US Weapons, Tear Gas To Cluster Bombs Used By Repressive RegimesFebruary 4th, 2011 This is one of the back stories behind why people around the world have so much trouble overthrowing repressive regimes. Simply because the USA sends these regimes loads of weapons from crowd control substances like tear gas to baby killers like cluster bombs. This industry which Obama like every recent American president blithely participates in promoting around the world is one of the reasons why protest when it does happen is so volatile. The problem we have here is not just a failure to communicate as `Cool Hand Luke' put it, what we have is a serious problem of police states crushing resistance with American military hardware. Failure to communicate? Sure, but when some thug cop or undercover agent is lobbing American tear gas at you, or your kid walks in a field and gets their leg blown off from American cluster bombs, that is really stretching the meaning of that failure.
America needs to get out of the weapons business and begin to make things that people need for creating a better world. Why is it that the Chinese are building windmills and solar cell systems and the USA is making weapons? It is a matter of priorities, what is the purpose of the USA in the world? If this country as the center of world capital is the bastion of capital then the purpose of the average citizen is to provide the foot soldiers for the defense of capital. Most of us do not accept that logic, but we are forced by our labor to support that great mechanism. A general strike would be a great way to break its control over us, but as we can see in Egypt it is not just the military but the wealthy elites behind them who have to be defeated. But as w can see there, the real controllers are not seen. They are behind the scenes. When we to to defeat the enemies of the people we have to realize it is not the soldiers, it is their masters we need to go after. Of course soldiers who kill fellow citizens deserve the same fate as the capitalist masters they serve, and the same goes for the police. When the people rise, they had better be on the people's side.
I indulge a bit in radical rhetoric, but when I read of what our government does behind our backs, and in plain site, it brings out the revolutionary in me. When will we have our revolution? We need to take the initiative back from these corporate shills who have convinced white Americans that their future lies in an imagined past. Americans are not stupid, they want someone else to do the work for them, but eventually they will have to take the issues in hand and act.
——————————————————————————–
From ABC News
Egyptian Police Using U.S.-Made Tear Gas Against Demonstrators
Photographs From Cairo Document Canisters Labeled `Made in U.S.A.'
By SARAH O. WALI and DEENA A. SAMI
Jan. 28, 2011
Egyptian riot police are firing tear gas canisters bearing the label "Made in U.S.A" against street demonstrations in Cairo, according to protesters who provided ABC News with pictures of the canisters.
The label urges anyone who comes in contact with the gas "to seek assistance as soon as possible."
According to the canister labels, the tear gas is produced by Combined Systems International of Jamestown, Pennsylvania.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/egypt-protest-police-us-made-tear-gas-demonstrators/story?id=12785598
————————————————————————————————————–
From Propublicablog
State Department Approved Export of U.S.-Made Tear Gas to Egyptian Gov't by Marian Wang
ProPublica, Feb. 4, 2011, 5:12 p.m.
The American-made tear gas used to disperse pro-democracy protestors in Egypt earlier this week was sold to the country after government review, a State Department spokeswoman told us.
The tear gas canisters used by Egyptian police against the protesters bore the label "Made in U.S.A. stirring controversy and bolstering the impression among Egyptians that the U.S. has propped up a dictatorship at the expense of its citizens.
Two government agencies, the Department of State and Department of Commerce, regulate the export of tear gas by granting export licenses allowing U.S. manufacturers to sell tear gas to foreign buyers. The State spokeswoman, Nicole Thompson, said she didn't immediately know when the approval was given for Egypt.
The chemical compounds in the tear gas determine whether it's State or Commerce that's responsible for licensing the product. In general, the State Department licenses the export of defense items—including military-grade tear gas—as spelled out on its Munitions List.. The Commerce Department licenses the export of tear gas formulations that are considered "dual use"—that is, for either military or civilian purposes—as well as products considered strictly civilian.
The tear gas canisters photographed in Egypt and Tunisia appear to have been manufactured by Combined Systems Incoperates. The company did not respond to our requests for comment. A spokesman for the company had previously told CNN that it operates well within the law
In the case of the tear gas used in Egypt, the State Department confirmed to me that it approved the sale of tear gas as a direct commercial sale between the manufacturer and the government of Egypt, as opposed to a government-to-government sale.
