Press Release
September 04, 2009
New Delhi, India
India Betrays Farmers and Workers by Endorsing WTO December Texts; Mini-Ministerial Results in More US Demands
The much hyped Delhi mini-ministerial ended today with most developing country delegates saying that it was business as usual with negotiations going back to Geneva and Chairs of the Negotiating Committees of the Doha Round. However, Indian Commerce Minister Sharma summarized the meeting by saying that both the G20 and the G33, “were of the view that the texts of December 2008 must form the basis of future work.”
Late last year the chairs of the Agriculture and NAMA working groups
had issued revised draft texts to be used as the basis of further
negotiations. The texts were criticized by many developing countries as
imbalanced and that differences amongst the membership were not
adequately reflected. This flies in the face of India’s rhetoric that
the Delhi conclave was about development concerns.
“Minister Sharma promised us in a meeting with farmer leaders on September 1 that he would not undermine the interests of farmers in India at the WTO. Then he turns around and endorses an agriculture text that allows us to protect only 5% of our agriculture products from any customs duty cuts. Furthermore it has ineffective safeguard mechanisms that will not save our farmers from chronically subsidized products coming from the USA and EU. This is a clear betrayal of the 65 crore farming community that is already devastated by India’s agrarian crisis”. said Yudhvir Singh from the Bharatiya Kisan Union ( BKU). We will intensify our mobilizations at the local, state and national level until Minister Sharma and the Prime Minister live up to their promises of protecting farmers livelihoods.
The BKU organized a massive rally of 51,000 farmers who courted arrest in the Capital on September 3, the day the meetings began.
The three day affair was mainly a talk shop about process that resulted in yet another scheduled senior level meeting in Geneva on September 14. It also clearly revealed US’s agenda of even greater market access than is currently being offered in the December texts. The US for instance wants clear market access on specific crops such as corn, rice, cotton and soya---the crops heavily subsidized and dumped onto world markets. The latter three are a source of livelihood for millions of farmers and agriculture workers.
Ashim Roy, General Secretary of NTUI who led hundreds of workers from across from the country said that, “It is most disappointing to see India gloat over its feeble initiative to avoid being a scapegoat in the global arena at the expense of industrial workers and fisherfolk and undermining national autonomy. The December NAMA texts will leave as little as 1% of water between our applied and bound rates at the WTO. This is a real shame that India cares more about validation from the US and the G7 rather than the future of its own manufacturing and fisheries and defending the developing world.”
“The Indonesian trade minister as leader of the G33 will have a rude awakening back home in the months ahead as she has also endorsed the December texts. These ministers need to realize that it is not about numbers that the commerce industry compromises on but about life and death for farmers and workers who cannot compete with transnational agribusiness.” Said Henry Saraghi from the Indonesian Peasants Union and La Via Campesina.
ENDS
Contact: Yudhvir Singh, BKU 09868146405; Gautam Mody, NTUI 09868145370; Henri Saraghi, La Via Campesina This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Afsar Jafri, Focus on the Global South 09833070803
2.b. Open letter to UPA on WTO Trade Ministers Meeting in Delhi:
NO to reviving the flawed DOHA ROUND
Instead, the UPA should address
AGRARIAN, INDUSTRIAL and FINANCIAL CRISIS
September 02, 2009
Dear Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
Dear UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi,
Dear Commerce Minister Anand Sharma,
We believe that the Government of India’s attempt to ‘re-energize’ the stalled WTO talks is flawed and misguided. The proposed WTO Doha deal would only benefit the corporate interests of developed countries such as the USA and the EU and drastically eliminate our policy space to protect our real economy. By hosting a meeting of 35 Trade Ministers representing key WTO members and their coalitions (September 3-4 2009 in New Delhi), the Government hopes to move the Doha Round of trade negotiations towards conclusion no later than next year. The Government’s sudden proactive stance on the Doha deal will have far-reaching, irreversible and adverse consequences for the country’s economy and polity. It will severely increase the vulnerability of our agriculture sector to the vagaries of global trade, impacting our food security and over two-thirds of our population dependent on it. Moreover, it will increase the dependency of India’s industrial economy on advanced countries and exacerbate the impacts of the agrarian and financial crises at home.
India stands to lose on all key areas under negotiation – agriculture, fisheries, industrial tariffs, services and intellectual property. The EU and USA will not reduce their actual agricultural subsidies or accept demands for movement in labour in sectors such as services. In fact, the US’s Farm Act 2008 actually increases payouts to US farm lobbies. Rather than rectifying past imbalances of the trade regime, the USA and the EU are demanding that countries such as India enforce further cuts in agriculture, drastically reduce industrial tariffs and provide market access in key services sectors such as retail, construction and liberalise those such as banking and insurance---leading to further financial crises, increased costs and loss of both competitiveness and jobs.
The WTO proposals severely dilute provisions to protect our agriculture. They drastically limit the number of crops that can be exempt from tariff reductions and propose a highly ineffective mechanism to prevent import surges. Finally, the tariff reductions in the non-agriculture negotiations which include fisheries, other natural resources and industrial products will actually force us to cut our actual tariffs in many instances and lower our maximum allowed tariffs to just above current rates. And other onerous demands such as an “anti-concentration clause” and “sectorals” will have enormous impacts on our organised and unorganised sectors and the future of our manufacturing and fisheries sectors. In contrast rich countries will commit to much lower reductions in their duties and do nothing to their non-tariff barriers.
Our own economy has endured massive job-losses in export-led sectors due to the financial crisis and our trade deficit continues to rise. The government’s intention is to increase spending to manage the crisis, as well as procure basic food security and livelihoods for the “aam admi.” Yet, the government has failed to address tariff revenue losses that will result from an intensely liberalized regime through both the WTO and the over 19 FTAs that we are negotiating.
