Signalfire

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA – “Excessive force and brutality.”

That’s what Sumpter County NAACP President Mathias Wright claims Nova Lee and Howard Graber were subjected to when forcibly evicted from their Duluth home last month.

The Gwinnett County Sheriff SWAT team launched the raid on August 11th when they said the couple refused to obey a court order to leave peaceably.

Nova Lee Graber claims she was afraid to leave her wheelchair bound husband, who suffered a stroke last year.

On Wednesday their supporters claimed the Grabers had a legal right to stay, even though they were months behind on their mortgage.

They cited a “Counteraffidavit of Writ of Possession” the couple filed in court on June 28, 2010.

They claim the document, which the Grabers said was posted on their front door at the time of the SWAT team eviction, should have prevented their removal until they could get a jury trial.

“We were just wanting our day in court on this,” said Nova Lee Graber.

The Grabers’ supporters called for a formal investigation into the forced eviction.

They also handed out copies of two letters demanding the resignation of Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway and State Court Judge Randy Rich, who signed the eviction order.

“That’s a direct violation of their civil rights and even yours, if it so happened to you,” says the NAACP’s Wright.

Wednesday afternoon the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office said the jury trial code (Title 44, Chapter 11, Sections 30-32) only applies to third party squatters and not delinquent homeowners, like the Grabers.

Sheriff Butch Conway’s office issued a statement saying, “If the Grabers had acted in a lawful manner, they would have avoided the entire incident. Their latest antics aren’t worth commenting on.”

So far, no reaction from Judge Rich.

For now the Grabers are saying in a motel thanks to donations.

Meanwhile, their former Duluth home remains boarded and locked.

Sep 5 2010
THE number of people squatting in Welsh homes is at its highest for 40 years, claims a major bailiff firm.

Hundreds of homeowners in Wales are having to fork out thousands of pounds to evict the unwanted residents, after a rise of at least 40% in the number of squatters taking over homes.

The shocking figure comes as estimates suggest the popularity of squatting in Wales and England has risen year-on-year with the number of squatters increasing by a massive 132% in the past 15 years.

Yet experts fear the latest projections are just the tip of the iceberg, as more and more are driven into squats as a result of the recession, a hike in house prices and rents and reduced public housing.

Whereas squatters were once frequently activists making a social or political statement by taking over the homes of others, experts now say the majority are forced into the lifestyle by financial pressures.

Most Welsh squatters are thought to be in Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham, but outside school holidays many can be found in posh holiday homes where they live a life of luxury on the cheap.

Contrary to popular belief, squatting in Wales is legal providing no damage is caused to the property when entry is gained. And as squatting is a civil matter the police have no powers to remove the occupants – instead the owners must either take action through the civil courts or employ expensive bailiffs who act “within the framework of the law”.

Ben Gower, a manager at the UK Bailiff Company, said his firm had seen an unprecedented rise in squatting throughout the country.

He said: “Exact numbers are not available, as no database is maintained by the police because they are not always advised of such incursions. But based on our internal database, there were approximately 100 squatter cases last year, and if the current trend continues to the end of the year, the number we will have dealt with will have increased by 40%.”

This evidence is backed by the Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS), a voluntary group which provides legal and practical advice to squatters, which claims there are now as many as 22,000 squatters in Wales and England, compared to 15,000 in 2003 and just 9,500 in 1995.

Mr Gower said his firm’s statistics only provided a glimpse at the true picture of squatting in Wales and predicted the situation could be much worse.

“Because of the lack of a centralised database there is no way to tell exactly how many people are squatting. There has clearly been a big rise in the cases we have dealt with, which would suggest the numbers are increasing throughout the country.”

An ASS spokesman called Mike, himself a squatter, said the estimates represented the largest rise since the 1960s and ’70s. He added that the traditional profile of a squatter no longer applied to the current movement, as most squatters were now less concerned with social or political statements, and were driven by financial need.

“The increase in the number of squatters is mainly due to necessity,” he said. “People aren’t exactly attracted to squatting, it’s primarily down to the fact that they need somewhere to live.

“While there will be a few people living in squats because they are politically opposed to paying rent to landlords, these are in the minority.”

According to Mr Gower, Welsh squatters come from a variety of backgrounds and are choosing to live in a number of different types of buildings.

“We are seeing two types of squatters, commercial and residential. Commercial squatters are highly organised, they know exactly what they are doing and they know the law can’t touch them.

“They target primary site locations on busy high streets, usually selling clothing, watches, perfume and seasonal goods such as fireworks and Christmas items. They always leave people on site overnight to protect their interest and they use locksmiths to break in, which makes it very difficult to remove them.

“Then there are residential squatters, of which there are two types, those that move in to residential buildings and those to industrial buildings.

“In residential buildings they either break in or are given the keys by a landlord’s previous tenant. A high number of these squatters are from overseas, who are desperate to take any property, as they do not have large deposits to put down on premises.

“Industrial squatters are usually new age travellers who often use and abuse premises for raves, creating a mess. These units are generally empty industrial units where access is available.

“Squatters usually stick to the larger towns, where they can mingle in with the population. They have an infrastructure on the doorstep – in Wales this means most are in Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham.

“Because of the downturn in the economy and this hitting youngsters worst, particularly those aged between 18 and 25, the numbers of residential squatters are definitely on the increase.”

He added that the cost to owners who want to clear out squatters is one many are not prepared for. The most common remedy to empty a squat is through a drawn-out civil legal process, which can take up to three months to complete and which can leave owners with thousands of pounds in legal costs.

Another way to remove unwanted occupants is to hire the services of bailiffs, such as Mr Gower’s firm, but for which he quotes a guaranteed removal fee of £2,350 plus locksmith fees.

One Welsh homeowner found himself facing huge bills after he became a victim of squatters. The homeowner, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals from squatters, said it was an “extremely distressful” experience.

“When I drove past our property, to my horror I noticed a light was on, a scooter was parked on the property and my car, left in the drive, was missing. I immediately telephoned the police.

“After speaking to the people inside, the police said they had admitted the property was broken into in the last couple of years and they had been living there since. They told me they were willing to pay rent. The police warned us not to disturb them and promptly left.

“I also saw a satellite dish had been fixed to the chimney. These were not people who were poor or homeless. This has left us extremely distressed. It makes us sick to think of what they did and has left us with no faith in the police.”

One former squatter is Swansea anarchist and Class War publisher Ian Bone, once dubbed the “most dangerous man in Britain”. Although no longer squatting, Mr Bone said the way of life was not always as hard as many people may expect.

“I was squatting in a disused children’s home in Swansea’s Sketty Park with lots of other homeless families who were in desperate need of a roof over their heads. This was a really nice building, it was fully furnished and had blankets and everything else we needed. It wasn’t living in squalor.

“We had to get the local people on our side, they didn’t seem to mind that we were there, because they knew we weren’t interested in damaging the place as it was somewhere we wanted to live – I suppose it might have been a bit different if we were in someone’s house. But our needs were obvious, we just wanted a roof over our heads.”

Peter Black, AM for South Wales West and the Liberal Democrat’s housing spokesman, called for more social housing to be made available to alleviate the problem.

“A big factor in this trend must be that there are 27,000 private sector homes in Wales being left empty. These are attractive to homeless people in desperate situations and the Government needs to address this.”

5 September 2010

Squatters were evicted from Crown Estate properties in Gore and Skipworth Roads

Squatters clashed with bailiffs and police last month (Wednesday 11 August) over the controversial sell-off of the Crown Estate properties next to Victoria Park.

Six properties on Gore Road and Skipworth Road, which had been left empty for over two years, were occupied by squatters six months ago.

On 2 August, the Crown Estate won a possession order in court for the properties. However, they chose to carry out the evictions without giving prior warning to the squatters.

High Court bailiffs and Crown Estate officials turned up at 8am and entered 103 Gore Road via the back door. They went upstairs and woke the occupier, giving him half an hour to pack up his belongings and leave the property.

The evictions sparked a great deal of controversy because the Crown Estate is currently in the process of selling the freehold of 1,300 properties. For the past 80 years these properties have been used as key worker housing, making homes affordable for teachers, health workers, police officers and fire-fighters.

The sell-off, which will take place in five boroughs, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Camden, Westminster and Lewisham, has been criticised in parliament and a strong campaign has been led against it.

Crown Residents Against Sell Off claims that under new ownership, rents could be hiked up considerably. Security of their tenancy agreements could be lost, and people on short term contracts could be forced out of their homes within two months. They also fear that the strong community which exists locally would be destroyed.

The lack of notice angered the squatters as they claimed they were normally given at least five days’ warning of an eviction, so they had time to make other living arrangements. One house refused to let bailiffs into the property until they had gathered all their belongings. They argued that it was unfair to expect people to pack up six months’ worth of belongings in just 60 minutes.

The police were called.

By the time bailiffs and police got to the last house, 3 Skipworth Road, the squatters had barricaded themselves inside and were refusing to come out, arguing that affordable housing for key workers should be valued and prioritised.

Neighbours and community residents, carrying banners which read “Our community is not for sale” came out onto the street to back the squatters.

One local resident, who refused to be named, said she liked having the squatters there and that they were “helpful, friendly and responsible neighbours. She said the properties had been left empty by the Crown Estate, which was a risk to everybody, and that the squatters improved the area.

She also commented that “the squatters should have been granted a license to stay until the Crown decided what to do with the properties. The squatters were just young musicians looking for inexpensive living. They sang beautifully.”

Despite wrestling with the barricaded door, bailiffs were unable to gain access to the property. The stand-off between the bailiffs and squatters lasted around four hours, during which time supporters outside shouted “Shame on Crown Estates”.

Eventually bailiffs managed to gain access to the property and it was resecured.

