forme di resistenza: non violente, civili, dimostrative, simboliche, legali dei palestinesi fino a questo momento sono state inascoltate, anzi la situazione sul terreno è sempre più invivibile. Persino organizzazioni che mappano la violazione dei diritti umani sono demonizzate e catalogate come ‘terroristiche’. Anche le indagini e le commissioni per valutare le violazioni delle regole di ingaggio dell’esercito sono condotte internamente col risultato che divengono solo esercizi procedurali vuoti di sostanza (come per l’assassinio della reporter Shereen AbuHakleh, rimasto impunito come quello degli altri 55 giornalisti uccisi dall’esercito israeliano). Ci dobbiamo seriamente domandare: che cosa rimane del senso vero delle parole e del diritto internazionale?

    Il discorso pubblico è intriso di militarismo, di richiami alla guerra, all’arruolamento…

    Personalmente non metterei sullo stesso piano la resistenza di un popolo colonizzato con il militarismo come progetto nazionalistico di espansione e profitto. Possiamo avere diversi orientamenti e non condividere le stesse strategie o tattiche ma la lotta anticoloniale non è la stessa cosa del militarismo legato a fini di affermazione di supremazia e dominio di altri popoli. Quella dei palestinesi è una lotta che si inscrive nella scia delle lotte di liberazione coloniali, non di espansione militare. La lotta palestinese si collega oggi alle lotte di giustizia razziale e di riconoscimento dei nativi americani e degli afro-americani contro società che oggi si definiscono liberali ma che sono nate da genocidi, schiavitù e oppressione razziale. Le faccio un esempio significativo: la prima bambina Lakota nata a Standing Rock durante le lunghe proteste contro la costruzione degli olelodotti in North Dakota, che stanno espropriando e distruggendo i terre dei nativi e inquinando le acque del Missouri, era avvolta nella Kuffyah palestinese. Peraltro, il nazionalismo non è più il solo quadro di riferimento. In Palestina si lotta per la propria casa, per la propria terra, per la liberazione dalla sopraffazione dell’occupazione, dalla prigionia, per l’autodeterminazione che per molti è immaginata o orientata verso la forma di uno stato laico binazionale, almeno fino agli eventi recenti. Domani non so come emergeremo da tutto questo.

    Emerge di nuovo questa cultura patriarcale della guerra, a cui come femministe ci siamo sempre opposte…

    Con i distinguo che ho appena fatto e che ribadisco – ossia che non si può mettere sullo stesso piano occupanti e occupati, colonialismo e anticolonialismo -mi sento comunque di dire che una mobilitazione trasversale che aneli alla fine della occupazione deve essere possibile. Nel passato, il movimento femminista internazionalista tentava di costruire ponti tra donne palestinesi e israeliane mobilitando il lutto di madri, sorelle e figlie delle vittime della violenza. Si pensava che questo fosse un legame primario che univa nella sofferenza, attraversando le differenze. Ci si appellava alla capacità delle donne di politicizzare la vulnerabilità, convinte che nella morte e nel lutto si fosse tutte uguali. La realtà è che la disumanizzazione dei palestinesi, rafforzata dalla continua e sempre più violenta repressione israeliana, rende impossibile il superamento delle divisioni in nome di una comune umanità. Mentre i morti israeliani vengono pubblicamente compianti e sono degni di lutto per il mondo intero, i palestinesi – definiti ‘terroristi’ (anche quando hanno praticato forme non-violente di resistenza), scudi-umani, animali (e non da oggi), sono già morti -privati della qualità di umani- prima ancora di morire, e inscritti in una diversa classe di vulnerabilità, di non essenza, di disumanità.

    Antropologa dell’università di Bologna Ruba Salih si interessa di antropologia politica con particolare attenzione a migrazioni e diaspore postcoloniali, rifugiati, violenza e trauma coloniale, genere corpo e memoria. Più recentemente si è occupata di decolonizzazione del sapere e Antropocene e di politiche di intersezionalità nei movimenti di protesta anti e de-coloniali. Ha ricoperto vari ruoli istituzionali tra cui membro eletto del Board of Trustees del Arab Council for the Social Sciences, dal 2015 al 2019. È stata visiting professor presso varie istituzioni tra cui Brown University, University of Cambridge e Università di Venezia, Ca’ Foscari.

    https://left.it/2023/10/12/quei-bambini-chiusi-in-trappola-a-gaza-il-racconto-di-ruba-salih

    #Gaza #Israël #Hamas #violence #prison #Palestine #violence_coloniale #siège #trauma #traumatisme #camps_de_réfugiés #réfugiés #réfugiés_palestiniens #pauvreté #bombardements #violence #dépression #peur #santé_mentale #suicide #crime_contre_l'humanité #apartheid #déshumanisation #résistance #droit_international #lutte #nationalisme #féminisme #à_lire #7_octobre_2023

    • Gaza between colonial trauma and genocide

      In the hours following the attack of Palestinian fighters in the south of Israel Western observers, bewildered, speculated about why Hamas and the young Palestinians of Gaza, born and bred under siege and bombs, have launched an attack of this magnitude, and right now. Others expressed their surprise at the surprise.

      The Israeli government responded by declaring “total war”, promising the pulverization of Gaza and demanding the inhabitants to leave the strip, knowing that there is no escape. Mobilising even the Holocaust and comparing the fighters to the Nazis, the Israeli government engaged in an operation that they claim is aimed at the destruction of Hamas.

      In fact, as I am writing, Gaza is being razed to the ground with an unbearable number of Palestinian deaths which gets larger by the hour, with people fleeing under Israeli bombs, water, electricity and fuel being cut, hospitals – receiving one patient a minute – on the brink of catastrophe, and humanitarian convoys prevented from entering the strip.

      An ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza is taking place with many legal observers claiming this level of violence amounts to a genocide.

      But what has happened – shocking and terrible in terms of the number of victims – including children and the elderly – creates not only a new political scenario, but above all it also imposes a new frame of meaning.

      Especially since the Oslo accords onwards, the emotional and interpretative filter applying to the “conflict” has been the asymmetrical valuing of one life over the other which in turn rested on an expectation of acquiescence and acceptance of the Palestinians’ subalternity as a colonised people. This framing has been shattered.

      The day of the attack, millions of Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories found themselves in a trance-like state – with an undeniable initial euphoria from seeing the prison wall of Gaza being dismantled for the first time. They were wondering whether what they had before their eyes was delirium or reality. How was it possible that the Palestinians from Gaza, confined in a few suffocating square kilometres, repeatedly reduced to rubble, managed to evade the most powerful and technologically sophisticated army in the world, using only rudimentary equipment – bicycles with wings and hang-gliders? They could scarcely believe they were witnessing a reversal of the experience of violence, accustomed as they are to Palestinian casualties piling up relentlessly under Israeli bombardments, machine gun fire and control apparatus.

      Indeed, that Israel “declared war” after the attack illustrates this: to declare war assumes that before there was “peace”. To be sure, the inhabitants of Sderot and southern Israel would like to continue to live in peace. For the inhabitants of Gaza, on the other hand, peace is an abstract concept, something they have never experienced. For the inhabitants of the strip, as well as under international law, Gaza is an occupied territory whose population – two million and three hundred thousand people, of which two thirds are refugees from 1948 – lives (or to use their own words: “die slowly”) inside a prison. Control over the entry and exit of people, food, medicine, materials, electricity and telecommunications, sea, land and air borders, is in Israeli hands. International law, correctly invoked to defend the Ukrainian people and to sanction the Russian occupier, is a wastepaper for Israel, which enjoys an impunity granted to no other state that operates in such violation of UN resolutions, even disregarding agreements they themselves signed, never mind international norms and conventions.

      This scaffolding has crucially rested on the certainty that Palestinians cannot and should not react to their condition, not only and not so much because of their obvious military inferiority, but in the warped belief that Palestinian subjectivity must and can accept remaining colonised and occupied, to all intents and purposes, indefinitely. The asymmetry of strength on the ground led to an unspoken – but devastatingly consequential – presumption that Palestinians would accept to be confined to a space of inferiority in the hierarchy of human life.

      In this sense, what is happening these days cannot be understood and analysed with the tools of those who live in “peace”, but must be understood (insofar as this is even possible for those who do not live in Gaza or the occupied Palestinian territories) from a space defined by the effects of colonial violence and trauma. It is to Franz Fanon that we owe much of what we know about colonial violence – especially that it acts as both a physical and psychic injury. A psychiatrist from Martinique who joined the liberation struggle for independence in Algeria under French colonial rule, he wrote at length about how the immensity and duration of the destruction inflicted upon colonised subjects results in a wide and deep process of de-humanisation which, at such a profound level, also compromises the ability of the colonised to feel whole and to fully be themselves, humans among humans. In this state of physical and psychic injury, resistance is the colonised subject’s only possibility of repair. This has been the case historically in all contexts of liberation from colonial rule, a lineage to which the Palestinian struggle belongs.

      It is in this light that the long-lasting Palestinian resistance of the last 75 years should be seen, and this is also the key to understanding the unprecedented events of the last few days. These are the result, as many observers – including Israeli ones – have noted, of the failure of the many forms of peaceful resistance that the Palestinians have managed to pursue, despite the occupation, and which they continue to put into play: the hunger strikes of prisoners under “administrative detention”; the civil resistance of villagers such as Bil’in or Sheikh Jarrah who are squeezed between the separation wall, the expropriation of land and homes, and suffocated by the increasingly aggressive and unstoppable expansion of settlements; the efforts to protect the natural environment and indigenous Palestinian culture, including the centuries-old olive trees so often burnt and vandalised by settlers; the Palestinian civil society organisations that map and report human rights violations – which make them, for Israel, terrorist organisations; the struggle for cultural and political memory; the endurance of refugees in refugee camps awaiting implementation of their human rights supported by UN resolutions, as well as reparation and recognition of their long term suffering; and, further back in time, the stones hurled in resistance during the first Intifada, when young people with slingshots threw those same stones with which Israeli soldiers broke their bones and lives, back to them.

      Recall that, in Gaza, those who are not yet twenty years old, who make up about half the population, have already survived at least four bombing campaigns, in 2008-9, in 2012, in 2014, and again in 2022. These alone caused more than 4000 deaths.

      And it is again in Gaza that the Israeli tactic has been perfected of firing on protesters during peaceful protests, such as those in 2018, to maim the bodies – a cynical necropolitical calculation of random distribution between maimed and dead. It is not surprising, then, that in post-colonial literature – from Kateb Yacine to Yamina Mechakra, just to give two examples – the traumas of colonial violence are narrated as presence and absence, in protagonists’ dreams and nightmares, of amputated bodies. This is a metaphor for a simultaneously psychic and physical maiming of the colonised identity, that continues over time, from generation to generation.

      Despite their predicament as colonised for decades and their protracted collective trauma, Palestinians inside and outside of Palestine have however shown an incredible capacity for love, grief and solidarity over time and space, of which we have infinite examples in day-to-day practices of care and connectedness, in the literature, in the arts and culture, and through their international presence in other oppressed peoples’ struggles, such as Black Lives Matter and Native American Dakota protestors camps, or again in places such as the Moria camp in Greece.

      The brutality of a 16 years long siege in Gaza, and the decades of occupation, imprisonment, humiliation, everyday violence, death, grief – which as we write happen at an unprecedented genocidal intensity, but are in no way a new occurrence – have not however robbed people of Gaza, as individuals, of their ability to share in the grief and fear of others.

      “Striving to stay human” is what Palestinians have been doing and continue to do even as they are forced to make inhumane choices such as deciding who to rescue from under the rubbles based on who has more possibility to survive, as recounted by journalist Ahmed Dremly from Gaza during his brief and precious dispatches from the strip under the heavy shelling. This colonial violence will continue to produce traumatic effects in the generations of survivors. Yet, it has to be made clear that as the occupied people, Palestinians cannot be expected to bear the pain of the occupier. Equal standing and rights in life are the necessary preconditions for collective shared grief of death.

