McGovern speech on Darfur Sudan- One Arrest, three charges

McGovern speech on Darfur Sudan- One Arrest, three charges
by Baza

I was arrested at a Clark University speech by Congressman James McGovern for allegedly handing out flyers about the history and future of war in the Darfur region of Sudan Africa. Here is a request for support in court tomorrow and some video and pictures.

Anti War Activist Arrested at Clark University speech on Darfur region of Sudan.

Last night, Monday October 30th at Clark University in Worcester, Congressman James McGovern gave a pro-war speech against Sudan as part of a well financed campaign to invade the largest country in Africa with US, UN or NATO troops.

Two anti-war activists got there early, found seats, and quietly handed out some anti-war flyers before the lecture was due to start. They were then told that only the organizers were allowed to hand out flyers.






The Clark University Police stormed in and violently arrested Pete L. and forced the other activist to leave the building at the orders of the organizers of the event.








This happened before the lecture was due to start in the middle of a room full of people while McGovern looked on and some outraged onlookers protested that the activists had done nothing wrong.

Pete's next court appearence is november 20th at 8:30 at Worcester District Court, 50 Harvard St. If you can come show support for free speech and freedom from warmongering at court, we need it.

And please call Clark University and Congressman McGovern to ask why they had someone arrested for being against their war on Sudan.

Demand that they stop agitating for the invasion of Sudan thru the Darfur door and drop the bogus charges against activist Pete L.

also see:

Green-Rainbow Party Statement on U.S. Imperialism and Sudan http://www.green-rainbow.org/Statements/sudan.html
Stop the War Against Sudan
http://bridgenews.org/documents/roldesudan
http://worcester.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/4966.php
The flyer is below and so is an article from the local paper:

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Stop the U.S. and Zionist War Against Sudan
By David Rolde, Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts


The United States has been waging war against Sudan
for the past 15 years, and we need to stop it. Just
like with Iraq, the U.S. war against Sudan is a war
for oil and a war for Israel. The proposed invasion
of Sudan is based on lies. The lie of accusing the
government of Sudan of “genocide in Darfur” serves the
same function as the lie a few years ago accusing the
government of Iraq of “possessing weapons of mass
destruction”. The U.S. government, and its allies the
Israeli and UK governments, are the real world
champion purveyors of genocide and possessors of WMDs.


Sudan, the geographically largest country in Africa
and the home of 35 million people, has been devastated
by U.S. attacks for the past 15 years. In the early
90s the U.S. government declared Sudan to be a "state
sponsor of terrorism" because the government of Sudan
does not support Israel. The U.S. government imposed
sanctions against Sudan. The U.S. sanctions and trade
boycott escalated in severity several times during the
90s and 00s and damaged the Sudanese economy causing
immense human suffering. Throughout the 90s the U.S.
government armed and funded the SPLA rebels in the
south of Sudan in a war against the Sudanese
government, and against rival southern groups, in
which millions of persons were killed or displaced.
Millions of southern refugees fled from the SPLA and
now live in Khartoum, the northern capital. The
culmination of U.S. support for war in Sudan was the
so-called "Sudan Peace Act", signed by George W Bush
in 2002, which allocated one hundred million dollars
per year to the SPLA.


One notable episode of the US war against Sudan
happened in 1998 when the U.S. government of Bill
Clinton, with a missile strike, destroyed Sudan's only
pharmaceutical plant, the al-Shifa plant near
Khartoum. This rendered Sudan unable to produce needed
human medications to treat endemic diseases such as
malaria and also veterinary medicines needed by
Sudan's livestock industry which is a major part of
the livelihood of the people of Sudan.


In 2004, during the U.S. presidential election
campaign, the U.S. government started leveling false
allegations of "genocide" against the Sudanese
government in regards to the new civil war in Darfur
in the west of Sudan. The U.S. media and
pro-imperialist “human rights” organizations (such as
Human Rights Watch which is controlled by billionaire
George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations)
falsely portrayed the conflict in Darfur as a
slaughter of Black Africans by a "White Arab" Sudanese
government. In reality it was a civil war among many
armed groups, some of which were supported by the US
and Israel, fighting over limited resources in an
impoverished region. Nearly everyone in Sudan is a
Black African. And nearly everyone in Darfur is a
Black African Arabic-speaking Muslim. The numbers
cited for the “genocide” in Darfur were inflated
estimates of how many people might die from famine and
disease.


This year the propaganda against Sudan in the United
States has intensified again. On April 30, 2006, the
U.S. government in conjunction with U.S. Zionist
groups, staged a large pro-war rally in Washington DC.
U.S. congresspersons, as well as members of the Bush
administration, spoke at the rally calling for the war
against Sudan to be escalated by sending in an
invasion force of U.N., NATO or U.S. troops. Nearly
every pro-Israel group in the USA has anti-Sudan
propaganda on the front of their website. In
Massachusetts an example of a Zionist group doing
pro-war activism is the Jewish Community Relations
Council (JCRC) of Greater Boston.


The anti-Sudan rhetoric is no different than the
rhetoric that the U.S. government uses against other
countries that the United States is attacking. One
aim of U.S. attacks against Sudan is to gain or
maintain control over Sudan’s natural resources:
notably petroleum but also uranium, other minerals,
gum arabic, and the Nile River which supplies water to
Egypt. China currently has access to oil from Sudan,
and the U.S. government wants to cut China off.
Destabilizing and impoverishing Sudan serves American
and Israeli hegemonic interests to make sure there are
no prosperous independent nations in the Middle East
and North African regions.


