Peacemakers like Margaretta D’Arcy uphold the greater moral law

Photograph taken in solidarity with jailed Peace Activist Margaretta D’Arcy at “Airing Erris: The Media and Shell Corrib” in Ceathrú Thaidhg, County Mayo on the 18th January

Signs of hope and causes for optimism are still to be found amid the bleak picture often presented on the daily news. Despite the realities of war, climate change and hunger, we can find hope and inspiration in those who continue to resist, to struggle, to challenge, and even to celebrate.

Imbolc, the ancient Irish festival that marks the beginning of spring, is almost upon us. It represents a time of new beginnings after the long, dark winter. In Irish tradition, people celebrated this time on February 1st, and honoured Brigid, who was noted in legend as a strong and fearless leader that carried a torch for peace, truth and justice. Continue reading “Peacemakers like Margaretta D’Arcy uphold the greater moral law”

Use of Shannon Airport by U.S. Military Implicates Ireland in Iraqi/Afghan Slaughter

Press Release

From left to right: Donal O’Kelly as an Irish politician, Dylan Tighe as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner and Raymond Keane as a US marine in a protest action to highlight the use of Shannon airport by the US military on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war earlier this year. Photo: Derek Speirs

The human rights group Afri has said it is dismayed but not surprised by the revelation, given in response to a Dáil question, that a US military aircraft “armed with a fixed weapon” stopped at Shannon airport early last month. Afri opposes the use of Shannon by US military because of the way it implicates Ireland in the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people in the US’s disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afri believes, as confirmed by groups such as Shannon Watch, that weapons are regularly transported through Shannon, the only difference being that on this occasion the weapon was visible. The ongoing arrogance of the US was again in evidence in the failure by the Embassy even to answer questions about the type of aircraft or weapon where the aircraft had flown from or its destination.

Afri is appalled by the craven attitude of the Irish Government and by Mr Gilmore’s bending over backwards in an embarrassing attempt to explain and excuse this ‘administrative error’.

Afri once again calls on the Government to end this practice of participating in proxy war by handing our airports over to the US war machine.

Iraqi doctor petitions WHO for open-access review of birth defect data

Dr Samira Alani, who has worked at Fallujah General Hospital since 1997, has been documenting cases of congenital birth defects at the hospital since 2006, when a sharp increase in rates led her to begin recording data on the developing health crisis. Credit: Donna Mulhearn.

International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons

Fallujah paediatrician Dr Samira Alaani has launched a Change.org petition calling for official data on rates of congenital birth defects in Iraq to be submitted for peer review in the open-access journal PLoS One after repeated publication delays by the World Health Organisation and Iraqi government (Petition is available here: www.change.org/act4iraq).

Results from the nationwide study, undertaken by the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MoH) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2012, are now long overdue. Iraqi researchers interviewed by the BBC earlier this year claimed it will link increased incidence rates of birth defects with areas subject to heavy fighting in the 2003 war – a hugely significant and politically sensitive conclusion.

Dr Alaani is calling for the data to be submitted to the leading open-access journal PloS One after persistent delays from the WHO and MoH in the analysis of the data. Publication in PLoS One would allow independent scrutiny of the data and reduce fears that the WHO’s internal process had been subject to politicisation because of the controversial nature of the study. The research was prompted by concerns from maternity hospitals across Iraq that rates of congenital birth defects were unusually high. This is the first time that rates have been recorded and analysed nationwide.

“We began logging these cases in 2006 and we have determined that 144 babies are born with a deformity for every 1000 live births. We believe it has to be related to contamination caused by the fighting in our city, even now, nearly 10 years later,” said Dr Samira Alaani, a paediatrician at Fallujah General Hospital. “It is not unique to Fallujah; hospitals throughout the Anbar Governorate and many other regions of Iraq are recording spiralling increases. Every day I see the strain this fear puts on expectant mothers and their families.” Continue reading “Iraqi doctor petitions WHO for open-access review of birth defect data”

Shamrock Shame and Shannon

There was a dramatic photo-call at Dáil Éireann on Easter Monday highlighting opposition to what the justice and peace organisation Afri is calling “the shameful handing over of Shannon Airport by the Irish Government to the US war machine”.  Actors Donal O’Kelly, Raymond Keane and Dylan Tighe – dressed as a US soldier, a Guantanamo detainee and an Irish politician – marked the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by dramatically enacting outside the Dáil what Afri coordinator Joe Murray calls “Ireland’s fawning welcome to illegal warriors and its cold indifference to illegal rendition for torture”.

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From left to right: Donal O’Kelly as an Irish politician, Dylan Tighe as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner and Raymond Keane as a US marine in a protest action to highlight the use of Shannon airport by the US military on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war. Photo: Derek Speirs

The actors dramatised how ‘official Ireland’ warmly embraces the US military, while turning a blind eye to the kidnap and torture of civilians.  “This may seem like a ‘stunt’”, said Mr Murray, “but its aim is deadly serious – to use the medium of drama to highlight what standard media coverage of the issue now routinely ignores, namely that we have made ourselves complicit in war crimes and the worst violations of human rights”.

Note: Afri Statement on the Tenth Anniversary of the Iraq War

“As we embark on Ireland’s own decade of remembrance it is crucial to reflect on the last decade and more of complicity in disastrous and immoral onslaughts on Afghanistan and Iraq.  Even if these wars were not illegal – lacking UN authorisation – they have proved catastrophic for the populations and environments involved and in their bitter legacy of resentment and enmity.  As a Security Council member in 2001-02 Ireland failed utterly to express our Constitution’s commitment to  “the pacific settlement of international disputes” (Art. 29.2), thus abetting the undermining of UN authority on foot of unfounded claims about weapons of mass destruction.  Our failure to confront the so-called War on Terror is also revealed in the indifference of successive governments, and the Garda, to the evidence of Ireland’s involvement with illegal rendition flights for torture.

