The defenders and those who render

Marvel at the hypocrisy of our politicians! On one hand Dermot Aherne blathering on about what an inspiration human rights defenders are. From the Irish Times

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern today told a massive gathering of human rights defenders in central Dublin they were an inspiration to the world.

"You represent a combination of practical idealism and courage which is an inspiration to others — in your countries and also internationally," he said.

"The impact of your work is felt not only by those whose rights you seek to vindicate but also by the rest of the world who you inspire to act."

Human Rights defenders are inspirational of course. They do a dangerous, necessary, wonderful job. The Government isn't always praising their work to the skies.

In fact the Minister's words ring hollow. He is a member of a government that violates the rights of others. Our government facilitates the 'rendering' of suspects through our borders - Extraordinary Rendition or how to cooperate with the Americans to break international law so we don't lose our 'special friendship'.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, you know, Mary Robinson's old position, came to Dublin to rebuke Bertie for human rights violations. Disgusted yet? I am.

The Government should search US military planes landing at Shannon airport to confirm they are not being used for rendition flights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has said.

"I stressed that it's not just the direct complicity that is of significance but also either neglect or wilful blindness to what's going on.

"I think the optimum protection is very much to try to verify, to go beyond assurances. Ideally, there should be random searches just to give some assurance that the commitments made by another country are respected right through the chain of command," she said.

"I don't think it's diplomatically offensive to conduct random or occasional searches to verify."...

Ms Arbour said that while there were signs of a rowing back in the US, some of the damage caused by certain counter-terrorism measures could "be relatively permanent".

One of the main areas of concern, she said, was the attempt to redefine torture.

"The erosion of the standard against torture is very disturbing. More and more there is this discourse that there may be cases where it is okay.

"Also, there is a questioning of what torture really is. I think it's going to take some time to go back to what it was."...

"They say to me, 'why are you wasting your time talking to us about this issue, why aren't you in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, why aren't you talking to them?'

"There is also this idea that the West/the US promote human rights issues that suit their agenda and they have declared themselves to be in a realm of non-accountability. In human rights promotion, the concept of universality and equal treatment is pretty fundamental and now it's very much jeopardised." (Source)

And this is what our government facilitates... a bureaucracy that is attempting to redefine torture and use it as a tool for extracting information. It is commonly known that torture is an extremely inefficient way of extracting information. In must cases, people torture because they like the power and because they can. Torture is not justifiable under any circumstances.

Hypocrisy. Follow the High Commissioner's advice, Bertie. It's good advice and it's good for the country, not to be so closely associated with torture.

Free rice

Shamelessly stolen from Feministe.

Free Rice. It's a vocabulary test and strangely addictive. For every answer you get right, a few free grains of rice are donated to the WFP, to end world hunger! It does carry a warning however:

This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance...

Gotta watch that!

Just following orders

He was just following orders?

Chief Khmer Rouge interrogator Duch is a "gentle man" who was only following orders when he ran the notorious S-21 torture centre during Pol Pot's reign of terror 30 years ago, his sister said on Wednesday.

"My brother was a gentle man," Hong Kimhong, 50, told Reuters outside Cambodia's "Killing Fields" tribunal where Duch, charged with crimes against humanity, is seeking bail ahead of his trial expected next year.

"He bears at least some direct responsibility for the detention, torture and deaths of over 14,000 men, women and children," co-prosecutor Robert Petit told the five Cambodian and international judges.

"A lot of Cambodians are watching and listening to what is being said and done in this chamber. Most of them have been waiting for 30 years to see justice done," Petit said.

A born-again Christian, Duch has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of the infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre.

At least 14,000 people deemed to be opponents of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution passed through Tuol Sleng's barbed-wire gates. Fewer than 10 are thought to have lived to tell the tale.

Most victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women, children and even babies were among those butchered.

But Duch's sister did not believe "he was as brutal as the allegations say" and she said their family had also suffered under the Khmer Rouge.

"Ten of our family died of starvation under the regime. If he isn't released I don't think it will be a fair trial," she said. (Source)

Since when is that an excuse?

Bad governance

With the discovery of oil in Cambodia and the potential for rags or riches, one can only reflect on how nice it is that we have good governance at home who would never compromise the good of the country. Yeah right. Hat tip to Mark.