      Mahmoud Darwish wrote, in one of his essays on the “madness” of being Palestinian, written after the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, that the Palestinian “…is encumbered by the relentless march of death and is busy defending what remains of his flesh and his dream…his back is against the wall, but his eyes remain fixed on his country. He can no longer scream. He can no longer understand the reason behind Arab silence and Western apathy. He can do only one thing, to become even more Palestinian… because he has no other choice”.

      The only antidote to the spiral of violence is an end to the occupation and siege, and for Israel to fully comply with international law and to the UN resolutions, as a first and non-negotiable step. From there we can begin to imagine a future of peace and humanity for both Palestinians and Israelis.

      https://untoldmag.org/gaza-between-colonial-trauma-and-genocide
      #colonialisme #traumatisme_colonial #génocide

    • Can the Palestinian speak ?

      It is sadly nothing new to argue that oppressed and colonised people have been and are subject to epistemic violence – othering, silencing, and selective visibility – in which they are muted or made to appear or speak only within certain perceptual views or registers – terrorists, protestors, murderers, humanitarian subjects – but absented from their most human qualities. Fabricated disappearance and dehumanisation of Palestinians have supported and continue to sustain their physical elimination and their erasure as a people.

      But the weeks after October 7th have set a new bar in terms of the inverted and perverse ways that Palestinians and Israel can be represented, discussed, and interpreted. I am referring here to a new epistemology of time that is tight to a moral standpoint that the world is asked to uphold. In that, the acts of contextualising and providing historical depth are framed as morally reprehensible or straight out antisemitic. The idea that the 7th of October marks the beginning of unprecedented violence universalises the experience of one side, the Israeli, while obliterating the past decades of Palestinians’ predicament. More than ever, Palestinians are visible, legible, and audible only through the frames of Israeli subjectivity and sensibility. They exist either to protect Israel or to destroy Israel. Outside these two assigned agencies, they are not, and cannot speak. They are an excess of agency like Spivak’s subaltern,[1] or a ‘superfluous’ people as Mahmoud Darwish[2] put it in the aftermath of the Sabra and Chatila massacre. What is more is the persistent denying by Israel and its Western allies, despite the abundant historical evidence, that Palestinian indigenous presence in Palestine has always been at best absented from their gaze – ‘a problem’ to manage and contain – at worse the object of systemic and persistent ethnic cleansing and erasure aiming at fulfilling the narcissistic image of “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Yet, the erasure of Palestinians, also today in Gaza, is effected and claimed while simultaneously being denied.

      A quick check of the word “Palestine” on google scholar returns one million and three hundred thousand studies, nearly half of them written from the mid 1990s onwards. Even granting that much of this scholarship would be situated in and reproducing orientalist and colonial knowledges, one can hardly claim scarcity of scholarly production on the dynamics of subalternity and oppression in Palestine. Anthropology, literary theory, and history have detected and detailed the epistemological and ontological facets of colonial and post-colonial erasure. One might thus ask: how does the persistent denial of erasure in the case of Palestinians work? We might resort to psychoanalysis or to a particular form of narcissistic behaviour known as DAVRO – Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender[3] – to understand the current pervading and cunning epistemic violence that Israel and its allies enact. Denying the radical obstructing and effacing of Palestinian life (while effecting it through settler-colonialism, settler and state violence, siege, apartheid, and genocidal violence in Gaza) is the first stage in Israel’s and western allies’ discursive manipulation. Attacking historicisation and contextualisation as invalid, antisemitic, propaganda, hate speech, immoral, outrageous, and even contrary to liberal values is the second stage. Lastly is the Reversing Victim and Offender by presenting the war on Gaza as one where Israel is a historical victim reacting to the offender, in response to demands that Israel, as the colonial and occupying power, takes responsibility for the current cycle of violence.

      This partly explains why the violent attack that Hamas conducted in the south of Israel last October, in which 1200 people were killed, is consistently presented as the start date of an ‘unprecedented’ violence, with more than 5000 Palestinians killed in carpet bombings of Gaza until 2022 doubly erased, physically and epistemically. With this, October 7th becomes the departure point of an Israeli epistemology of time assumed as universal, but it also marks an escalation in efforts to criminalise contextualisation and banish historicisation.

      Since October 7th, a plurality of voices – ranging from Israeli political figures and intellectuals, to mainstream and left-leaning journalists – has condemned efforts to inscribe Gaza into a long term history of colonialism as scurrilous justification for the killing of Israeli civilians. Attempts to analyse or understand facts through a historical and political frame, by most notably drawing attention to Gazans’ lived experience over the past 16 years (as a consequence of its long term siege and occupation) or merely to argue that there is a context in which events are taking place, such as General UN director Guterres did when he stated that October 7th “did not happen in a vacuum,” are represented as inciting terrorism or morally repugnant hate speech. In the few media reports accounting for the dire and deprived conditions of Palestinians’ existence in Gaza, the reasons causing the former are hardly mentioned. For instance, we hear in reports that Palestinians in Gaza are mostly refugees, that they are unemployed, and that 80% of them are relying on aid, with trucks of humanitarian aid deemed insufficient in the last few weeks in comparison to the numbers let in before the 7th of October. Astoundingly, the 56 years old Israeli occupation and 17 years old siege of Gaza, as root causes of the destruction of the economy, unemployment, and reliance on aid are not mentioned so that the public is left to imagine that these calamities are the result of Palestinians’ own doing.

      In other domains, we see a similar endeavour in preventing Palestine from being inscribed in its colonial context. Take for instance the many critical theorists who have tried to foreclose Franz Fanon’s analysis of colonial violence to Palestinians. Naming the context of colonial violence and Palestinians’ intergenerational and ongoing traumas is interpreted as morally corrupt, tantamount to not caring for Israeli trauma and a justification for the loss of Israeli lives. The variation of the argument that does refer to historical context either pushes Fanon’s arguments to the margins or argues that the existence of a Palestinian authority invalidates Fanon’s applicability to Palestine, denying therefore the effects of the violence that Palestinians as colonised subjects have endured and continue to endure because of Israeli occupation, apartheid, and siege.

      But perhaps one of the most disconcerting forms of gaslighting is the demand that Palestinians should – and could – suspend their condition of subordination, their psychic and physical injury, to centre the perpetrators’ feelings and grief as their own. In fact, the issue of grief has come to global attention almost exclusively as an ethical and moral question in reaction to the loss of Israeli lives. Palestinians who accept to go on TV are constantly asked whether they condemn the October 7th attack, before they can even dare talk about their own long history of loss and dispossession, and literally while their families are being annihilated by devastating shelling and bombing and still lying under the rubbles. One such case is that of PLO ambassador to the UK Hussam Zomlot, who lost members of his own family in the current attack, but was asked by Kirsty Wark to “condemn Hamas” on screen. To put it another way: would it even be conceivable to imagine a journalist asking Israeli hostages in captivity if they condemn the Israeli bombardments and the war on Gaza as a precondition to speak and be heard?

      “Condemning” becomes the condition of Palestinian intelligibility and audibility as humans, a proof that they share the universal idea that all human life is sacred, at the very moment when the sacrality of human life is violently precluded to them and when they are experiencing with brutal clarity that their existence as a people matters to no one who has the power to stop the carnage. This imperative mistakes in bad faith the principle that lives should have equal worth with a reality that for Palestinians is plainly experienced as the opposite of this postulate. Israel, on the other hand, is given “the extenuating circumstances” for looking after Israelis’ own trauma by conducting one of the most indiscriminate and ferocious attacks on civilians in decades, superior in its intensity and death rate to the devastation we saw in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, according to the New York Times. Nearly 20.000 killed – mostly children, women, and elderly – razed, shelled, bulldozed while in their homes or shelters, in an onslaught that does not spare doctors, patients, journalists, academics, and even Israeli hostages, and that aims at making Gaza an unlivable habitat for the survivors.

      Let us go back to the frequently invoked question of “morality.” In commentaries and op-eds over the last few weeks we are told that any mention of context for the attacks of October 7th is imperiling the very ability to be compassionate or be moral. Ranging from the Israeli government that argues that a killing machine in Gaza is justified on moral grounds – and that contextualisation and historicisation are a distraction or deviation from this moral imperative – to those who suggest Israel should moderate its violence against Palestinians – such as New York times columnist Nicholas Kristof who wrote that “Hamas dehumanized Israelis, and we must not dehumanize innocent people in Gaza” – all assign a pre-political or a-political higher moral ground to Israel. Moreover, October 7th is said to – and is felt as – having awakened the long historical suffering of the Jews and the trauma of the Holocaust. But what is the invocation of the Holocaust – and the historical experience of European antisemitism – if not a clear effort at historical and moral contextualisation? In fact, the only history and context deemed evocable and valid is the Israeli one, against the history and context of Palestinians’ lives. In this operation, Israeli subjectivity and sensibility is located above history and is assigned a monopoly of morality with October 7th becoming an a-historical and a meta-historical fact at one and the same time. In this canvas Palestinians are afforded permission to exist subject to inhabiting one of the two agencies assigned to them: guardian of Israeli life or colonised subject. This is what Israeli president Herzog means when he declares that there are no innocents in Gaza: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime”. The nearly twenty thousand Palestinian deaths are thus not Israel’s responsibility. Palestinians are liable for their own disappearance for not “fighting Hamas” to protect Israelis. The Israeli victims, including hundreds of soldiers, are, on the other hand, all inherently civilians, and afforded innocent qualities. This is the context in which Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, of Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right party in power, can suggest nuking Gaza or wiping out all residents: “They can go to Ireland or deserts, the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves”. Let us not here be mistaken by conceding this might just be a fantasy, a desire of elimination: the Guardian and the +972/Local call magazines have provided chilling evidence that Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not “collateral” damage but what is at work is a mass assassination factory, thanks to a sophisticated AI system generating hundreds of unverified targets aiming at eliminating as many civilians as possible.

      Whether Palestinians are worthy of merely living or dying depends thus on their active acceptance or refusal to remain colonised. Any attempts to exit this predicament – whether through violent attacks like on October 7th or by staging peaceful civil tactics such as disobedience, boycott and divesting from Israel, recurrence to international law, peaceful marches, hunger strikes, popular or cultural resistance – are all the same, and in a gaslighting mode disallowed as evidence of Palestinians’ inherent violent nature which proves they need taming or elimination.

      One might be compelled to believe that dehumanisation and the logic of elimination of Palestinians are a reaction to the pain, sorrow, and shock generated by the traumatic and emotional aftermath of October 7th. But history does not agree with this, as the assigning of Palestinians to a non-human or even non-life sphere is deeply rooted in Israeli public discourse. The standpoint of a people seeking freedom from occupation and siege has consistently been reversed and catalogued as one of “terror and threat” to Israeli state and society when it is a threat to their colonial expansive or confinement plans, whether the latter are conceived as divinely mandated or backed by a secular settler-colonial imaginary. In so far as “terrorists” are birthed by snakes and wild beasts as Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaker states, they must be exterminated. Her words bear citation as they anticipate Gaza’s current devastation with lucid clarity: “Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads”. Urging the killing of all Palestinians women, men, and children and the destruction of their homes, she continued: “They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there. They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists.” This is not an isolated voice. Back in 2016 Prime Minister Netanyahu argued that fences and walls should be built all around Israel to defend it from “wild beasts” and against this background retired Israeli general and former head of Intelligence Giora Eiland, in an opinion article in Yedioth Aharonoth on November 19, argues that all Palestinians in Gaza die of fast spreading disease and all infrastructure be destroyed, while still positing Israel’s higher moral ground: “We say that Sinwar (Hamas leader in Gaza, ndr) is so evil that he does not care if all the residents of Gaza die. Such a presentation is not accurate, since who are the “poor” women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters, or wives of Hamas murderers,” adding, “And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty’s sake, since we don’t support the suffering of the other side as an end but as a means.”