The averments of the Ministry of Commerce are well beyond the manifesto commitments on the WTO of the various parties in the UPA Government. Rather than “re-energizing” talks on a flawed framework, the government must go back and rewrite and re-strengthen its position on the protection of millions of our workers and farmers by safeguarding our agriculture and industries. India’s further engagement should not only be transparent but proactive in consulting those most affected by these agreements.
As signatories to this letter we urge that any position that the UPA Government pursues be on the WTO is set out in a white paper and discussed in the Parliament and the Government should not make any commitments without consulting the parliament and state legislatures.
Signatories in alphabetical order:
1. Mass organizations/ Peoples Collectives
71 Signatories
2. NGOs / Institutions
102 Signatories
3. Individuals
64 Individual Signatories
2.c. JUBILEE SOUTH REJECTS IMF BACKING OF HONDURAN COUP D'ETAT
The peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, have already accumulated far too much experience of the support proffered by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, to coup d'etats and policies that violate the rights of peoples and of nature. Without looking any further, it must be remembered that the IMF was one of the first international entities to recognize and offer support to the de facto regime headed by businessman Pedro Carmona, after the 2002 coup that sought to put an end to the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
Jubilee South rejects any action by the International Monetary Fund, or any other international entity, that implies recognition or support of the usurper government, headed by Roberto Micheletti, in Honduras. We reject in particular, the offering to the Central Bank of Honduras, on August 28, of the share corresponding to the State of Honduras of the recent emission of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as well as its share of the disbursement that will take place today.
Even though the distribution of these SDRs is supposed to be automatic – according to the size of the ecoomcy and its quota to the IMF – and without any conditionality other than those implied by being a member of the SDR Department of the IMF, and above and beyond any action that the Fund might now have taken to block their use until a new decision is taken, it is totally unacceptable that such resources be placed at the disposition of an illegitimate government. The disbursement of these resources, together with any other form of indebtedness contracted by the de facto regime, would constitute prima facie illegitimate debts that neither the Honduran people nor any legitimate future government would have cause to pay.
We call on the governments of the member States of the International Monetary Fund to take the necessary measures to ensure that this financial institution, one of the most important agents responsible for the impostion of the neoliberal policies of adjustment, privatization, and mercantilization of life and of nature that have provoked so much misery and crisis the world over, not be used either NOW OR EVER AGAIN, in order to contradict the will and the rights of peoples, as in the case now of Honduras where for more than 70 days, they remain firm in their resistance to the coup d’etat.
- Jubilee South
September 9, 2009
Coordinadora Internacional/
International Coordinator
JUBILEE SOUTH - JUBILEO SUR
Piedras 730
1070 Buenos Aires, Argentina
T/F +5411-43071867
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.jubileesouth.org
www.jubileosuramericas.org
skype: BeverlyKeene
2.d. Report of the Discussion on BMC’s ‘White Paper’ on Water Supply
Sept 07, 2009
Mumbai
Organised by: Mumbai Peoples Action Committee (MPAC) and Mumbai Paani
To address the issues of water supply in the city, MPAC (Mumbai People’s Action Committee), a Mumbai city coalition of organizations, trade unions & peoples’ movements and Mumbai Paani, an initiative of individuals, groups, organizations & social movements to address concerns and intervene in the ongoing privatization of water in the city of Mumbai called for a meeting to discuss the BMC’s white paper on water supply. Sitaram, from Mumbai Paani presented his analysis of the white paper.
The World Bank associated report of the ‘Water Distribution Improvement Programme’ that was to provide relief to K-Ward in Mumbai was rejected by the citizens. Following its failure, an ineffective program called ‘Sujal Mumbai Abhiyan’ was introduced. Municipal Corporators started questioning the project as the numbers provided by the department kept changing at all meetings and demanded a white paper on water supply.
The paper is divided into 2 parts. Part 1 talks about the current situation of water supply, and highlights the problems affecting water supply. Part 2 comprises of strategies for the future.
Key highlights of Part 1:
• BMC has the unique feature of being the only body to control water from its source to its distribution. Of the total 3720 million litres per day (MLD) supplied by the government, 120 MLD is supplied to Thane and surrounding villages and the remaining 3350 MLD is supplied to Mumbai. The balance 210 MLD is the distribution loss per day.
• Population increase and development regulations:
There has been a very high increase in the city’s population, especially in western suburbs. Population of P ward has increased 3 times over while that in R ward has increased 6 times over; hence problems of water supply are higher in these areas. In the last decade due to rehabilitation projects under MUTP & MUIP there is an increased demand for water supply in areas like Mankhurd, Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar, where such projects are located. The island city has a population of more than 32 lakhs and is supplied with 1140 MLD, while the western suburbs have a population of nearly 60 lakhs and receives 1320 MLD.
FSI in the island city has been increased from 1.3 to 2, in the suburbs from 1 to 1.33 and in case of slum redevelopment to 2.5 As if this was not enough, buildings constructed prior to 1940, have been allowed a maximum FSI of not more than 6. This has increased the pressure on the water distribution system. The paper suggests that the modification in the Development Control Regulation allowing additional FSI needs to be revisited to prevent the distribution system from further deterioration
New constructions are now provided with only 45 litres per person per day while the cut off date for slums is January 1995. Slums before January 1995 will not get any new connections.
• Challenges faced by the department:
1. In 2003, the average age of employees in this department was 48, which are now 53. Most of them are nearing the age of retirement, with almost no new recruits. These employees have a map of the water supply and distribution system in their minds which does not exist anywhere else. The Commissioner has not taken positive steps to increase recruits.