NAKURU, Kenya, Sep 2 – Two people were feared dead while seven others – including three police officers – were injured during violent confrontations between police and tenants in Nakuru on Thursday.

Witnesses said the violence erupted after police officers tried to evict tenants from six housing estates in the town. Angry youths engaged police officers and council askaris in running battles pelting them with stones for the better part of the day.

Majority of those who injured were reportedly hit by police bullets during the fracas. Among those wounded were two women – one who was hit on the leg while the other – sustained injuries near the abdomen.

The tenants were resisting a move by the Municipal Council of Nakuru to evict them from the estates over rent arrears totalling Sh175 million accrued over a five-year period.

Two Administration Police officers were rushed to hospital with injuries. The youths set ablaze a police helmet and a cap left behind by the fleeing officers.

The fight brought business on Kanu Street and Flamingo Road to a standstill.  The mob barricaded the streets, lit bonfires and removed advertising billboards.

A vehicle belonging to the Council was burnt and reduced to a shell while a conference hall located on Kanu Street looted and property damaged.

“We are not going to vacate the houses as the council has failed to listen to us,” one of the residents said.

A similar exercise to evict the tenants last month failed with the security forces being repulsed by the youths.

Former Nakuru Mayor David Gikaria who is the area councillor was arrested during the violence after police accused him of inciting the youths.

The youths demanded for the release of Mr Gikaria and called for the sacking of Town Clerk Sheikh Abdullahi.

Area police chief Police Johnstone Ipara told journalists three people including the former Mayor had been arrested over with the riots.

“We are going to charge the councillor with incitement and arson,” he added.

The mob barricaded the street, lit bonfires and removed advertising billboards on the busy street.

02 September

Thousands of residents at Ilepa, Ogun State, staged a protest march yesterday against alleged moves by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to grab their lands and demolish their homes, using the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) as a smokescreen.

Among the protesters were pregnant women and nursing mothers, who braved the scorching sun, chanting protest songs, as they appealed to the government to come to their aids.

According to them, millions of people, including landlords and tenants, would be rendered homeless if the planned demolition by the LUTH authorities is done.

More than 25 villages and thousands of buildings will be affected in the exercise.

The residents told the Nigerian Compass that they had to stage the protest because a matron from LUTH, simply called Afolabi, had given each of them 100 days to peacefully leave their homes or caterpillars would make a mince meat of their bodies.

They alleged that the woman had also told them that anyone who wished to continue residing in the area should cough out N500,000.

Many of them alleged that the land acquisition and planned demolition was actually the work of Obasanjo, who used LUTH as a front to get the lands. They claimed that Obasanjo had been coming to the community with his surveyor to have secret meetings with the Onilepa of Ilepa, Oba Fatai Oladipupo.

They further alleged that, already, 20 hectares of the lands had been sold for over N65 million.

They insisted that Obasanjo was involved because in one of the documents they were able to lay their hands on, the former President’s surveyor is prominent. In this document, one of the reasons given for coming after lands at Ilepa was that the place was fast developing and would attract a good sum of money than other lands in the area.

Part of the anger of the residents was that LUTH, under whoever it’s fronting for, has over 50 hectares of virgin land, to site the purported Cooperative Centre it wanted to build.

Chairman of Ifesowopo Community, one of the communities affected, Mr. Peter Kolawole Olufemi Joe, said that most of them bought their lands from the owners, identified as the Ilepa, while others claimed to have bought from agents of the Oba of Ilepa. They also have receipts to show that they bought and paid for the land.

He said: “We bought the land from the owners. We are now hearing that LUTH bought it in 1979. The people we bought the lands from are still very much alive.

“The Ilepa people said that LUTH did not pay them compensation. They showed us the paper of enumeration. LUTH has over 50 hectares of land, fenced. The lands are still virgin ones, why can’t LUTH go over there and use it? As we are talking, about 600 hectares are still virgin land.

Now, they want to collect the land that people had already built on, because they said it will sell fast. They want to punish all the souls living on this Ilepa. The owners of the land are solidly behind us!”

A member of the community, Mr. Adio Egungbohun, said: “I am one of the people that sold lands. I learnt that some people are intending to demolish houses built on these lands. I am not happy about it because someone who came all the way from Lagos to build just a room here has a reason for it. Some people cannot even afford to build; they just cleared the land and keep their properties there. I was told that the king said he was not concerned about the issue on ground that everything is to be sorted out by the owners. So, I’m saying this now, if a caterpillar comes to this place, the driver will first lose his life”

Aug 30

Caption: Ngong forest also forms the upper catchment of Athi and Kiserian rivers and also serves as a wildlife habitat.

Parts of olteyani in Ngong were turned into a battlefield as irate residents resisting eviction from the forest took to the streets barricading roads and lighting bonfires.

The residents were protesting evictions from parts of the ngong forest which they claim is their ancestral land even as forest officials say they had encroached on forest land.

It took the intervention of anti riot police and the district commissioner to quell the tension and restore calm.

According to the KFS Deputy Commandant Major (Rtd) Charles Otieno who was leading the team, the residents were armed with crude weapons which forced armed KFS rangers to withdraw to avoid any possible injury.

According to the Head of Nairobi Conservancy Ms Charity Munyasya, the squatters had been given adequate notice to vacate the forest land which they had encroached.

She said the over 6,000 families had the previous week sought audience with the forest officials who declined to give in to their demands.

KFS said they will continue with their efforts to conserve and rehabilitate the forest.

The squatters claimed that those outside the gazetted forest were also being targeted in the evictions but the officials  refuted the claims saying only those within the forest will be evicted.

Approximately 600 households live within this 400 yards perimeter line, and occupy over 400 hectares of forest land, which was grabbed in 1990 and illegally allocated.

The forest hill because of its imposing nature, having a summit of approximately 8,000 feet (2438m) above sea level is an important landmark especially in aerial navigation.

Ngong forest also forms the upper catchment of Athi and Kiserian rivers and also serves as a wildlife habitat.

(AFP)
BEIJING — At least four Tibetans may have been killed and 30 others hurt when Chinese police fired on crowds protesting the expansion of mine operations blamed for environmental damage, a report said Saturday.

The shooting occurred August 17 in a remote region of southwestern China’s Sichuan province with a history of seething unrest involving the area’s Tibetan community, US-based Radio Free Asia said.

Quoting exiled Tibetans with sources in the region, the report said the confrontation began on or around August 13 when a group of Tibetans went to the Palyul county government headquarters to protest.

They complained that stepped-up Chinese gold-mining operations had brought large numbers of people and heavy machinery to the area, damaging farmland and the local grassland habitat, it said.

County officials rejected the accusations and had the demonstrators detained, touching off a steadily escalating confrontation that lead to the August 17 shootings.

Some of those injured were severely hurt, it said. Two police officers also were reportedly injured that day.

It quoted a county government official saying negotiations were under way to settle the dispute.

Local police denied knowledge of any confrontation when reached by AFP via phone. Calls to the county government went unanswered.

Palyul is in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, one of many areas of the Tibetan plateau hit by widespread anti-Chinese rioting in March 2008 that was met with a massive security clampdown.

SANTIAGO – Hooded assailants intercepted two freight trucks, pulled out the drivers and set the vehicles on fire, Chilean authorities said Wednesday.

The incident took place in the southern region of Araucania, where Mapuche Indian activists have torched vehicles, highway toll booths and lumber shipments as part of a campaign to reclaim ancestral lands from agribusiness and forest products companies.

In the wee hours of Wednesday, the assailants felled trees to block a stretch of road between Angol, capital of Malleco province, and the town of Collipulli, police said.

When a truck loaded with lumber stopped in front of the barrier, the hooded attackers brandished guns to force the driver out and then set the vehicle on fire.

The assailants repeated the process with a second truck.

As they were burning the second vehicle, the driver of the first fled. He encountered a police patrol about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) away, but the attackers were gone by the time the officers reached the scene.

The Chilean government is currently holding 106 Mapuches – some convicted, others awaiting trial – for acts of political violence in Araucania.

Thirty-two of those prisoners have been on hunger strike for more than 40 days to demand the scrapping of a draconian anti-terrorism law dating from the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet.

The anti-terror legislation allows the state to hold people for up to two years without charges, restrict defense attorneys’ access to evidence and use testimony from anonymous witnesses.

The hunger strikers also want the “demilitarization” of Araucania, the heartland of the 650,000-strong Mapuche nation, Chile’s largest indigenous group.

Two appellate courts ruled this week that prison authorities can force-feed the hunger strikers, while Catholic Bishop Manuel Camilo Vial is calling for dialogue to end the prisoners’ fast and resolve the issues raised by the Mapuches. EFE

The bandh call by Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (KSS) in the state on Wednesday, received response mainly in districts of Western Uttar Pradesh like Aligarh, Mathura, Agra, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar.

Manvir Singh Teotia, who is heading the KSS, has rushed to New Delhi to meet the Prime Minister. The AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi may be present at the meeting, said sources.

In Etmadpur area of Agra, farmers clashed with the police, pelted stones and set afire a few vehicles. The police fired rubber bullets and lobbed teargas shells to disperse the mob. In some districts, the farmers also blocked road and rail traffic.

Both Congress and the BJP had extended support to the bandh. The KSS is spearheading the farmers’ agitation, demanding higher compensation for their land acquired for the Yamuna Expressway project.

While BJP state president Surya Prasad Shahi, along with party supporters were arrested near the party office in Lucknow, the All India Congress Committee’s General secretary Digvijay Singh, who is also in-charge of UP Congress and the UPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi participated in the farmers’ demonstration held in Dadri.

In Agra, farmers blocked the road near Chhaleshar-Kuberpur village on NH-2. By the time the police reached the spot, they had set afire a state roadways bus. “They also tried to set afire a ‘dumper’ vehicle, but the driver managed to escape,” said DIG Dipesh Juneja from Agra.