      But let us not be mistaken, such ascription of Palestinians to a place outside of history, and of humanity, goes way back and has been intrinsic to the establishment of Israel. From the outset of the settler colonial project in 1948, Palestinians as the indigenous people of the land have been dehumanised to enable the project of erasing them, in a manner akin to other settler colonial projects which aimed at turning the settlers into the new indigenous. The elimination of Palestinians has rested on more than just physical displacement, destruction, and a deep and wide ecological alteration of the landscape of Palestine to suit the newly fashioned Israeli identity. Key Israeli figures drew a direct equivalence between Palestinian life on the one hand and non-life on the other. For instance, Joseph Weitz, a Polish Jew who settled in Palestine in 1908 and sat in the first and second Transfer Committees (1937–1948) which were created to deal with “the Arab problem” (as the indigenous Palestinians were defined) speaks in his diaries of Palestinians as a primitive unity of human and non-human life.[4] Palestinians and their habitat were, in his words, “bustling with man and beast,” until their destruction and razing to the ground in 1948 made them “fossilized life,” to use Weitz’ own words. Once fossilised, the landscape could thus be visualised as an empty and barren landscape (the infamous desert), enlivened and redeemed by the arrival of the Jewish settlers.

      Locating events within the context and long durée of the incommensurable injustices inflicted upon the Palestinians since 1948 – which have acquired a new unimaginable magnitude with the current war on Gaza – is not just ethically imperative but also politically pressing. The tricks of DARVO (Denying Attacking and Reversing Victim and Offender) have been unveiled. We are now desperately in need of re-orienting the world’s moral compass by exposing the intertwined processes of humanisation and dehumanisation of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. There is no other way to begin exiting not only the very conditions that usher violence, mass killings, and genocide, but also towards effecting the as yet entirely fictional principle that human lives have equal value.

      [1] Spivak, G. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988). In Lawrence Grossberg and Cary Nelson, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, pp. 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press; Basingstoke: Macmillan.

      [2] Mahmoud Darwish, “The Madness of Being a Palestinian,” Journal Of Palestine Studies 15, no. 1 (1985): 138–41.

      [3] Heartfelt thanks to Professor Rema Hamami for alerting me to the notion of DAVRO and for her extended and invaluable comments on this essay.

      [4] Cited in Benvenisti M (2000) Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp.155-156.

      https://allegralaboratory.net/can-the-palestinian-speak
      #violence_épistémique #élimination #in/visilité #nettoyage_ethnique #oppression #DAVRO

  • Comment la #France verrouille son #passé_colonial

    La polémique en France sur la notion de #crime_contre_l'humanité du temps de la #colonisation rappelle les vifs débats causés dans ce même pays il y a plus de dix ans par l’adoption de la loi du 23 février 2005 qui ne retenait que le « rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer ». L’« #affaire_Macron » met en exergue le profond malaise lié au passé colonial de la France, souligne la professeure de droit Sévane Garibian.

    Quoi que l’on pense des propos récents d’#Emmanuel_Macron sur la #colonisation_française, il est utile d’observer leurs effets en recourant à une temporalité plus longue, dépassant le court terme médiatico-politique. La #polémique née il y a quelques jours en France rappelle, en symétrie inversée, les vifs débats causés dans ce même pays il y a plus de dix ans par l’adoption de la loi du 23 février 2005 qui ne retenait que le « #rôle_positif de la présence française outre-mer ». La disposition litigieuse (finalement abrogée par décret en 2006), tout comme les rebondissements et double discours dans ladite « affaire Macron », auront eu pour mérite de mettre en acte le profond #malaise lié au passé colonial de la France.

    Ce trouble s’est régulièrement nourri de résistances dont nous trouvons de multiples traces dans le champ du #droit, grand absent des commentaires de ces derniers jours. Abordons donc cette polémique de biais : par ce qu’elle ne dit pas, par ce qu’elle occulte. Rappelons ainsi que la Cour de cassation française eut l’occasion de produire une jurisprudence relative aux #crimes commis en #Algérie (#affaires_Lakhdar-Toumi_et_Yacoub, 1988) ainsi qu’en #Indochine (#affaire_Boudarel, 1993). Une #jurisprudence méconnue, ou tombée dans l’oubli, qui soulevait pourtant directement la question de la qualification ou non de crime contre l’humanité pour ces actes.

    Les précédents

    Plusieurs historiens ont pu souligner dernièrement la distinction entre les usages juridiques, historiques et moraux du concept de crime contre l’humanité, tout en rappelant que ce dernier ne peut se trouver, aujourd’hui en France, au cœur de #poursuites_pénales visant les #crimes_coloniaux. Quelle est donc l’histoire du droit menant à un tel constat ? Afin de mieux comprendre ce dont il s’agit, il est possible d’ajouter deux distinctions à la première.

    D’abord, une distinction entre le problème de la #qualification de crime contre l’humanité (qui renvoie à la question complexe de la #définition de ce crime en #droit_français), et celui de l’#amnistie prévue, pour les crimes visés, par des lois de 1966 et 1968. Ces deux points fondent les justifications discutables du refus de poursuivre par la #Cour_de_cassation dans les affaires précitées ; mais seul le premier constituait déjà le réel enjeu. En l’état du droit, et contrairement à ce qu’affirmaient alors les juges de cassation, la qualification de crime contre l’humanité aurait en effet pu permettre, au-delà du symbole, de constater une #imprescriptibilité (inexistante en France pour les crimes de guerre) défiant l’amnistie.

    Plus tard, la Cour de cassation admettra d’ailleurs en creux le caractère « inamnistiable » des crimes contre l’humanité, non reconnus en l’espèce, dans l’affaire de la manifestation du 17 octobre 1961, en 2000, puis dans l’#affaire_Aussaresses en 2003 – toutes deux en relation avec les « évènements d’Algérie ». Entre les deux, elle confirmera dans l’#affaire_Ely_Ould_Dah (2002) la poursuite, en France, d’un officier de l’armée mauritanienne pour des faits de #torture et des actes de #barbarie amnistiés dans son propre pays : il semble manifestement plus aisé d’adopter une attitude claire et exigeante à l’encontre de lois d’amnistie étrangères.

    Volonté de verrouillage

    En outre, et c’est là que se niche la seconde distinction, une analyse plus poussée du raisonnement de la Cour dans les affaires Lakhdar-Toumi, Yacoub et Boudarel met en lumière une volonté des juges de verrouiller toute possibilité de traitement des crimes coloniaux. Il importe donc de distinguer ici les questions de droit et les politiques juridiques qui sont à l’œuvre. L’historienne Sylvie Thénault écrivait récemment que « toute #définition_juridique est le résultat d’une construction par des juristes et d’une évolution de la jurisprudence » (Le Monde du 16 février). Or il n’existait à l’époque des affaires précitées que des définitions jurisprudentielles, plus (#affaire_Barbie) ou moins (#affaire_Touvier) larges du crime contre l’humanité en France, lequel ne fera son apparition dans le Code pénal qu’en 1994.

    A y regarder de plus près, on comprend que les juges de cassation rejettent la qualification de crime contre l’humanité pour les crimes coloniaux à plusieurs reprises, en choisissant de s’appuyer exclusivement sur la #jurisprudence_Touvier. Celle-ci limite, à l’inverse de la #jurisprudence_Barbie, la définition du crime contre l’humanité aux crimes nazis commis « pour le compte d’un pays européen de l’Axe ». Si la jurisprudence Touvier permit en son temps d’esquiver habilement le problème de la #responsabilité de la France de Vichy, elle bloquera aussi, par ricochet, toute possibilité de répression des crimes perpétrés par des Français pour le compte de la France, jusqu’en 1994.

    Le verrouillage est efficace. Et le #refoulement créé par cette configuration juridique, souvent ignorée, est à la mesure du trouble que suscitent encore aujourd’hui les faits historiques survenus dans le contexte de la #décolonisation. Plus généralement, l’ensemble illustre les multiples formes d’usages politiques de l’histoire, comme du droit.

    https://www.letemps.ch/opinions/france-verrouille-passe-colonial

    ping @cede @karine4

  • Colonial Crimes: World map of justice initiatives - JusticeInfo.net
    https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/78677-colonial-crimes-world-map-justice-initiatives.html

    The colonial past is back in the spotlight in many countries, from New Zealand to France, Canada to Germany, or Sweden to the Netherlands. Official apologies, demands for reparations and restitution of cultural heritage, truth commissions: Can the arsenal of transitional justice deal with colonial crimes and their consequences in today’s world?

    #colonialisme #colonisation #reconnaissance #réparation #restitution #crime_contre_l'humanité

  • «Quand tout sera fini plus tard en Erivan»... Les voix du génocide arménien - Ép. 4/4 - L’Arménie au carrefour des empires
    https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-cours-de-lhistoire/larmenie-au-carrefour-des-empires-44-quand-tout-sera-fini-plus-tard-en


    Le film Une #histoire de fou de Robert Guédiguian, sorti en 2015 s’ouvre sur une scène saisissante. En 1921, à Berlin, Soghoman Tehlirian, rescapé du #génocide arménien de 1915, tue un homme à bout portant. Pas n’importe quel homme : il s’agit de Talaat Pacha, l’un des principaux instigateurs du génocide. Après ce prologue, une longue ellipse fait reprendre l’intrigue du film dans les années 1980. Aram, un jeune Marseillais d’origine arménienne, se lance alors dans la lutte armée pour forcer le gouvernement turc à reconnaître le génocide.

    De 1921 aux années 1980, que s’est-il passé ? Que recèle ce long silence ? La diaspora arménienne en France s’est-elle tue, à l’instar de Hovannès et Anouch, les parents de Aram ? Faire l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide arménien, c’est en effet commencer par faire l’histoire du silence et de l’oubli dans une diaspora désunie. Comment les rescapés et leurs descendants sont-ils parvenus à reconstruire cette mémoire, malgré le trauma et le déni ? Comment continuer à mener cette bataille mémorielle aujourd’hui ? Nous en parlons avec…

    #Arménie #Turquie #fascisme #crime_contre_l'humanité #vocabulaire

  • La fantaisie des Dieux. #Rwanda 1994

    Une BD reportage sur le génocide des tutsis au Rwanda.

    Il n’y avait plus de mots. Juste ce silence. Épais, lourd. C’était un génocide, celui des Tutsis du Rwanda, le troisième du XXe siècle.

    Il faisait beau, il faisait chaud. Nous avions pénétré le monde du grand secret.

    Sur les collines de Bisesero, des instituteurs tuaient leurs élèves, des policiers menaient la battue. C’était la « grande moisson ».

    François Mitterrand niait « le crime des crimes ». Comment raconter ?

    http://www.arenes.fr/livre/la-fantaisie-des-dieux
    #BD #livre

    #génocide #crime_contre_l'humanité #France #François_Mitterrand #Mitterrand #silence #Opération_Turquoise #opération_humanitaire #extermination #Home_Saint-Jean #folie #organisation #déni #folie_raisonnée #Bisesero #Kibuye #Nyagurati #violence #guerre #guerre_civile #histoire

  • Calais : maintien de l’interdiction de distribuer de la nourriture aux migrants

    Le tribunal administratif de Lille a rejeté mardi la demande de 13 associations et ONG de suspendre l’arrêté préfectoral leur interdisant de distribuer de la nourriture et des boissons aux migrants dans le centre de Calais. Leur avocat a annoncé vouloir faire appel.

    Les associations d’aide aux migrants de Calais essuient un nouveau revers. Dans une ordonnance rendue mardi 22 septembre, le tribunal administratif de Lille a rejeté une demande - faite par treize ONG et associations - de suspension d’un arrêté interdisant la distribution gratuite de nourriture et de boissons aux migrants dans certains endroits de Calais.

