|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
Hidden with code "Policy Violation" |
|
News :: Globalization |
|
Sudan, Ebola, Lord's Resistance Army And Israels hand |
Current rating: 0 |
by geffry AKA DAN "E-Ebola" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
05 Jul 2004
|
Israel, for example, trained Anya Nya recruits and shipped weapons via Ethiopia and Uganda to the rebels
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/spla.htm |
The origins of the civil war in the south date back to the 1950s. On August 18, 1955, the Equatoria Corps, a military unit composed of southerners, the rebels Existed because of foreign contacts to support train and supply weapons and support. Israel, for example, MOSSAD trained Anya Nya recruits and shipped weapons via Ethiopia and Uganda to the rebels..
The Lord's Resistance Army is a Jewish fundamentalist terror organization created by MOSSAD and led by self-anointed "prophet" Joseph Kony that demands adoption of the Ten Commandments as the Constitution. Note that the western media carefully avoid using the words "terrorists" or "jewish", although Joseph Kony's "Lord's Resistance Army" is both. Also note the AP's euphemistic use of the term "concubine" for the little girls, some as young as 7, turned into sex slaves by the jews.
If rather than being a jewish group named the "Lord's Resistance Army" demanding adoption of the Ten Commandments as the Constitution, it were instead a Muslim group named the "Ummah Resistance Army" demanding the implementation of Shari'a law, there can be no doubt that the western media would be howling about the outrages of an "Islamic fundamentalist terrorist" group.
Associated Press photos showing a few of the 20,000 children who are forced to flee to towns each night in sheer terror of being kidnapped by jews who force boys to fight and turn girls into sex slaves:
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Lord's+Resistance+Army&n=100&c=news_photos
Frightened Children Flee Rebels in Uganda
HENRY WASSWA
Associated Press
Saturday, June 28, 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030628/ap_on_re_af/uganda_night_refugees_2
GULU, Uganda - Alice Acielo has a family and a home, but the 11-year-old girl has slept on the streets of this town in northern Uganda for nearly a month.
Acielo is among an estimated 20,000 children who leave their families every night and walk more than a mile to the government-controlled town of Gulu, afraid to sleep in their own homes in rural areas where rebels known for abducting kids roam unopposed.
Northern Uganda is home turf of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, a group that has abducted up to 20,000 children, forcing boys to become soldiers and using the girls as concubines, international human rights organizations say. The only safe havens are towns like Gulu, where the army maintains a 24-hour presence.
Each day, when school ends, Acielo and her brothers rush home, drop off their books and uniforms and then make the two-mile hike to Gulu, about 225 miles north of Kampala, the capital.
At dawn, they rush back home to grab books and uniforms before heading to school.
"When I started school, I wanted to be a teacher," said Acielo, with a thin blanket slung over her shoulders and no shoes.
"But I think I will not complete school because of this war," she said.
The children settle down for the night at bus stops, in parks, or verandahs, wrapping themselves in dirty blankets and plastic sheets.
Other towns in northern Uganda are also flooded with children each night, Roman Catholic Church leaders from the region say.
On a recent night, Alice and nearly 2,000 other children crammed into the town's bus park, where they were joined by a group of Roman Catholic clergy who stayed with them.
"We hope our action will move the hearts of the combatants," said Carlos Rodriguez, a Spanish priest who has worked in the region for years with the Comboni missionaries.
Like the children, Rodriguez and his fellow priests slept with thin blankets and went without dinner or breakfast.
"In our culture, when someone dies, we all gather to express solidarity. These children have died, one way or the other. They have grown up in a war, been abducted, forced to leave their parents and relatives ... made to kill," said John Baptist Odama, the archbishop of Gulu. "So we church leaders have come here to sleep in the cold with the children."
But the priests acknowledge that hardly compares to what the children have endured.
According to Human Rights Watch, child abductions have skyrocketed since the government launched an offensive against rebel bases in neighboring Sudan more than a year ago.
The 17-year rebellion has ravaged northern Uganda, killing thousands and forcing 800,000 people to flee. The Lord's Resistance Army is a quasi-religious movement that seeks to overthrow the government of President Yoweri Museveni. The rebel group is led by Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers.
At the outset, Museveni promised a quick and decisive victory.
But the insurgents proved resilient. When the Ugandan army attacked their bases across the border in southern Sudan, the rebels simply broke into small groups and slipped back into Uganda.
Efforts to start peace talks have failed and the rebels keep pushing â?? abducting more children as they battle.