The farmers, he said brickbatted the police party.

“There was a railway track close to the blockade site and stones were available,” he said. The police chased them and got the blockade cleared. Denying that rubber bullets were used, Juneja said: “We used teargas shells.”
Farmers blocked the road at different points on Aligarh-Palwal road, besides in different areas of Khair Tehsil. Although Aligarh remains epicenter of the farmers’ agitation following the August 14 clash, Wednesday’s protest passed off peacefully. “The farmers also blocked the road near Tappal, where they continue their dharna programme under the banner KSS. Later in the evening, the traffic movement was restored near Tappal,” said a source in Aligarh.

The other points where farmers blocked the road included Sofa Nahar and Jattari villages. In Aligarh town, Congress supporters stopped the Lichchavi Express for a few minutes.

Supporters of Bhartiya Janata Yuwa Morcha, the youth wing of BJP, stopped a passenger train at Mathura Railway Junction. Later, they handed over a memorandum to the authorities in support of the farmers’ demand. The BJP workers also tried to enforce the bandh at the Mathura market. The Congress workers, led by legislator Pradeep Mathur, also made an attempt to block Mathura-Delhi Highway. The administration, however, stopped him from doing so.

NEW DELHI Aug 26 (Reuters) – Thousands of farmers marched to India’s parliament on Thursday to protest against a government takeover of land to build a new highway, underlining a wider problem of land acquisition in the rapidly-growing Asian giant.

The protest follows the death of three farmers in northern Uttar Pradesh state this month, when police fired at protesters demanding more compensation for land taken to build a $2 billion highway connecting the Taj Mahal city of Agra with New Delhi.

Underlining the political sensitivity of land issues, Rahul Gandhi, son of ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and a potential prime minister, called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to find a solution to widespread land disputes.

In New Delhi, about 15,000 flag-waving, slogan-shouting farmers squatted at a square near parliament after being stopped by police in riot gear. They were addressed by some opposition leaders. Traffic in central Delhi remained gridlocked for hours.

“Why is the government putting pressure on us to vacate our land? Land is our mother, We will die but not give our land,” said Vinod, a protesting farmer who gave only one name.

These protests are the latest in a string of violence over government efforts to acquire farmland for industry in India, where two-thirds of the 1.2 billion population is dependent on agriculture and where land is a farmer’s only social security.

The series of clashes mirror problems in rival China, where rapid urbanisation has often pitted local government against villagers who demand more control of their land.

STALLED MEGA-PROJECTS

Such protests have stalled plans for power utilities, mines, roads and steel mills in Asia’s third-largest economy where poor infrastructure is a long-standing obstacle to growth and have delayed crucial foreign investment in these sectors.

Farmers’ protests have put on hold 230 tax-free export zones and multi-billion investments by top steelmakers such as ArcelorMittal, South Korea’s POSCO and Tata Steel, according to government figures.

Protests over mining on tribal land in the eastern state of Orissa led this week to the government scrapping plans of UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc to extract bauxite.

But in a sign of how the government could also use land disputes for political gain, Rahul Gandhi held a rally on the tribal land on Thursday to help bolster Congress party support.

Land acquisition in India is carried out by government on the basis of a colonial era 1894 law that gives the state the right to take over land for public purposes with little compensation.

The government wants to amend that law to guarantee market prices for seized land, a potentially vote-winning move for the Congress party which counts rural poor among its key supporters.

It makes provisions for social impact assessment studies prior to large-scale acquisition and costs related to resettlement of displaced residents. Developers would also have to offer shares or debentures in projects as compensation to land owners, among other provisions.

But the new draft law, framed in 2007, has remained on hold because of opposition from some government allies who object to certain provisions in the bill such as blocking land and compensation related litigation from going to civil courts.

The row over land has major political and security implications in India.

The left-of-centre Congress hopes to keep a lid on farmer resentment by minimising the impact of land acquisition. It also wants to undermine the appeal of a growing Maoist insurgency that feeds partly off a wider resentment against industry at the cost of farming and the poor.

“The prime minister has assured us that the land bill will come in the next session of parliament,” Digvijay Singh, a Congress leader who accompanied Gandhi said. (Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Alex Richardson)

Grassy Narrows members are continuing their protest against MNR actions, which they see as interference with road maintenance.

Spokesman Steve Fobister said Tuesday conservation officers had been challenging the community’s roadblock at Slant Lake by harassing the contractor hired to do work. Fobister said the situation had been ongoing since Saturday, but they had yet to get a formal response from MNR.

He added the conservation officers were trying to impose the government’s guidelines on the contractor, as the workers sought to repair a washed out section of the access road to Ball Lake Lodge.

Despite the trouble, the contractor has agreed to finish the work, while the First Nation has assured him they would deal with MNR, or any government

“If they want to talk about environmental issues, we should talk about the mercury,” Fobister said, referring to the contamination of area waterways. “That’s an unresolved issue.”

Even though the Lodge was given to the First Nation as part of the 1986 mercury agreement, the ministry is still reserving its right to govern the maintenance of land surrounding it, including the access road.

According to spokesman Michelle Nowak, any work to repair roads on Crown land in the province would be subject to appropriate approvals which includes work permit applications.

She added the MNR has not received a proposal or work permit application with regard to this work.

“We are currently investigating reports of work being done in this area and would be concerned activities are being carried out within the guidelines of our legislation.

Our interest is environmental and also with workers’ and public safety,” she said during a short interview Tuesday afternoon.

Further, Nowak acknowledged that on Saturday, Aug. 21, a conservation officer from Kenora encountered the roadblock, while conducting a planned enforcement patrol related to residential and non-residential angling and bear-hunting.

“It is my understanding the encounter was polite and cordial for all involved. I understand the CO respected the blockade and turned around,” she said.

Talks between the First Nation and the province are ongoing, with regard to the clearcutting in the Whiskey Jack Forest. The community is demanding an end to the practice within its traditional land use area, which is within the forest.

Along with the eight-year old blockade, members of the community have also challenged the province’s authority to manage the forest through the courts.

Ultimately, negotiators for the community are seeking a moratorium on logging, until they reach an agreement with Queen’s Park of future land use. However, there is growing pressure to harvest on traditional lands, as an estimated 2,500 jobs in the depressed forest industry of the region depend on the Whiskey Jack.

August 25, 2010
TBILISI — Four internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia have sewn their mouths shut in a protest at being moved from dwellings in Tbilisi, RFE/RL’s Georgian Service reports.

The four are among around 10 IDPs taking part in a hunger strike to protest being evicted from abandoned former government buildings which are being privatized and sold.

The Georgian government has offered to move the families affected to a village (Potskhoetseri) near the western Georgian town of Zugdidi, where international organizations have built them new houses. But the IDPs argue that there are no jobs in the area, and they will not be able to provide for their families.

The hunger strikers are among dozens of IDPs protesting outside the Ministry for Refugees in Tbilisi on August 25.

Authorities have not dispersed the protesters because they say the participants are not breaking the law or blocking traffic.

There were some 240,000 Georgians in Abkhazia in 1989, most of whom fled during the 1992-1993 war when the pro-Moscow region broke away from Georgian control.

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion and shots fired near the Israeli separation wall at the Qalandiya refugee camp shortly after 1a.m. on Friday morning.

Israeli news site Ynet said shortly after 11p.m. that Palestinians placed a tire and gas container near the wall in approximately the same location, and said the explosion caused damage to the wall.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said Palestinian teens hurled rocks at the Qalandiya checkpoint at 12:37, and Israeli border police at the military area responded to the incident with riot dispersal mechanisms, which usually include the launch of tear-gas canisters, percussion grenades and rubber-coated bullets.

Hours after the reported explosion, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered at the checkpoint, the access terminal for Muslims in the northern West Bank for Jerusalem.

The spokeswoman said there were no extra security measures in place at the checkpoint, as Muslim worshipers wait to access Jerusalem on the second Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

August 19
Hundreds of illegal miners have rioted and blocked export traffic at Freeport-McMoRan’s Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, halting hundreds of trucks from mines further north, the company and local sources said on Wednesday.

This is the second time this month that miners have staged such protests at the country’s $2 billion mine site, where Tenke has failed to resolve a dispute with illegal miners who continue to dig the copper-rich soil within its vast concession.

Wednesday’s protest escalated after security guards tried to move local miners off the land.

“Two Territorial Police have received minor injuries and a police firearm was reported taken,” Tenke Fungurume Mining said in a statement.

An estimated 500 local diggers set a vehicle on fire in the protest, ransacked a worker’s home and police fired shots into the air, according to local and company reports.

“It seems to be escalating,” said a security analyst in the region who did not want to be named. “The mine workers are stopping all traffic at Tenke…tyres (are) being burnt outside the Tenke barrier and fighting has broken out.”

EXPORT BACKLOG

North of the Kolwezi mining town, at least a hundred trucks filled with minerals from other copper mines have been blocked, said one transporter who did not want to be named.

“My trucks can’t move, this has happened twice now and I’m losing here. Tenke is costing everyone else money,” he said.

Earlier this month, a provincial minister said 2,000 illegal diggers overran the company’s site, looted its offices, set fire to trucks and stole copper cathodes waiting for export, in anger at being forced to abandon their livelihoods without being offered jobs.

Tenke said it is “seeking opportunities to defuse tension” in cooperation with local authorities.

Jean-Pierre Muteba, head of a local mining trade union, told Reuters by telephone: “Tenke has rights but the problem is they are not engaging with the people and there are no jobs — the miners just want to be able to work.”

Freeport-McMoRan, which has a 57.75 percent share in the project, is hoping to resolve a protracted dispute with government about its contract following a prolonged mining review that threatened its expansion plans.

The site is set to produce 115,000 tonnes of copper and 8,000 tonnes of cobalt this year, up from 70,000 tonnes of copper and 2,600 tonnes of cobalt last year.