    La situation des migrants dans cette ville « ne [caractérise] pas des conditions de vie indignes de nature à justifier la suspension en urgence de la mesure prise par le préfet du Pas-de-Calais », peut-on lire dans le résumé de l’ordonnance.

    Selon ladite mesure, toute distribution gratuite par des associations non-mandatées par l’État est interdite jusqu’à fin septembre dans une vingtaine de rues, quais et places du centre-ville. Les autorités ont justifié cette interdiction par les « nuisances » causées par les distributions, les risques sanitaires liés au Covid-19 et le souci de salubrité publique.

    Une semaine après l’entrée en vigueur de cet arrêté, un groupement d’organisations, dont Médecins du Monde, l’Auberge des migrants, le Secours catholique et Emmaüs France, ont saisi le tribunal administratif de Lille le 16 septembre pour demander sa suspension. Selon elles, ce texte est « attentatoire au droit à la dignité, au principe de fraternité, à la possibilité d’aider autrui ».
    « Seul effet de l’interdiction : déplacer les lieux des distributions de quelques centaines de mètres »

    Pour le tribunal toutefois, les arguments des associations ne sont pas suffisamment solides, et la situation n’est d’ailleurs pas si problématique. ’"Le tribunal a constaté qu’une association mandatée par l’État [La Vie Active, NDLR] mettait à disposition d’une population de migrants estimée aujourd’hui à environ mille personnes (...) de l’eau sur la base d’une moyenne de 5,14 litres par personne et par jour et des repas au nombre de 2 402 par jour", est-il écrit dans le résumé de l’ordonnance de ce mardi.

    La Vie Active est en effet présente à Calais, à proximité d’un camp situé près du rond-point de Virval, surnommé l’’’Hospital’’. Mais les associations pointent non seulement le fait que ce lieu se trouve à une heure de marche du centre-ville - où sont contraints de dormir des migrants chassés par les démantèlements - mais aussi que cette association n’est pas, à elle seule, en mesure de s’occuper de tous les migrants de la ville - au nombre de 1 500, selon les militants.

    https://twitter.com/caritasfrance/status/1306878006153994240

    Le tribunal a également minimisé l’impact de cette interdiction sur le travail des humanitaires, estimant que « les associations requérantes continuaient à distribuer des repas et des boissons à proximité du centre-ville ». « L’interdiction édictée [a] eu pour seul effet de déplacer les lieux des distributions qu’elles assurent de quelques centaines de mètres seulement », peut-on lire dans le résumé de l’ordonnance.
    « Une limitation insupportable du droit des associations »

    À la suite de l’interdiction, les associations avaient de leur côté expliqué en être réduites à devoir se cacher pour apporter des vivres à cette population vulnérable. Pire, au moins deux associations, l’Auberge des migrants et Salam, ont assuré avoir été l’objet de ’’harcèlement policier’’ et même de contraventions alors qu’elles menaient des distributions en dehors du périmètre interdit par les autorités.

    Conséquence : ces nouvelles règles assorties à ces ’’entraves aux distributions’’ ont ’’un effet de dissuasion immense sur la solidarité’’, estime Juliette Delaplace, chargée de mission auprès des personnes exilées sur le littoral nord auprès du Secours Catholique, contactée par InfoMigrants. ’’Plein de personnes et de bénévoles ne sont pas à l’aise avec l’idée de se faire contrôler de manière répétée par les forces de l’ordre, cela se comprend’’, explique-t-elle, assurant que le collectif ’’va évidemment faire appel’’ de cette décision.

    « C’est une occasion manquée », a de son côté déploré à l’AFP l’avocat des ONG et associations d’aide aux migrants, Me Patrice Spinosi. Cet arrêté représente « une limitation insupportable du droit des associations à aider les personnes les plus vulnérables », a-t-il fustigé, quelques jours après avoir invoqué le principe de fraternité à l’audience.

    Selon l’avocat, un appel devrait être déposé devant le Conseil d’État pour obtenir un vrai débat sur le fond.

    Dans des observations présentées au tribunal, que l’AFP s’est procurées, la défenseure des Droits Claire Hédon a quant à elle estimé qu’"en privant les exilés de l’accès à un bien - la distribution de repas -, la mesure de police contestée est constitutive d’une discrimination fondée sur la nationalité". Une pratique prohibée par la loi.

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/27466/calais-maintien-de-l-interdiction-de-distribuer-de-la-nourriture-aux-m

    #Darmanin #Calais #repas #solidarité #distribution #nourriture #migrations #asile #réfugiés

    –—

    voir fil de discussion ici, commencé par @loutre :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/875665

  • Syrie : coup de projecteur sur une bureaucratie du crime de masse
    https://www.justiceinfo.net/fr/tribunaux/tribunaux-nationaux/45369-syrie-projecteur-sur-bureaucratie-crime-de-masse.html

    Un employé du gouvernement syrien a témoigné anonymement, la semaine passée, dans le procès Al-Khatib à Coblence (Allemagne) où deux anciens officiers des services secrets sont en procès pour crimes contre l’humanité. Il décrit l’étendue des fosses communes, et l’enregistrement méticuleux des milliers de cadavres dans des répertoires.

    Une fois les corps déchargés dans des fosses, l’homme rentre à son bureau à Damas et ouvre un grand carnet avec des listes bien rangées. Avec l’aide d’un agent des services de sécurité, il note le nombre de cadavres, les noms et numéros des branches des services secrets d’où ils proviennent. Il transmet des copies à ses supérieurs et range le carnet dans un coffre-fort. Puis il attend la livraison suivante, qui a lieu généralement à l’aube, environ quatre fois par semaine. "Plus (...)

    #Tribunaux_nationaux

  • Rohingya, la mécanique du crime

    Des centaines de villages brûlés, des viols, des massacres et 700 000 Rohingyas qui quittent la Birmanie pour prendre le chemin de l’exil. Rapidement, l’ONU alerte la communauté internationale et dénonce un « nettoyage ethnique ». Ces événements tragiques vécus par les Rohingyas ne sont que l’achèvement d’une politique de discrimination déjà ancienne. Ce nettoyage ethnique a été prémédité et préparé il y a des années par les militaires birmans. Ce film raconte cette mécanique infernale.

    http://www.film-documentaire.fr/4DACTION/w_fiche_film/57765_1
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2OjbDcBfPk


    #film #documentaire #film_documentaire #opération_nettoyage #armée_birmane #feu #incendie #réfugiés #2017 #Bangladesh #répression #Arakan #nettoyage_ethnique #génocide #préméditation #planification #moines #islamophobie #xénophobie #racisme #crime_contre_l'humanité #camp_de_réfugiés #camps_de_réfugiés #violence #crime #viol #Tula_Toli #massacre #Maungdaw #milices #crimes_de_guerre #colonisation #Ashin_Wirathu #immigrants_illégaux #2012 #camps_de_concentration #Koe_Tan_Kauk #ARSA (#armée_du_salut_des_Rohingya) #métèques #déni #Inn_Dinn #roman_national #haine #terres #justice #Aung_San_Suu_Kyi #retour_au_pays #encampement
    #terminologie #mots #stigmatisation
    –-> « La #haine passe du #discours aux actes »

    #ressources_naturelles #uranium #extractivisme #nickel —> « Pour exploiter ces ressources, vous ne pouvez pas avoir des gens qui vivent là »
    (#géographie_du_vide)

    #Carte_de_vérification_nationale —> donnée à ceux qui acceptent de retourner en #Birmanie. En recevant cette carte, ils renient leur #nationalité birmane.

    #NaTaLa —> nom utilisé par les #musulmans pour distinguer les #bouddhistes qui ont été #déplacés du reste de la Birmanie vers la région de l’Arkana. C’est les musulmans qui ont été obligés de construire, avec leur main-d’oeuvre et leur argent, les maisons pour les colons bouddhistes : « Ils nous ont enlevé le pain de la bouche et au final ils nous ont tués ». Ces colons ont participé au #massacre du village de Inn Dinn.

    A partir de la minute 36’00 —> #effacement des #traces dans le #paysage, maisons rohingya détruites et remplacées par un camp militaire —> photos satellites pour le prouver

    A partir de la minute 45’35 : la colonisation sur les #terres arrachées aux Rohingya (le gouvernement subventionne la construction de nouveaux villages par des nouveaux colons)

    ping @karine4 @reka

  • Ageist “Triage” Is a Crime Against Humanity

    My cohort of over-65 people are supposed to be enjoying the new Age of Longevity. But do some younger people still associate us older folks with dying — however unconsciously — so that our premature demise may come to seem — sadly — normal? These questions arise with more gravity because the pandemic Covid-19 may become an atrocity-producing situation for older persons. Will anxiety, which already runs high, come to be focused on the figure of an old person who is seen as expendable? This depends on how panicked different nation-states become, and how discourse about victims is structured by governments and the media.

    The ethical position is that old people have equal claims to life with anyone else. Arthur L. Caplan, head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU’s School of Medicine, writes, “It seems to me that we want to guide our decisions about access to healthcare not by biases about being too old or treatments being too expensive, but first and foremost, we want to ask whether there is benefit. Does it work? Is it going to help the individual?” The ethical responsibility is clear: If a 90-year-old can benefit and wants to have a necessary treatment, give it to her. Risks to older people arise in societies when health care systems are overwhelmed. Given the government delays, this is likely to happen in the United States now: “What will happen when there are 100, or a 1000 people who need the hospital and only a few ICU places are left?” Matthew K. Wynia and John L. Hick, who helped write the Guidelines for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care, give the standard answer, “The ethical justification for withholding or removing potentially lifesaving care from one person or group without their consent and giving it to another is that the latter person or group has a significantly better chance at long-term survival.”

    General guidelines become questionable, however, if younger people in power are already implicitly biased, thinking that people much older than they are close to death, or that they have had “full lives,” or that they no longer care to survive. Do you believe this? Doctors may not recognize the ageist prejudice involved in any of these prejudgments. Or they may admit these beliefs, assuming — because ageism is so common — that everyone agrees. An otherwise healthy 75-old gets pneumonia, as does a 37-year-old with end-stage lung cancer. “Which very sick patient gets intensive care?” If the 37-year-old would die even on a respirator … you save the “old man” who could have 25 good years.

    In Italy and Switzerland, where the epidemic has stressed the medical system, doctors asking this question are sometimes answering, it seems, on the basis of age alone. In Switzerland, the head of an infectious disease unit, Pietro Vernazza, projects that they will have to weigh “a patient of a certain age in desperate conditions” against “a younger sick person.” But verbally, this is already wrongly decided, by labelling the older person’s condition “desperate” while the younger person is only “sick.” The mayor of Bergamo said that in some cases in Lombardy the gap between resources and the enormous influx of patients “forced the doctors to decide not to intubate some very old patients,” essentially leaving them to die. “Were there more intensive care units,” he added, “it would have been possible to save more lives.”

    In a crisis like this, ethical decision-making going case by case must fight every societal bias of long standing: refusing to weigh the life of a white person as worth more than that of a person of color, the life of a man more than a woman, a cis person over a trans person, or a younger person over an older person. And what of an old black woman, or someone else whose intersectional category may activate prejudice? Ethical triage focuses on the individual’s condition, not the sociological category. Training for doctors must include not only clinical guidance, but situational awareness about potential bias.

    This ethical trial of rapid decision-making (who will be allowed to survive?) is often foisted on front-line medical personnel who do not have such training. After the Covid-19 epidemic is over, do we want to be forced to conclude that elders died more frequently than younger people (as some early mortality statistics show they do) because, in many cases, age-bias denied them treatment?

    Denying anyone medical care is heartbreaking, but denying someone out of bias is exponentially worse. Once aware of the high stakes of medical ageism, some responsible people, particularly as they grow older, may find themselves left with a lifetime of shame and growing remorse.

