La parola del Presidente Bashar Al-Assad (in Italiano) 3 giugno 2012

Presidente Bashar al-Assad: “le circostanze che la Siria si trova ad attraversare, richiedono massimo coraggio, forza e responsabilità”.

Il presidente Bashar al-Assad domenica ha detto che “le particolari circostanze che il nostro paese sta attraversando ci richiedono di essere più coraggiosi, forti e responsabili”.

“Rendiamo omaggio e onoriamo le anime dei martiri innocenti, civili e militari”  ha detto il presidente al-Assad rivolto all’Assemblea del popolo in occasione della sua prima legislatura, aggiungendo che il sangue dei martiri non verrà sprecato.

Il presidente al-Assad ha dichiarato: “Svolgere il vostro dovere di direzione legislativa non può essere fatto in modo migliore se non in possesso di una chiara visione dello sviluppo basato sul dialogo costruttivo e la comunicazione con i cittadini”, aggiungendo di concentrarsi sul ruolo di controllo dell ‘Assemblea, che non deve ignorare il suo ruolo di collaborazione con il potere esecutivo.

“Dobbiamo affrontare gran parte della campagna contro la Siria basandoci sulle riforme  e per la costruzione di una fortezza con cui fronteggiare le ambizioni regionali e internazionali”.

“E’ nostro dovere, nei confronti del nostro popolo, che ha dimostrato la capacità di riuscire a superare prove nazionali molto difficili, adeguare il nostro impegno al livello della sua consapevolezza e fermezza”.

Il Presidente ha sottolineato che lo svolgimento delle elezioni dell’Assemblea del Popolo, come previsto, è uno schiaffo in faccia a chi vuole che la Siria si chiuda su se stessa e anneghi nel sangue della propria gente.

Il presidente al-Assad ha dichiarato: “Un anno e mezzo dopo che la crisi è iniziata, le cose sono divenute chiare e le maschere sono state rimosse … il ruolo internazionale in ciò che sta avvenendo oggi è evidente da decenni ormai … il colonialismo rimane invariato, ma i suoi metodi e le facce cambiano, gli attori regionali si svelano per quel che sono”.

Egli ha aggiunto che “dopo tutto il sangue puro che è stato versato, abbiamo bisogno di ragionarci su molto bene e di apprendere dalle persone le quali furono in grado di decodificare il complotto sin dall’inizio.”

Il presidente al-Assad ha dichiarato: “Stiamo progredendo con l’evoluzione del processo politico, ma il terrorismo si sta intensificando”.

“Non saper distinguere tra processo politico e terrorismo è un grave sbaglio, che garantisce legittimità al terrorismo. La separazione tra terrorismo e processo politico è essenziale per giungere alla soluzione della crisi”.

“Siamo di fronte ad una vera e propria guerra, ed occuparsi di guerra è diverso dall’affrontare questioni interne. Se boicottiamo le elezioni, boicottiamo le persone. E qualsiasi processo politico che non si basi sul volere popolare non ha alcun valore”.

“Sapevamo sin dal primo giorno che la pista politica non avrebbe portato ad una soluzione della crisi, ma lo abbiamo fatto, perché il popolo siriano ne ha bisogno, indipendentemente dalla crisi”.

Ha poi aggiunto: “La Siria è aperta a chi vuole una vera riforma e un dialogo onesto, accogliamo con favore la partecipazione di qualsiasi siriano onesto al processo di sviluppo del Paese”.

Il Presidente ha sottolineato che la sicurezza nazionale è una linea rossa invalicabile  e che non si può essere tolleranti con chi tenti di sabotarla.

Il presidente al-Assad ha proseguito dicendo che “il caos porta solo altro caos, ma la società può essere costruita solo sulla base di elevate norme etiche”. Ha poi aggiunto: “I problemi non sono causati dalle riforme o dalla democrazia, ma dal voler minare il ruolo della Siria nei confronti della Resistenza, il suo sostegno alla Resistenza e la sua adesione e supporto ai  diritti della resistenza”.