2. The steps take in planning are a big concern. The water distribution system was a part of the Master Plan in 1960s. Given the population increase, the plan was redeveloped in 1990, but there has been minimal implementation.
3. During the new constructions, new water connections are not planned and this is a problem faced by the hydraulic engineer.
4. Low-lying areas get water easily, while people at the tail end of the distribution line get almost no water.
5. Concretisation of roads is a major problem, as pipes are not diverted in this process nor is physical space allotted for new water lines.
• There is almost no co-ordination between the planning department and the water department, Officers in the department do now have power to sign and issue commands. The Municipal Councillors put pressure on the department to issue connections in their areas without taking into account the hydraulics.
Key highlights of Part 2 i.e. Future strategies:
1. The department is looking for new sources of water to fill the gap in the existing demand i.e. of 4200 MLD as against the current supply of 3350 MLD. The ambitious Middle Vaitarna project has been inaugurated a few times, but has not taken off yet.
2. There are plans to conduct a water audit to know what is amount of water received and the amount distributed. The department has asked WB to suggest agencies to carry out this audit.
3. They also plan to implement the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) for water management systems and the GIS (Geographic Information System) for water resources.
4. The department currently does not have flow meters for all the wards (even though the data it provides is ward-wise data)
5. The ‘leak-detection’ part of the department was closed in the 1980s, due to lack of funds. There are plans to start this department again, with a pilot project in P, R and D wards. The current mapping of the system exists in the minds of the employees who have worked for many decades; this map does not exist on paper and hence cannot be passed on to the next generation.
6. Demand management: Water meters, revise tariff structure, continuing with the current telescopic tariff for up to 150 litres, increased tariffs for above 150 litres.
7. Other suggestions include rain water harvesting, revival of wells and lakes, closing of public stand posts to stop leakages, recycling of water i.e. use water from the kitchen, bathrooms for flushing etc, toilets, desalination of sea water.
Limitations of the white paper:
1. The paper doesn’t provide any understanding of the financial aspect, capital expenditure and its impact.
2. Sujal Mumbai Abhiyan is not mentioned at all in this paper.
3. The nexus of the Municipal Commissioner, Councillors, Plumbers and the water mafia seem to have worked on this white water.
4. There are no strategies mentioned for implementation of the suggested solutions.
5. There is low emphasis on the K ward project
6. No details are provided about the telescopic tariff structure or on reduction of unaccounted / unauthorised water supply.
7. The white paper is almost causal with no concrete planning and analysis.
Other observations:
• Authorised plumbers play an important role, especially in leakage and stealing, illegal connections. The water mafia and Municipal Councillors make money from illegal connections. Most of the defaulters are mostly government departments, institutions, police stations, railways, hospitals, big landlords, etc
• Development is not planned and there is lack of political and bureaucratic will to improve the system.
• Commissioner is working on involving more private players.
• There is also environmental disjunction due to increasing water supply.
• There exists discrimination i.e. unequal distribution of water.
• In the island city, there is a higher percentage of leakage, as most of the machineries used are very old in that area.
• To say that slums after 1995 will not get water cannot be accepted and it should be a grave concern that water maybe denied to people officially.
• Under RTI, no figures are available on how much is saved on fixing leakages. The only information available is the number of complaints / leak detections that were attended to. There is no measuring system to measure the amount of water saved, no mechanism to cross check.
• Water supply is easier, when flow is by gravity. To push water upwards to the city requires many crores to be spent on the power supply and there is no information is available on these expenses.
Suggestions:
• Though large slums, use water, the various projects with high FSI under SRA and DCR modifications use much more. There should be a discussion with the department, with regards to this. Un-regulated water supply should be looked at.
• Monitoring of water supply to residential and bulk water supply to commercial areas is a must.
• There has to more study on if there is a need for 24 x 7 water supply. Though, when there is no continuous water supply, there is a vacuum created and contamination may occur from outside.
• Given the future increase in Mumbai’s population, we also need to reflect on how our water sources and supply will affect rural areas surrounding the city and their water requirement.
• There should emphasis on water conservation in sizeable areas that can make a difference, i.e. Airports, railways, institutional areas
• Water management at all levels should be looked into i.e. catchments to resource, resource level and from resource to destination.
Immediate steps:
• The first step is to write to the concerned authorities accepting and appreciating the white paper as civil society organisations to establish a dialogue.
• Further, to ask for a white paper complete with the information missing, for example: the information on finance and capital expenditure.
2.e. Statement regarding the Jet Airways situation, by Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti
September 10, 2009
Mumbai, India
GIRNI KAMGAR SANGHARSH SAMITI
48, Panwala Chawl, Bldg No. 3, Dr SS Road, Lalbag, Mumbai-400012. ph: 24174048
Statement regarding the Jet Airways situation:
The Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti condemns the Jet Airways management for behaving irresponsibly towards its customers and patrons and putting the ego of the management and ownership before the interests of passengers and its employees. It clearly blackmailed its pilots thereby forcing them to issue a strike notice. The calculation of the management of Jet was that the pilots would give up their fundamental right to organize, wind up their association and come meekly to them on their knees. Unfortunately for them this did not happen.
The right to form an association is a well known fundamental right guaranteed in the constitution of India. However managements, governments and even courts often consider the right to do business as a more fundamental right.
Strict action must be taken against Jet Airways for dismissing two senior pilots, which moreover they did through an e-mail simply saying that their services were no longer required. They gave no reasons because they were clearly breaking the law. The only reason they were summarily thrown out was because they were instrumental in registering a guild.