    The advice from the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine’s Task Force on avoiding the tragedies of triage is obvious: “Hospitals should increase their ICU beds to the maximal extent by expanding ICU capacity and expanding ICUs into other areas. Hospitals should have appropriate beds and monitors for these expansion areas.” The real crime at the governmental levels, and at the level of hospital administration, is to not open enough hospital beds and intensive care units, fast enough. Preparation is the task of yesterday, and certainly today. We must do everything we can to avoid hastening the deaths of the old.

    As a society, we will be grieving all deaths. Triage is tragic in itself, whether on the battlefield or in civilian hospitals. But only bias makes it criminal. In this saddened state, we should be able to go forward without the added burden of fearing that our country, and our medical personnel, were guilty of a crime against humanity.

    https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/ageist-triage-covid-19
    #tri #crime_contre_l'humanité #âge #coronavirus #covid-19 #vieux #âgisme

    • Avoiding Ageist Bias and Tragedy in #Triage. Even a lottery is fairer than triage by age

      Triage means exclusion from treatment. In parts of the US, triage may become grievously necessary, as pandemic peaks overwhelm resources. Setting proper criteria for such decision-making is crucial for avoiding injustice, guilt, and tragedy. Sorrowfully, a medical consensus on whom to exclude has been forming, in “guidelines” from universities and state commissions, that often works explicitly against the old, and implicitly against people with disabilities, people of color, poor people, and those who live in crowded nursing homes, who are over 75, or 60, or even over 40. Bias in triage decisions is a danger to those whom society has made vulnerable.

      “The transition from conventional to , , , crisis care comes with a concomitant increase in morbidity and mortality,” warns a document on “crisis standards of care” transmitted to the Trump Task Force on March 28. [i] This essay responds to recent arguments justifying crisis exclusions that are erroneous and, to my mind, unethical, but, because they are authoritatively presented or widely held, dangerous.

      “One thing everyone agrees on is that the most morally defensible way to decide would be to ask the patients,” Dr. Wynia, a bioethicist, is quoted as saying in a survey of opinions reported by Sheri Fink for the New York Times. [ii] This sounds plausible: In health, some people make living wills requesting that if unable to speak for themselves (because of e.g., severe cognitive impairment, coma), they be kept alive with “heroic” measures, or not. Consent is indeed necessary from Covid-19 patients who can speak for themselves, who are gasping and scared and might benefit from ICU or intubation if offered. Would such patients sign the same advance directive now? This is supposed to be a moment of choice, involving reassuring explanations from medical personnel about options (even induced coma).[iii] A danger emerges: some candidates for scarce resources might eliminate (“sacrifice”) themselves.

      Consider that internalization of inferiority is real and affects wide swaths of the population. As the feminist and disability rights movements have taught, many people feel they must be self-abnegating: Others’ lives are worth more than theirs, Depressed people may agree to relinquish their chance—but many older people are depressed by the pandemic. We are told often that our lives are more at risk than the lives of others. Family members will be unavailable if we are hospitalized. And, because we are suddenly framed as less valuable by popular opinion and some medical guidelines, older and disabled people may feel expendable.

      The elderly and disabled category has had pointed aggressive societal pressure aimed at them for a long time. Vehemently denied but still widely held, is the feeling that the older the patient, the more undeserving of treatment. “So close to death already.” The attitude spreads, first unconsciously and now explicitly, that younger adults are more valuable than older adults; the healthy more desirable than the less abled.

      Ageism permeating the medical profession, a widespread problem, adds to triage confusion. Older people–not deaf and not cognitively impaired—complain in conventional situations that their doctors often ignore them, preferring to talk to their adult children. We are not seen. We may insultingly be considered “burdens”–too costly, too unproductive, too time-consuming.

      Equal treatment, a constitutional right and an existential necessity, is likely to be ignored in the crisis situation. The University of Pittsburgh guidelines, a model, don’t mince words. The tie-breaker should be age. (A tie means all patients with that score have an equal likelihood of survival.) These guidelines give priority to younger patients within these age groups: 12 to 40, 41 to 60, 61 to 75, over 75+. (Massachusetts’ new guidelines are similar, as reported on April 13th.) The Pittsburgh document calls this “the life-cycle principle.” [iv] A principle! That sounds not just plausible but lofty. Less so if we call it “culling the old.” The United States has seen a growth of longevity that any nation could be proud of. Now their longevity may be used against people as young as forty.

      Do the math. If age is the tie-breaker, let’s say there are 10 ventilators, and 100 people who are tied in terms of equal benefit. One is 83 years old, 4 are 70; 22 are 60, 35 are 50; the rest are under 40. All 10 of those under 40 would get the ventilators; none of the others. That is culling the old. Some triage guidelines suggest patients be warned their ventilator could be taken away from them. Some triage guidelines suggest patients be warned their ventilator could be taken away from them.[v] Isn’t a lottery more fair? A lottery system (for a brief time of crisis) may horrify some people, but in the long run “the ice floe” principle is far more perilous for a society.

      With hostile ageism rampant, as we see, mere chronology counts more than an individual’s medical condition. An article in NEJM gives “priority to those who are worst off in the sense of being at risk of dying young and not having a full life.” [vi] The retired veteran New York philosopher, Andrew Wengraf, argues against the “full-life” argument.

      Age may be a vivid sociological category, but to age is just to go on living. It is true that when Bertrand Russell died age 97 he was said to have had a fulfilled life, a life not free of disappointments but certainly fulfilled. . . . And inasmuch as life is finite, we are nearer death when we are old. But Russell was not obliged to die because of having enjoyed a long, rich life. The burden of proof is on anyone who thinks Russell has a duty to die prematurely. That person needs to explain how Russell could acquire that discriminatory outcome as an obligation. Without that, it cannot simply be imposed upon him in a triage queue.

      New York state’s guidelines are not ageist; Governor Andrew Cuomo said categorically, “My mother is not expendable.” Justice in Aging, a San Francisco legal NGO that protects low-income older people, has co-written a letter to California health officials asking that treatment discussions “include an explicit prohibition on triage and triage guidance that consider an individual’s estimated remaining number of years of life and other factors that cannot realistically be operationalized without taking age into account.”[vii] The Johns Hopkins criteria for treatment, which rightly depended on public input, ask no more than one year of potential life, thus respecting people in their nineties. I have a dear aunt who is 99, healthy, practicing social isolation, not ready to die. At 79, I assert that my life is worth no more than that of my aunt, nor less than that of a 30-year-old.

      Ethicists rightly omit most exclusion criteria (color, gender, low income). Future perceived value ought to be another no-no. Behind the mask, fortunately, a doctor cannot tell if that person with double pneumonia is Einstein or a homeless person of the same age. But age is as visible as gender and race. If we were to exclude people because of age, we would lose many of our current leaders. The UK would lose Queen Elizabeth. And some disabilities are clearly visible.

      In a hospital crisis, ethical decision-making going case by case must fight every societal bias of long standing: refusing to weigh the life of a white person as worth more than that of a person of color, the life of a man more than a woman, a cis person over a trans person, an apparently able person over a person with an obvious disability, or a younger person over an older person. And what of an old black woman, or someone else whose visible intersectional category may activate prejudice? Ethical triage even in crisis care should focus on the individual’s medical condition, not the sociological category. Training for doctors and nurses must include not only clinical guidance, but situational awareness about potential bias.

      Having to decide on triage occurs at many stages, from EMTs to the bedside. Excluding people or withdrawing treatment from some may feel tragic to doctors, as well as for the patients who die, and for their families. Where bias rules, however, triage becomes criminal. The government document to the Trump Task Force, wants all healthcare workers to have “adequate guidance and legal protections . . . from unwarranted liability” (p.4).

      But even the best-designed bias training cannot prevent the appearance at these multiple decision points of many people suffering from long-term health inequalities based on gender, race, national origin, or immigrant status, and low income. For them discrimination starts in utero, with inadequate prenatal care. Early deficiencies may grow worse (toxic environments, substandard housing) throughout life, as sociologist Dale Dannefer has shown through his concept of cumulative disadvantage. [viii] Middle ageism—causing people to lose jobs early in life, preventing them from finding work again—leads to family dysfunction, foreclosure, diseases of stress. Inequality goes on so relentlessly that such people are inevitably at more risk if Covid-19 hits them. Injustice is clearly built into any crisis standard of care that prioritizes the likelihood of highest long-term survival, in a society that has lacked Medicare for All for the past sixty years.

      The most just answer seems to be that all those with similar conditions and equal chances of one-year survival, participate in a lottery. A petition to this effect, addressed to the US Surgeon General, called “Just Rationing,” can be signed at Change.org/JustRationing

      The US government, burdened with racist, market-driven, small-government ideology, for decades denied the poor the right to health care and exacerbated inequality. Under Trump the government underfunded its public health service, disregarded science, procrastinated in preparations. The underfunding of nursing homes, the overwork and underpayment of staff, have already led to uncountable deaths. In many countries, the excess deaths of the pandemic will be the fault of the state. The deaths incurred thereby are crimes against humanity.

      But suppose the curve flattens–we are spared triage! Eventually the data will tell us how many died after having suffered a life of disadvantages. What has been revealed already, however, through these calm, ostensibly reasonable, “ethical” medical guidelines, is a frightening explosion of explicit hate speech against people who are simply older. Older than the valued young. An entire nation has learned that this is normal and expectable. When pinch comes to shove, we alone have a duty to die, cursed by our date of birth. In the midst of grief, outrage.

      ——————————————————-

      [i] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Rapid Expert Consultation on Crisis Standards of Care for the COVID-19 Pandemic (March 28, 2020). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, p. 3.. https://doi.org/10.17226/25765. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25765/rapid-expert-consultation-on-crisis-standards-of-care-for-the-covid-19-pandemic

      [ii] Sheri Fink, “The Hardest Questions Doctors May Face: Who Will Be Saved? Who Won’t?
      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/us/coronavirus-medical-rationing.html

      [iii] See for example, the interview with a respiratory therapist at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Boston Globe, April 15, 2020: p. .

      [iv] U of Pittsburgh, Department of Critical Care Medicine, “Allocation of Scarce Critical Care Resources During a Public Health Emergency Executive Summary,” p. 6, 8. https://ccm.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/UnivPittsburgh_ModelHospitalResourcePolicy.pdf

      [v] “Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19,” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel et al, NEJM March 23, 2020. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2005114?query=RP

      [vi] “Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19,” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel et al, NEJM March 23, 2020. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2005114?query=RP Dr. Emanuel is the author of the notorious article in The Atlantic that said all people should voluntarily refuse medical care after age 75, and that he would do so.

      [vii] Included in a bulletin from Justice in Aging, “Justice in Aging Statement on Discriminatory Denial of Care to Older Adults,” April 4, 2020. https://www.justiceinaging.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Justice-in-Aging-Letter-to-Sec-Ghaly-Age-Discrimination-04032020.pdf

      [viii] Dale Dannefer, “Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage and the Life Course: Cross-Fertilizing Age and Social Science Theory,” Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences Vol 58b (2003).

      https://www.tikkun.org/avoiding-bias-and-tragedy-in-triage

  • Gaza, le Coronavirus, et le blocus israélien
    Ziad Medoukh, le 17 mars 2020
    https://agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2020/03/17/gaza-le-coronavirus-et-le-blocus-israelien

    Même si jusqu’à présent, il n’y a aucun cas infecté par le Coronavirus dans la bande de Gaza, le fait que ce virus est arrivé en Cisjordanie et en Israël. Les Palestiniens de Gaza commencent à s’inquiéter notamment dans le contexte particulier marqué par une crise sanitaire et économique sans précédent. Pour eux, ce virus qui n’a pas de frontières, peut à n’importe quel moment y arriver, car personne ne peut arrêter la propagation du Coronavirus avec le manque d’installations médicales bien équipées, et la crise fondamentale qui touche le secteur de la santé en faillite du fait du blocus.