As part of a multi-agency approval process, the State Department said it takes a number of issues into consideration, including whether the purchaser could use it in a way that violates human rights.
"We want to ensure that when a defense article is being sold to a government, say the government of Egypt, we want to make sure it's not going to fall in hands of another government … or any individual or organization who wants to do harm," explained Thompson.
The US government licensed the sale of certain crowd dispersal articles to the government of Egypt. That license was granted after a thorough vetting process and after a multi-agency review of the articles that were requested.
Noticeably absent in that answer was anything about the Egyptian police. When I pressed further and mentioned this WikiLeaks cable-written by U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey describing "routine and pervasive" police brutality and torture in Egypt—the response was immediate.
"I cannot provide any authentication of anything that has been published by the website WikiLeaks," Thompson said.
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/state-department-approved-export-of-u.s.-made-tear-gas-to-egyptian-govt
——————————————————————————————————-
From Narco News
Police Unleash Repression Against Oaxaca Teachers
By James Daria and Dul Santamaría
The Ricardo Flores Magòn Brigade Reporting for Narco News from Oaxaca
June 15, 2006
OAXACA CITY, June 14: The expected but unwanted eviction of the members and supporters of the Oaxaca Democratic Teachers' Union, Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE in its Spanish initials) occupying the Oaxaca City central square occurred on Wednesday, June 14. The operation began at 4:00 in the morning, with approximately 2500 state judicial police entering the teachers' camp, using violence and teargas, among other weapons, to attack the protesters.
As dawn broke, the Special Operations Police Unit and the Judicial Police clashed with protesters in a fight to control the main square, or Zócalo. The police used tear gasses of different types, which were launched by hand, by grenade launchers, and tossed from state government helicopters overhead. These gas canisters were dropped indiscriminately, as corroborated by one Narco News reporter who found 35 gas canisters along a single city block, all made in the United States. The teachers carried sticks, machetes, rocks, and some were able to protect themselves with shields and helmets they pulled off their attackers. Teachers' brigades were organized to help provide water, vinegar and Coca-Cola, to help counteract the effects of the gas. Contrary to what we heard reported in the mass media, we saw not a single teacher carrying firearms or Molotov cocktails.
Section 22, the Oaxaca teachers' union, has a 26-year history of social and workers' struggle to defend gains and win improvements in education and teachers' salaries. Part of their strategy is a strike held every year as their contracts are renewed.
This year, the strike has lasted longer than usual, due to the government's defiance of the teachers' demands. They have therefore maintained their pressure on the governor with an unending occupation of the Zócalo area of the city – some 40 blocks – that started on May 22. The teachers there come from all across the state of Oaxaca, and engage each day in civil disobedience and direct action. These actions include shutting down tollbooths, tearing down electoral propaganda around the city (elections are July 2), and others, all characterized by their creativity.
On Friday, June 2, Ulises Ruiz gave the teachers an ultimatum, saying they had to return to work June 5 and threatening to dock their pay, sue them for breach of contract and cancel a $5.2 million dollar package that had been proposed to solve the problem.
According to the strikers' radio station, Radio Plantón (which until today had been on the air continuously for 13 days), the teachers decided to remain on strike.
http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1898.html
————————————————————————————————————
From Electronic Intifada Activism News
Boycott roundup: US tear gas-maker CSI urged to cancel Israel sales
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 10 January 2011
Activists are calling on a US manufacturer of tear gas to stop providing its products to the Israeli military.
Four activist groups in the US are calling on a tear gas manufacturer to stop providing its products to the Israeli military following the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah from severe respiratory distress on 1 January 2011 after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank village of Bilin.
Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Code Pink, Jewish Voice for Peace and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation issued a letter to US-based Combined Systems, Inc (CSI) on 3 January urging the company to "cease providing CSI equipment to the Israeli government in response to the Israeli military's ongoing and foreseeable misuse of CSI crowd control equipment to kill and maim protesters in the Occupied Palestinian Territories" ("Combined Systems, Inc, Stop providing equipment …," 3 January 2011).