“Non c’è giustificazione per il terrorismo, sotto qualsiasi pretesto esso si presenti, e non c’è nessuna tolleranza per esso o per coloro che lo sostengono, a meno che non si arrendano. La differenza nei punti di vista può significare ricchezza, ma le differenze circa il concetto di Patria possono significare distruzione”.

Ha poi aggiunto: “Io non sto parlando di agenti interni o di cospiratori esterni, ma  piuttosto vorrei ammonire quei siriani che amavano il proprio paese, ma non sapendo come difenderlo, inavvertitamente hanno contribuito a minarlo”.

“Dobbiamo distinguere tra il nebulosità politica e quella nazionale, in quanto la foschia nazionale è inaccettabile. Quando il problema è di carattere nazionale, io sono certamente con il mio paese”, ha detto il Presidente.

Ha aggiunto che nessuna istituzione sarebbe potuta essere in grado di fare sacrifici, così  come le forze armate hanno fatto, se non fosse esistita una gran fede a dirigere i suoi membri nella giusta direzione.

“Gli errori commessi da alcuni individui, di volta in volta sono stati sfruttati ed esagerati per fare apparire tutto come una prassi adottata dallo Stato e dalle sue istituzioni in generale,” ha detto.

Il presidente al-Assad ha aggiunto: “Le nostre Forze Armate hanno costruito la patria e hanno sempre conservato la sua indipendenza. A nessuno è permesso di minare un simbolo che rappresenta la nostra unità e la dignità”.

“Questa non è una crisi interna, ma una guerra guidata dall’estero attraverso strumenti interni, ed ognuno è responsabile nel difendere la propria Patria”.

Il presidente al-Assad: “Se noi oggi ci manteniamo uniti, io vi confermo che la fine di questa situazione arriverà presto, a prescindere dalla cospirazione straniera. Noi non permetteremo, a coloro i quali non hanno nulla a che fare con la nostra storia, di scrivere qualcosa che non è stato mai scritto prima nella storia, cioè che i siriani hanno distrutto la propria patria da se stessi”.

Il Presidente ha continuato dicendo: “Dobbiamo lavorare insieme per realizzare le esigenze dei cittadini riguardo la giustizia sociale, che è rappresentata da una giusta distribuzione delle risorse, da una parità nelle opportunità ed nell’ottenere i servizi basilari”.

Il presidente al-Assad ha dichiarato: “Oggi noi stiamo disegnando, con le braccia dei cittadini  onorevoli, con le istituzioni nazionali e con il coraggio del nostro esercito, le linee di  una vittoria inevitabile”.

“Anche se alcune fazioni hanno prodotto morte e distruzione al nostro popolo, noi vogliamo presentare alla loro gente un modello civile da seguire, al fine di ottenere la propria libertà ed essere conpartecipi della propria Patria, ed invece che i leaders essere proprietari delle terre, che le persone e la patria lo siano”, ha aggiunto.

Il presidente al-Assad ha dichiarato: “Il terrorismo non spezzerà la volontà del popolo siriano e la Siria rimarrà per sempre una fortezza inespugnabile, che resterà a testimonianza della sconfitta dei suoi nemici”.

Egli ha sottolineato che la sovranità della Siria, la sua autonoma capacità decisionale, la sua sicurezza territoriale e la dignità della sua gente, saranno sempre le linee guida da seguire.

Traduzione e adattamento in lingua italiana a cura di

Filippo Fortunato Pilato  (Syrian Free Press)

Une vente aux enchères pour acheter des suicidaires!

Des sites internet ont diffusé des images sur des « enchères » dans l’un des hôtels de Jeddah en Arabie Saoudite pour acheter des mercenaires en échange de grosses sommes d’argent en vue de les envoyer en Syrie pour s’y faire exploser.

Dans ladite vidéo, un certain Abou Salah accepte de vendre son fils à un million de riyals saoudiens. En contrepartie, le jeune doit partir en Syrie pour commettre un attentat suicide !