Political Fact Sheet “An Act of Economic Treason”

In 1975 Justin Keating's terms for oil exploration included a provision for the state to require a 50% stake in any commercial find. There was also between 8%-16% production bonuses and a standard corporation tax of 50%.

Keating was basing his policy on the Norwegian model. The Norwegians offered direct assistance to their Irish counterparts to set up a state oil company and offered them direct involvement in the commercial development of the North Sea Fields.

Between 1975-87 Minister Dick Spring introduced a sliding scale of state participation on marginal fields. This was to attract further investment however the interests of the Irish state were still maintained.

In 1987 Charles Haughey appointed Ray Burke as the Minister for Energy. Burke began negotiating with the oil companies, meeting directly with executives on occasion against the advice and in the absence of his department officials. He introduced radical new terms, which included.

• Abolishing state royalties.
• Abolishing any state participation in oil and gas exploration.
• Abolishing any state stake hold on commercial finds.

In a Dáil speech during the same month Dick Spring called this “An act of Economic Treason”

Both Ray Burke and Charles Haughey have since faced criminal charges by the Mahon “Payments to politicians” tribunal. The tribunal investigated a payment of €30,000, which Burke received from Mr Robert Rennicks a director of a company owned by Mr Tony O’Reilly.

Coincidentally Mr O’Reilly is a 45% stakeholder in Providence resources, a major oil and gas exploration company. Providence has several prospects in the porcupine basin just of Irelands west coast. The company claims to have identified 25 trillion cubic feet of gas and 4 billion barrels of oil in the Dunquin prospect in the porcupine basin. This is estimated to be worth about 50 billion in monetary terms.

O’Reilly also happens to be the chief executive of independent newspapers, consisting of The Irish Independent, The Daily Star, The Sunday independent, The Sunday World and The Evening Herald. The question is independent newspapers really independent when it comes to the Corrib gas issue?

In April 1992, Bertie Ahern further improved terms for the oil and gas companies by needlessly reducing the corporation tax from 50% to 25%(lowest rate in the worldwide). Recent investigations uncovered that he had no bank account during this period as Minister for finance i.e. no records of his personal finances for this period.

In June 1992, the government introduced new licensing terms, which permitted oil and gas producers to sell their products at market prices.

This was a step away from the previous arrangement with marathon oil, which had sold gas to Bord Gáis from the Kinsale Field at a bulk discount for many years. This means that Bord Gáis must now pay full market prices for any gas purchased on behalf of the Irish public.

Bertie Ahern gives Bord Gáis permission for a pipeline to be built from Galway to Bellanaboy . By giving this permission Bertie unfairly influenced the planning process for the refinery by exerting political pressure on planning officials prior to their decision.

In 2002 the government introduced legislation, which allowed a private company (Shell) to place Compulsory Acquisition Orders on the land of Erris farmers. This is the first time in the history of the state that this has occurred. The legislation allowed the government to purchase the land for Shell without the permission of the farmers.

Astonishingly the current Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural resources Noel Dempsey in 2005(when the Rossport 5 were in prison) and as recently as November 2006 continues to grant exploration licences under the same overly generous terms and conditions to oil and gas companies. (Source)

And our government have the audacity to send advisors to help Cambodia on how to avoid the 'resource curse'. Get your house in order Fianna Fáil.

Review of 'Sex with kings'

Just finished reading this 'Sex with kings : 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge' by Eleanor Herman and I feel very ambivalent about it. On the one hand, it is a very interesting read about a topic that is not covered often - women in history. On the other hand it is written by an author who insults her heroines and is clearly very sexist.

Women in history have been ignored or their lives explained away as anomalies. History is written by the strong and powerful and women's history has been ignored. Nevertheless women in the past ruled, became pirates, took lovers, led battles and triumphed. They do not deserve to be painted in only as an afterthought. So I like the idea and the history in 'Sex with kings'. The author uses primary sources and her research cannot be faulted. It is an interesting book and I would have loved it if it was not for the author's sexism.