The mill workers of Mumbai and the residents of mill chawls, as a proud part of the working class and heritage of Mumbai city, urge the government of Maharashtra as well as the Government of India to intercede in the matter and protect the constitutional rights of the Jet employees. The two pilots must be taken back on duty, and the union recognized. We stand by the Jet pilots and the employees who are bravely standing up for their rights. The governments at both state as well as central level are more and more taking unprincipled positions against common people and supporting and bailing out corporations and managements even when they are clearly breaking the law.
We also urge passengers to support the Jet pilots in their just fight, and to reject the attempts of Jet Airways to portray the pilots as the culprits instead of the management.
Datta Iswalkar, Meena Menon
Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti
2.f. What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say, Statement by Muntadhar al Zaidi
BAGHDAD — Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest that gained international notoriety, was freed from an Iraqi prison Tuesday after nine months behind bars and gave a passionate defense of his actions.
Here are his remarks, translated by McClatchy special correspondent Sahar Issa.
In the name of God, the most gracious and most merciful.
Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.
Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland's) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ, may peace be upon him. And despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than 10 years, for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. Until we were invaded by the illusion of liberation that some had. (The occupation) divided one brother from another, one neighbor from another, and the son from his uncle. It turned our homes into neverending funeral tents. And our graveyards spread into parks and roadsides. It is a plague. It is the occupation that is killing us, that is violating the houses of worship and the sanctity of our homes and that is throwing thousands daily into makeshift prisons.
I am not a hero, and I admit that. But I have a point of view and I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated. And to see my Baghdad burned. And my people being killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, and this weighs on me every day and pushes me toward the righteous path, the path of confrontation, the path of rejecting injustice, deceit and duplicity. It deprived me of a good night's sleep.
Dozens, no, hundreds, of images of massacres that would turn the hair of a newborn white used to bring tears to my eyes and wound me.
The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Fallujah, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. In the past years, I traveled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and hear with my own ears the screams of the bereaved and the orphans. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
And as soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies of the Iraqis, and while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the traces of the blood of victims that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: Do you know how many broken homes that shoe that I threw had entered because of the occupation? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? And how many times it had entered homes in which free Iraqi women and their sanctity had been violated? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
After six years of humiliation, of indignity, of killing and violations of sanctity, and desecration of houses of worship, the killer comes, boasting, bragging about victory and democracy. He came to say goodbye to his victims and wanted flowers in response.
Put simply, that was my flower to the occupier, and to all who are in league with him, whether by spreading lies or taking action, before the occupation or after.
I wanted to defend the honor of my profession and suppressed patriotism on the day the country was violated and its high honor lost.
Some say: Why didn't he ask Bush an embarrassing question at the press conference, to shame him? And now I will answer you, journalists. How can I ask Bush when we were ordered to ask no questions before the press conference began, but only to cover the event. It was prohibited for any person to question Bush.
And in regard to professionalism: The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism were to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.
I take this opportunity: If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I wish to apologize to you for any embarrassment I may have caused those establishments. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day.
History mentions many stories where professionalism was also compromised at the hands of American policymakers, whether in the assassination attempt against Fidel Castro by booby-trapping a TV camera that CIA agents posing as journalists from Cuban TV were carrying, or what they did in the Iraqi war by deceiving the general public about what was happening. And there are many other examples that I won't get into here.
But what I would like to call your attention to is that these suspicious agencies -- the American intelligence and its other agencies and those that follow them -- will not spare any effort to track me down (because I am) a rebel opposed to their occupation. They will try to kill me or neutralize me, and I call the attention of those who are close to me to the traps that these agencies will set up to capture or kill me in various ways, physically, socially or professionally.
And at the time that the Iraqi prime minister came out on satellite channels to say that he didn't sleep until he had checked in on my safety, and that I had found a bed and a blanket, even as he spoke I was being tortured with the most horrific methods: electric shocks, getting hit with cables, getting hit with metal rods, and all this in the backyard of the place where the press conference was held. And the conference was still going on and I could hear the voices of the people in it. And maybe they, too, could hear my screams and moans.
In the morning, I was left in the cold of winter, tied up after they soaked me in water at dawn. And I apologize for Mr. Maliki for keeping the truth from the people. I will speak later, giving names of the people who were involved in torturing me, and some of them were high-ranking officials inthe government and in the army.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country, and that is a legitimate cause confirmed by international laws and divine rights. I wanted to defend a country, an ancient civilization that has been desecrated, and I am sure that history -- especially in America -- will state how the American occupation was able to subjugate Iraq and Iraqis, until its submission.
They will boast about the deceit and the means they used in order to gain their objective. It is not strange, not much different from what happened to the Native Americans at the hands of colonialists. Here I say to them (the occupiers) and to all who follow their steps, and all those who support them and spoke up for their cause: Never.
Because we are a people who would rather die than face humiliation.
And, lastly, I say that I am independent. I am not a member of any political party, something that was said during torture -- one time that I'm far-right, another that I'm a leftist. I am independent of any political party, and my future efforts will be in civil service to my people and to any who need it, without waging any political wars, as some said that I would.
My efforts will be toward providing care for widows and orphans, and all those whose lives were damaged by the occupation. I pray for mercy upon the souls of the martyrs who fell in wounded Iraq, and for shame upon those who occupied Iraq and everyone who assisted them in their abominable acts. And I pray for peace upon those who are in their graves, and those who are oppressed with the chains of imprisonment.
And peace be upon you who are patient and looking to God for release.
And to my beloved country I say: If the night of injustice is prolonged, it will not stop the rising of a sun and it will be the sun of freedom.
One last word. I say to the government: It is a trust that I carry from my fellow detainees. They said, 'Muntadhar, if you get out, tell of our plight to the omnipotent powers' -- I know that only God is omnipotent and I pray to Him -- 'remind them that there are dozens, hundreds, of victims rotting in prisons because of an informant's word.'
They have been there for years, they have not been charged or tried. They've only been snatched up from the streets and put into these prisons. And now, in front of you, and in the presence of God, I hope they can hear me or see me. I have now made good on my promise of reminding the government and the officials and the politicians to look into what's happening inside the prisons. The injustice that's caused by the delay in the judicial system.
Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
“Minister Sharma promised us in a meeting with farmer leaders on September 1 that he would not undermine the interests of farmers in India at the WTO. Then he turns around and endorses an agriculture text that allows us to protect only 5% of our agriculture products from any customs duty cuts. Furthermore it has ineffective safeguard mechanisms that will not save our farmers from chronically subsidized products coming from the USA and EU. This is a clear betrayal of the 65 crore farming community that is already devastated by India’s agrarian crisis”. said Yudhvir Singh from the Bharatiya Kisan Union ( BKU). We will intensify our mobilizations at the local, state and national level until Minister Sharma and the Prime Minister live up to their promises of protecting farmers livelihoods.
The BKU organized a massive rally of 51,000 farmers who courted arrest in the Capital on September 3, the day the meetings began.
The three day affair was mainly a talk shop about process that resulted in yet another scheduled senior level meeting in Geneva on September 14. It also clearly revealed US’s agenda of even greater market access than is currently being offered in the December texts. The US for instance wants clear market access on specific crops such as corn, rice, cotton and soya---the crops heavily subsidized and dumped onto world markets. The latter three are a source of livelihood for millions of farmers and agriculture workers.
Ashim Roy, General Secretary of NTUI who led hundreds of workers from across from the country said that, “It is most disappointing to see India gloat over its feeble initiative to avoid being a scapegoat in the global arena at the expense of industrial workers and fisherfolk and undermining national autonomy. The December NAMA texts will leave as little as 1% of water between our applied and bound rates at the WTO. This is a real shame that India cares more about validation from the US and the G7 rather than the future of its own manufacturing and fisheries and defending the developing world.”
“The Indonesian trade minister as leader of the G33 will have a rude awakening back home in the months ahead as she has also endorsed the December texts. These ministers need to realize that it is not about numbers that the commerce industry compromises on but about life and death for farmers and workers who cannot compete with transnational agribusiness.” Said Henry Saraghi from the Indonesian Peasants Union and La Via Campesina.
ENDS
Contact: Yudhvir Singh, BKU 09868146405; Gautam Mody, NTUI 09868145370; Henri Saraghi, La Via Campesina This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Afsar Jafri, Focus on the Global South 09833070803
2.b. Open letter to UPA on WTO Trade Ministers Meeting in Delhi:
NO to reviving the flawed DOHA ROUND
Instead, the UPA should address
AGRARIAN, INDUSTRIAL and FINANCIAL CRISIS
September 02, 2009
Dear Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
Dear UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi,
Dear Commerce Minister Anand Sharma,
We believe that the Government of India’s attempt to ‘re-energize’ the stalled WTO talks is flawed and misguided. The proposed WTO Doha deal would only benefit the corporate interests of developed countries such as the USA and the EU and drastically eliminate our policy space to protect our real economy. By hosting a meeting of 35 Trade Ministers representing key WTO members and their coalitions (September 3-4 2009 in New Delhi), the Government hopes to move the Doha Round of trade negotiations towards conclusion no later than next year. The Government’s sudden proactive stance on the Doha deal will have far-reaching, irreversible and adverse consequences for the country’s economy and polity. It will severely increase the vulnerability of our agriculture sector to the vagaries of global trade, impacting our food security and over two-thirds of our population dependent on it. Moreover, it will increase the dependency of India’s industrial economy on advanced countries and exacerbate the impacts of the agrarian and financial crises at home.
India stands to lose on all key areas under negotiation – agriculture, fisheries, industrial tariffs, services and intellectual property. The EU and USA will not reduce their actual agricultural subsidies or accept demands for movement in labour in sectors such as services. In fact, the US’s Farm Act 2008 actually increases payouts to US farm lobbies. Rather than rectifying past imbalances of the trade regime, the USA and the EU are demanding that countries such as India enforce further cuts in agriculture, drastically reduce industrial tariffs and provide market access in key services sectors such as retail, construction and liberalise those such as banking and insurance---leading to further financial crises, increased costs and loss of both competitiveness and jobs.
The WTO proposals severely dilute provisions to protect our agriculture. They drastically limit the number of crops that can be exempt from tariff reductions and propose a highly ineffective mechanism to prevent import surges. Finally, the tariff reductions in the non-agriculture negotiations which include fisheries, other natural resources and industrial products will actually force us to cut our actual tariffs in many instances and lower our maximum allowed tariffs to just above current rates. And other onerous demands such as an “anti-concentration clause” and “sectorals” will have enormous impacts on our organised and unorganised sectors and the future of our manufacturing and fisheries sectors. In contrast rich countries will commit to much lower reductions in their duties and do nothing to their non-tariff barriers.
Our own economy has endured massive job-losses in export-led sectors due to the financial crisis and our trade deficit continues to rise. The government’s intention is to increase spending to manage the crisis, as well as procure basic food security and livelihoods for the “aam admi.” Yet, the government has failed to address tariff revenue losses that will result from an intensely liberalized regime through both the WTO and the over 19 FTAs that we are negotiating.
The averments of the Ministry of Commerce are well beyond the manifesto commitments on the WTO of the various parties in the UPA Government. Rather than “re-energizing” talks on a flawed framework, the government must go back and rewrite and re-strengthen its position on the protection of millions of our workers and farmers by safeguarding our agriculture and industries. India’s further engagement should not only be transparent but proactive in consulting those most affected by these agreements.
As signatories to this letter we urge that any position that the UPA Government pursues be on the WTO is set out in a white paper and discussed in the Parliament and the Government should not make any commitments without consulting the parliament and state legislatures.
Signatories in alphabetical order:
1. Mass organizations/ Peoples Collectives
71 Signatories
2. NGOs / Institutions
102 Signatories
3. Individuals
64 Individual Signatories
2.c. JUBILEE SOUTH REJECTS IMF BACKING OF HONDURAN COUP D'ETAT
The peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, have already accumulated far too much experience of the support proffered by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, to coup d'etats and policies that violate the rights of peoples and of nature. Without looking any further, it must be remembered that the IMF was one of the first international entities to recognize and offer support to the de facto regime headed by businessman Pedro Carmona, after the 2002 coup that sought to put an end to the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
Jubilee South rejects any action by the International Monetary Fund, or any other international entity, that implies recognition or support of the usurper government, headed by Roberto Micheletti, in Honduras. We reject in particular, the offering to the Central Bank of Honduras, on August 28, of the share corresponding to the State of Honduras of the recent emission of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as well as its share of the disbursement that will take place today.
Even though the distribution of these SDRs is supposed to be automatic – according to the size of the ecoomcy and its quota to the IMF – and without any conditionality other than those implied by being a member of the SDR Department of the IMF, and above and beyond any action that the Fund might now have taken to block their use until a new decision is taken, it is totally unacceptable that such resources be placed at the disposition of an illegitimate government. The disbursement of these resources, together with any other form of indebtedness contracted by the de facto regime, would constitute prima facie illegitimate debts that neither the Honduran people nor any legitimate future government would have cause to pay.
We call on the governments of the member States of the International Monetary Fund to take the necessary measures to ensure that this financial institution, one of the most important agents responsible for the impostion of the neoliberal policies of adjustment, privatization, and mercantilization of life and of nature that have provoked so much misery and crisis the world over, not be used either NOW OR EVER AGAIN, in order to contradict the will and the rights of peoples, as in the case now of Honduras where for more than 70 days, they remain firm in their resistance to the coup d’etat.
- Jubilee South
September 9, 2009
Coordinadora Internacional/
International Coordinator
JUBILEE SOUTH - JUBILEO SUR
Piedras 730
1070 Buenos Aires, Argentina
T/F +5411-43071867
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.jubileesouth.org
www.jubileosuramericas.org
skype: BeverlyKeene
2.d. Report of the Discussion on BMC’s ‘White Paper’ on Water Supply
Sept 07, 2009
Mumbai
Organised by: Mumbai Peoples Action Committee (MPAC) and Mumbai Paani
To address the issues of water supply in the city, MPAC (Mumbai People’s Action Committee), a Mumbai city coalition of organizations, trade unions & peoples’ movements and Mumbai Paani, an initiative of individuals, groups, organizations & social movements to address concerns and intervene in the ongoing privatization of water in the city of Mumbai called for a meeting to discuss the BMC’s white paper on water supply. Sitaram, from Mumbai Paani presented his analysis of the white paper.
The World Bank associated report of the ‘Water Distribution Improvement Programme’ that was to provide relief to K-Ward in Mumbai was rejected by the citizens. Following its failure, an ineffective program called ‘Sujal Mumbai Abhiyan’ was introduced. Municipal Corporators started questioning the project as the numbers provided by the department kept changing at all meetings and demanded a white paper on water supply.
The paper is divided into 2 parts. Part 1 talks about the current situation of water supply, and highlights the problems affecting water supply. Part 2 comprises of strategies for the future.
Key highlights of Part 1:
• BMC has the unique feature of being the only body to control water from its source to its distribution. Of the total 3720 million litres per day (MLD) supplied by the government, 120 MLD is supplied to Thane and surrounding villages and the remaining 3350 MLD is supplied to Mumbai. The balance 210 MLD is the distribution loss per day.
• Population increase and development regulations:
There has been a very high increase in the city’s population, especially in western suburbs. Population of P ward has increased 3 times over while that in R ward has increased 6 times over; hence problems of water supply are higher in these areas. In the last decade due to rehabilitation projects under MUTP & MUIP there is an increased demand for water supply in areas like Mankhurd, Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar, where such projects are located. The island city has a population of more than 32 lakhs and is supplied with 1140 MLD, while the western suburbs have a population of nearly 60 lakhs and receives 1320 MLD.
FSI in the island city has been increased from 1.3 to 2, in the suburbs from 1 to 1.33 and in case of slum redevelopment to 2.5 As if this was not enough, buildings constructed prior to 1940, have been allowed a maximum FSI of not more than 6. This has increased the pressure on the water distribution system. The paper suggests that the modification in the Development Control Regulation allowing additional FSI needs to be revisited to prevent the distribution system from further deterioration
New constructions are now provided with only 45 litres per person per day while the cut off date for slums is January 1995. Slums before January 1995 will not get any new connections.
• Challenges faced by the department:
1. In 2003, the average age of employees in this department was 48, which are now 53. Most of them are nearing the age of retirement, with almost no new recruits. These employees have a map of the water supply and distribution system in their minds which does not exist anywhere else. The Commissioner has not taken positive steps to increase recruits.
2. The steps take in planning are a big concern. The water distribution system was a part of the Master Plan in 1960s. Given the population increase, the plan was redeveloped in 1990, but there has been minimal implementation.
3. During the new constructions, new water connections are not planned and this is a problem faced by the hydraulic engineer.
4. Low-lying areas get water easily, while people at the tail end of the distribution line get almost no water.
5. Concretisation of roads is a major problem, as pipes are not diverted in this process nor is physical space allotted for new water lines.
• There is almost no co-ordination between the planning department and the water department, Officers in the department do now have power to sign and issue commands. The Municipal Councillors put pressure on the department to issue connections in their areas without taking into account the hydraulics.
Key highlights of Part 2 i.e. Future strategies:
1. The department is looking for new sources of water to fill the gap in the existing demand i.e. of 4200 MLD as against the current supply of 3350 MLD. The ambitious Middle Vaitarna project has been inaugurated a few times, but has not taken off yet.
2. There are plans to conduct a water audit to know what is amount of water received and the amount distributed. The department has asked WB to suggest agencies to carry out this audit.
3. They also plan to implement the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) for water management systems and the GIS (Geographic Information System) for water resources.
4. The department currently does not have flow meters for all the wards (even though the data it provides is ward-wise data)
5. The ‘leak-detection’ part of the department was closed in the 1980s, due to lack of funds. There are plans to start this department again, with a pilot project in P, R and D wards. The current mapping of the system exists in the minds of the employees who have worked for many decades; this map does not exist on paper and hence cannot be passed on to the next generation.
6. Demand management: Water meters, revise tariff structure, continuing with the current telescopic tariff for up to 150 litres, increased tariffs for above 150 litres.
7. Other suggestions include rain water harvesting, revival of wells and lakes, closing of public stand posts to stop leakages, recycling of water i.e. use water from the kitchen, bathrooms for flushing etc, toilets, desalination of sea water.
Limitations of the white paper:
1. The paper doesn’t provide any understanding of the financial aspect, capital expenditure and its impact.
2. Sujal Mumbai Abhiyan is not mentioned at all in this paper.
3. The nexus of the Municipal Commissioner, Councillors, Plumbers and the water mafia seem to have worked on this white water.
4. There are no strategies mentioned for implementation of the suggested solutions.
5. There is low emphasis on the K ward project
6. No details are provided about the telescopic tariff structure or on reduction of unaccounted / unauthorised water supply.
7. The white paper is almost causal with no concrete planning and analysis.
Other observations:
• Authorised plumbers play an important role, especially in leakage and stealing, illegal connections. The water mafia and Municipal Councillors make money from illegal connections. Most of the defaulters are mostly government departments, institutions, police stations, railways, hospitals, big landlords, etc
• Development is not planned and there is lack of political and bureaucratic will to improve the system.
• Commissioner is working on involving more private players.
• There is also environmental disjunction due to increasing water supply.
• There exists discrimination i.e. unequal distribution of water.
• In the island city, there is a higher percentage of leakage, as most of the machineries used are very old in that area.
• To say that slums after 1995 will not get water cannot be accepted and it should be a grave concern that water maybe denied to people officially.
• Under RTI, no figures are available on how much is saved on fixing leakages. The only information available is the number of complaints / leak detections that were attended to. There is no measuring system to measure the amount of water saved, no mechanism to cross check.
• Water supply is easier, when flow is by gravity. To push water upwards to the city requires many crores to be spent on the power supply and there is no information is available on these expenses.
Suggestions:
• Though large slums, use water, the various projects with high FSI under SRA and DCR modifications use much more. There should be a discussion with the department, with regards to this. Un-regulated water supply should be looked at.
• Monitoring of water supply to residential and bulk water supply to commercial areas is a must.
• There has to more study on if there is a need for 24 x 7 water supply. Though, when there is no continuous water supply, there is a vacuum created and contamination may occur from outside.
• Given the future increase in Mumbai’s population, we also need to reflect on how our water sources and supply will affect rural areas surrounding the city and their water requirement.
• There should emphasis on water conservation in sizeable areas that can make a difference, i.e. Airports, railways, institutional areas
• Water management at all levels should be looked into i.e. catchments to resource, resource level and from resource to destination.
Immediate steps:
• The first step is to write to the concerned authorities accepting and appreciating the white paper as civil society organisations to establish a dialogue.
• Further, to ask for a white paper complete with the information missing, for example: the information on finance and capital expenditure.
2.e. Statement regarding the Jet Airways situation, by Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti
September 10, 2009
Mumbai, India
GIRNI KAMGAR SANGHARSH SAMITI
48, Panwala Chawl, Bldg No. 3, Dr SS Road, Lalbag, Mumbai-400012. ph: 24174048
Statement regarding the Jet Airways situation:
The Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti condemns the Jet Airways management for behaving irresponsibly towards its customers and patrons and putting the ego of the management and ownership before the interests of passengers and its employees. It clearly blackmailed its pilots thereby forcing them to issue a strike notice. The calculation of the management of Jet was that the pilots would give up their fundamental right to organize, wind up their association and come meekly to them on their knees. Unfortunately for them this did not happen.
The right to form an association is a well known fundamental right guaranteed in the constitution of India. However managements, governments and even courts often consider the right to do business as a more fundamental right.
Strict action must be taken against Jet Airways for dismissing two senior pilots, which moreover they did through an e-mail simply saying that their services were no longer required. They gave no reasons because they were clearly breaking the law. The only reason they were summarily thrown out was because they were instrumental in registering a guild.
The mill workers of Mumbai and the residents of mill chawls, as a proud part of the working class and heritage of Mumbai city, urge the government of Maharashtra as well as the Government of India to intercede in the matter and protect the constitutional rights of the Jet employees. The two pilots must be taken back on duty, and the union recognized. We stand by the Jet pilots and the employees who are bravely standing up for their rights. The governments at both state as well as central level are more and more taking unprincipled positions against common people and supporting and bailing out corporations and managements even when they are clearly breaking the law.
We also urge passengers to support the Jet pilots in their just fight, and to reject the attempts of Jet Airways to portray the pilots as the culprits instead of the management.
Datta Iswalkar, Meena Menon
Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti
2.f. What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say, Statement by Muntadhar al Zaidi
BAGHDAD — Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest that gained international notoriety, was freed from an Iraqi prison Tuesday after nine months behind bars and gave a passionate defense of his actions.
Here are his remarks, translated by McClatchy special correspondent Sahar Issa.
In the name of God, the most gracious and most merciful.
Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.
Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland's) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ, may peace be upon him. And despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than 10 years, for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. Until we were invaded by the illusion of liberation that some had. (The occupation) divided one brother from another, one neighbor from another, and the son from his uncle. It turned our homes into neverending funeral tents. And our graveyards spread into parks and roadsides. It is a plague. It is the occupation that is killing us, that is violating the houses of worship and the sanctity of our homes and that is throwing thousands daily into makeshift prisons.
I am not a hero, and I admit that. But I have a point of view and I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated. And to see my Baghdad burned. And my people being killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, and this weighs on me every day and pushes me toward the righteous path, the path of confrontation, the path of rejecting injustice, deceit and duplicity. It deprived me of a good night's sleep.
Dozens, no, hundreds, of images of massacres that would turn the hair of a newborn white used to bring tears to my eyes and wound me.
The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Fallujah, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. In the past years, I traveled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and hear with my own ears the screams of the bereaved and the orphans. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
And as soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies of the Iraqis, and while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the traces of the blood of victims that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: Do you know how many broken homes that shoe that I threw had entered because of the occupation? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? And how many times it had entered homes in which free Iraqi women and their sanctity had been violated? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
After six years of humiliation, of indignity, of killing and violations of sanctity, and desecration of houses of worship, the killer comes, boasting, bragging about victory and democracy. He came to say goodbye to his victims and wanted flowers in response.
Put simply, that was my flower to the occupier, and to all who are in league with him, whether by spreading lies or taking action, before the occupation or after.
I wanted to defend the honor of my profession and suppressed patriotism on the day the country was violated and its high honor lost.
Some say: Why didn't he ask Bush an embarrassing question at the press conference, to shame him? And now I will answer you, journalists. How can I ask Bush when we were ordered to ask no questions before the press conference began, but only to cover the event. It was prohibited for any person to question Bush.
And in regard to professionalism: The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism were to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.
I take this opportunity: If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I wish to apologize to you for any embarrassment I may have caused those establishments. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day.
History mentions many stories where professionalism was also compromised at the hands of American policymakers, whether in the assassination attempt against Fidel Castro by booby-trapping a TV camera that CIA agents posing as journalists from Cuban TV were carrying, or what they did in the Iraqi war by deceiving the general public about what was happening. And there are many other examples that I won't get into here.
But what I would like to call your attention to is that these suspicious agencies -- the American intelligence and its other agencies and those that follow them -- will not spare any effort to track me down (because I am) a rebel opposed to their occupation. They will try to kill me or neutralize me, and I call the attention of those who are close to me to the traps that these agencies will set up to capture or kill me in various ways, physically, socially or professionally.
And at the time that the Iraqi prime minister came out on satellite channels to say that he didn't sleep until he had checked in on my safety, and that I had found a bed and a blanket, even as he spoke I was being tortured with the most horrific methods: electric shocks, getting hit with cables, getting hit with metal rods, and all this in the backyard of the place where the press conference was held. And the conference was still going on and I could hear the voices of the people in it. And maybe they, too, could hear my screams and moans.
In the morning, I was left in the cold of winter, tied up after they soaked me in water at dawn. And I apologize for Mr. Maliki for keeping the truth from the people. I will speak later, giving names of the people who were involved in torturing me, and some of them were high-ranking officials inthe government and in the army.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country, and that is a legitimate cause confirmed by international laws and divine rights. I wanted to defend a country, an ancient civilization that has been desecrated, and I am sure that history -- especially in America -- will state how the American occupation was able to subjugate Iraq and Iraqis, until its submission.
They will boast about the deceit and the means they used in order to gain their objective. It is not strange, not much different from what happened to the Native Americans at the hands of colonialists. Here I say to them (the occupiers) and to all who follow their steps, and all those who support them and spoke up for their cause: Never.
Because we are a people who would rather die than face humiliation.
And, lastly, I say that I am independent. I am not a member of any political party, something that was said during torture -- one time that I'm far-right, another that I'm a leftist. I am independent of any political party, and my future efforts will be in civil service to my people and to any who need it, without waging any political wars, as some said that I would.
My efforts will be toward providing care for widows and orphans, and all those whose lives were damaged by the occupation. I pray for mercy upon the souls of the martyrs who fell in wounded Iraq, and for shame upon those who occupied Iraq and everyone who assisted them in their abominable acts. And I pray for peace upon those who are in their graves, and those who are oppressed with the chains of imprisonment.
And peace be upon you who are patient and looking to God for release.
And to my beloved country I say: If the night of injustice is prolonged, it will not stop the rising of a sun and it will be the sun of freedom.
One last word. I say to the government: It is a trust that I carry from my fellow detainees. They said, 'Muntadhar, if you get out, tell of our plight to the omnipotent powers' -- I know that only God is omnipotent and I pray to Him -- 'remind them that there are dozens, hundreds, of victims rotting in prisons because of an informant's word.'
They have been there for years, they have not been charged or tried. They've only been snatched up from the streets and put into these prisons. And now, in front of you, and in the presence of God, I hope they can hear me or see me. I have now made good on my promise of reminding the government and the officials and the politicians to look into what's happening inside the prisons. The injustice that's caused by the delay in the judicial system.
Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
