US racist ‘Minuteman’ leader arrested for murdering 8-year old girl

Posted on June 14, 2009 by petrel41

This video from the USA is called Leader of ‘Minuteman’ Group Arrested for Murder.

In the eighteenth century, in what would become the United States of America, there were “Minutemen” opposed to British colonialism.

Today, the name of those freedom fighters has been stolen and dragged through the mud of racism and extreme Right violence by the so called Minuteman American Defense group (M.A.D.). Only the acronym is not deceptive.

Just after an anti-abortionist criminal murdered a doctor … just after a nazi murdered an African American Holocaust Museum guard … another deathly example of extreme Right terrorism in the USA.

From The Raw Story in the USA:

Minuteman leader arrested for double homicide

The leader of the Minuteman American Defense group is in an Arizona jail Saturday following his arrest on suspicion of the murders of Raul Flores, 29, and Brisenia Flores, 8, during a home invasion.

From NBC News 4 HD in Arizona:

Three people have been arrested in connection with last months deadly double homicide in Arivaca that left a nine-year-old and her father dead. One of the people arrested for the homicide is the National Executive Director of the Minuteman American Defense group (M.A.D.), a group known for patrolling the border, and is dedicated to “Defending America’s Borders” according to their website …

Jason Eugene Bush, 38, Shawna Forde, 42 and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 43, were all taken into custody and charged in connection with the murders of 29-year-old Raul Flores and 8-year-old Brisenia Flores. Both were killed during an alleged home invasion.

According to authorities, Bush, Forde, and Gaxiola broke into the home of the Flores family just after midnight on May 30th. At the time, the mother, father and daughter were home. The invaders reportedly shot the three members of the Flores family, killing the father, Raul, and the daughter, Brisenia. The invaders then left the scene.

The NBC affiliate goes on to say that the family’s mother survived the attack and even fired back when the assailants returned. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has settled on Bush as the shooter in all three cases.

“Sheriff [Clarence] Dupnik adds, ‘To just kill a 9-year old girl because she could be a potential witness, to me, is one of the most despicable acts I have ever heard of,'” the station reported.

The group’s Web site, which does not appear to bear any mention of Jason Bush, places the group as actively involved in the “tea parties” which swept right-wing media around tax day.

Jason Bush; not by any chance related to George W.? One might guess so from the violent tendencies in both individuals. [/sarcasm off]

Update 20 July 2009: here.

Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist’s ties to Shawna Forde were close right up to her arrest for murders: here.

Founder of Minutemen American Defense Vigilante Group on Trial for Murder: here.

Report ties increase in hate crimes to ‘anti-immigrant vitriol’: here.

Hundreds protest racist attacks in Belfast: here.

New Michael Moore film on economic crisis

Posted on June 14, 2009 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

This is the teaser for the Untitled Michael Moore bailout documentary film that focuses on the global financial crisis and the U.S. economy.

In theaters October 2nd, this will explore the root causes of the global economic meltdown and take a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore described as “the biggest robbery in the history of this country” – the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

Shell’s role in Saro-Wiwa’s death

Posted on June 14, 2009 by petrel41

This video is called The Case Against Shell: ‘The Hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa Showed the True Cost of Oil’.

From British daily The Independent:

Secret papers ‘show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests’

Documents seen by The IoS support claims energy giant enlisted help of country’s military government

By Andy Rowell

Sunday, 14 June 2009

Serious questions over Shell Oil‘s alleged involvement in human rights abuses in Nigeria emerged last night after confidential internal documents and court statements revealed how the energy giant enlisted the help of the country’s brutal former military government to deal with protesters.

The documents, seen by the IoS, support allegations that Shell helped to provide Nigerian police and military with logistical support, and aided security sweeps of the oil-rich Niger Delta. Earlier this month Shell agreed to pay $15.5m (£9.6m) in a “humanitarian settlement” on the eve of a highly embarrassing US lawsuit.

One of the allegations was that Shell was complicit in the regime’s execution of civilians. The Anglo-Dutch firm denies any wrongdoing and said it settled to help “reconciliation”. But the documents contain detailed allegations of the extent to which Shell is said to have co-opted the Nigerian military to protect its interests.

The legal settlement came 14 years after the Abacha government hanged nine protesters, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, the environmentalist and writer, after a charade of a trial in 1995. Saro-Wiwa led a successful campaign against Shell in his Niger Delta homeland, even forcing the company to quit Ogoniland in 1993. The campaign focused on environmental devastation and demanded a greater share of oil revenues for his community. As the campaign grew, the Ogoni suffered a brutal backlash that left an estimated 2,000 dead and 30,000 homeless. The documents claim there was systematic collusion with the military and Mobile Police Force (MPF), known as the “Kill and Go”. Shell has always denied this but is believed to have settled in court as a result of the embarrassing contents.

In one document written in May 1993, the oil company wrote to the local governor asking for the “usual assistance” as the Ogoni expanded their campaign. There was a stand-off between the Ogoni and the US contractor Willbros, which was laying a pipeline. Nigerian military were called in, resulting in at least one death.

Days later, Shell met the director general of the state security services to “reiterate our request for support from the army and police”. In a confidential note Shell suggested: “We will have to encourage follow-through into real action preferably on an industry rather than just Shell basis”. The Nigerian regime responded by sending in the Internal Security Task Force, a military unit led by Colonel Paul Okuntimo, a brutal soldier, widely condemned by human rights groups, whose men allegedly raped pregnant women and girls and who tortured at will. Okuntimo boasted of knowing more than 200 ways to kill a person.