Church leaders in the largely Roman Catholic region say an increase in rebel attacks in recent weeks has driven up the number of children who nightly flock to Gulu.
On Tuesday, rebels attacked the eastern town of Soroti, about 175 miles from Kampala, and abducted 56 girls from a nearby school.
Patrick Ojok was abducted by the rebels in December. He was released a month later only because his feet got swollen on the long marches and he could no longer keep up.
Memories of the experience drive the 17-year-old into Gulu each night.
"They forced the young people to carry heavy loads," he said. "I saw many people, mostly adults, being killed."
More than 300,000 children under age 18 are fighting in armed conflicts around the world, with almost half in central Africa, according to the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. Most of the children are between ages 15 and 18, but some are as young as age 7.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030628/ap_on_re_af/uganda_night_refugees_2
Homepage: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030628/ap_on_re_af/uganda_night_refugees_2
The civil war resumed in 1983 when President Nimeiri imposed Shari'a law, and has resulted in the death of more than 1.5 million Sudanese since through 1997. The principal insurgent faction is the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a body created by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The SPLA was formed in 1983 when Lieutenant Colonel John Garang of the SPAF was sent to quell a mutiny in Bor of 500 southern troops who were resisting orders to be rotated to the north. Instead of ending the mutiny, Garang encouraged mutinies in other garrisons and set himself at the head of the rebellion against the Khartoum government. Garang, a Dinka born into a Christian family, had studied at Grinnell College, Iowa, and later returned to the United States to take a company commanders' course at Fort Benning, Georgia, and again to earn advanced economics degrees at Iowa State University. By 1986 the SPLA was estimated to have 12,500 adherents organized into twelve battalions and equipped with small arms and a few mortars. By 1989 the SPLA's strength had reached 20,000 to 30,000; by 1991 it was estimated at 50,000 to 60,000.
Since 1983, the SPLA has been divided into 3 main factions: the SPLA Torit faction led by John Garang; the SPLA Bahr-al-Ghazal faction led by Carabino Kuany Bol; and the South Sudan Independence Movement led by Rick Machar. These internal divisions have intensified fighting in the south, hampering any potential peace settlement. The SPLA remains the principal military force in the insurgency.
In April 1997 the South Sudan Independence Movement/Army (SSIM/A), which broke away from the SPLA, and several smaller southern factions concluded a peace agreement with the Government. These former insurgent elements then formed the United Democratic Salvation Front (UDSF). However, the SPLM, its armed wing, the SPLM/A, and most independent analysts have regarded the April 21 Agreement as a tactical government effort to enlist southerners on its side. The SPLM/A and its northern allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) carried out successful military offensives in areas along the borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea and in large parts of the south during the year. Neither side appears to have the ability to win the war militarily.
In 1996 the US government decided to send nearly $20 million of military equipment through the 'front-line' states of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda to help the Sudanese opposition overthrow the Khartoum regime. US officials denied that the military aid for the SPLA and the Sudanese Allied Forces (SAF), described as 'non-lethal' -- including radios, uniforms, boots and tents -- was targeted at Sudan. The Pentagon and CIA considered Sudan to be second only to Iran as a staging ground for international terrorism. CIA Director John Deutch made a 3-day visit to the Ethiopian capital in April 1996, where he noted that funds had been significantly increased for a more activist policy including preemptive strikes against terrorists and their sponsors. Reportedly several Operational Detachments-Alpha (also called A-Teams) of the US army were operating in support of the SPLA.
Many opposition Sudanese factions outside Sudan welcomed the 26 February 2002 merger decision between the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement, led by John Garang, and the forces of Sudan National Alliance [SNA] led by Rtd Brig-Gen Abd-al-Aziz Khalid into a one political organization.
On 27 July 2002 Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir met for the first time with John Garang, the leader of the country's southern rebel movement. The meeting took place in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, one week after government officials and rebels agreed on a framework for talks to end Sudan's 19-year-old civil war. Observers called it a historic moment, signaling another step toward ending a bitter 19-year conflict that has pitted the northern Islamist government against rebels in the south, where people practice mainly Christianity and traditional religions. President al-Bashir and Mr. Garang's meeting followed five weeks of talks in Kenya in which both sides agreed to enter negotiations next month to end the war. The framework agreement signed by government officials and rebels in Kenya on July 20th calls for Sudan's constitution to be rewritten so that the Islamic law, Sharia, will not be applied to non-Muslims in the south. It also calls for a referendum to be held in six years' time to determine whether the south should remain a part of Sudan or gain its independence.