It pervades the book and turned my stomach. She makes judgement calls on the heroines of the book. She refers to the king's mistresses as grasping whores, refers to the work as sin and their payment as their ill-gotten gains. Now I understand that these were the attitudes of the time and that this is a history book but her disgust for the métier of these women destroyed my enjoyment of the book. As the world knows, women did not have much choice or freedom under the political systems of the past. The work available included sex work. Why so does a soi-disant historian, who is familiar with conditions and restrictions of the time condemn these women so harshly for exercising the choices available?

Herman describes Madame de Pompadour's job as exhausting and high pressured. Madame de Pompadour always had to be 'on'. Sick days did not exist. She couldn't tell the king to leave her alone, if she wasn't in the mood. Her position was exhausting and it was constant. She had to be wary of usurpers and political plots. Her life was shortened considerably due to stress. And the lesson Herman describes herself as having learned, is to always to there for her husband and to never nag. When he arrives home, she gets up to make him a cup of tea and fetches his slippers and says that she'll never get divorces becayse she takes care of her man like Madame de Pompadour took care of Louis XV.

It is the wrong lesson. The lesson to be taken from these women who fought for and yielded power is that we are not here for anyone's entertainment. We have, mostly, the choice to say yes or no. We have the choice to be independent and earn our own way and it is a choice that few societies had. The women that Herman discusses were powerful in the only way they could be. Nowadays, many would be involved in politics. Diane de Poitiers might be president. She certainly made laws and signed official papers. These women were strong and deserve to not be insulted by a modern mistress wannabe, who has the freedom to choose.

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone

Romantic Ireland is dead and gone and Bertie Aherne, our 'man of the people' leader finds a way to nail the coffin shut with such a display of greed and casual disregard for the people of Ireland unrivalled even by Charlie boy at his peak

WHAT need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
- William Butler Yeats

Bertie's accepted a €38 000 increase in salary. It's more than Gordon Brown; more than Bush Junior; and than more European leaders. Certainly over double what I earn. As Ciaran Byrne from the Indo puts it

Blair and Brown knew in their hearts it was wrong. Our lads have no much moral qualms. Ahern will now take home a hefty €310,000 -- €43,000 more than Gordon Brown, who leads a country of 60 million people, and €20,000 more than US president George W Bush.

The Dutch prime minister somehow gets by on an annual wage of €123,000 while in Poland the new PM Donald Tusk will have to make do with looking after 38.5 million people on a salary of €49,500.

After 24 hours of silence from the Government, Mr Ahern was cornered yesterday and trotted out his usual world-weary patter. "I don't tend to worry about these things...the Government will implement the pay scales..that's it."

How nice and privileged Bertie must feel by not having to worry about such things. Quite the lap of luxury when the health system is falling apart; the roads are a disgrace; government offices have a hiring freeze; people being evicted in the middle of the night unable to pay their mortgages because the ridiculous house prices; and violations of our constitution, allowing military aircraft en route to a war of aggression to land in our country just to stay in bed with American business. And you, little man, don't worry about these things! How nice that we have such inspired leadership. Let them eat cake comes to mind.

Mr Ahern said he didn't have a publicly-funded palace to live in -- apparently explaining why, at €310,000 a year, he should earn more President Sarkozy of France, British Premier Gordon Brown, and even President George Bush.

"I'm glad I don't own Chequers and I don't have No 10," Mr Ahern said, when asked why he should earn more than world leaders of more powerful nations. "I don't have the Elysee Palace -- if you want to build those in, then you know what the figures would be."

He went on: "I certainly don't want the White House. There is no comparison, and I think people know that."

Yes, there is no comparison either in the surface area or in the population size. However I think we can compare political fuckups and Bertie, you've fucked up, just like Bush junior. It might interest you to know Bertie, that the Irish Republic has an official residence for the president. You may remember her - lives in a des res near Castleknock, the Áras, I believe it's called. So why on Earth should you think that you deserve to get paid more than Prez Bush or Sarkozy when you're not president. You are a minister and your job is to run the country so do your job. Get the health, transport, and education systems back on their feet for a start. Earn some of that increase you are so determined to take.

Carnival against sexual violence

The 34th Carnival against sexual violence is up here and I was lucky enough to be included.

Go check it out!

Speak out against violence against women of colour

be bold be brave be red stop the violence
http://documentthesilence.wordpress.com/