In October 1993, Okuntimo was sent into Ogoni with Shell personnel to inspect equipment. The stand-off that followed left at least one Ogoni protester dead. A hand-written Shell note talked of “entertaining 26 armed forces personnel for lunch” and preparing “normal special duty allowances” for the soldiers. Shell is also accused of involvement with the MPF, which worked with Okuntimo. One witness, Eebu Jackson Nwiyon, claimed they were paid and fed by Shell. Nwiyon also recalls being told by Okuntimo to “leave nobody untouched”. When asked what was meant by this, Nwiyon replied: “He meant shoot, kill.”

One former Shell employee, Kloppenburg Ruud, head of group security in the mid-1990s told lawyers that the deployment of Nigerian security forces at two Shell jetties in the delta was at the company’s request.

Since the settlement, Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s executive director, said: “We wanted to prove our innocence and we were ready to go to court. We knew the charges against us were not true.” He added: “I am aware that the settlement may – to some – suggest Shell is guilty and trying to escape justice,” but said this was not the case.

Shell ‘lobbied’ Guardian to soften its Nigeria stance

Confidential internal documents reveal how the oil giant lobbied The Guardian newspaper to reduce its support for Saro-Wiwa.

In an assessment of the political and security situation, a Shell executive noted: “The Guardian newspaper ran a much more balanced article on the Ogoni issue, with their position moving from apparent support for Saro-Wiwa to the middle ground. There is a slight possibility that this may have been influenced by the meeting we had with The Guardian‘s editor the week before.”

What Shell tried to hide with last week’s $15.5 million out-of-court settlement over its activities in Nigeria: here.

Leaders of Nigeria’s Ogoni people have threatened to disrupt the country’s oil industry if the government does not release a British artwork commemorating the 20th anniversary of the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa: here.

Iraq war inquiry, secret or open?

Posted on June 14, 2009 by petrel41

From British weekly The Observer:

Iraq inquiry ‘must not be held in secret’

Liberal Democrats threaten to boycott new probe

* Toby Helm and Mark Townsend

* Sunday 14 June 2009

Gordon Brown was under intense pressure last night to throw open a new inquiry into the Iraq war to the public as families of soldiers who died, and anti-war MPs, reacted with horror to suggestions it would be held largely in secret.

Cabinet sources said the prime minister would announce an inquiry early this week, probably on Tuesday. Its structure would be “similar but not identical” to the Franks inquiry into the 1982 Falklands war, which was held behind closed doors.

Last night, as families of the dead said they would march on Downing Street if any of its deliberations were kept secret, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg stoked the controversy saying he would boycott the entire investigation if it was not open, wide in its remit and did not report speedily.

Clegg told the Observer that, unless those in charge were granted full access to all documents, could subpoena witnesses, had a remit to look back to events at least a year before the war began and reported within months, the inquiry would be seen as a sham.

He said: “If it does not have this kind of remit, my party will not back it or participate. We are talking about the biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez. To lock a bunch of grandees behind closed doors in secret and wait for them to come up with a puff of smoke, like the election of the pope … would be an insult.”

Clegg added that the inquiry could be held on the lines of an open Commons select committee that the public and press could attend. “This inquiry is an acid test for all of Gordon Brown‘s talk of reforming British politics,” he said.

“If he holds it all or partly in secret and kicks the eventual report into the long grass, it will be a betrayal of all those families who lost children serving in Iraq. They need answers, not another Whitehall stitch-up.”

Labour MP Alan Simpson, chair of Labour Against the War, said Brown’s strategy of using the inquiry as part of a personal political fight-back and to win favour with his backbenchers was in danger of backfiring spectacularly. “If it is done secretively, it could be the final nail in his coffin,” he said.

“We need no less rigorous an examination on this than we had on the far less important issue of MPs’ expenses. A secret examination would be worthless.”

The announcement of an inquiry comes just weeks after British troops officially ended combat operations in Iraq after a six-year campaign in which 179 British servicemen and women died.

The war, which was supported by Brown and which he financed as chancellor, cost the British taxpayer approximately £6.5bn, or roughly £1bn a year, equating to about £100 from every man, woman and child in the country.

Rose Gentle, whose teenage son, Gordon, was killed in Iraq in 2004, said that families who had lost sons and daughters in the conflict would march on Downing Street to protest if the proposed Iraq inquiry was “closed”. She said it was vital that the government dispelled concerns over the reasons for invading Iraq.

“What is the point of an inquiry behind closed doors? No family would be happy with that. We already feel that we have been lied to by the government. We don’t want any more lies. We would be prepared to go to Downing Street if the inquiry is not transparent.”

Philip Cooper, whose son Jamie was the youngest soldier seriously injured in Iraq, said: “Ministers should not treat us like us mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed on shit.”

Former Labour defence minister Peter Kilfoyle, who moved a parliamentary amendment to stop the war in early 2003 that attracted support from more than 130 Labour MPs, said: “Nothing but a completely full inquiry will do.”

Those pressing for an inquiry argue that the war may have been illegal under international law and that Tony Blair made a wholly inadequate case for war by overblowing the case against Saddam Hussein, based on dubious intelligence.

Attorney general Lord Goldsmith‘s advice to the government over the legality of the 2003 invasion would also be a key part of any inquiry.