Talks focused on issues that include the integration of rebel leaders into the government, organizing a cease-fire, human rights and the sharing of Sudan's oil wealth. The new moves toward ending the war in Sudan came after the United States intensified pressure on both sides to make peace.
Hopes for peace in Sudan were raised following the breakthrough made at the first round of Machakos talks on 20 July 2002 under the auspices of the Inter-governmental Authority on Regional Development (IGAD), chaired by Kenya. At that time, the government agreed that the south could hold a referendum on secession after a six-year interim period, and could be exempted from Islamic Sharia law. Those are both key issues for the rebels. The Machakos Protocol, signed between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan Peopleâ??s Liberation Movement/Army, represented an agreement on a broad framework on principles of governance, as well as procedures for a transitional process. As part of the Protocol, the Parties reached agreement on the right to self-determination for the people of south Sudan.
The Sudanese government and rebels signed at least a partial cease-fire agreement when peace talks re-open in Kenya in late October 2002. Fighting continued during previous rounds of the peace talks, which are taking place in the Kenyan town of Machakos, under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development. The Sudanese government broke off the talks in September 2002 after the rebels captured the strategically important southern garrison town of Torit. The government recaptured Torit after two weeks of heavy fighting. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told a victory rally that peace-talks could resume. But he said a cease-fire would not apply to areas of eastern Sudan that were recently taken by rebel forces. The US House of Representatives introduced a bill to sanction Sudan if its government does not negotiate in good faith with the rebels. President Bashir said he was not shaken by such threats.
The transitional military agreement was signed in late September 2003 in Naivasha, Kenya, between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan Peopleâ??s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). It dealt with the status of the two forces and arrangements for their integration. An internationally monitored ceasefire will come into effect from the date of a comprehensive peace agreement. It also forbids the use of the Governmentâ??s and the former secessionist armies to maintain domestic law and order, except in certain emergencies.
As of late 2003 the biggest stumbling block involved the three disputed territories: Abyei, Nuba Mountains and the South Blue Nile. All three have substantial oil or water resources and are claimed by both the north and south. In 1972 Abyei actually had been granted a referendum on whether to join the north or south, but it was never implemented. The discovery of oil reserves in the area since then has complicated matters.
On 28 November 2003 the government of Sudan and the country's main rebel group agreed to extend their cease-fire for another two months, pending the negotiation of a peace agreement. The Kenyan mediator of the Sudanese peace talks, retired General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, says the cease-fire extension will enable the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army to conclude their peace talks. The cease-fire has been extended before - usually for a six-month period - since the two sides began peace negotiations more than a year earlier. General Sumbeiywo says the two-month extension period shows that the two sides are close to a peace agreement.
The conflict in Sudan had killed two-million people, by some estimates, mainly as a result of famine induced by the war. Humanitarian organizations estimate that 4 million Sudanese have been displaced internally or have been forced to leave the country, Africa's largest, because of the long-running factional conflict. As many of the 1 million civilians affected by the conflict remain beyond the reach of relief workers due to continuing violence.
The issues still in dispute are how Sudanese revenues, including the country's growing oil income, are to be shared by the parties, and the status of three regions claimed by both sides in the conflict, the Nuba Mountains, Abyei, and the Southern Blue Nile. the rebels have already reached agreement on security arrangements, but have yet to determine whether the capital city, Khartoum, should be ruled by Islamic or secular law. The two sides hoped to reach a framework agreement by December 19th, when the current round of talks was scheduled to end. The negotiators in the Kenyan town of Naivasha could reach a comprehensive agreement in January 2004.
Some have accused Sudan of supporting the Lord's Resistance Army [LRA] because Uganda allegedly supports the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the rebel movement fighting against the Sudan government. Sudanese officials have denied supporting the LRA. However, relations between the two countries have improved in recent years. In 1999, Sudan and Uganda signed an agreement under which Sudan said it would stop aiding the LRA and Uganda would stop aiding the SPLA. In February 2003 Sudan agreed to let troops from neighboring Uganda enter its territory to attack the LRA rebels who had been trying for years to overthrow the Ugandan government.