ATLANTA, Aug. 19 (UPI) — Self-styled “sovereign citizens” have taken over at least 19 properties in north Georgia, prosecutors say.

They claim immunity from state and federal laws and assert that banks can’t own land and that any home owned by a bank is free for the taking, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The FBI has listed them as “paper terrorists.” Members of the movement have been linked to multiple insurance fraud and tax evasion scams, along with some violent crimes.

Prosecutors said Georgia’s sovereign citizens follow the pattern of other anarchist movements, filing lawsuits and liens against police, officials and anyone who challenges them.

Although American-born, they make up their own drivers’ licenses, with seals of non-existent countries. Many of the suspects have multiple names and a history of not paying taxes.

Investigators have tied the sovereign citizens to at least 19 property thefts in Georgia, including mansions and a shopping center.

Georgia authorities have charged six people with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations Act. Warrants have been issued for five others.

About 2,000 police officers clash with protesters trying to break through police lines

2010-08-18
Clashes between police and protesters against the Formosa Plastics Group naphtha cracker complex in Yunlin County led to several arrests Tuesday.

Residents of Mailiao and Taihsi called for a blockade of the plant after the company refused to pay a NT$1.7 billion (US$53 million) compensation package for a fire on July 25, the second blaze within a month during negotiations Monday. Instead, the company offered a maximum of NT$500 million (US$15.6 million).

An estimated 3,000 people turned up on three major roads leading to the plant early Tuesday morning. They prevented trucks from reaching the petrochemical complex but allowed cars to pass.

About 2,000 police officers clashed with protesters trying to break through police lines and arrested four protest leaders. They were later released after police took down their details, reports said, while both sides retreated some distance. Yunlin County Magistrate Su Chih-fen and protest leaders visited the men, reports said.

The protesters dispersed by noon but threatened to return later in the day.

The company said the impact of the blockade was limited because essential transportation had been completed on Monday evening and employees had been asked to show up for work early.

In talks with FPG top managers Monday, the Yunlin County Government wanted the company to pay an overall package of NT$32 billion (US$1 billion) to finance local development and to close the factory 20 years after it started operating, meaning in 2016. The company turned down the county requests and stood by its original maximum limits.

Farmers and fishermen working in the area have accused the FPG complex of being responsible for heavy pollution as well as elevated cancer levels. They want the company to suspend local operations until a thorough health risk review has been completed.

The naphtha cracker dispute is one of several conflicts between existing and planned industrial zones backed by the government and local residents, often farmers threatened with losing their land.

Similar disputes surround a planned petrochemical complex in Changhua County and the expansion of science parks in the counties of Miaoli, Taichung and Changhua.

15 August 2010

PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan (Aug. 15) – Three Afghans were wounded today during a riot in the Pul-e-Sayad village of Bagram District, Parwan.

The injured were part of a crowd of rioters who were throwing baseball size and larger rocks at U.S. forces escorting a local contractor to an Afghan Ministry of Defense base.  After numerous attempts were made to stop the rock throwing, in which servicemembers were injured, six shots were fired by a coalition soldier in self defense.

An ISAF offer of medical assistance to treat the wounded was declined by the riot leader.  The condition of the victims is unknown.

A land ownership dispute between the MoD and a local villager is believed to be the cause of the rioting.

“The land dispute is clearly an Afghan government issue that must be settled in order to resolve the ongoing concern of Afghans from the village of Sayad,” said Col. William F. Roy, commanding officer for Task Force Wolverine.

“While we respect the rights of all Afghan citizens to dispute their claims, attacks on both Afghan contractors and our Soldiers cannot be tolerated,” said Roy.  “We have not, and will not deliberately target innocent civilians.  We will investigate this incident to determine if there are any additional ways we can prevent civilian casualties in the future while continuing to protect our forces.”

August 8, 2010
A standoff in Quebec between members of the Kanesatake Mohawk community and a real-estate developer has ended — at least for the time being — with police escorting the developer from the disputed land.

About 100 Mohawks had gathered at the site known as The Pines, where the Oka crisis took place 20 years ago, to stop Normand Ducharme, head of Norfolk Financial, from even surveying the land with a forestry engineer, with a view to preparing it for development.

Ducharme has said he wants to build luxury homes on land the Mohawks claim they own.

While most Kanestake residents were dressed in regular clothing, a few wore masks and camouflage, and were heard threatening Ducharme if he didn’t leave immediately.

Kanesatake Grand Chief Sohenrise Paul Nicholas accused the developer of orchestrating a publicity stunt, and opening old wounds. He also said the Mohawk council is considering pressing charges against Ducharme.

“I’m disappointed with Norfolk for coming in and provoking what I would consider almost a riot today. This is a situation that pushes people’s buttons emotionally. We’re 20 years after the crisis and people still have issues with policing and land in the area. Them coming in is just a tactic to increase the value of their land. It was just a big publicity stunt.”

He was also optimistic that the long-simmering land dispute over the property would soon be resolved, once and for all.

“Norfolk lands will be expropriated and returned to the Mohawks of Kanesatake. What they’re trying to do is add more money to the pot at our expense.”

Pressed to explain how the land would be returned, Nicholas said “expropriate” might be too strong a word.

“There’s a plan right now to revert the land back to the Mohawks. It involves the Mohawk council, the municipality and the provincial government. There is a freeze on that property but we’ll be getting our land back soon enough.”

The short but intense standoff lasted about 45 minutes, forcing the closure of a stretch of highway. As Ducharme left the premises, Kanesatake residents hugged each other and many left on foot or on three-wheel vehicles through the forest.

Sonya Gagnier, a Kanesatake band council member, said she also thought Ducharme should be charged by police.

“Our community has been through so much,” Gagnier said. “If it was any one of us going out there on other land and doing what he did you can bet there would be charges. Thank God cooler heads prevailed.”

Asked why so many Mohawks had turned up at the site, from seven-year-olds to elders, starting around 6 a.m. Friday, she said: “From the moment you’re born when you take your first breath, you are taught that you must fight as a Mohawk and you will fight until your last breath. Fighting for your rights, keeping hold of who you are for your inherited right as a Mohawk.”

August 8, 2010

Korean organic farmers have held a “Mass for life and peace” to urge the government not to evict them from their lands to make way for a controversial river project.

The farmers’ lands are to be compulsorily purchased to make way for the Four Rivers Project. Authorities have already deposited the purchase price for the lands in a local court as the final step in the process.

The government must heed the cry of the farmers as a voice from heaven, said Father Joseph Cho Hae-bung, president of the Catholic Solidarity for Deterrence of the Four Rivers Project, at the Aug. 5 Mass.

Following the Mass, the farmers staged a protest rally in front of the Seoul Regional Construction Management Administration.

In a statement released there, the farmers “strongly urged” the government to seek an alternative solution through dialogue rather than through imposed administrative measures.

They also revealed that the government is threatening that evictions could begin within a month.

The farmers warned that the Four Rivers Project “would cause unimaginable damage.”

Authorities claim it is needed to prevent flooding and pollution, but its many opponents – ranging from Churches to local environmentalists – say it will have the opposite effect.

After the country’s ruling party was defeated at the recent June 2 nationwide local elections, the Catholic Church has called for an immediate halt to the project.

India clamps down on Maoists to woo mining investors
3 Aug 2010
NEW DELHI: India’s growing Maoist violence is worrying investors, forcing authorities to fight back aggressively in hopes of luring up to $7 billion in funds needed to boost coal and iron ore output vital for growth.

Maoist violence killed 426 people in the period from January to July, up nearly three times from a year ago, the South Asia Terrorism Portal shows, spotlighting the danger of mining in India’s mineral-rich eastern and central states and the challenge to the country’s ability to maintain law and order.

The Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of India’s poor and disenfranchised, and find support among millions of tribal and lower caste people who accuse the state and big firms of neglect and exploitation in regions rich in minerals.

“If this issue is resolved, first of all logistics will improve significantly because trying to transport material has become a big problem,” said Prasad Baji, senior vice-president at Edelweiss Securities in Mumbai, the financial capital.

“Mining operations and production will also improve.” Analysts say India must attract $7 billion in funds by 2013 to develop an additional 100 million tonnes of coal and 50 million tonnes of iron ore to meet estimated demand and maintain economic growth of more than 6 percent over the last two years.

India has reserves of 267 billion tonnes of coal and about 25 billion tonnes of iron ore.

But investors can only be won over by a concerted effort to crush the Maoist threat and speed reform, the government’s twin aims in overhauling a law more than 50 years old that regulates the mining industry.

The changes would affect domestic metal and mining firms such as Sesa Goa, Sterlite Industries, Tata Steel and the Steel Authority of India, and global giants Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton

STAKES OF 26 PCT FOR LOCALS

Several federal ministries are weighing the new bill’s proposals for companies to share more than a quarter of their profit or equity with locals, for foreign investor participation in joint ventures and wide federal powers to tackle lawlessness.

The legal overhaul is part of government moves to expand social programmes for the poor, simultaneously pleasing its core supporters among voters, blocking flows of new recruits to the Maoists and balancing modern lifestyles against traditional ways.

Several government panels will debate the bill, revising it, and perhaps watering down the 26 percent profit-sharing figure, before it goes to parliament early next year prior to becoming law, analysts say.

Containing the Maoists, who were spawned by a peasant revolt in eastern India in 1967, is one of the biggest challenges the government faces and there is no guarantee fresh investments in mining will pay off, many analysts and industry figures agree.

“The eradication of Maoists may take at least two years,” said Edelweiss’s Baji, adding that the well-armed groups were entrenched in forested and hilly terrain, enjoyed the support of locals, and had gained strength over many years.

India’s security forces fanned out against the rebels in March in their biggest deployment in post-independence history, but the army is not being used for fear of alienating locals, leaving ill-trained police forces to fight a guerrilla war.

The government also plans to set up a unified command to coordinate the security offensive against the Maoists and spend more than 9.5 billion rupees to build roads and bridges in strife-torn areas.

SLOW PROJECTS

But the payoff for the government could be a while in coming.

“Who will go to these areas to work? There is no development, no law and order,” said S. B. S. Chauhan, an advisor at the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) in New Delhi, which groups 400 metal and mining firms.

Slow development of new mines could see India’s coal imports swell nearly 47 percent over the next two years and iron ore supplies fall short of big steel capacities on the drawing board.

India imported about 68 million tones of coal in the year to March 2010, on top of output of 531 million tonnes. Analysts expect coal imports to exceed 100 million by March 2012.

Iron ore production of 226 million tonnes in the year to March 2010 sufficed for domestic use and exports, but more high-grade ores are needed for major steel capacity growth, to the tune of 120 million tonnes, by March 2012.

Annual output at India’s largest iron ore miner, NMDC Ltd fell nearly 16 percent in the year to March 2010 after Maoists cut a slurry pipeline in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh, the worst hit by the revolt.

Market sources said pipeline owner Essar Steel had decided not to repair the link between its plants and NMDC’s mines until the surrounding area was made safe.

NMDC chairman Rana Som said the company planned to build its own slurry pipeline traversing safer areas.

A. K. Sarkar, marketing director of Coal India, said strikes cost 80 days during the year to March 2009 in subsidiary Central Coalfields Ltd, several of them attributable to disruption by the Maoists.

“If the law and order situation is improved, coal production can rise by at least 25 percent,” Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said in June.

Delays suffered by domestic firms Tata Steel and Essar Steel and leading global steelmakers POSCO and Arcelor Mittal show how tough it is to complete projects in the central and eastern regions, analysts say.

Securing mining leases and negotiating farmers’ protests against land buys have caused POSCO and Arcelor Mittal delays of more than two years in building a total of 37 million tonnes of capacity in eastern India.

“People are scared to come here,” said Ashok Surana, president of the Chhattisgarh Mini Steel Plant Association in Raipur, which has 135 members.

“Such big projects are planned, but the local businessmen don’t know if they can invest in building new hotels because of the Maoists.”

Maoist strike hits road, rail services
August 03, 2010
Road and rail services were badly affected in Jharkhand due to a 48-hour strike called by Maoists that began on Tuesday, officials said. The national highways wore a deserted look and no long-route buses plied in many parts of the state. Life came to standstill in many districts like Gumla,
Latehar, Khuti, Chatra, Palamau and Giridih, among others.

As a precautionary measure, railway authorities cancelled five train services and diverted the routes of six others. Trucks were stranded at many places due to the strike and buses didn’t ply either in many areas.

“We stopped the movement of buses as a precautionary step. There are recent examples of Maoists attacking passengers travelling in buses during a strike period,” said Ramdev Yadav, a travel agent at a Ranchi bus stand.

The pro-Maoist Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) and its militant wing have called for the 48-hour shutdown in five states, including Jharkhand, to mourn the recent killing of their supreme commander Sidhu Soren in a shootout in West Bengal.

India offers Maoist rebels cash for weapons

August 02. 2010

NEW DELHI // In an attempt to tackle growing Maoist violence, two state governments revealed details yesterday of a weapons-buyback and job-traing program that offers rebels substantial money for their surrender and weapons.

For example, the plan provides a one-time payment of 150,000 rupees (Dh11,920), a monthly stipend of 2,000 rupees for three years and additional future payments to rebels who surrender their bullets, guns, missiles and explosives. They also will receive training as special police officers.

Under the plan, 25,000 rupees is offered for a surrendered machine gun, sniper rifle or rocket-propelled grenade. A surface-to-air missile would fetch an extra 20,000 rupees, an AK-series assault rifle 15,000 rupees, a landmine, improvised explosive device or pistol revolver 3,000 rupees and each kilogram of explosive 1,000 rupees, a West Bengal police statement said.

Zulfiquar Hassan, inspector general of Maoist-infested western range of West Bengal, said that the surrendered guerrillas would be placed in a special camp and provided extra security, so they are not targeted by fellow rebels who might want to punish them.

“We can train and employ the surrendered rebels as [short-term] special police officers. We can also arrange permanent government jobs for some if their performance is that satisfying. We shall also give them vocational training which can help them secure jobs in future… we are even open to negotiations with more attractive offers if some rebels really want to surrender, but do not find our package interesting.”

Manoj Verma, police chief of Maoist-infested West Midnapur district in West Bengal, said that as the Maoists are losing their support in many villages it was the “right time” to introduce the scheme.

Mr Verma said the goverment has received feelers from at least 10 Maoist cadres who are willing to surrender since a broad outline of the plan was revealed last week. “We believe some more rebels will be ready to return to normal life after they know the details of our scheme for surrender on offer,” he said.

“Many Maoists cadres are hiding in forests and remote villages. To distribute our leaflets which are carrying the details of our scheme in different languages, we may use helicopter.”

Neyaz Ahmed, police chief of Maoist-troubled neighbouring Jharkhand state, said yesterday that two Maoists, impressed with the government-offered rehabilitation package, had surrendered.

Rajdeo Yadav, a Maoist commander who surrendered in Jharkhand, told police that he left his group because he did not agree with the Maoists’ way of solving problems of the society, Mr Ahmed said.

“Another girl cadre said she left her group because she was disenchanted with the Maoists’ violent lifestyle and many other young cadres too were planning to surrender,” said Mr Ahmed, referring to 18-year-old Lalmuni who ran away from a Maoist women’s armed guerilla squad in Jharkhand last week.

“Many Maoists cadres are disillusioned with their movement. They want to leave the path of violence and want to join their democratic mainstream,” he said.

Communist Party of India [Maoist] West Bengal State Committee member Akash, who uses one name, said yesterday in a statement that the government would not be able to “buy-out oppressed and protesting masses” and would not be able to solve the crisis in the region.

“The government is trying to lure away our comrades with money. But our party workers are driven by a high level of dedication. They will all reject such surrender and rehab offers outright. No true Maoist can fall prey to such mean temptations,” said Akash.

Landmines recovered in Orissa, 6 Maoists held
Bhubaneswar, Aug 3: Two unexploded landmines were found in Sundergarh district of Orissa.

According to the police, the landmines were found fitted under two separate culverts during a combing operation by the police on Tuesday, Aug 3.

Six Maoist guerrillas were also arrested and they would be produced in a local court on Tuesday, Aug 3, Superintendent of Police Diptesh Patnaik said.

The rebels were held from Kalta area of the Maoist-infested Bonai sub-division, about 450 km from Bhubaneswar.

“Maoists planted landmines under two separate culverts to trigger blasts, thankfully we recovered the landmines,” Diptesh Patnaik said.

“They were involved in several crimes, including the murder of trade union leader Thomas Munda in Jan 2010,” Patnaik added.

PTI

At least 500 Naxal attacks have been reported in nine states across the country in the last three months, with the highest number reported from Chhattisgarh, government said on Wednesday.

A highest of 140 instances were reported in Chhattisgarh, 111 in Jharkhand, 88 in West Bengal, 78 in Bihar and 43 in Orissa, according to data given in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Maken.

Twenty incidents including attacks on police and civilians by the Maoists were reported in Maharashtra, followed by 17 in Andhra Pradesh, two in Madhya Pradesh and one in Uttar Pradesh, it said.

According to the data, 348 people, including security force personnel were killed in such attacks. A highest of 194 casualties were reported in Chhattisgarh, followed by 66 in West Bengal and 23 in Orissa.

In reply to another question, Mr. Maken said a total of 378 Naxalites were arrested in the last two months.

“The CPI (Maoist) and other Left Wing Extremist groups source their weapons primarily by looting the same from security forces. In areas of Maoists influence, they also loot weapons from arms license holders. They also manufacture country-made weapons in their arms manufacturing units,” he said.

“Central Government grants, under security related expenditure scheme, ex-gratia payment of Rs. 3 lakh to family of security personnel killed due to Naxal attacks. In addition, ex-gratia compensation of Rs. 15 lakh is paid to the next of kin of personnel of Central paramilitary forces killed in action,” Mr. Maken added.

July 27. AP
Hundreds of troops were on alert for further unrest in a manufacturing district in eastern China on Tuesday, following sustained protests by residents demanding more compensation for farms given up years ago to make way for factories, residents said.

Paramilitary police and SWAT teams rolled into Huqiu district of Suzhou city, home of many foreign-invested factories, on Sunday following protests that have flared sporadically since July 15, said a man surnamed Wang who lives in the district’s Tongan township and refused to give his full name.

“We’re just ordinary people claiming our rights. And the government arrested us and beat us,” Wang said, adding there have been no new protests since security forces arrived to reinforce local police.

Such disputes are common in China as swaths of farmland are razed to make way for factories, office parks, golf courses and other urban sprawl. Government officials involved in such projects are frequently accused of corruption, which the Communist Party recognises is a threat to its rule.

Following the protests, Tongan township suspended demolitions and fired two top local officials, party secretary Wang Jun and deputy party secretary Meng Xiaoyu, who was also the mayor, according to a report last week by the official Modern Express newspaper.

The two were fired for poor handling of compensation policies and public demands, the report said, without elaborating on whether they had been accused of corruption.

Hundreds were involved in protests over changes in government policy that now gives much higher payouts than what was allowed when many residents lost their farms in 2003, Wang said. He received 200,000 yuan ($US29,500) in compensation, but now people can get 600,000 ($US88,500) for homes in the area that was once covered in rice paddies, Wang said.

Photos of the protests posted online showed large crowds gathered on roads and in government offices amid heavy security, including police with riotgear. There were no clashes shown in the photographs, but Wang said he and others were beaten by police for trying to force their way into the local government building.

He said he also saw a woman being beaten by four or five local police officers, and that some people taken into police custody have not yet been released.

A resident in Huqiu district’s Dongzhu township confirmed Wang’s account of the protests and security presence. Police were guarding roads in his town, with paramilitary and SWAT teams stationed at the local middle school, said the man, who refused to give his name as is common among media-shy Chinese.

He added that the local government has failed to deliver on a promise to resolve residents’ grievances by Sunday.

An official surnamed Mu in the Suzhou city propaganda department disputed that, saying authorities had provided a “satisfactory response”, but refused to give any details. He added that the situation in Huqiu district was stable but acknowledged paramilitary police were currently posted there.

“They’re there to ensure the social security,” said Mu, who like many Chinese bureaucrats would only gave his surname.

Residents said they were afraid to launch more protests with so many police in the area. Notices were also given to parents with children at Tongan Middle School that included veiled threats of repercussions if there were further disturbances, according to Boxun.com, a Chinese-language site banned in China that is based in the US and carries reports on issues rarely reported in state media.

“The Tongan incident has already been infiltrated by foreign hostile forces,” it cited the notice as saying, though there has been no evidence of it. It said residents should avoid participating in protests and spreading news of it “to avoid giving yourself and your children a disappointment”.

Farmers in Luweero district have declared war on property developers who want to evict them on their ancestral land, building locally made guns out of pipes and other metals.

They use such guns to fire rockets at the groups of people who want to evict them. One of the farmers in Ggangu village, Luweero district who declines to reveal his details for fear of being arrested says he has used the weapon to defend his land twice.

The farmers say they don’t want to cause insecurity in Uganda but the problem of land eviction is so real and big. The weapons use fireworks and their rockets scares so much when it is released, especially at night.

Land eviction is one of the leading causes of social unrest in Uganda with people working in government forcing peasants to leave their homes and land to give way for people in government and their relatives enough land to expand on.

The Parliament recently passed 2007 Land Act to curb land evictions in Uganda but as usual the law has remained on paper.

27/07/2010 20:43

All 40 homes in the Al-Araqib village were destroyed and 300 residents were evicted during the raid which began at 4:30 a.m. Approximately 1,500 police officers participated including special riot forces, mounted officers, helicopters, and bulldozers.

At least 200 children were left homeless as a result, as police removed residents property into prepared containers, and bulldozers razed buildings and sheepfolds, local activists said in a statement. Fruit orchards and olive grove trees were destroyed in the process.

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the “large-scale police operation,” involving 1,000 police officers and border guards, was implementing a court ruling evicting the residents after an 11-year trial.

He said 30 small sheds were taken down, and confirmed that 300 people were removed from the area to nearby Rahat. “All individuals were told ahead of time that they had to leave,” Rosenfeld noted.

The demolitions were facilitated by the Israeli government to make way for a forest sponsored by the Jewish National Fund despite residents winning a court battle overturning the decision, proving ownership of the land in question.

Calls to JNF’s Jerusalem office went unanswered, but the organization’s website says the JNF is serious about addressing challenges and is working with several Bedouin communities to effect change.

“Its leadership meets with regional councils to assess community needs and to develop solutions,” the JNF says.

The Bedouin residents of the village were evicted by Israel in 1951, but returned to the land shortly after. “Residents of [Al-Araqib] are neither squatters nor invaders: their village has existed many years before the creation of Israel in 1948,” the statement said.

Hamas condemns
Hamas condemned the demolition calling for an international stand against a “policy of rights violations.”

Hamas spokesman for the northern Gaza Strip Abdul Latif Al-Qanoua said the demolitions, targeting a community near Rahat in southern Israel, 30 kilometers southeast of Gaza City, displaced hundreds.

The move, he said, was a “violation of Palestinian human rights and the rights of innocent citizens.” He said the event highlighted an Israeli policy of racism and a larger aim to “clear out Palestinian villages and towns,” noting the similarity to the Israeli policy of home demolitions in East Jerusalem and areas near settlements in the West Bank.

“The occupation has continued the destruction of Palestinian villages in the Negev for more than 40 years,” Al-Qanoua said, and demanded that the international community take a stand against “Israeli arrogance” and what he described as a belief that Israel could act with impunity.

Many of Gaza’s almost 1,000,000 refugees have roots in the Negev, as well as seaside towns cleared of their Palestinian populations in 1948 when Israel was declared a state.

‘An act of war’

Israeli peace activists and volunteers who were present at the demolition said several residents were bruised and beaten by police, but did not require medical attention. One activist, they said, was detained.

The activists described Tuesday’s demolitions as an “a act of war, such as is undertaken against an enemy.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned ministers during a cabinet meeting a day earlier that “a situation in which a demand for national rights will be made from some quarters inside Israel, for example in the Negev, should the area be left without a Jewish majority. Such things happened in the Balkans, and it is a real threat.”

Activists said the flattening could not be “dissociated” from Netanyahu’s remarks and said presenting the Bedouin citizens of Israel as a threat” “gives legitimacy to the expulsion of Israel’s Bedouin citizens from the Negev in order to ‘Judaize’ it.”

Half of the Bedouin in Israel live in “unrecognized villages” and have no access to municipal or government funding or assistance. Estimates suggest the Bedouin comprise 12 percent of the Palestinian population in Israel.

Ill-trained CRPF was expected to fix a problem ill-trained police forces couldn’t deal with. The price of that misplaced optimism has been paid with blood.

Five decades ago, a French Special Forces officer, ruminating on the ruin of his nation’s once-powerful empire, set out to understand just why its armed forces had lost in a battle to adversaries armed with little other than determination. Unusually for a participant-chronicler of defeat, Roger Trinquier blamed neither politicians nor the inscrutable workings of history.

The problem, Trinquier argued, was that France had persisted “in studying a type of warfare that no longer exists and that we shall never fight again, while we pay only passing attention to the war we lost in Indochina and the one we are about to lose in Algeria. The result of this shortcoming is that the army is not prepared to confront an adversary employing arms and methods the army itself ignores. It has, therefore, no chance of winning.” “Our military machine,” he wryly concluded, “reminds one of a pile-driver attempting to crush a fly.”

Earlier this month, New Delhi laid out new proposals to address the growing Maoist insurgency that is devastating large swatches of India: a unified inter-State command, assisted by a retired Army Major-General. For all the hype, it is unclear just what the new structure is meant to achieve. No retired soldier, no matter how illustrious, has any experience of the ongoing counter-Maoist operations — or even firsthand knowledge of the forces he will be advising. More important, the immediate problem is not that of insurgents escaping pursuit across State lines: it is the growing mass of their forces, and the lethality of attacks.

Behind New Delhi’s anodyne response lies a bitter truth the government will not publicly admit: the principal instrument of India’s counter-Maoist campaign will not and cannot succeed.

A force in ruins

Back in 2003, a Group of Ministers assigned the Central Reserve Police Force frontline responsibility for counter-insurgency operations, in support of police across the country. Its recommendations, part of the seminal Report of the Group of Ministers on Reforming the National Security System, were widely seen as a well-intentioned effort to end the use of the Army and the Border Security Force in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism duties.

In 1999, when the expert group on whose basis the Report was issued conducted its work, the CRPF had 1,67,367 personnel. That number went up to 2,60,873 in 2007 — and is believed to have increased to over 2,80,000 now.

Key to the problem is that the CRPF has nowhere to train its recruits. The organisation has six training centres, each of which was designed to process between 150 and 200 personnel at a time through nine-month basic courses. Today those centres cannot even handle recruitment made to redress wastage — men who retire, for example, or who have to be removed for discipline. New battalions are being trained at improvised facilities lacking in basic infrastructure like classrooms, quality firing ranges and combat-simulation facilities — and by officers who will eventually lead them on the field, not professional instructors.

Worse, the CRPF has a crippling shortage of officers at the cutting-edge Assistant Commandant level — the officers responsible for handling forces the size of a company, or about 125 men. Induction has not kept pace with the expansion of the force. So, most battalions have to make do with just half of their sanctioned strength of Assistant Commandants.

Many of the best officers, moreover, are siphoned off by the Special Protection Group and the National Security Guard early in their careers. Few, thus, develop a personal rapport with the men they return to command. Satyawan Yadav, who led the ill-fated 62 Battalion patrol which was wiped out in Dantewada in April this year, had spent 10 years at the SPG. Internal investigators found that Yadav had defied orders to conduct a long-rage patrol through forests, choosing instead to lie about the whereabouts of his force to his commanders. His transition from the air-conditioned environment of the Prime Minister’s home to a field camp in Bastar had evidently been difficult.

Poor leadership has meant the CRPF has little institutional ability to learn from its mistakes. Despite repeated warnings from the Intelligence Bureau, 62 Battalion failed to secure its headquarters in Rampur against an attack by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in December 2007. Earlier this year, several personnel were held on charges of selling ammunition to organised crime groups in Uttar Pradesh. Later, Battalion commander Prabhranjan Kumar was relieved of his duties and is now facing internal proceedings related to inappropriate personal behaviour.

No in-house intelligence

It doesn’t end there: the CRPF does not have an in-house intelligence organisation. It recruits on a national basis, meaning it has few personnel familiar with the language, culture and terrain of the areas in which it operates. It does not even have a higher-command school dedicated to counter-insurgency tactics. Bluntly, everything that could conceivably be wrong is wrong.

For most of its history, the CRPF served as a resource provider, sending out company-sized forces to assist the police across the country. Few commanders had frontline combat roles until the CRPF was drawn into the Punjab insurgency. Bar a brief commitment in Jammu and Kashmir, the force had no independent counter-insurgency commitments till five years ago — when it was handed a role it was neither prepared nor equipped for.