Le responsable de ces enchères a ouvert la session des ventes aux enchères par une somme de 200 mille riyals saoudiens et a demandé ensuite au public de faire des donations afin d’acheter le suicidaire.

Il incitait le public à multiplier les sommes d’argent proposées.

A la fin de la session, l’un des participants accepte de payer un million de riyals saoudiens, alors que le père du suicidaire affiche sa joie pour cette grosse somme d’argent et crie : Allah Akbar ! (Dieu est le Plus grand).

Le responsable de ces enchères a fait savoir que le suicidaire sera envoyé à Bab Amr à Homs pour aider les hommes armés de l’opposition syrienne.

Source: alalam

I Don’t Want To See Their Faces; I Don’t Want To Hear Them Scream

Published on Monday, March 12, 2012 by Common Dreams


The whole thing is regrettable, really. Shocking, truth to tell. And so sad, I’m sure, for those people, those blanket-wearing, beard-growing, false-god-worshiping, probably-related-to-terrorists, citizens of Afghanistan whose wives and children and babies were gunned down in their beds, shot, murdered, slaughtered, and then burned by one of America’s finest Sunday morning. But hey, what are ya gonna do? These things happen.

It seems the soldier in question was not, in fact, representative of our brave fighting men and women. He was just another in the continuing series of lone gunmen who have been shooting up the world here and overseas for as long as any of us have been reading the newspapers. David Cortright, the director of policy studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, tells us “This may have been the act of a lone, deranged soldier.” I saw a headline that said he was a rogue. OK; rogues do as often as not, “go rogue” as no less an authority than Sarah Palin would have us know. So given time to reflect a bit, I guess I’m sorry I impugned our noble troops.

President Barack Obama summed it up as succinctly and as eloquently as only a man of his unflappably cool reserve could, I suppose: “This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.” Well there. And yer goddamn right, Mr. President. Our boys kick butt! We take it to ‘em! We light up the friggin sky! They don’t mess with the U.S.A. and get away with it. You don’t kill three thousand brave American heroes on September the eleventh, ten years ago, and expect your four year old girl to sleep in her own bed unmolested. Unkilled. Unburned. We do what needs to be done to keep America free, and sometimes along the way an enlisted man goes a little nuts. Just one. Just every little once in a while.

Mr. Obama got right on the telephone and called up our “partner” in this whole great reworking of Afghanistan, Mr. Hamid Karzai, and told him we were sorry. Or something like that. He expressed condolences. So did Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. I’m sure those were awkward conversations, but you know, the buck does stop there, and that’s why we pay those boys the long dollar. Speaking of which, compensation will be paid. You betcha. We have a formula. I don’t know, fifteen hunnerd bucks or so. Each.

And we’re even-handed and generous in spraying our condolences and compensations. When we kill civilians as a part of our regularly scheduled, officially sanctioned, presidentially authorized drone strikes, it makes Mr. Obama sad, too. It is regrettable, of course, that so many children will insist on living in the same hovels as the alleged terrorists we need to kill, or with somebody who kind of looks like one of them or who might once have been associated with them in some way. We were attacked, you know, and candidate Obama said his predecessor wasn’t prosecuting the Afghanistan adventure vigorously enough, but he would, and he for sure, by God has, hasn’t he?

Does it feel different to be dead by drone than dead by M-1? Does Obama have nightmares? Did Bush? Do they wash their hands, trying to scrub off the blood? We do not doubt this particular atrocity was perpetrated by a young man gone leave of his senses, but we are not encouraged that he will be tried in a military court, found crazy, demoted, dismissed, given cursory mental health treatment and some time in an institution. We wonder if our Congress and our President should be pronounced crazy, too. Or maybe just criminal. And what about us, neighbor, in our complicity? We who elected them and will re-elect them or others just as cold and cruel and as able to calculate that the life of an Afghan child is not worth much compared to our unending and unyielding compulsion to exercise extreme power in pursuit of God only knows what.