Within one week of contracting the devastating virus known as Ebola-Zaire, the relentless attack of the disease liquefies all the victim's organs and tissue except bone and skeletal muscle. It's also known as African hemorrhagic fever because at the end stage as organs dissolve, blood sometimes drains from the eyes, mouth and every other orifice in the body. It leads to death in up to 90% of patients, usually within days. Anyone who comes in contact with a person infected with Ebola is at risk. An outbreak could turn into a national or international epidemic if an infected person travels to other parts of the world. Ebola emerged from the rainforests, as diseases do from unique ecosystems under destruction.
In the leafy suburb of Reston, Virginia, two outbreaks of the Ebola virus threatened the population of the greater Washington, D.C., area. As government, public relations flacks called for calm and assured the press and public that a slight problem was being corrected, a space-suited US Army decontamination team sealed off the Hazelton Research Products laboratory and transformed it into the biological equivalent of the lunar surface, a place where no living organism could survive.
Behind the scenes, Army bio-war specialists were at maximum pucker factor -- or kiss-your-ass-goodbye mode -- knowing they were witnessing the outbreak of a Bio-Safety Level (BSL) 4 contagion, the highest level of biological security. It was a new strain of one of the world's deadliest microbes. And this version of Ebola seemed to have learned a new trick: airborne transmission -- no physical contact necessary to spread the incurable, fatal infection. The crack of doom was in the air.
As it happened, the strain of virus that broke out in the Hazelton labs and came to be classified as Ebola-Reston differed from the deadly Ebola-Zaire strain, which first crashed into the world's consciousness in 1976, by a few random proteins on one strand of DNA -- similar enough to the original to slaughter every non-human primate in the lab but different enough to just give a few humans some flu-like symptoms before going to ground. The general populace and the seat of federal government were spared by a microscopic roll of the dice.
Add a dose of Tuberculosis (TB) - a disease with emerging, drug-resistant strains that is easily spread through the air when infectious people cough, sneeze or talk and is expected to kill 36 million people between 2002-2020 - a sprinkle of anthrax, a dash of SARS and West Nile virus and you may have part of the recipe for a new laboratory currently under construction at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC.
While there has been some local coverage of the issue in the Montgomery Gazette, the region's leading media including The Washington Post has been appallingly negligent in it's coverage of the issue. The story is this: Under the guise of the war on terror, the Bush administration has $10.6 billion to give to those willing to work with deadly, live pathogens -- vaguely classified as "known, new and reemerging infectious diseases," through its biodefense program.
You can almost hear the chaa-ching of the cash filling the coffers. A chunk of change so large - $1.2 billion - went to the civilian portion of the effort at NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that director Anthony Fauci reportedly said, "This is the largest single increase of any discipline in any institute, for any reason for any disease in the history of NIH, including escalation of HIV resources and the war on cancer."
The thick veil of secrecy that shrouds this project makes it difficult to know exactly which pathogens will be studied. Officials at NIH in Bethesda can't confirm what agents might be studied at the new lab, a BSL 3 lab. They do say that "exotic diseases" like Ebola will not be part of the mix at the new lab. Faith is fleeting though, because United Press International reports that there are six BSL level 4 labs "operating or nearly completed" in the United States. One of those is at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. So either there is an existing lab that studies Ebola in Bethesda, or officials are not being honest about what will be studied in the new lab.
Even if a lab starts as a BSL 3, bioterrorism lab's safety levels are upgraded and guidelines changed without notice to citizens. And all the new funding has accelerated the pace of upgrading current BSL levels. Such an attempt was recently stopped by New York Senators Hilary Clinton and Charles Schumer when they blocked the Homeland Security Department from upgrading a lab on Long Island to a BSL 4, so hemorrhagic fever could not be studied there.
An advocacy group, Coalition Against Bio-terror Labs, said that under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, "it would be illegal for them to release information about this research, or about any thefts, accidental or deliberate release of contagions or what agents are contained there."
With so much money available, there may be a similar lab coming to a location near you. They've already got the Washington metropolitan area surrounded by and speckled with BSL 3's and 4's. New bioterrorism labs are being constructed and old ones being upgraded as fast as the money can flow. Proposals to place bioterrorism facilities in populated areas have sparked citizen protests in other communities across the United States.
Call us NIMBY's (Not In My Backyard), or, better yet, call us NIABY's (Not In Anybody's Backyard), since such labs have no place in a highly populated, suburban center a few miles from our nation's capital. The present location at the outer edge of the NIH campus is a bomb's throw from the corner of Cedar Lane and Rockville Pike, one of the busiest commercial roadways in suburban Maryland. This location severely and unnecessarily jeopardizes the lives and health of our children, families and community. It threatens the security of our community and our nation. "Building 33," as it is known, leaves us vulnerable to attack, accidents and outbreaks of disease.