    #Palestine #Gaza #Coronavirus #Ziad_Medoukh #discrimination #Blocus #Injustice #Cynisme #Crime_contre_l'humanité #Massacre

  • Coronavirus is a death sentence for Palestinians caged in Gaza -

    Even a small outbreak among Gaza’s densely-packed, blockaded population would put an impossible strain on a healthcare system already teetering on the verge of collapse
    Shannon Maree Torrens
    Mar 12, 2020 4:06 PM

    https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-coronavirus-in-gaza-a-death-sentence-for-caged-palestinians-1.8667

    Imagine two million human beings living in the space of just 365 square kilometers. One of the most densely populated places on Planet Earth, confined in a cage from which they cannot escape. These two million people cannot leave, even if they wanted to, without great difficulty.

    They must live their lives within the confines of this rapidly deteriorating area of land, some persisting in the hope that one day things may change, but many surviving with the realization and resignation that they very well may not. No matter their degree of optimism or pessimism, all are isolated from the rest of the world. We call this place the Gaza Strip, and it has been under blockade by Israel since 2007.

    It is now March 2020. The novel coronavirus, has become an issue of global concern. The disease it causes, COVID-19, has spread far from its origins in China. In a short space of time, coronavirus is seemingly everywhere. It moves as frequently as the planes and people who spread it back and forth across the world.

    As of 11 March, more than 118,000 people have been infected globally, almost 4,300 people have died and at least 114 countries/territories and areas are affected. The world buys masks and hand sanitizer. The World Health Organisation classifies novel coronavirus as a pandemic. People stock up on food. “What will happen to us?” the world says. “What if we get sick?”

  • Trump administration blocks states from using #Medicaid to respond to coronavirus crisis - Los Angeles Times
    https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-13/trump-administration-blocks-states-use-medicaid-respond-coronavirus-crisis

    “Medicaid could be the nation’s biggest public health responder, but it’s such an object of ire in this administration,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a Medicaid expert at George Washington University. “Their ideology is clouding their response to a crisis.”

    #etats-unis #santé #idéologie #délétère

  • #At(h)ome

    Plus de cinquante ans après la fin de la guerre de libération, une cinéaste française et un photographe algérien nous ramènent en 1962 en plein Sahara. D’une zone désertique irradiée aux faubourgs d’Alger, ils suivent le parcours des retombées d’une #explosion_nucléaire dont les #traces dramatiques interrogent la #responsabilité des nations. Un film d’une grande rigueur formelle sur un sujet choquant et inconnu.

    http://www.film-documentaire.fr/4DACTION/w_fiche_film/38258_1
    Un film qui m’avait été signalé par @fil. A voir absolument.

    #film #documentaire #film_documentaire
    #Algérie #France #désert #Bruno_Hadji #Béryl #post-colonialisme #photographie #armes_nucléaires #désert_algérien #bombes_nucléaires #radioactivité #essais_nucléaires #armée_française #barbelé #frontières #explosion #Sahara #Mertoutek #Taourirt (montagne de - ) #nuage_nucléaire #malformations #irradiation #mort #décès #Front_islamique_du_salut #FIS #Aïn_M'Guel #camps #camps_contaminés #camps_irradiés #crime_contre_l'humanité #déportation #internement #Oued_Namous #détention #Reggane #athome

  • Smuggling, Trafficking, and Extortion: New Conceptual and Policy Challenges on the Libyan Route to Europe

    This paper contributes a conceptual and empirical reflection on the relationship between human smuggling, trafficking and #kidnapping, and extortion in Libya. It is based on qualitative interview data with Eritrean asylum seekers in Italy. Different tribal regimes control separate territories in Libya, which leads to different experiences for migrants depending on which territory they enter, such as Eritreans entering in the southeast #Toubou controlled territory. We put forth that the kidnapping and extortion experienced by Eritreans in Libya is neither trafficking, nor smuggling, but a crime against humanity orchestrated by an organized criminal network. The paper details this argument and discusses the implications.

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/anti.12579
    #traite_d'êtres_humains #traite #trafic_d'êtres_humains #Libye #asile #migrations #réfugiés #réfugiés_érythréens #extorsion #crime_contre_l'humanité #cartographie #visualisation
    ping @isskein

  • The Gambia v #Myanmar at the International Court of Justice: Points of Interest in the Application

    On 11 November 2019, The Gambia filed an application at the International Court of Justice against Myanmar, alleging violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention.

    This legal step has been in the works for some time now, with the announcement by the Gambian Minister of Justice that instructions had been given to counsel in October to file the application. As a result, the application has been much anticipated. I will briefly go over some legally significant aspects of the application.

    On methodology, the application relies heavily on the 2018 and 2019 reports of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM) for much of the factual basis of the assertions – placing emphasis on the conclusions of the FFM in regard to the question of genocide. What struck me particularly is the timeline of events as the underlying factual basis of the application, commencing with the ‘clearance operations’ in October 2016 and continuing to date. This is the same timeframe under scrutiny at the International Criminal Court, but different from the FFM (which has now completed its mandate), and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM). The IIMM was explicitly mandated to inquire into events from 2011 onwards, while the FFM interpreted its mandate to commence from 2011. While these are clearly distinct institutions with vastly different mandates, there may well be points of overlap and a reliance on some of the institutions in the course of the ICJ case. (See my previous Opinio Juris post on potential interlinkages).

    For the legal basis of the application, The Gambia asserts that both states are parties to the Genocide Convention, neither have reservations to Article IX, and that there exists a dispute between it and Myanmar – listing a number of instances in which The Gambia has issued statements about and to Myanmar regarding the treatment of the Rohingya, including a note verbal in October 2019. (paras. 20 – 23) The Gambia asserts that the prohibition of genocide is a jus cogens norm, and results in obligations erga omnes and erga omnes partes, leading to the filing of the application. (para. 15) This is significant as it seeks to cover both bases – that the obligations arise towards the international community as a whole, as well as to parties to the convention.

    On the substance of the allegations of genocide, the application lays the groundwork – the persecution of the Rohingya, including denial of rights, as well as hate propaganda, and then goes on to address the commission of genocidal acts. The application emphasizes the mass scale destruction of villages, the targeting of children, the widespread use of rape and sexual assault, situated in the context of the clearance operations of October 2016, and then from August 2017 onwards. It also details the denial of food and a policy of forced starvation, through displacement, confiscation of crops, as well as inability to access humanitarian aid.

    Violations of the following provisions of the Genocide Convention are alleged: Articles I, III, IV, V and VI. To paraphrase, these include committing genocide, conspiracy to commit, direct and public incitement, attempt to commit, complicity, failing to prevent, failure to punish, and failure to enact legislation). (para. 111)

    As part of the relief asked for, The Gambia has asked that the continuing breach of the Genocide Convention obligations are remedied, that wrongful acts are ceased and that perpetrators are punished by a competent tribunal, which could include an international penal tribunal – clearly leaving the door open to the ICC or an ad hoc tribunal. In addition, as part of the obligation of reparation, The Gambia asks for safe and dignified return of the Rohingya with full citizenship rights, and a guarantee of non-repetition. (para. 112) This is significant in linking this to a form of reparations, and reflects the demands of many survivors.

    The Gambia makes detailed submissions in its request for provisional measures, in keeping with the evolving jurisprudence of the court. It addresses the compelling circumstances that necessitate provisional measures and cites the 2019 FFM report in assessing a grave and ongoing risk to the approximately 600,000 Rohingya that are in Myanmar. Importantly, it also cites the destruction of evidence as part of the argument (para. 118), indicating the necessity of the work of the IIMM in this regard.

    In addressing ‘plausible rights’ for the purpose of provisional measures, the application draws upon the case ofBelgium v Senegal, applying mutatis mutandis the comparison to the Convention against Torture. In that case, the court held that obligations in relation to the convention for the prohibition of torture would apply erga omnes partes – thereby leading to the necessary argument that in fact the rights of The Gambia also need to be protected by the provisional measures order. (para. 127) (For more on this distinction between erga omnesand erga omnes partes, see this post) The Gambia requests the courts protection in light of the urgency of the matter.

    As a last point, The Gambia has appointed Navanethem Pillay as an ad hoc judge. (para. 135) With her formidable prior experience as President of the ICTR, a judge at the ICC, and head of the OHCHR, this experience will be a welcome addition to the bench. (And no, as I’ve been asked many times, unfortunately we are not related!)

    The filing of the application by The Gambia is a significant step in the quest for accountability – this is the route of state accountability, while for individual responsibility, proceedings continue at the ICC, as well as with emerging universal jurisdiction cases. Success at the ICJ is far from guaranteed, but this is an important first step in the process.

    http://opiniojuris.org/2019/11/13/the-gambia-v-myanmar-at-the-international-court-of-justice-points-of-in
    #Birmanie #justice #Rohingya #Gambie #Cour_internationale_de_justice

    • Rohingyas : feu vert de la #CPI à une enquête sur des crimes présumés

      La #Cour_pénale_internationale (CPI) a donné jeudi son feu vert à une enquête sur les crimes présumés commis contre la minorité musulmane rohingya en Birmanie, pays confronté à une pression juridique croissante à travers le monde.

      Les juges de la Cour, chargée de juger les pires atrocités commises dans le monde, ont donné leur aval à la procureure de la CPI, #Fatou_Bensouda, pour mener une enquête approfondie sur les actes de #violence et la #déportation alléguée de cette minorité musulmane, qui pourrait constituer un #crime_contre_l'humanité.

      En août 2017, plus de 740.000 musulmans rohingyas ont fui la Birmanie, majoritairement bouddhiste, après une offensive de l’armée en représailles d’attaques de postes-frontières par des rebelles rohingyas. Persécutés par les forces armées birmanes et des milices bouddhistes, ils se sont réfugiés dans d’immenses campements de fortune au Bangladesh.

      Mme Bensouda a salué la décision de la Cour, estimant qu’elle « envoie un signal positif aux victimes des atrocités en Birmanie et ailleurs ».

      « Mon enquête visera à découvrir la vérité », a-telle ajouté dans un communiqué, en promettant une « enquête indépendante et impartiale ».

      La Cour pénale internationale (CPI) a donné jeudi son feu vert à une enquête sur les crimes présumés commis contre la minorité musulmane rohingya en Birmanie, pays confronté à une pression juridique croissante à travers le monde.

      De leur côté, les juges de la CPI, également basée à La Haye, ont évoqué des allégations « d’actes de violence systématiques », d’expulsion en tant que crime contre l’humanité et de persécution fondée sur l’appartenance ethnique ou la religion contre les Rohingya.

      Bien que la Birmanie ne soit pas un État membre du Statut de Rome, traité fondateur de la Cour, celle-ci s’était déclarée compétente pour enquêter sur la déportation présumée de cette minorité vers le Bangladesh, qui est lui un État partie.

      La Birmanie, qui a toujours réfuté les accusations de nettoyage ethnique ou de génocide, avait « résolument » rejeté la décision de la CPI, dénonçant un « fondement juridique douteux ».

      En septembre 2018, un examen préliminaire avait déjà été ouvert par la procureure, qui avait ensuite demandé l’ouverture d’une véritable enquête, pour laquelle les juges ont donné jeudi leur feu vert.

      Les investigations pourraient à terme donner lieu à des mandats d ?arrêt contre des généraux de l’armée birmane.

      Des enquêteurs de l’ONU avaient demandé en août 2018 que la justice internationale poursuive le chef de l’armée birmane et cinq autres hauts gradés pour « génocide », « crimes contre l’humanité » et « crimes de guerre ». Des accusations rejetées par les autorités birmanes.

      https://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/rohingyas-feu-vert-de-la-cpi-une-enquete-sur-des-crimes-presu

    • Joint statement of Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands

      Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands welcome The Gambia’s application against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the alleged violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention). In order to uphold international accountability and prevent impunity, Canada and the Netherlands hereby express their intention to jointly explore all options to support and assist The Gambia in these efforts.