Has anybody thought to ask Barbara Bush about this situation? You’ll remember she said the victims of Hurricane Katrina the New Orleans cops herded into the Superdome (those they didn’t shoot) so they could sweat and starve and suffer among piles of shit and debris for several days, had a pretty good deal: “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this—this [chuckle] is working very well for them.”

OK! You’re way ahead of me here, aren’t ya buddy? Take Mr. Samad Khan, a farmer who lost all 11 members of his family: wife, kids, maybe an old mom or a crippled dad, for all I know. Eleven times even a thousand dollars each will net him eleven grand. And I’ll bet Afghanistan doesn’t even tax dead baby compensation income. Do we pro-rate babies and old people?

Hell, old Mrs. Bush wouldn’t really have any problem with the midnight murder run itself (yeah, I know, it was three a.m., but I can’t pass a chance at a cheap alliteration without hooking it any more than Lieutenant Calley could leave a peasant hut un-incinerated). Sure, she was talking about her boy’s Iraq adventure, but the emotion is surely transferable: “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” A precious thing for sure, you bloated old bag; don’t waste it. Aw, Jesus! That wasn’t nice. I’m sorry, Mrs. Bush. My deepest condolences over the condition of your mind. Fuck, I’m sorry about your whole stupidfamily.

But I’m not here to “look backward.” President Obama told us years ago there’d be none of that. And I’m not going to beat up Republicans. Why no less a liberal figure than Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, said that, while it did seem a hard choice to make, she believed the deaths of half a million children in Iraq was a worthwhile price to pay to get old Saddam. So five hundred thousand, compared to a dozen or so….

And it’s Monday, anyhow, and back to work, you know, and the weather looks good and the economy is incrementally better (experts say) and the job creators are working darned hard to create jobs for bums like you and me; gas isn’t as expensive as it might be, all things considered, and President Obama will probably get those lunatic Israelis to hold off bombing Iran until after he’s re-elected (they can kill all the Palestinians they like, of course, because they’re just, well, Palestinians for Christ’s sake.) So this will fade away about as fast as that Koran burning did, don’t you think?

But before we move on, why don’t you do what I did this evening? Google around the WWW and stir up some photographs. Do it on your desktop if you still own one—the portables, the notebooks, the smart phones the cool kids all flash just don’t give you the big picture. You might find the AP photo captioned “Anar Gul points to the body of her grandchild.” You could see eight pictures the New York Times has assembled into a little slideshow.

Let Google Images round up whatever it can find (36,100,000 results in .19 seconds) under the search terms Afghanistan shootings. You’ll see the bodies. The babies. And the faces of their families. We caption them, “the bereaved.” These images should haunt you. Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming.

Suppose a foreign army had been rummaging around the United States for a decade. They’d have built us some concrete-block elementary schools of course and drilled a few water wells. And their president or premier or prime minister would have secretly flown in under elaborate and expensive secrecy and security to shake hands with the soldiers and tell them what a good job they were doing bringing peace and stabilization to our misguided land, and who among us would not be grateful for that?

But then suppose, just occasionally, at intervals, one or several of those soldiers or pilots or special forces teams or secret espionage units burned a bunch of civilians for no good reason any of us could see? Mowed ‘em down. Ran ‘em over with a tank. Busted in the door in the nighttime and gutshot somebody’s old grandfather. Would that begin to take the glow off our gratitude?

OK, let’s be specific. Forget the afore-mentioned Samad Khan and the grieving Anar Gul. Don’t trouble yourself about the names of their children. (Do they even name their children like we do, these Muslims?) Pick any names that come to mind—good, honest, Americannames. Say Sam Knox is missing his wife and kids and Anne Greene sits there numb and devastated as she looks at the blanket her child is wrapped in. Does that feel any different? How much compensation would it take to make them get over it?

Come on, you cowardly bastard—look at those pictures! I know we don’t read so much these days, but you might have run across the term empathy during some mandatory literature course back in high school or college. So. How does it feel?