But within the United States the anti-Sudan rhetoric
is useful for more than just getting Americans ready
for more overt war against Sudan. Anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim rhetoric regarding Sudan is part of the
general anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda that is
used to gain U.S. domestic support for the war in
Iraq, continued U.S. support for Israel, and the
so-called “war on terror”. Zionist groups in the
United States have been purveying anti-Arab propaganda
regarding Sudan for many years before the Darfur war,
making false claims about “slavery” in Sudan. Slave
redemption efforts in Sudan have been shown to be a
hoax. Divesting from Sudan is a Zionist anti-Arab
counter-proposal to the idea of divesting from Israel.
Lies about Arabs divert attention from efforts to end
Israeli apartheid in Palestine.


On September 1, 2006, the US rammed a resolution
through the UN Security Council calling for tens of
thousands of UN troops, ostensibly "peace-keepers" but
really an imperialist invasion force, to be sent to
Darfur to replace the current smaller US-puppet
African Union force. On September 17, Zionists and
other pro-war Americans held an anti-Sudan rally in
Central Park in New York City. The keynote speaker at
the rally was Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Secretary
of State, who is infamous for having admitted that the
Clinton administration and the UN had killed half a
million Iraqi children through the sanctions in the
90s but nevertheless defending the actions against
Iraq as worthwhile. Rally attendees were asked to
wear blue hats to signify their desire to send "blue
helmet" UN troops to invade Sudan. These UN troops
would not be "peace-keepers". We can see the likely
outcome by looking at Haiti where, in 2004, the US
deposed the legitimate government and then sent in a
UN occupation force which has terrorized the country
and brutalized the Haitian people. When foreign UN
soldiers get to Darfur and can't determine which Black
Arabic-speaking Muslims are the "bad Arabs" and which
are the "good Africans", the UN troops will kill
people indiscriminately. The Sudanese people will
rightly resist. The situation will escalate. US
warmongers will call for sending more troops,
including US troops, and bringing the war to Khartoum.
It will be a disaster. The US war against Sudan needs
to be stopped and reversed now.


Anti-war activists are not working hard enough to stop
the US and Zionist war against Sudan. The current
threats against Sudan are just as serious as the
threats against Iran. Anti-war activists should be
focusing more effort to stop the war against Sudan and
to work against US imperialism in Africa in general -
the current war against Sudan is just one
manifestation of centuries of European colonialism and
neo-colonialism in Sudan and Africa. The situation for
the people of Sudan will improve once foreign
intervention in Sudan stops.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
from today's Worcester Telegram & Gazette
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061031/NEWS/610310655&SearchID=73261546764517

McGovern asks Bush to help stop Darfur genocide

Protesters at Clark University talk

By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
mmelady@telegram.com


WORCESTER— U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, called on the Bush administration to exert its world influence to end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan that has left 400,000 dead in the last three years, created 2 million refugees and made 3.5 million people completely dependent on international aid for survival.

“Our response to the genocide has been too timid,” Mr. McGovern said yesterday at Tilton Hall in Higgins University Center at Clark University. “We are better than our response has been. We have to be better. People are being systematically killed.”

The Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies sponsored Mr. McGovern’s appearance.

The 20,000 strong United Nations force for Darfur approved by the U.N. in August should be put together while pressure is brought to bear on the Sudanese government to accept the force, which it has not done, Mr. McGovern said. Such a force cannot be deployed without the host country’s approval.

Mr. McGovern also advocated for a no-fly zone over Darfur, saying the Sudanese government helicopters and small planes provide air cover for the Arab herdsmen militia known as the Janjaweed in their raids of largely black, agrarian villages.

“I’m not advocating the U.S. military lead the U.N. force or even that there should be U.S. boots on the ground in Darfur. We’ve got to increase humanitarian aid and ensure safe delivery to the people who need it,” Mr. McGovern said. “Every day aid workers are threatened, attacked and killed.”

The congressman suggested France could impose and enforce the no-fly zone.

Until a U.N. force arrives, the existing pan-African force should be strengthened and better equipped, he said. “They have 7,000 troops to cover an area the size of France. They are undermanned and ill-equipped but they are the only protection the people have.”

Before Mr. McGovern’s speech, Clark security police handcuffed and carried from the hall an anti-Zionist demonstrator after he allegedly refused to stop passing out literature. Peter L, 36, of Valdez, Ark., was taken to Worcester Police Headquarters and charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Another anti-Zionist demonstrator, David Rolde a member of the Green Rainbow Party of Massachusetts, agreed to leave the hall. Picketing outside Higgins, Mr. Rolde said they were there to express opposition to a U.S.-U.N.-Zionist invasion of Sudan “for oil and uranium.” A third picketed on Main Street across from Clark, which she described in her placard as a “fascist university.”

Deborah Dwork, director of the Strassler Center, told the audience of about 200 that the demonstrators were told they could distribute literature outside the hall but not in it. Mr. L. was carried out after a half an hour discussion with Clark security, she said. “They were welcome to stay,” Ms. Dwork said of the demonstrators. “All points of view are welcome here.”

Inside the hall, one questioner who said he had studied in Egypt and had a Sudanese roommate, called the violence in Sudan a civil war, not a genocide.

“I disagree,” Mr. McGovern replied, “and the secretary general of the U.N. disagrees. Colin Powell disagrees. Even the president of the United States disagrees. There’s a deliberate campaign going. The government is in cahoots with the Janjaweed militia to kill blacks.”

Note: Colin Powell got his start with the US military in Vietnam spinning the Mai Lai massacre. He went on to run the strategic hamlet program where Vietnamese fleeing US carpet bombing were incarcerated in concrete internment camps. More recently he was instramental in selling the deceptions for the US invasion of Iraq to the United Nations, but only after he forced the UN to cover up Gurnica the famous anti war painting in the backround.