Sokwanele

These photographs were taken the day before yesterday. The two men are MDC MT supporters based on Mashonaland East. They, and others, were viciously assaulted by Zanu PF militia on Tuesday night. Three houses were burned down in the same area in ongoing attacks. This must be stopped!

The Zimbabwean people have spoken in the elections. We said NO to violence and NO to lawlessness. This is a new Zimbabwe: we must not tolerate this abuse of our right to a peaceful democratic country, and this abuse of our people. We must stand together against tyranny. Take Action!

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has called an emergency meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to discuss the Zimbabwean presidential poll delay. This is the first move by Zimbabwe’s regional neighbours to intervene since the elections on 29th March 2008. President Mwanawasa is the current Chairman of the 14-nation South African Development Community. This is what he said yesterday:

I wish to take this opportunity to commend the people of Zimbabwe for the calm and peaceful manner in which the elections were conducted.

Similarly, I appeal to them to maintain the same spirit of calmness which they exhibited during the elections as they await the results of the presidential elections.

However, given developments immediately following the elections, I have decided, as Chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to call an extraordinary summit on Saturday 12th April, 2008 to discuss ways and means of assisting the people of Zimbabwe with the current impasse as well as adopt a co-ordinated approach to the situation in that country.

WHAT YOU CAN DO AND HOW YOU CAN DO IT

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Zimbzbwe
Elections

***Two new blogs from South Africa’s shackdweller movement. The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is an umbrella body for 15 community organisations. The body was formed in 2000 with the aim of

of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.

***Shackdwellers: Housing Struggles Worldwide is a collection of feeds from housing movements world wide some general movement reports and a little commentary. This is a work in progress which also supports Abahlali, Ota Benga Alliance (DR of Congo) and Fazel Khan who was dismissed in 2006 for criticising the University of KwaZula Natal - the site reports on lack of academic freedom and freedom of expression in South African universities.

***More food riots in Haiti. The riots started in Les Cayes and have now spread to Port-au-Prince and Gonaives as up to Cap Haitian. UN forces have been deployed on the streets and at least 5 people have been killed with more injured.

The Causes: via AIDG Blog

* The cost of staples such as rice, beans, food and condensed milk have increased by 50%. The majority of Haitians (80% of the population) live below the poverty line and most of Haiti’s food is imported.
* Humanitarian aid has been held up in customs, with much simply rotting. .
* Oh and of course, the Haitian government is broke, flat broke.

***The Greatest Silence: Rape in the DRC

shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), shatters the silence that surrounds the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Many tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army. A survivor of gang rape herself, Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson travels through the DRC to understand what is happening and why.

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Jean “Binta” Breeze
Grenada

Palestinians stand at the forefront, in the front lines of peoples’ insistence everywhere that their rights, well-being and fundamental values as human beings be respected by governments. And they do so (and I write this as an Israeli with great sorrow and shame) against one of the world’s strongest and most ruthless military powers - a power that has dispossessed them from 85% of their land, which is trying to transform its occupation into a permanent regime of apartheid, which has spent decades impoverishing and disenfranchising them; the fourth largest nuclear power which nevertheless casts itself as the victim. Not only have the Palestinians experienced the dehumanization all oppressed and colonized peoples experience, not only have they been made into the embodiment of the rich and powerful’s greatest fear, evil “terrorists” who may tear down their privileged “civilization,” but they have been turned into guinea pigs. Israel is able to gain an edge in the counterinsurgency industry and win entree into the heart of the American military/hi tech complex by turning the Occupied Territories into a laboratory for the development of fiendish weaponry and tactics intended for use against people.

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Palestine
Gaza siege

Holocaust in Gaza - Breaking the walls

“Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes,” Dugard said.

When U.S. government offices are closed, and the media is not paying attention, during special holidays-in this case Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday-Israel often takes full advantage to attack the people whose land it surrounds and occupies. Call your local news desk or the telephone numbers below. Don’t let Israel continue to get away with war crimes.

WRITE OR TELEPHONE THOSE WORKING FOR YOU IN WASHINGTON AND DEMAND THAT THIS CARNAGE STOP-AND THAT YOUR TAX DOLLARS NO LONGER BE USED TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE:

BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS

Tens of thousands of Palestinians today poured into Egypt from Gaza after militants blew up part of the wall between the two territories in protest at an Israeli blockade.

On foot, in cars or riding donkey carts, Gazans burst into the Egyptian border town of Rafah to buy cigarettes, plastic bottles of fuel and other supplies that have become scarce and expensive after months of economic isolation.

“I have bought everything I need for the house for months. I have bought food, cigarettes and even two gallons of diesel for my car,” Mohammed Saeed told Reuters. via Kameelah Writes

END THE SEIGE OF GAZA

International Day of Action

Protest Saturday 26th January

4-6pm

Opposite No10 Downing Street

Whitehall, London

PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN FOR MORE UK VENUES

LINKS: SABBAH’S BLOG

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Gaza siege
Palestine

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