My kid has annoyed me a time or two today. Loud, wild, antagonistic here and there. (He’s seven.) I told him to stay off the rotten ice on the pond inlet stream while I was cutting bushes, but there he was, “I’m cold!”, up to his knees in slush and muck and icewater, and we quit early and repaired to the woodstove to dry him out. (He did agree he ought have listened to my wise counsel.) Then again, he told me a dozen times he loved me. And when he just couldn’t possibly get to sleep on his own, he had not the slightest trouble when I let him lie on the couch in my office as I wrote my little letter to you all out there.

And there he sleeps. And you could bomb my house and blow up my car and take away a leg and an arm and I might take your compensation check and relocate and regroup and nurse my grievances in the barroom. But if you or you or you or anybody came in here and killed him, I don’t care if you’re Christian or Jew or Mohammedan or a pagan suckled in some creed outworn, if you hurt him accidentally or on purpose, under orders or because you snapped under the pressure of your third deployment. I’d just want to kill you. And I don’t doubt I might kill you slowly and abuse your damned corpse in some ugly way. You and the guy behind you and the army that comes after that. I’d open you up and I’d nail you to the porch floor.

Oh, I’d be a bad person for doing so. Why, you might even say I’d become a terrorist, I suppose. And killing you wouldn’t bring back my wonderful boy, because whatever God you might pray to or believe in only ever made one of him, and you killed him, and there could be no joy, no purpose, no happiness in my life after that other than getting to you and grinding you up and making you pay. You’d compensate me with your flesh for forty-two pounds and forty-four inches of boy. And if I went crazy enough (and I might, and anybody might), I might need to kill a whole lot more who seemed to me to be pretty much like you. And there we would be.

I’m done. The snow is almost gone, and the pond will open up next week and the turtles come out of the mud, and Karter and I may just hatch some frog eggs in a tank in our kitchen. Because he won’t be a pile of bones and guts soaking into a blanket in the back of a truck, you see. I’ll gather him up now and dump him where I want him to sleep, and he’ll wake in the morning to defy me and argue with me and disobey my firm instructions to do this or that, and to love me as I’ll love him because that is how we evolved, and we do what we must do. As it is in Afghanistan and all over this world the United States of America thinks it owns.

Beware the rogue soldier, the corrupt government and the corporate press and the easy justification.

Come on. Just one more time. Look at their faces!

Egypt Parliament to Consider Rejecting US Aid

Egypt Parliament to Consider Rejecting US Aid


March 12, 2012 “RT” — In the wake of the NGO funding scandal the Egyptian parliament is to consider cutting more than $1 billion in US aid along with putting the military-appointed interim government to a vote of confidence.



“We hope that members of the American Congress listen carefully to the decisions of the Egyptian parliament – the parliament of the revolution -and know quite well that the Egyptian people will never accept tinkering with the sovereignty of Egypt or American assistance to be used to humiliate it,” parliament speaker Saad El-Katatni said as quoted by the paper.

Socialist El-Badri Farghali, said “Egypt should stop obtaining assistance from America because this is not assistance from America to Egypt but from Egypt to America, and we want to uncover the names of all those who were involved in receiving money from this assistance.”






Leaked Email: Pentagon Admits Plan To Direct Terror Attacks Inside Syria

Leaked Email: Pentagon Admits Plan To Direct Terror Attacks Inside Syria


Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, March 6, 2012












Reports of foreign troops entering Syria have been circulating for months.











By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

October 15, 2011 “













The Yinon Plan




Map Copyright: The Atlantic, 2008.


Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006.

The Eradication of the Christian Communities of the Middle East












(1) ethno-linguistics;
(2) skin-colour;
(3) religion.





Israel and the African Continent






Israel and Libya






Preparing the Chessboard for the “Clash of Civilizations”










Ethnocentrism and Ideology: Justifying Today’s “Just Wars”







[2] Ibid.





[7] Ibid.




Copyright © Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 2011

Where Have Libya’s Children Gone? Long Time Missing…

Franklin Lamb
Tripoli, Libya

The quality of life continues to cascade in certain areas of Western Libya while public anxiety noticeably rises over missing Libyan children as the first week of an unusually stressful Ramadan passes.

