NEWS U WONT FIND ON CNN

"I Was Tortured"
By Sister Dianna Ortiz, OSU 

Sister Ortiz relates her personal experiences and tell us that U.S. personnel were present in interrogation and torture rooms,” in Guatemala in 1989 when she was kidnapped, taken to a secret prison and repeatedly raped and tortured by troops commanded by General Hector Gramajo (a CIA asset and graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas).

“Many of our fellow Americans wear a blindfold hiding from the truth of what our government is doing. But each of you has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a voice to oppose this crime against humanity.” Sr. Dianna is the author of The Blindfold's Eyes tassc.org . Buffalo, N.Y April 9, 2005

Posted April 2005
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USA and Human Rights

In 2009, 18,000 people were held by the USA in prisons in Iraq (a country being occupied by USA forces), Afghanistan (another country under USA occupation), Djibouti (an ex-French colony in Africa), Diego Garcia (an ex-UK colony cleared of its population by the UK and leased to the USA as a military base), Jordan (a non-democratic country armed and supported by the USA), Egypt (another non-democratic country armed and supported by the USA), Morocco and various prison ships.

One UK resident from Ethiopia, Binyam Mohamed, is released from Guantanamo Bay after being held without trial or charge for seven years. Evidence that he was tortured is supressed in a UK court after the USA threatens the UK with the withholding of military intellligence.

Tortures included sleep deprivation, brutal beatings, being hung from a ceiling, and the use of a razor applied to his genitals. He was arrested in Pakistan where he was tortured and seen by UK agents who encouraged him to co-operate. USA documents passed to the UK admitted that the prisoner was being tortured by the Pakistanis for the USA.

USA and United Nations Resolutions - 2008

• On the rights of children.
• against Racial Descrimination. Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom also vote against.
• Affirming the sovereignty of the Palestinian people over the occupied territories and their resources. Australia, Canada and Israel also vote against. Another resolution calling for self determination of the Palestinian people.
• Calling on Israel to pay compensation for an oil slick caused by its bombing of Lebanese facilities. Australia, Canada and Israel vote with the USA.
• Calling for a new and fairer economic order.
• Calling on the right of nations to development. Ukraine also votes against.
• Calling for a right to food.
• Respect for the right to universal freedom of travel and the vital importance of family reunification. Israel also votes against.
• On Information Technology developments for international security.

USA & Use of Cluster Bombs - The following figures are from the USA writer Robert Weitzel:
Seventy countries meet in Peru to ban cluster bombs which kill thousands of civilians every year. The biggest users and manufacturers of these weapons (USA, UK and Israel) fail to attend.

In April 2009 Amnesty International publish a report saying that conditions at the USA detention camp at Guantanamo Bay are deteriorating. some detainees at the camp are close to mental and physical breakdown. The report states that over 160 prisoners (roughly 30%) have been moved to a new building called Camp Six. The report continues: "Amnesty International believes that conditions in Camp Six, as shown in photographs or described by detainees and their attorneys, contravene international standards for humane treatment."

Camp Six is composed of windowless, steel cells where prisoners are confined for at least 22 hours a day. According to Amnesty, Camp Six has created increased conditions of extreme isolation, to the detriment of prisoners' mental health: "...in Camp Six is that detainees have no way of knowing whether it is day or night."

The articles would be drafted by Pentagon staff and then planted in Iraqi and other Arabic newspapers by the Lincoln Group: "When delivering the stories to media outlets in Baghdad, Lincoln's staff and subcontractors sometimes posted as freelance reported or advertising executives. The amounts paid ranged from $50 to $2,000 per story placed. All told, the Lincoln Group had planted more than 1,000 stories in the Iraqi and Arab press."

This policy of paying newspapers for positive stories about the USA or negative stories about its enemies has been used before by the USA. In the examples below, newspapers promoted false news aimed at undermining a governments or its leader, reported non-existent shortages to create a panic that would induce an actual shortage and defended hostile economic and military actions by the USA.

CZC

The use of robotic planes by the USA is increasing so quickly that David Branham, a USA Leutenant Colonel was able to tell the USA newspaper, New York Times: "It is possible that in our lifetime we will be able to run a war without ever leaving the US."

Tur Gul, a 38 yearl old man shot twice as he stood by the roadside stated: "They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway. They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot.".

One man told Al Jazeera that five members of his family were killed in the shooting: "American bullets murdered my family ... it's tyranny and injustice." Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar, said the Americans had treated every person and car along the road as a potential attacker.

Abdul Nangahar, a police chief, told news reporters: "When local people came to the scene, the soldiers just opened fire on the crowd. People got killed and wounded."

Local people demonstrated showting "Death to America! Death to Karzai!"
Journalists from Associated Press had their images of a vehicle with dead bodies deleted by USA soldiers.

After the Communist victory in China, the Nationalists go to the island of Taiwan and set up a rival government.

The USA recognises Taiwan as the legitimate government of China. The USSR recognises the government of mainland China. The two main superpowers have created two Chinas. Taiwan gets the single seat in the United Nations (because of American pressure) even though it contains less than 1% of the population. Taiwan is backed and supported by the USA even though, it bans all political parties until 1987. Mainland China, representing a fifth of the world's population, would not be allowed to join the United Nations until 1971.

Many Nationalists take refuge in northern Burma where CIA advisors arm them for incursions into China.

War in Korea - 1952

During the war in Korea, USA aircraft drop a number of diseased objects (feathers, bacteria, decaying animals, fish parts) in Korea and China. Many people die from plague, anthrax and encephalitis.

A 600 page report by the International Scientific Comittee (involving scientists from Sweden, France, UK, Italy, Brazil and the USSR) states that: "The peoples of Korea and China have indeed been the objectives of bacteriological weapons. These have been employed by units of the USA armed forces, using a great variety of different methods for the purpose."

The USA drops 70,000 gallons (265m3) of napalm per day on Korea. This is a substance made from benzene, polystyrene and gasoline that catches fire and sticks to flesh. The victim is either burned to death or suffocated by lack of oxygen.