This complicity has been detailed by Shannonwatch, and criticised by the Council of Europe, Amnesty International and, this year, the US-based Open Society Justice Initiative.  The call from our own Human Rights Council in 2007 for an effective inspection regime for all relevant flights has been met with callous indifference.  The new Chief Executive of Shannon Airport has recently declared that military traffic “has been in the DNA of Shannon for many years… [;] it’s lucrative and we are certainly going to go after it as much as possible.”  This obscene metaphor blithely ignores the real genetic legacy of war, such as Agent Orange in Vietnam.  And no-one checks whether equally appalling weaponry, such as depleted uranium, currently flows through Shannon’s bloodstream.

Official Ireland’s line is ‘whatever you do, say nothing, hear nothing, see nothing.’  But in the real world, DNA is a complex of different strands.  Ireland’s ‘DNA’ contains a vital strand of peacekeeping, non-aggression and friendly co-operation.  This has been shamefully suppressed by our political establishment and police authorities, all-too-conscious of their imagined role among the high and mighty, all-too-contemptuous of basic human rights at home and abroad.  Our conniving in illegal aggression and the denial of human rights is a lamentable stain on Ireland’s role in world affairs.  The continuing pressure for further aggression in Iran and elsewhere makes it urgent that we as Irish citizens hold our government to account, not merely to correct a vast historic injustice but to prevent even more death, destruction and denial in the future.”

A Decade On and Depleted Uranium Contamination Still Blights Iraq

To mark the 10th anniversary of the 2003 invasion, a new report has highlighted continuing uncertainties over the impact and legacy of the use of 400 tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) weapons in Iraq. The report reveals the extent of DU’s use in civilian areas for the first time.

In a State of Uncertainty published by Dutch peace organisation IKV Pax Christi, has sought to do what the US has so far refused to do – reveal how widely the weapons were used in Iraq, and in what circumstances. It also analyses the costs and technical burdens associated with DU use, arguing that a decade on, many contamination problems remain unresolved – leaving civilians at risk of chronic DU exposure.

Continue reading “A Decade On and Depleted Uranium Contamination Still Blights Iraq”

Ban Depleted Uranium Film

4 minute documentary filmed and directed by Dearbhla Glynn, with the support of Afri, outlines some issues posed by use of the Depleted Uranium Weapons.
It brings us to Basrah, Southern Iraq, where much of destruction was caused during Gulf War in 1991. The ammunition used during the Gulf War contained DU.
Depleted uranium is a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor fuel. Once exposed it stays in the environment for up to 400 million years.

DU becomes internalized through inhalation, ingestion and contact with the skin. Alpha radiation inside the body is the most potent carcinogenic agent known to science – twenty times more damaging than x-rays or gamma rays, causing cancerous diseases, congenital anomalies and malignancies. DU use is not an issue known or spoken about outside of the military, and there is very little understanding of it or consequences of using the DU weapons.

There are short interviews with Dr. Hamdan, Dean of Basrah Medical school, Dr. Hassan, Head of Oncology, Laura Bush Hospital, Dennis Haliday, former UN humanitarian coordinator, outlining some of these issue in the documentary.

To find out what you can do to stop the use of this terrible weapon, please go here: http://www.afri.ie/ban-depleted-uranium/

US Veterans for Peace To Attend Shannon Vigil

Shannonwatch press release, 8 November 2011

Members of the U.S. organization Veterans For Peace will take part in a vigil at Shannon Airport action on Sunday next, November 13th, at 2 pm. The vigil is organised by Shannonwatch to demand an end to the ongoing US military use of the airport, and to express opposition to the ongoing US occupation of Afghanistan. It will also call for action to be taken against landing US aircraft that are involved in renditions, illegal assassinations and other human rights abuse. Continue reading “US Veterans for Peace To Attend Shannon Vigil”

Free Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning is a US soldier,  imprisoned on suspicion of having released secret documents to WikiLeaks. Manning has suffered ‘unduly harsh’ conditions since he was brought from Kuwait to a military prison in Virginia more than a year ago. For a period of his imprisonment he was stripped naked every night, had his prescription glasses taken away, forcing him to sit in ‘essential blindness’ and was subjected to other severe punishments. His treatment led to an investigation by the UN and protests to the US government from Amnesty International.

More information from http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Events organised by AfrI in Co. Mayo

Afri organised two events on the 21st and 22nd of May  in Co. Mayo that addressed fundamental issues of economic and political justice in the world today.

The first was the annual Famine Walk from Doolough to Louisburgh, on Saturday 21st, commemorating the death of Irish people during the ‘great famine’ of the nineteenth century and highlighting the reality of hunger and food insecurity in the world today, the causes of which include war and obscene levels of military spending. This year the Famine Walk  focused especially on the question of food sovereignty, including the threats to it from increasing corporate control of the food chain and the treatment of food as just another commodity to be bought and sold. The theme of corporate power also dominated at the second event, a public meeting in Erris on Sunday 22nd, where activists from India exchanged their stories of oppression by multinational companies (especially Union Carbide and its devastation of Bhopal) with the tales of local campaigners against Shell’s unwanted and dangerous Corrib Gas pipeline. Continue reading “Events organised by AfrI in Co. Mayo”