The shortage of gasoline has become acute and despite government efforts to curtail price gauging, one taxi driver told this observer yesterday that while the usual price of ‘benzene’ was 3.75 liters (one gallon) for $.40 (forty US cents) he is now having to pay as much as ” 4 dinars for one liter of petrol!” That is roughly the equivalent of 13 US dollars for a gallon of gasoline, a huge price surge in a country long accustomed to cheap, heavily subsidized fuel. “Informal economy” (black market) fuel arrives in car trunks from the Tunisian border and its increasingly common to see fellows with a make shift funnel trying to get more benzene into their vehicle tanks than they splash and spill on neighborhood streets.

 Tripoli residents trying to fuel a car on 8/5/11 with black market benzene—often spilling a fair bit in the process. Photo: flamb

Walking around the “medina” off Omar Muktar Street near my hotel yesterday afternoon, the angst over deteriorating conditions is apparent. Shops, like homes, are now subject to rolling blackouts and quickly become hot and stuffy, discouraging would be customers from entering. Some food stores have to discard milk and other perishable items given the up to 11 hour power cuts that send temperatures above 110F. One gentleman on Rashid Street in downtown Tripoli said his family had not had power for five days and the pump that supplies water to his apartment building stopped working so they lack two essential utilities.

NATO’s arguable act of piracy earlier this week in commandeering the fuel tanker ship Cartagena off the coast of Malta that was bringing gasoline to Tripoli and sending it instead to Rebel militia based close to Benghazi is yet again explained from NATO HQ as necessary for “protecting the civilian population of Libya.”

According to Libya’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, “The age of piracy is coming back to the Mediterranean because of NATO.”

Some frustrated shop keepers just shutter their shops and seek relief at the beach or take a nap waiting for sundown and their Ramadan Iftar (feast) to begin. But lack of electricity even affects its preparation. (ed. note: 15 minutes ago NATO reportedly bombed the public beach near my hotel as three other bombs landed nearby—targets unknown)

Every time a bomb blast is heard, a chorus of passersby and kids invariably point toward the bomb site and watch the rising white or black smoke (the color depending on the type of bomb or missile) and some shout, “F— NATO! F—Obama!” Etc.

If a foreigner is confronted by angry citizens who may blame Americans for NATO’s bombing, a sure fire way to quickly reduce crowd tension is for the foreigner to make the peace sign and make a fist with his other hand and chant a few times: “Allah! Mohammad! Muammar! Libye! Abass!” (God!, Mohammad!, Qadaffi!, Libya!, that’s all we need!”) The locals appreciate the sentiment and pre-teens often join the popular chant and dance.

As of the morning of 8/7/11 NATO statistics show that since 3/31/11, NATO forces have launched 18,270 sorties, mainly against Western Libya, including 6,932 bomb/missile strike sorties. Last night (8/6/11) there were 115 sorties including 45 bombings of which 12 were in central Tripoli starting a 10 p.m.

To their great credit, some Congressional staffers on the US Senate Armed Services Committee who liaise with the Pentagon, have acted on constituent complaints and have criticized NATO’s incomplete description of its bombing of Libyan civilians.

For example earlier this week NATO reported its bombing of the village on Zlitan, about 160 miles east of Tripoli in the Western Mountains as follows: “In the vicinity of Zlitan:1 Ammunition Storage Facility, 1 Military Facility, 2 Multiple Rocket Launchers.”

However, still absent from this particular NATO report on its website is the fact that its bombing attack killed the wife and two children of Mustafa Naji, a local Zlitan physics teacher. Mustafa’s wife Ibtisam, and their two children, Mohammad 5 and Muttasim, were pulverized. Once again, NATO said it could not confirm any claims of  “accidental killings” but would recommend an investigation.