Coalition Against Bio-terror Labs claims that, "If dangerous materials were to leak from [a] lab or an infected animal [were to] escape, local residents - by law - may never be told." A safety failure, whether malicious or accidental, could be catastrophic given the NIH Bethesda campus's proximity to heavily populated residential neighborhoods, schools and businesses in Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia.
The lab is being built about 10 miles from the United States Capital and is very close to federal and military workplaces housing hundreds of thousands of employees and a large part of the brain trust required in the event of a national emergency. The lab is a short distance from the medical infrastructure upon which the region would depend in the event of a broad terrorist attack.
According to Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of NIH, there is no cause for concern. In a letter to U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes, Zerhouni, intoxicated by the lure of the Bush administration's offer of big bucks said, "At the request of NIH, Community Liaison Council (CLC), we have conducted a Risk Assessment for Building 33. The results of the Assessment indicate there is no risk of public harm posed by the operation of Building 33."
While we're all snug in our beds - not - visions of dollar signs are dancing in Zerhouni's head. He couldn't allow safety concerns to impede the flood of money, money, money to NIH. Despite the objections of citizens, neighborhood associations, community representatives, and Maryland's State and U.S. Senators and Representatives - NIH made the irrevocable decision to build this lab in its present location -- THEN they did their after-the-fact Risk Assessment.
Tom Gallagher, the guy on the inside who is supposed to be the liaison and ombudsman to our community, did not return phone calls for this article. He wrote to a neighbor telling her to take comfort in NIH's assertion that the diseases to be researched at this lab are only to be used defensively against emerging infectious diseases, including those that may be purposely spread by people seeking to do physical harm to our nation. Did anyone tell the terrorists that this lab cannot be targeted for an offensive, bioterror attack?
External fireworks by a truck or suicide bomber or a rocket-propelled grenade launched from the busy intersection of Cedar Land and Rockville Pike are not the only threats the lab poses to Bethesda and surrounding communities. Word that a scientist in Taiwan has developed SARS after working with the virus in a high-security laboratory has renewed concerns that a future outbreak of the disease could emerge not from the animal markets, but from a lab in any part of the world, according the Canadian Press. Scientists and personnel at NIH are the best in the business and will make the lab as safe as possible. But no facility is immune to accidents, and since this is a BSL 3 lab, any mishap could have dire consequences.
As an expert on the design of bio-safety labs recently told the Los Angeles Times, "We are getting as close to fail-safe as possible...as fail-safe as the space shuttle." The shuttle's failure rate per number of missions flown is downright pathetic. And when disasters happen on the space shuttle, sadly, half a dozen people die. Translate that to a safety failure of comparable magnitude at an NIH bioterrorism lab in the middle of Bethesda. The nuclear power industry has fail-safe systems, too. Is the bioterrorism industry promising only a few Chernobyl's and Three Mile Island's in the national capital area only once in while?
Citizens' reasonable request that the lab be located elsewhere, away from population centers - or moved to a less vulnerable location within the campus - are dismissed as "impractical." Dr. Zerhouni, shunting aside citizen's concerns, says "it would take an enormous amount of time and money," and it can't be placed in the NIH's campus interior because "there are no funds in NIH's current five year Buildings and Facilities Plan" to move the bioterrorism facility into "either new or renovated laboratory space."
Since concerns about our lives and health present an impractical inconvenience, perhaps Dr. Zerhouni should simply try to convince us: Ebola is good for you. If he thinks we believe that he cannot find the money for a reasonable lab location in this year's budget of $27 billion dollars, he obviously thinks the people of the national capital area are the biggest suckers since the Trojans let that gift horse through their gates. The other possibility is that he does not have the management skills that should be required of someone in his position. Either way, the time for polite questions and debate is over. It's time to put up our dukes and get down to it. Citizens and their leaders should demand that the bioterrorism lab be relocated to a less vulnerable place - and accept nothing less. |
This work is in the public domain |
Comments
|
Re: bzzzzt |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
05 Jul 2004
|
"Associated Press photos showing a few of the 20,000 children who are forced to flee to towns each night in sheer terror of being kidnapped by jews who force boys to fight and turn girls into sex slaves:"
Sorry, that's the wrong answer. Thanks for playing, and please try again in thirty days. I don't force anyone to fight, and I have surprisingly few sex slaves.
@%< |
|