“We can’t teach the CRPF how to walk,” Chhattisgarh Director-General of Police Vishwa Ranjan said of the series of errors in fieldcraft that led to the massacre of 27 personnel in a fire-engagement last month. His words may have been harsh — but their accuracy cannot be disputed.

“Policing a country of over 1.1 billion people,” Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in June, “is not an easy task.” He pointed out that in many of the States worst-hit by Maoist violence, “there are police stations where there are no more than eight men; and even these eight or less men do not hold any weapons for fear of the weapons being looted.” He called on the States to “enhance the capacity of training institutes to at least double the present capacity, and to recruit at least double the number of policemen and women being recruited at present.”

Ever since Mr. Chidambaram took office as Home Minister, India has seen a concerted effort to enhance police staffing. In December 2008, the National Crime Records Bureau reported, India had 1.13 million police personnel — about 128 for every 1,00,000 people, just over half the United Nations-recommended norm for peaceful societies facing no major challenges. The government now claims that the public-police ratio has risen to 1,00,000:161.78. The figures have aroused some scepticism, implying that 3,84,000 personnel have been hired in just 18 months — not counting the replacement of those who retired or were otherwise lost.

Leaving aside the statistical dispute, though, it is clear many Maoist-hit States are not the beneficiaries of force expansion. Bihar still has just 85,545 posts, of which 23,889 are vacant. That means there are 74.29 officers for every 1,00,000 population. Orissa still has just 135.8, and West Bengal just 100. Elsewhere, the increases are more marked, but still well short of international norms. Jharkhand, which had just 136 police personnel per 1,00,000 population five years ago, now has 206.98, according to the Union Home Ministry. Chhattisgarh’s police-population ratio too has risen from 128 to 226.3: 1,00,000.

Moreover, force expansion is not solving the problem it was intended for. Nagaland, which now has a staggering 1,677.3 police personnel for every 1,00,000 population, Jammu and Kashmir 742.3, and Manipur 669.6 — some of the highest population to force ratios in India — but none has succeeded in relieving the military of counter-insurgency responsibilities. Mizoram, which has no insurgency, has 1,268.6 police personnel per 1,00,000 population, suggesting that the problem in essence is serving employment-generation imperatives.

Even if all States were to expand their forces to these levels, it is far from clear if the facilities and instructors exist to make the recruitment meaningful. The benefits of facilities like Chhattisgarh’s school of jungle warfare at Kanker are evident. From January to June this year, the Chhattisgarh police claimed to have killed 37 Maoist insurgents, compared to just 10 by the CRPF, eight of those in joint operations. Notably, the police lost 29 men in combat, as against 117 fatalities suffered by the CRPF. Few governments, though, have followed its lead. In his speech, Mr. Chidambaram announced that nine counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism schools would be up and running this year, each equipped to train 1,000 personnel a year. He made clear, though, that these schools would in no way meet the needs of India’s burgeoning forces.

“We hope,” Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said in 2009, as the CRPF began to surge deep into Chhattisgarh, “that literally within 30 days of the security forces moving in and dominating the area, we should be able to restore civil administration there.” New Delhi hoped that an ill-trained CRPF would help fix a problem ill-trained police forces weren’t able to deal with. The price of that Panglossian optimism has been paid with blood. Both New Delhi and the States need to get down to the hard work needed to build credible counter-insurgency forces — and, meanwhile, consider strategies that are consistent with their capabilities.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Thousands of ethnic Zhuang villagers in Jingxi County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, took to the street to protest over an aluminium plant that they say released sewage that poisoned drinking water in dozens of villages.

On Sunday, several thousand angry Zhuang burst into the plant, smashing equipment at the aluminium plant. On Tuesday, they blocked roads and a railway line, surrounded the county government’s headquarters where they faced off about a thousand riot police.

“The road leading to the County government building, which is several kilometres long, was packed with villagers holding slogans, and armed policemen fired into the air to warn the furious protesters,” said Huang An, a Zhuang from Lingwan village.

The protesters even painted slogans on their clothes.

More than 100 people were injured in the riot and at least 10 vehicles, including a police car and an armoured vehicle, were set on fire by angry villagers in the protest.

The riot continued yesterday morning, with more protesters injured.

“The water is red and heavily polluted by untreated industrial sewage discharged from the plant. We don’t dare drink water from it,” one villager said.

An exceptional drought in the region has further complicated the situation, affecting more than 2.2 million people and 1.1 million head of livestock short of water and 740,000 hectares of farmland too dry to plant.

Jinxi authorities and state news agency Xinhua have a different spin of events. They claim that residents simply opposed the construction of a new road going to the aluminium plant, but did not mention the pollution problem.

A County official confirmed that clashes first broke out when plant workers tried to rebuild a road running close to Lingwan village, which sparked local opposition. This was followed by protests.

However, peaceful demonstrations outside the plant turned into violent clashes when company’s security guards began beating villagers outside the plan.

Making matters worse, homes near plant were suddenly flooded, causing millions of yuan in damages.

The authorities blamed flooding on a minor earthquake, but residents believe the plant sealed off the underground river by mistake after it had tried to flatten a mountain during a construction project.

According to official figures, there were about 87,000 episodes of social unrest in 2008 across China, due to economic factors, pollution, forced seizure of land and houses, unpaid salaries and much more.

Police have often come down on the part of the authorities and business interest, sometimes provoking violent clashes.

More than 96 per cent of people in Jingxi County are Zhuang, one of China’s largest ethnic minorities. Social unrest in this region can easily take on ethnic connotations, as it does in Xinjiang and Tibet.

July 14
Banda Aceh. A blockade of the giant Arun liquefied natural gas plant in northern Aceh by more than 500 villagers demanding the company honor 36-year-old promises entered its third week on Tuesday with no end in sight.

The blockade flared up on Monday when protesters scuffled with the police while trying to stop plant workers leaving by the main gate.

The protesters are from four villages in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, whose land was taken over by Arun LNG in 1974.

The four villages are West Lancang, East Lancang, East Rancong and West Rancong.

The protesters have blocked the main entrance to the plant.

Ahmad Refki, the coordinator of the protesters gathered under the Evicted People’s Alliance, said his group would continue the peaceful protest until their demands were met by the government and state oil and gas company Pertamina.

“The residents demand resettlement and an agriculture area to make a living, as promised by the government when Arun was established in 1974,” Ahmad said in a phone interview.

He said the government and Pertamina had promised all residents affected by the oil and gas mega project that they would be resettled and given land to farm.

The promise was contained in a letter from then Aceh Governor Muzakkir Walad.

Residents of other villages surrounding the plant have already been relocated, but not those from the four villages.

“The 452 heads of families from these four villages have only been compensated for their land,” Ahmad said.

Some of these people have since left, while other have stayed and have had to rent houses.

The protesters have put up a tent at the plant entrance.

The blockade has not affected the company’s operations, but workers have been forced to look for other ways to get in and out of the plant.

“The demonstration is peaceful,” Ahmad said. “We will continue this blockade until our demands are fulfilled by the government and there is a written agreement that residents can hold on to.”

He added that the armed conflict in Aceh between the military and the separatist Free Aceh Movement, and the resulting security presence in the area, had prevented residents from claiming their rights earlier.

He denied claims made by a witness that the cars of several Arun staff had been vandalized during Monday’s scuffles, saying the cars had been only slightly scratched or dinged.

The witness, who declined to be named, said police had fired warning shots into the air to disband the protesters but there were no serious injuries.

Ahmad said that to avoid further clashes, the protesters had stayed inside their tent on Tuesday because the police were on guard around the site.

The Arun gas field is one of the country’s largest and for decades has been considered a vital project requiring tight security.

The plant was a target of guerilla attacks during the three decades of separatist conflict, and the military has always had a strong presence in the area.

A few days ago, the Federal High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt declined to grant the request of Ijaw community in Rivers State to prevent Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi from going on with the demolition of waterfronts in the state capital.

The Ijaw community had gone to court following the demolition of Njemanze waterfront, a notorious slum in the Diobu area of Port Harcourt , by the Rivers State Government.

As the threat to demolish became louder, more waterfronts after Njemanze grew, the people of Okrika, a section of the Ijaw community in the state, filed a suit at the Federal High Court and subsequently, secured leave to sue the Rivers State Governor, the Chief of Naval Staff, the Chief of Air Staff and the Chief of Army Staff, as well as the Inspector-General of Police for an order of restraint.

The order sought was an injunction to restrain the defendants from undertaking and participating in the demolition of the waterfronts.

When the suit came up for first hearing on August 14, 2009, counsel to the Okrika people, Professor Yemi Osibanjo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) prayed the court to restrain the Rivers State government from demolishing the waterfronts and the prayer was heard as the presiding judge, Justice G. K. Olotu, made an order of status quo ante, preventing the Rivers State Government from carrying out demolition of any of the waterfronts, pending the next hearing date.

The people of Okirka, since then had never hidden their displeasure to the state government’s policy as they strongly believe that the idea of demolition of waterfronts in the capital city was orchestrated by the Ikwerre ethnic group.

To Chief Levi Tam-George, Secretary, Borikiri Council of Chiefs, Governor Amaechi was merely carrying out a written script in order to satisfy the yearnings of his Ikwerre kinsmen.

According to Chief Tam-George, the Ikwerres had vowed to drive the people of Okrika away from Port Harcourt , a city that is co-owned by them.

Also, the people of Okrika were not happy at the idea of being compensated by the state government for demolishing the water fronts, which many of them see as their ‘ancestral homes’.

For Chief Senator Tari Sekibo, Chairman, Okirka Divisional Council of Chiefs, payment of compensation to landlords was different from resettlement of the people.

Senator Sekibo noted that the people of Okirka wanted the government to reclaim the lands and resettle the people in the reclaimed areas, stressing that if the government was allowed to go ahead with the planned demolition, the people would be rendered homeless in areas where securing decent accommodation had been a herculean task.

Apart from the Okrika leaders, several local and international organizations such as Amnesty International, UN-Habitat and the Social Action, a non-governmental organization have, criticized the planned demolition exercise.

While Amnesty International and UN-Habitat strongly believe that demolition of waterfronts and the forceful eviction of over 200,000 residents living in these water fronts are not the best approach, Social Action suggested that alternative housing be provided for the residents first before demolition.

On its part, the Rivers State government has continued to explain that its decision to demolish the over 21 waterfronts in Port Harcourt is irrevocable. The government insisted that the exercise was aimed at making life consequential for the people, by getting rid of the noxious environment for a hygienic one.

It is on record that it was the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, Sir Celestine Omehia who first mulled the idea of demolition of waterfronts.

Omehia, who governed the state between May 29, 2007 and October 25, 2007 when he was deposed by the Supreme Court judgment , after his election had been challenged believed that the water fronts are haven for criminals.

He told the Rivers State people that for the state government and security agencies to check the rising rate of insecurity and criminality, waterfronts must be demolished.

However, when Governor Amaechi took over office on October 26, 2007 , he announced that he had suspended the planned demolition of the waterfronts, a decision that earned him followership and admiration from the Okrika sect in particular and the waterfronts dwellers in general.

But a few months later, based on security reports, the governor reversed his pronouncement by declaring the waterfronts as ‘dens of criminals’ that must be demolished.

Both a stakeholders’ meeting held at Government House, Port Harcourt on July 14, 2009 and the state Truth and Reconciliation Panel led by erudite Jurist, Justice Kayode Eso endorsed the demolition exercise with the strong belief that it would check criminal activities.

Speaking at the stakeholders’ meeting, Governor Amaechi said there were a lot of arms and ammunition at the waterfronts and that when the areas would be demolished, the army, navy, air force and riot policemen would be involved to prevent resistance.

“Arms and ammunition are stock-piled at the waterfronts. When crimes are committed there, they will not be reported to the police and other security agencies. There are observatory points there to monitor security agents. With the volume of arms and ammunition at the waterfronts, we are sitting on time bombs.

“When we want to demolish, the Airforce will deploy helicopters, the navy will move to the areas with gunboats, while the army will have its officers and men on the land, to ensure the demolition is effected and to prevent resistance”, he said.

The state government earlier said that over N20billion would be paid to the affected landlords as compensation, even though some of the houses do not have approved building and survey plans, as well as certificates of occupancy (Cof O).

The government further said that the demolished areas would be redesigned and rebuilt for the people, including former landlords to buy at affordable rates, while other parts would be guided development, where the buyers of the plots land would build structures they wanted.

Though, the affected waterfronts are not dominated by Okrikans alone, as other Ijaw communities such as Kalabari, Obolo, Ibani and Ogonis also reside there, the people of Okrika argue that most of the affected waterfronts are their ancestral homes.

This argument, however, has been disputed by the state government that insists that no ethnic group can claim ownership of the waterfronts.

According to the government official saddled with the duty to demolish the waterfronts, Barrister Osima Ginah, who is the State Commissioner for Urban Development, any waterfront found to be an ancestral home of some people would not be demolished immediately until the people are relocated.

“We are not carrying out indiscriminate demolition of waterfronts, we are carrying out planned demolition and when we demolish it, obviously, government has plans to develop the area. And I want to put it on record that we will demolish all the waterfronts in Port Harcourt , one after the other.

“But if we reach any waterfront and where the people can, with facts prove that the area is an aborigine and that the people have no where to go and they can show us, as Rivers people, their ancestral artifacts, the things that they worship so when we find ancestral home, then we will relocate the people”, Barrister Ginah said.

Now that the coast is clear for the Rivers State government to actualise its dream of transforming the waterfront to inhabitable areas, residents of the affected waterfronts need not to be told that time has come to let go.

The landlords and residents of the areas are expected to start looking for alternative accomodation to shelter their families and properties pending when government would be through with its development plan for the waterfronts.

Though, it is painful that a lot of residents, and even landlords, who have no resources to get a new accommodation within Port Harcourt and its environs, may be forced to relocate to their various villages for the main time, the government has gotten a legal backing courtesy of the judgement of the Federal High Court to demolish the areas.

However, apart from radio and television jingles on the need to give waterfront in Port Harcourt a new face,which is sponsored by the State Ministry of Information and Communications, the state government has not shown any sign that it is ready to demolish the waterfronts at least for now.

But, the truth is that every resident of Port Harcourt is anxiously waiting to see the day government bulldozers will move into the waterfronts to carry out a demolition exercise that have been ordained by the court of law.

July 4, 2010

Peasants rally in Okara, Punjab, Pakistan on June 29. Labour Party Pakistan spokesperson Farooq Tariq is front left. Photo: Labour Party Pakistan/Picasa

The Punjab government has been given three months to decide the fate of 68,000 hectares of agricultural land. The land is owned by the government and has been cultivated by tenants for more than 100 years.

The tenants have demanded land ownership rights. Despite government promises, the land has not been allotted to them.

The three months’ notice was given at the end of a huge peasants rally on June 29 at Okara. The rally was organised by the Punjab Tenants Association (AMP) on the eve of the anniversary of 10 years of the tenants’ struggle for land ownership rights.

More than 5000 peasants from different agriculture farms waved red flags and chanted slogans against the regime.

They blamed their poverty on the General Head Quarter of Army looting of resources meant for peasants. The army owns more than 25,000 acres of land in the Okara and Pakpattan districts of Punjab.

Nine peasant leaders have lost their lives during the 10 years of struggle.

The rally paid tribute to the movement’s martyrs and pledged to continue the struggle until victory.

There were hundreds of red flags at the rally and more than 2000 motorcycles. Dozens of tractors and trailers brought the peasants to the rally. Okara residents and traders welcomed the peasant rally and showed victory signs to the protesters. Hundreds of people waved to the protesters on the way to the main venue.

The rally took three hours to pass the main roads of Okara and ended in front of Okara Press Club, where AMP leaders spoke to participants. Labour Party Pakistan spokesperson Farooq Tariq said that the governing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) are responsible for not implementing promises made while they were in opposition to the military dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf.

Tariq said this was the first mass movement to challenge the military dictatorship when it was at its height of repression. He told the Punjab government to act positively to the demands of the peasants by the three month deadline or be ready for a gherao (picket line) of Lahore.

Tariq said: “We will come in thousands and will not leave Lahore until our demands are met. We have fought the military dictatorships and we will not accept the unconcerned attitude of the present civilian government.”

Mehr Abdul Sattar, general secretary of AMP, told the rally: “We want them to fulfil the promises made to us while they were in exile. We will sit idle to let the time pass. We will act and act decisively.”

He announced plans for a mass rally of 100,000 peasants for October at Okara. “We will take an oath from every one that we are ready to die for land ownership and will march to Lahore”, he said.

The military yesterday said it considered the remaining New People’s Army rebels in Negros and Panay a “disorganized and spent force” that has dispersed into small groups, for survival purposes.

As the deadline set by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for them to reduce the NPA into an inconsequential level in Western Visayas lapsed yesterday, regional military spokesman Capt. Mark Andrew Posadas said the 3rd Infantry Division has effectively addressed the challenges posed by the rebel group, by drastically degrading their capabilities to affect the peace and development in the region.

From 10 active NPA guerilla fronts in 2006, Posadas said it has now been reduced to four “degraded fronts”, with only 70 out of the 162 insurgency-affected barangays, yet to be cleared.

There are 4,741 barangays in Negros and Panay island, where 3rd ID infantry units have been stationed.

Despite the continued recruitment by the NPA, Posadas said the number of its active members had reduced from 745 in 2006 to 486, posting a decrease by 35 percent in their overall strength in the last four years.

Even if they (NPA) occasionally conduct raids on what he calls “soft targets” such as haciendas and mining company guard posts to acquire more firearms, he said the 3rd ID has managed to reduce the number of rebel firearms from 392 to 294.

Priest-turned-rebel Frank Fernandez said to be the secretary of the Komiteng Rehiyonal-Negros, however, disputed claims of military victory, saying the 3rd ID failed to crush the revolutionary movement in Negros.

In a statement he issued, Fernandez claimed that out of the 3ID desperation the military resorted to “physical elimination phase”, by killing members of progressive groups and further claimed that the number of victims of extra-judicial killings had reached 36 in Negros alone.

While admitting that the remaining rebels are still capable of launching terroristic activities, Posadas said they cannot afford to overthrow government functions at the local level.

Military records also showed that 18 leaders of the revolutionary movement in the region were neutralized, either through their arrest or from being killed in gunbattles.

Posadas, citing testimonies of former rebels, said the apparent exodus and attrition within the Komiteng Rehiyonal Negros and Panay were triggered by what he calls continued “financial and sexual opportunism” within their own ranks that also greatly contributed to the demoralization of their members.

Military records also showed that 153 ex-rebels in the region have availed of the Social Integration Program for rebel returnees.

A total of 240 Kalayaan sa Barangay Projects were undertaken by the Army engineers in selected rural barangays of Region 6, which essentially spurred new developments, 86 of which were completed in Negros island.

As their Internal Security Operations deadline lapsed, Posadas claimed they have been successful in reducing the capabilities of rebels, making their goal of regional stability more attainable, and cited what he called the “unhampered delivery of basic services and the flourishing tourism industry.”

Despite the gains, Maj. Gen. Vicente Porto, 3rd ID commanding general, said “We will continue to perform our internal security function, with focus in areas where they remain persistently active”.

“We are optimistic that the remaining insurgents will be neutralized as long as 3ID maintains its professionalism and commitment to our mission,” Porto also said.*GPB