As was apparent one week after UNSCR 1973 was adopted, NATO is the instrument of the Obama administration’s policy of regime change in Libya. NATO has virtually assumed the “rebels” command and control function in Libya’s civil war. This afternoon, Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi claimed that most of the rebel leadership has left Libya and he challenged them to hold a meeting during Ramadan. Mahmoudi claims that NATO is using Islamic extremists because they are more reliable in carrying out NATO orders as it seeks to break the civilian population’s will to resist, similar to Israel’s bombing campaign targeting the civilian population of Lebanon during the July 2006 war.


Names and dates of birth of Libyan children missing from the orphanage at Misrata. Photo: flamb 8/4/11

Also of growing public and government concern in Western Libya is the whereabouts of 53 female and 52 male children aged one to 12 years and another group ranging from 12 to 18 years, both part of a government run home for orphans and abused children that until February was operating in Misrata, now under rebel control. According to several reports over the past three months and testimony presented last Thursday evening to the international media gathered at the Tripoli Rexis Hotel, by the        General Union for Civil Society Organizations.

 Libyan NGO’s invited foreigners to a conference last week seeking help finding the 105 children missing from Misrata

The 105 children, part of more than 1000 missing, were “kidnapped” by rebel forces as they entered Misrata and went on a killing   spree, some of which has been documented by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International among other groups. There is no question that the children are no longer in their sheltered facility. But from there what became of them remains a mystery.

The Libyan government claims the youngsters were kidnapped by rebels who went on a rampage in late February. Several reports from eyewitnesses claim that the children were last seen being put onto either a Turkish, Italian, or French boat. More than one witness claimed to have observed some of the children being sold in Tunisia. On his tweeter page, the local Russian Telesur reporter said that “several sources have affirmed that the 105 children were taken out of the country in a ship that could be Turkish, French or Italian.”

Libyan Social Affairs Minister Ibrahim Sharif told reporters in Tripoli this week that, “We want the truth and we hold those countries responsible for the well-being of these children who are neither soldiers nor combatants.” Sharif added that a rebel doctor captured by government troops testified that some of the orphans had been taken to France and Italy.

Misrata’s history as a main 18th-19th century North African slave trading port,  is a fact that today partially explains tensions among the one third of Libya’s population that is black. Most are descendants of slaves and many live in Western Libya in villages now fighting the Misrata and Benghazi based rebels. Their concern for the disappeared children is especially acute.

While Libya has had perhaps the most strictly enforced child protection laws in the Middle East and Africa, people here remember clearly that France was at the center of a scandal in 2007 when aid workers from the Zoe’s Ark charity attempted to fly 103 children out of Chad, which borders Libya to the south, who they said were orphans from neighboring Sudan. International aid staff later found that the children were in fact Chadian and had at least one living parent. People here fear a similar fate for the Libyan youngsters.

Also on people’s minds in Libya is what happened two years ago in Haiti when “orphans,” according to local authorities, were kidnapped.  Given the epidemic of human trafficking in this region, especially of children, fears are well founded.
NATO has not replied to inquiries demanding information about the disappeared children nor has UNICEF, Save the Children or Secretary of State Clinton’s office. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has agreed to demand that the White House order an immediate investigation and of course any human rights advocate could raise this issue in the West and demand an urgent inquiry from her/his government.

The Libyan government as well as both the Roman Catholic Papal representative Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, and Father Daoud of the Anglican Church of Christ the King, in Tripoli have demanded that the UN investigate and find the children.

As for the National Transition Council, its spokesman denied charges that they have sold the children and claim that the Libyan government in Tripoli have all the children and that they are using them as human shields at the now five times bombed Bab al Azizya complex in central Tripoli. No known human rights organization or journalist who has investigated this claim has reported seeing any sign of the children at Bab al Azizya. The General Union noted above, has photos and names and ages of all the missing children and have widely publicized them.

More than a dozen social welfare organizations, women’s groups and Libya’s Lawyer syndicates have launched an intensive media and public involvement campaign to find the children who have now been missing for nearly six months.

Franklin Lamb is in Libya and can be reached c/o

London riots: Divine justice?