      The Genocide Convention embodies a solemn pledge by its signatories to prevent the crime of genocide and hold those responsible to account. As such, Canada and the Netherlands consider it their obligation to support The Gambia before the ICJ, as it concerns all of humanity.

      In 2017, the world witnessed an exodus of over 700,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State. They sought refuge from targeted violence, mass murder and sexual and gender based violence carried out by the Myanmar security forces, the very people who should have protected them.

      For decades, the Rohingya have suffered systemic discrimination and exclusion, marred by waves of abhorrent violence. These facts have been corroborated by several investigations, including those conducted by the UN Independent Fact Finding Mission for Myanmar and human rights organizations. They include crimes that constitute acts described in Article II of the Genocide Convention.

      In light of this evidence Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands therefore strongly believe this is a matter that is rightfully brought to the ICJ to provide international legal judgment on whether acts of genocide have been committed. We call upon all States Parties to the Genocide Convention to support The Gambia in its efforts to address these violations.

      https://www.government.nl/documents/diplomatic-statements/2019/12/09/joint-statement-of-canada-and-the-kingdom-of-the-netherlands
      #Canada #Pays-Bas

  • Les Antilles françaises enchaînées à l’esclavage (3/4) : Un passé qui ne passe pas
    https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lsd-la-serie-documentaire/les-antilles-francaises-enchainees-a-lesclavage-34-un-passe-qui-ne-pas


    "Nous avons l’impression d’emmerder les Français avec notre histoire..." Jacqueline Jacqueray, présidente du Comité International des Peuples Noirs. Malgré la politique de l’assimilation, le traumatisme de l’esclavage perdure.
    Mémorial du Morne de la Mémoire,1480 noms donnés à des esclaves libérés après 1848

    Il y a une méconnaissance totale de l’#esclavage aujourd’hui, parce que dès l’#abolition, on a mis en place un mécanisme de l’#oubli. Ce qui prend le relais entre 1848 et 1946, c’est le thème de l’#assimilation. C’est-à-dire nous sommes français depuis 300 ans. René Bélénus

    Le 23 mai 1998, 40 000 Martiniquais, Guadeloupéens, Africains, Guyanais et Réunionnais défilaient de la République à la Nation. Une date qui ouvrait, 150 ans après le décret d’abolition de Victor Schoelcher, un début de prise de conscience en France. Au même moment, Lionel Jospin prononçait son fameux « Tous nés en 1848 », qui jetait le trouble au sein d’une #communauté_antillaise meurtrie par des décennies de silence...

    Pendant la grande marche de 1998, le mot d’ordre était : penser à nos parents qui ont vécu le martyr de l’esclavage colonial. Nous avons fait cette marche silencieuse et nous étions 40 000. Emmanuel Gordien

    Il faudra attendre 2001 pour que la traite négrière soit reconnue comme un #crime_contre_l'humanité (#loi_Taubira) et 2006 pour qu’une journée commémorative (le 10 mai) voit le jour... Mais face à l’étendue du crime, les stèles et les journées du souvenir ne suffisent pas...

    Lorsque vous dites à quelqu’un qu’il est esclave, vous lui supprimez sa généalogie et son histoire. Nous ne sommes pas des descendants d’esclaves, nous sommes des descendants d’africains réduit en esclavage et qui ont été déportés et ça c’est fondamental, ça change tout. Jacqueline Jacqueray

    Les séquelles, tant du côté des descendants d’esclaves qu’au sein de la société antillaise, sont toujours bien vivaces...

    #Antilles #Antilles_françaises #racisme

  • Yémen : des armes made in France - Une enquête en partenariat avec Disclose.ngo | ARTE
    https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/086089-022-A/yemen-des-armes-made-in-france

    Cette note a été transmise au Président de la République Emmanuel Macron, lors du conseil restreint de défense du 3 octobre 2018 à l’Élysée, en présence de la ministre des Armées, Florence Parly, du Premier ministre, Edouard Philippe et du ministre de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

    Ces derniers ont tous pu consulter les quinze pages du document provenant de la direction du Renseignement militaire français (DRM), qui détaille l’ensemble des armes vendues par la France aux Émirats arabes unis et à l’Arabie saoudite. Des armes aujourd’hui utilisées dans la guerre au Yémen.

    Cette note révèle pour la première fois les positions, à la date du 25 septembre 2018, de l’armement français utilisé par la coalition saoudienne dans le conflit yéménite. Ces “Yémen Papers” contredisent la position du gouvernement français. Des armes françaises sont bien utilisées par la coalition dans la guerre au Yémen sur tous les fronts : air, terre et mer.

    https://www.arte.tv/sites/story/reportage/yemen-des-armes-made-in-france
    #crime_de_guerre #crime_contre_l'humanité #armement #industrie_de_la_mort #mensonge_d'état

  • Gaza : des enquêteurs de l’ONU suspectent Israël de crimes contre l’humanité lors des manifestations
    ONU Info - 28 février 2019 - Droits de l’homme
    https://news.un.org/fr/story/2019/02/1037422

    « La Commission a des motifs raisonnables de croire que des soldats israéliens ont commis des violations des droits de la personne et du droit humanitaire international lors de la "Grande Marche du retour". Certaines de ces violations peuvent constituer des crimes de guerre ou des crimes contre l’humanité et doivent faire immédiatement l’objet d’une enquête par Israël », a déclaré le Président argentin de la Commission, Santiago Canton.

    La Commission a trouvé des motifs raisonnables de croire que des membres des forces de sécurité israéliennes avaient tué et blessé des civils qui ne participaient pas directement aux hostilités et ne constituaient aucune menace imminente.

    L’enquête a couvert la période allant du début des manifestations jusqu’au 31 décembre 2018.

    « Plus de 6.000 manifestants non armés ont été touchés par des tireurs d’élite militaires, semaine après semaine lors des manifestations » près de la barrière de séparation, selon la commission de l’ONU. Au cours des manifestations couvertes par l’enquête, 189 Palestiniens ont été tués.

    La Commission a constaté que les forces de sécurité israéliennes avaient tué 183 de ces manifestants avec des balles réelles, dont 35 enfants, trois ambulanciers paramédicaux et deux des journalistes, clairement identifiés.

    #ONU #marcheduretour

  • UN council: Israel intentionally shot children and journalists in Gaza - Israel News - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/un-council-israel-intentionally-shot-children-and-journalists-in-gaza-1.697

    The investigative commission of the United Nations Human Rights Council that examined the most recent round of violence on the #Israel-#Gaza border presented its findings on Thursday, saying it found “reasonable grounds” that Israeli security forces violated international law.

    The commission determined that the majority of Gaza protesters who were killed by Israeli forces —154 out of 183 people — had been unarmed.

    The panel also recommended that UN members consider imposing individual sanctions, such as a travel ban or an assets freeze, on those identified as responsible by the commission.

    [...]

    The commiission found that 35 children had been killed, some from direct weapons fire. The commission also noted one case involving a disabled person in a wheelchair and direct fire at journalists who claimed that they were clearly identified as press. One commission member, Sara Hussein, responded that there was no justification for firing at children and the disabled, whom she claimed posed no danger. The commission also took note of injury to Israeli soldiers in the confrontations.

    The commission also recommended that materials it collected be transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague and that UN members “consider imposing individual sanctions, such as a travel ban or an assets freeze, on those identified as responsible by the commission.”

    #crimes #ONU #impunité

    En français, versions édulcorées
    https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/02/28/israel-mis-en-cause-par-une-commission-de-l-onu-pour-de-possibles-crimes-de-

    https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1159486/lonu-accuse-israel-de-possibles-crimes-contre-lhumanite-a-gaza.html

    https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/10254221-l-onu-suspecte-israel-de-crimes-de-guerre-lors-des-manifestations-a-gaz

  • La réponse d’Israël aux manifestations à Gaza, un « crime contre l’humanité »  ?
    Publié le 28/02/2019 - AFP
    https://www.sudouest.fr/2019/02/28/la-reponse-d-israel-aux-manifestations-a-gaza-un-crime-contre-l-humanite-58

    Une commission de l’ONU indique que « plus de 6 000 manifestants non armés ont été touchés par des tireurs d’élite militaires » durant les manifestations de la « Marche du retour » à Gaza.

    La réponse d’Israël aux manifestations à Gaza en 2018 « peut constituer des crimes de guerre ou des crimes contre l’humanité », affirme ce jeudi une commission de l’ONU. Les enquêteurs soulignent que des snipers ont visé des civils, dont des enfants.

    « Les soldats israéliens ont commis des violations du droit international humanitaire et des droits humains. Certaines de ces violations […] doivent immédiatement faire l’objet d’une enquête par Israël », a déclaré le président de la Commission, Santiago Canton.
    Des enfants et des journalistes pris pour cible

    Selon la commission de l’ONU, « plus de 6 000 manifestants non armés ont été touchés par des tireurs d’élite militaires, semaine après semaine lors des manifestations ».

    Les enquêteurs ont indiqué avoir « trouvé des motifs raisonnables de croire que des tireurs d’élite israéliens ont tiré sur des journalistes, du personnel de santé, des enfants et des personnes handicapées, sachant qu’ils étaient clairement reconnaissables comme tels ».

    La commission a été mise sur pied en mai 2018 par le Conseil des droits de l’Homme de l’ONU pour « enquêter sur les violations et mauvais traitements présumés […] dans le contexte des assauts militaires menés lors des grandes manifestations civiles qui ont commencé le 30 mars 2018 » à Gaza. (...)

    • La réponse d’Israël aux manifestations à Gaza « peut constituer » un « crime contre l’humanité », selon les enquêteurs de l’ONU
      le 28/02/2019
      https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/proche-orient/israel-palestine/la-reponse-d-israel-aux-manifestations-a-gaza-peut-constituer-un-crime-

      Israël rejette comme « partial » ce rapport d’une commission d’enquête de l’ONU sur sa riposte face aux manifestations de 2018 dans la bande de Gaza. L’Etat hébreu impute au mouvement palestinien Hamas la responsabilité du bilan humain.

    • Gaza : Un rapport de l’Onu pointe de possibles crimes de guerre israéliens
      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/280219/gaza-un-rapport-de-lonu-pointe-de-possibles-crimes-de-guerre-israeliens
      28 février 2019 Par Agence Reuters

      GENEVE (Reuters) - Des enquêteurs des Nations unies ont déclaré jeudi que les forces de sécurité israéliennes avaient peut-être commis des crimes de guerre et des crimes contre l’humanité en abattant 189 Palestiniens et en en blessant plus de 6.100 autres, lors des manifestations du vendredi l’an dernier à la lisière de la bande de Gaza.

      La commission indépendante dit disposer d’informations confidentielles sur ceux qu’elle pense être responsables de la mort de ces Palestiniens.

      « Les forces de sécurité israéliennes ont tué et mutilé des manifestants palestiniens qui ne constituaient pas une menace imminente de mort ou de blessures graves pour autrui lorsqu’ils ont été visés, et qui ne participaient pas non plus directement à des hostilités », ont déclaré les enquêteurs dans leur rapport.

      Les autorités israéliennes ont parlé de « théâtre de l’absurde », jeudi, à propos de ce rapport des Nations unies.

      Pour le ministre israélien des Affaires étrangères par intérim Israel Katz, le Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’Onu a « accouché d’un nouveau rapport hostile, mensonger et biaisé contre l’Etat d’Israël(...). Nul ne peut dénier à Israël le droit à l’autodéfense et l’obligation de défendre ses ressortissants et ses frontières face à des attaques violentes ».

  • L’Algérie abandonne des migrants dans le désert | Le Devoir
    https://www.ledevoir.com/monde/afrique/531084/l-algerie-abandonne-des-migrants-dans-le-sahara

    L’Algérie a abandonné plus de 13 000 personnes dans le désert du #Sahara au cours des 14 derniers mois, y compris des femmes enceintes et des enfants, les expulsant sans eau ni nourriture et les forçant à partir à pied, parfois à la pointe d’une arme. Certains ne s’en sortent jamais vivants.

    Les migrants expulsés doivent affronter une chaleur qui peut atteindre 48 degrés Celsius. [...]

    Les #expulsions massives de l’#Algérie ont repris depuis octobre 2017, quand l’Union européenne (#UE) a renouvelé la pression sur les pays d’Afrique du Nord pour qu’ils bloquent les migrants qui veulent traverser la Méditerranée ou rejoindre les enclaves espagnoles au Maroc.

    #crime_contre_l'humanité #migration

  • Les États-Unis séparent désormais les parents migrants de leurs enfants | Slate.fr
    http://www.slate.fr/story/162252/etats-unis-separent-parents-migrants-enfants

    Avant l’élection de Donald Trump, les familles de migrants et demandeurs d’asiles qui étaient interpellées à la frontière mexicaine étaient détenus ensemble dans des centres de rétention, en attente de jugement. Mais les directives du gouvernement ont changé : maintenant, les parents et enfants sont détenus séparément, parfois dans des villes différentes, et même dans le cas d’enfants très jeunes.

    Depuis plusieurs mois, des centaines de cas de séparations ont été rencensés par les associations de défense des droits civiques.

    « Ce qui se passe ici est sans précédent. Ici en Arizona, nous avons vu plus de 200 cas de parents séparés de leurs enfants. Certains de ces enfants sont très jeunes, nous voyons régulièrement des enfants de deux ans, et la semaine dernière, il y avait un enfant de 53 semaines sans ses parents », expliquait Laura St. John de l’organisation The Florence Project, sur MSNBC.

    L’association de défense des droits civiques ACLU a engagé une procédure légale contre cette pratique du gouvernement, qu’ils considèrent comme une violation de la Constitution des États-Unis.

    Sur Twitter, le journaliste Chris Hayes a partagé des extraits de la plainte dans lesquels sont décrits plusieurs cas de séparation, comme celui de Miriam, venue du Honduras, qui dit avoir été séparée de son bébé de dix-huit mois et ne pas l’avoir vu pendant plus d’un mois. En mars, un procès de l’ACLU avait permis de réunifier une mère congolaise demandeuse d’asile avec sa fille de sept ans. Elles avaient été séparées pendant quatre mois.

    La nouvelle approche, introduite par le ministère de la Justice, consiste à condamner les personnes qui ont traversé la frontière illégalement à des crimes, et non plus à des infractions civiles, comme c’était le cas auparavant. Les adultes sont donc placés en prison, et non en centre de rétention, alors que les enfants sont gérés par une autre entité administrative, qui détient habituellement les mineurs qui traversent seuls la frontière.

    Interviewé par MSNBC, un avocat de l’ACLU a dit que c’était « la pire chose » qu’il avait vue en 25 ans de travail sur les droits des immigrés.

    « Je parle à ces mères et elles décrivent leurs enfants qui hurlent "maman, maman, ne les laisse pas m’emmener". »

    Il y a quelques jours, le chef de cabinet de la Maison Blanche John Kelly a défendu la pratique en disant qu’il s’agissait d’une dissuasion efficace et que les enfants seraient « placés dans des foyers ou autres ».

    • New York (États-Unis), de notre correspondant.- « Les fédéraux ont perdu, oui, perdu, 1 475 enfants migrants. » L’éditorial de The Arizona Republic a révolté les réseaux sociaux. Des Américains se sont pris en photo avec cette question : « Où sont les enfants ? » (#wherearethechildren), devenue en quelques jours un mot-clé populaire. « L’inhumanité doit cesser », explique Joaquín Castro, représentant démocrate du Texas, qui appelle à une manifestation cette semaine à San Antonio.

      À l’origine de cette indignation, l’information rapportée par The Arizona Republic est, de fait, assez spectaculaire. Le 26 avril, Steven Wagner, un responsable du Département de la santé américain chargé de la gestion des réfugiés, a annoncé au cours d’une audition au Sénat que ses services, alors qu’ils tentaient de prendre contact avec 7 635 mineurs placés chez des proches ou dans des familles d’accueil, se sont révélés « incapables de localiser 1 475 » d’entre eux, soit 19 % de l’échantillon contacté.

      9 mai 2018. Cette famille vient de franchir la frontière entre le Mexique et les États-Unis près de McAllen, Texas. © Reuters 9 mai 2018. Cette famille vient de franchir la frontière entre le Mexique et les États-Unis près de McAllen, Texas. © Reuters

      Il s’agit de mineurs non accompagnés, la plupart originaires du Honduras, du Guatemala et du Salvador, des pays d’Amérique centrale ravagés par les violences. Placés quelques semaines en foyer après avoir tenté de traverser la frontière avec les États-Unis via le Mexique, ils sont ensuite confiés par les autorités à des proches, des parents ou des familles d’accueil en attendant l’examen de leur dossier par les services de l’immigration.

      Les 1 500 enfants manquant à l’appel ne sont pas forcément aux mains de trafiquants, exploités à vil prix ou livrés à eux-mêmes. « On ne sait pas combien d’entre eux n’ont pas été localisés parce que eux ou leurs proches, qui peuvent très bien être leurs parents, sont partis sans laisser d’adresse pour réduire les risques d’être renvoyés dans leur pays », explique la journaliste Dara Lind, spécialiste des questions migratoires sur Vox.com.

      Mais l’incertitude qui pèse sur leur sort a de quoi inquiéter : plusieurs médias, comme Associated Press et la chaîne PBS, ont révélé des cas de violences sexuelles, de travail forcé ou de mauvais traitement.

      « Vous êtes la plus mauvaise famille d’accueil du monde. Vous ne savez même pas où ils sont », a lancé à Steven Wagner la sénatrice Heidi Heitkamp. L’accusation de l’élue démocrate tape juste, sauf que sous l’administration Obama, qui avait dû faire face à une explosion du nombre de mineurs non accompagnés, le suivi était tout aussi défaillant.

      En 2014, les procédures de vérification des familles d’accueil avaient même été allégées pour faciliter les placements, livrant les enfants à des dangers accrus. En 2016, le Sénat avait préconisé des mesures de suivi renforcées, qui n’ont jamais été mises en place, faute de ressources et de volonté politique : le département de la santé considère en effet qu’une fois placés, les mineurs ne sont plus de sa responsabilité…

      Il y a un mois, l’« aveu » de Steven Wagner devant le Sénat n’aurait ainsi pas fait beaucoup de bruit. Mais tout a changé depuis que le président Trump, frustré de ne pas voir avancer son projet de mur avec le Mexique, en colère contre sa propre directrice du Département de la sécurité intérieure (DHS), a autorisé des mesures d’une extrême sévérité contre l’immigration irrégulière.

      Au nom de la « tolérance zéro », Jeff Sessions, “attorney general” (l’équivalent du ministre de la justice), un dur de dur connu pour sa hargne contre les clandestins, a annoncé le 7 mai la poursuite systématique des étrangers qui « traversent la frontière de façon illégale », une façon de décourager les candidats à l’immigration – au rythme de 40 000 personnes « appréhendées » chaque mois, on voit mal comment les procureurs vont suivre. Il a surtout déclaré que les enfants « clandestins » seront désormais « séparés » de leurs parents. De quoi susciter l’indignation générale. Au vu de la façon dont les mineurs non accompagnés sont traités dans les familles d’accueil, cette annonce sonne comme une provocation.

      « Cette horreur est insupportable, a twitté Walter Schaub, ancien directeur sous Obama et Trump du Bureau pour l’éthique gouvernementale, une agence fédérale anticorruption. Décider d’arrêter encore plus d’enfants alors même qu’on sait déjà que ce qui leur arrive est une violation immorale des droits humains. »

      « C’est de la torture », commente l’ACLU, une grande organisation de défense des libertés publiques, qui a engagé une action en justice collective contre le gouvernement. « La pire chose que j’ai vue en vingt-cinq ans, dit Lee Gelernt, l’avocat de l’ACLU, interrogé sur la chaîne MSNBC. Ces mères vous racontent leurs enfants qui crient “maman ! maman !”, “ne les laisse pas m’emmener !”, des enfants de cinq ans, de six ans. On va traumatiser ces enfants pour toujours. »

      « Cette pratique viole les droits des demandeurs d’asile inscrits dans la Constitution », ajoute Eunice Lee, codirectrice du centre de recherche sur le genre et les réfugiés Hastings College of the Law à San Francisco (Californie).

      Reuters Reuters

      Fin avril, le New York Times, citant des données officielles, a révélé que cette pratique est en réalité d’ores et déjà en place. Entre octobre et avril, écrit le quotidien, 700 enfants, dont 100 tout-petits de moins de quatre ans, ont été privés de leurs parents. Le département de la santé refuse de dire combien de ces familles restent aujourd’hui éclatées.

      Au vu des positions de l’administration Trump, qui cherche à lutter contre l’immigration mais aussi à décourager par tous les moyens l’exercice du droit d’asile, cette politique n’est guère surprenante. Elle avait été évoquée quelques semaines après l’investiture de Donald Trump par John Kelly, alors directeur de la sécurité nationale. Aujourd’hui chef de cabinet de Donald Trump, Kelly a affirmé à la radio publique NPR que non seulement la séparation des familles n’est « pas cruelle », mais qu’elle est aussi un « puissant moyen de dissuasion » contre l’immigration.

      Pendant sa campagne, et depuis son entrée à la Maison Blanche, Donald Trump a promis de « stopper » l’immigration illégale. Il s’en est pris aux Mexicains « violeurs » et « criminels », aux « pays de merde », a taxé publiquement des immigrés d’« animaux ». Il a annoncé l’envoi de la garde nationale à la frontière et a attisé sa base en s’en prenant à une « caravane » de réfugiés d’Amérique centrale qui cherchaient à obtenir l’asile aux États-Unis.

      Depuis son arrivée à la Maison Blanche, son administration s’est employée à détricoter les dispositifs protégeant les jeunes migrants. Trump lui-même a estimé que les mineurs qui passent la frontière « ne sont pas tous innocents » et nourrissent la violence des gangs.

      « Les enfants seront pris en charge, placés dans des foyers ou autre », a promis John Kelly. En l’occurrence, le « ou autre » pourrait désigner des bases militaires. Selon le Washington Post, des enfants séparés de leurs familles pourraient être bientôt placés dans des centres de l’armée, au Texas ou dans l’Arkansas.

  • Radio : Jean-Marc Royer, Le Monde comme projet Manhattan, 2017
    https://sniadecki.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/royer-manhattan

    Attention le texte de l’article et l’émission de radio ne contiennent pas la même chose, les deux sont intéressants, il faut lire et écouter les deux !

    Des laboratoires du nucléaire à la guerre généralisée au vivant

    Si les deux premières parties de ce livre débutent par une toute autre histoire du nucléaire, sa troisième partie, la plus importante aux yeux de l’auteur, a pour ambition d’en tirer les conséquences dans les domaines théoriques, historiques, philosophiques et politiques. Précisons qu’il n’est pas question de faire avec cette présentation un quelconque résumé de l’ouvrage mais d’attirer l’attention du lecteur sur des aspects jugés majeurs. Par conséquent, il n’y retrouvera pas le soubassement argumentaire de certaines des affirmations avancées.

    https://ia801503.us.archive.org/13/items/RMU039RoyerManhattan/RMU_039_RoyerManhattan.mp3

    #audio #radio #Radio_Zinzine #Racine_de_moins_un @tranbert #nucléaire #capitalisme #Jean-Marc_Royer #Histoire #Hiroshima #Auschwitz #mort #crime_contre_l'humanité