"Over the last two years alone, the Israeli military has used your products to kill two peaceful protesters from one family in the West Bank village of Bilin, to severely injure two peaceful protesters from the US and to seriously injure many more," the letter stated. "According to the the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, two other Palestinians were killed by Israeli tear gas in 2002."
The letter added that the tear gas canisters sent by CSI to the Israeli military could have been provided as part of the US government's military aid package to Israel — funded by US taxpayer money.
The groups pointed out that the US State Department provided nearly $2 million worth of "tear gasses and riot control agents" in its 2007 and 2008 aid packages. "As taxpayers, we strongly object to the possibility that CSI may be using our tax dollars to support Israel's repression of Palestinian rights," the groups stated.
The Electronic Intifada published an action alert drafted by Adalah-NY's Coalition for Justice in the Middle East which urges individuals to email executives at CSI and the companies that invest in CSI, "and tell them to stop providing their tear gas to the Israeli military before more protesters are killed and maimed."
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11724.shtml
———————————————————————————–
From Third World Traveler
The Weapons of American Terrorism: Cluster Bombs
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/ClusterBombs.html
Cluster bombs are one of the most savage and inhumane weapons in the arsenal of the United States … Government and military. These instruments of bloody terror are used for the gruesome slaughter of both military and civilian people around the world.
Each cluster bomb is composed of 200 to 700 bomblets. When each bomblet explodes it fragments into about 300 pieces of jagged steel - sending out virtual blizzards of deadly shrapnel.
People are decapitated, arms, legs, hands and feet are severed from their bodies - anyone and anything alive in the immediate vicinity is shredded into a bloody mess.
Cluster bombs were used by American/NATO forces to brutally murder civilian people all over Yugoslavia in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2001. American/British forces have used cluster bombs against the civilian people of Iraq from 1991 to the present day. Millions of cluster bombs were dropped on the civilian people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the viciously racist genocide known as "the Vietnam War."
Varieties of American-made Cluster Bombs
CBU-52B
The bomblets in the CBU-52 are softball-sized and are intended primarily to shred and dismember human bodies. The dispenser holds 220 of the bomblets and can be used against both people and light-skinned vehicles.
CBU-58A/B
This cluster bomb is also used to butcher human bodies and destroy light skinned military or civilian vehicles. The dispenser holds 650 baseball-sized bomblets to be dispersed indiscriminately over a wide area.
MK-20 Rockeye
The Rockeye is a clamshell-shaped dispenser holding 247 dart-shaped bomblets. These bomblets free fall and can cover a 3,300 square yard area, detonating on impact. The dart-shaped warhead charge in the bomblet is intended for use against armor and people.
CBU-59B Rockeye II
A newer version of the MK-20 Rockeye cluster bomb, the CBU 59 is used against both modern armor and human bodies. Rockeye II and the older Rockeye I are dart shaped bomblets with a small fuze in the pointed end of each bomblet. The CBU-59 dispenser holds about 700 bomblets.
CBU-71/B
The CBU-71/B is very similar to the CBU-58, carrying 650 baseball-sized bomblets. The CBU-71 bomblets have what the U.S. war criminals call "a random delay fuzing option."
Translation from military-speak:
These cluster bombs are used as land mines, set to explode at a variety of times after hitting the ground, to terrorize a local population.
British cluster bomb - the RBL755
The British, America's favorite partners in war crime, have their own version of the cluster bomb. They too used it to butcher civilian men, women and children all over Iraq and Yugoslavia. The UK arms company Hunting Engineering of Ampthill, Bedford, manufactures the British cluster bomb.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/ClusterBombs_AmerTerror.html
——————————————————————————————-
From Cluster Munition Coalition
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) are global campaigns in over 90 countries with more than 350 member organizations. Their main offices are currently in Geneva and London. The ICBL, recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, is recognized as the driving force behind the achievement and ongoing success of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The CMC played the key role in the creation of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, and now works for its universalization and implementation.
http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=2795
No comments:
Post a Comment