What happened in London last night – the torching of private property, wanton destruction, looting and generalized violence, was lamentable and unacceptable. Yet does it not provide a perfect answer from God, underlining the sheer hypocrisy with which western governments view and conduct policy, especially when we draw lines of comparison with Libya?

 So, let us draw parallels and see how the UK authorities come out of this. On Thursday, the British police shot dead a man in the street. Tensions escalated during Friday and on Saturday night, some 300 youths congregated outside the local police station in the London area of Tottenham in a peaceful demonstration which got out of hand as members of the public from other areas of London and beyond ran amok in the streets, torching buildings and vehicles as they went on a looting spree.

 Now let us imagine that for months – nay, years…I repeat, years, foreign powers had been arming and aiding not 300, but rather, 30,000 (thirty thousand) Islamist fanatics, who, equipped with heavy machine-guns, tanks, self-propelled artillery and anti-aircraft munitions, ran amok in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol. If the police shot dead one man in Tottenham, if the police shot dead the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, because he, er… “looked Asian” back in 2007, what would they do with 30,000 marauding thugs? Why, according to the British Government, evidently nothing, they would just stand back because “the people were deciding”.

So why the brouhaha about Tottenham? But wait a minute, the police did react, against unarmed civilians! And if one civilian death is the result of a two-day incident involving 300 people, then we can extrapolate the figure of 100 civilian deaths at least, in the early hours of a general uprising, more or less exactly the real figures now coming out of Benghazi, and among these were Gaddafi supporters. Interesting.

 Now let us imagine these “unarmed civilians” being attacked by the British police were actually heavily armed, had links to Al-Qaeda, were led by a convicted terrorist, were going around slashing people’s throats in the streets, were torching government property and ransacking public offices. Let us imagine someone placed a stash of Viagra tablets on the floor of a police station and another stash of condoms inside the cells of Scotland Yard HQ, and then some American Congresswoman could claim there was proof of mass rape by the British authorities.

 Then let someone call in the UN to bomb the crap out of Britain for five months because unarmed civilians were being attacked, to bomb the British armed forces fighting against this scourge so that the Islamist fanatics could gain ground, let us imagine the international media carried out an orchestrated campaign involving a blackout of the truth and the dissemination of lies, blaming the British authorities for atrocities it did not commit, blaming the RAF for sorties it did not fly…

Let us imagine the leaders of this UN clique of cowards, bombing British civilians from 30,000 feet for 5 (five) long months claimed that this was not about removing Cameron and Hague, then claimed that it would be better if they went, then claimed “They have to go”. Then the British people could decide whether they were allowed to remain in Britain but of course, exile in Burkina Faso would be more appropriate (perhaps not, I insult the good Burkinese people)…

 Let us imagine that the British Armed Forces put up a struggle and Cameron and Hague and The Queen appeared on State TV (whose antennae were bombed systematically), let us imagine that the equivalent of 20 million Britons took to the streets supporting their dearly beloved leaders (and only a handful of Islamist extremists were actually against them) and let us imagine their defiance was heralded by the British people who vowed to fight on the beaches and shores and cities and hills and villages and promised solemnly never to surrender…

 Let us imagine that in face of this defiance, the UN coalition of cowards started lashing out in frustration, calling for the destruction of civilian structures to break the will of the British people, and bombed the main water supplies, bombed hospitals, bombed centres for handicapped children, bombed children’s schools and in a wanton criminal act of first-degree murder, targeted the house of David Cameron, murdering his family in cold blood because they thought he was there. How would David Cameron feel?

 In fact, given the behaviour of God-fearing Christians in Libya, I tend to side with Allah and the good Moslems trying to celebrate Ramadan as cowardly Christian crusaders try to kill them, destroy their civilian structures and impose foreign values on their society with a top-down approach. I only hope and pray that the clique of nations involved in this outrage reap what they have sown, tenfold.

 By this, I mean that I hope that what they have wished and meted out to others comes back to them multiplied by ten. After all, they claim they are acting in goodwill. So…Allaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahu Akhbar!

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey