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Commentary:
Civil War in Iraq Happening Person:
Kathy Dillon DAY OF DIALOGUE OBSERVED THIS 9/11 An International Day of Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue is being proposed by local religious leaders for Thursday, Sept. 11.
The dialogue is intended to "overcome prejudice with understanding, hatred with love, injury with forgiveness, suffering with compassion, terror with peacefulness." "We believe that, like the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this positive way of remembering Sept. 11th will prove to be an essential step toward a more just and peaceful society," says Arun N. Toke', a self-described "born-again Unitarian Universalist Hindu" and member of Faith in Action. "Becoming active peacemakers means initiating dialogue with friends and strangers alike. When we listen to others, and when we know their stories, they no longer remain strangers to us." Toke' says all civic, social and educational organizations as well as individuals are invited to "recognize the importance of Sept. 11th in building a multicultural and sustainable world … Yes, it will be one of the many steps that we take as we continue working on the worthy goal of world peace and harmony." He says there are many ways to initiate and continue a dialogue across the spectrum of faiths, cultures, languages, and nationalities. He cites July's week-long "Peace Village" summer camp at the First Congregational Church in Eugene; free on-going classes and workshops on multiple world views by Lane Institute for Faith Education; the Rites of Passage Summer Academy, a cross-cultural program at LCC; and other examples from around the word. "Through dialogue we can develop understanding and cooperation between diverse segments of our society," he says. More information can be found at Toke''s website http://www.skippingstones.org/ — TJT
HUNGER STRIKE GAINS NATIONAL ATTENTION Four hunger strikers remain in the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health as of Monday, Sept. 1, and the effort has generated significant national attention. "The big break was The Washington Post," says David Oaks, executive director of MindFreedom Support Coalition International in Eugene. Oaks joined the fasters during their demonstration in Pasadena in mid-August, and has since ended his fast. Oaks is quoted in the Post article Aug. 29 questioning the ubiquitous use of drugs today to treat mental illness: "Millions of people are signing up for these prescriptions because they are convinced they have a chemical imbalance. But there is not one piece of evidence that can back that up." The full story and links to other media coverage, including the R-G's story Aug. 26, can be found at http://www.mindfreedom.org/Oaks says he's gotten good news from home while he's been on the road. "After more than a decade of complaining," he says, "Sacred Heart has quietly changed their informed consent sheet for electroshock in a way we requested. Meanwhile, the state of Oregon's new director has made it a point to gather statistics on Oregon State Hospital's use of electroshock — also a breakthrough. Given that the Eugene and state breakthrough happened within a week of each other, maybe 'something's happening here.'" The four remaining hunger strikers are asking supporters to contact the American Psychiatric Association to voice their support for the strike and for human rights in mental health. The APA's phone number is (703) 907-7300 and website is http://www.psych.org/— TJT
RIGHTS MAKE RIGHT IN SENATE VOTE The Oregon Senate passed Senate Joint Memorial 7 on Aug. 25, supporting the Bill of Rights and opposing the UPA. The vote was 23-2, with Sens. Steve Harper and Ken Messerle voting against. Oregon could be on its way to being the fourth state nationwide with a resolution supporting the Bill of Rights. SMJ7 passed after, according to the Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee, an Aug. 21 public hearing before the Senate Rules Committee. At this public hearing, 20 people, out of nearly 100 who came from around the state to testify, shared compelling stories about how the UPA has affected their lives and the lives of those they love. Hope Marston of Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee writes, "Oregon can be the fourth state in the nation to pass a resolution [against the UPA]. All the lobbyists and representatives told us it couldn't be done — but we are now halfway there." Because of the end of the session, SMJ 7 did not make it through the Oregon House. Lane County Commissioner Bill Dwyer, in a note to LCBRDC, writes, "Partial victory and education go a long way in building bridges for the future. I would suggest that you ask all the legislators who were sponsors or supporters to ask their local jurisdictions to sponsor like legislation locally, either city or county." — Bobbie Willis
IMMIGRANT WORKERS HONORED IN BENEFIT The Farmworker Justice Coalition (FJC) of Eugene is inviting the community to the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride Benefit, which will begin at 6 pm Tuesday, Sept. 9 at the First United Methodist Church on Olive Street. On the menu will include Jorge Navarro's pozole (a Mexican stew), and the music of Jim Garcia and Bonnie Duran-Leaming. Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the civil rights movement, immigrant workers and their supporters will leave Portland and nine other major U.S. cities in late September, crossing the country to converge in Washington, D.C., and meet with members of Congress. From there, the riders will rally in Liberty State Park in new Jersey on Oct. 3, and will arrive in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, New York, for a mass rally on Oct. 4. FJC is holding the benefit so that two local women, Mary Martinez-Wenzl and Guadalupe Quinn, can join them. A bake sale will be held at the benefit to help raise funds for the nationwide Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride project. "The work that we're doing is a model in the U.S. for immigrant rights … legalization for undocumented immigrants, to reunite families, protection of worker rights without regard to legal status, and the protection of rights and civil liberties for all," says Martinez-Wenzl, who's the Network for Immigrant Justice coordinator at the Community Alliance of Lane County. CALC is endorsing the benefit along with Latinos Unidos, Juntos, CentroLatinoAmericano, Justice Not War, Amigos de los Sobrevivientes, and the Lane County Labor Council. Suggested donations are $5 to $50 on a sliding scale. Donations can be sent to FJC, P.O. Box 10272, Eugene 97440. For more information, call 607-8097 or 688-0195. To volunteer at the benefit, e-mail Marion Malcolm at marionm@efn.org — Celene Carillo
BILL & PHIL BACK LATEST BUDGET PLAN In a joint statement in the final days of the Legislature, Rep. Phil Barnhart and Sen. Bill Morrisette said they support HB 2152, a compromise budget bill: "This bill won't get us back to the level of services which existed before the state's revenue shortfall. But it will ensure kids in our legislative districts will have a full school year. It will ensure that no further cuts in school days and teaching positions are made. It will ensure that most of the elderly and infirm get the help they need. It will ensure our courts will stay open five days a week. It will maintain a bare-bones minimum level of services, a level which we feel our constituents have said they want and need."
Local environmental agency E-LAW celebrated an international coup late last month in partnership with Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente (FIMA) of Chile by preventing Toronto-based mining company Noranda, Inc., from building one of the world's largest aluminum plants. The infamous "Alumysa Project" in central Patagonia called for damming three wild rivers and flooding old growth forests — threatening dozens of endangered species. According to E-LAW Executive Director Bern Johnson, aluminum production requires enormous quantities of energy. Although Chile does not have a large market for aluminum products and does not possess the aluminum ore necessary for aluminum production, its potential to produce inexpensive hydroelectric power makes it attractive to energy intensive industries. E-LAW U.S. has worked with advocates at FIMA for many years to protect the environment through law in Chile. At FIMA's request, E-LAW Staff Scientists Mark Chernaik and Meche Lu evaluated Noranda's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Alumysa project. Their evaluation revealed that, contrary to Chilean law, Noranda failed to consider alternative locations for the project or the use of clean-burning natural gas imports to power the plant. Another serious flaw in the EIA was its extremely limited information about the flora and fauna that would be impacted by the $2.7 billion project. FIMA Executive Director Jose Ignacio Pinochet of Chile writes, "Probably the biggest victory in the whole history of the Chilean environmental movement was achieved when Robert Biehl, the general manager of the most predatory project in the Chilean history — the Alumysa Complex — officially communicated to the government that the project has been retired [as a result of] the Environmental Impact Assessment System."
BCC INTERVIEWS FOR LININGER'S REPLACEMENT The Board of County Commissioners will interview seven candidates as possible replacements for former East Lane County Commissioner Tom Lininger. Interviews of up to one hour for each candidate will be held beginning at 9 am Monday, Sept. 8, in the commissioners conference room, 125 E. 8th Ave. The appointee will serve through Dec. 31, 2004. An elected replacement will serve the remainder of the term from Jan. 1, 2005 through Dec. 31, 2006. The current interview list includes: Michael J. Dean Coburg 9 am; Donald E. Hampton of Oakridge at10 am; Joachim Schulz of Cottage Grove at11 am; Gordon B. Howard of Dexter at 1 pm; Martha Roberts of Creswell at 2 pm; Gary L. Williams of Cottage Grove 3 pm; Al King of Springfield at 4 pm. Each interview will allow up to five minutes for an opening statement by the candidate, 50 minutes of commissioners' questions, with each commissioner and Lininger allotted 10 minutes, and five minutes for the candidate's closing remarks. The board's discussion and decisions will be later. Commission Chair Peter Sorensen says Lininger will participate in the interviews and a separate follow-up discussion, but will not participate in final deliberations. Says Sorensen, "I'm pleased to say that we've narrowed a pool of 23 candidates to this list of seven without any contested votes. There was a lot of discussion before this that [the decision-making process] might be highly controversial." The final interviews have been delayed since Commissioner Anna Morrison has been ill and out of the office. She has been able to contribute to parts of BCC work sessions by phone, and Commissioner Bobby Green has stepped in to cover her duties as vice chair in the last two BCC agenda-setting meetings. Sorensen says, "We did not want to do this with Commissioner Morrison participating over the phone." She is expected to make a full recovery. Sorensen did not mention any front runners, but did say that the final pool included "a range of people with different skills and attributes" who could help to maintain a balance on the board. The Sept. 8 interviews are open to the public and will also be aired on Metro TV (cable channel 14). People are encouraged to attend all or part of the day's interviews. — Bobbie Willis
Looking for the perfect gift for your hawkish friends and family members? KBtoys.com is now offering a 12-inch action figure called "Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush."
The toy commemorates Bush's "historic" landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln May 1. The handsome little Bush is dolled up in an "authentic" flight suit, helmet, survival vest, parachute harness and "g-pants." Bush was trained as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, but was reportedly suspended from flying, assigned to a disciplinary unit and then went AWOL for a year during the Vietnam War (see http://www.talion.com/georgebush.html and other sources. The price for the action figure is $39.99 plus $50 for accessories. The website does not say whether or not the doll is anatomically correct. However, the g-pants are removable. — TJT
Civil War in Iraq August 29, 2003 The assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf on Aug. 28 is the opening volley in the coming Iraqi Civil War. The U.S. will reap the whirlwind. One of the most consistent and ominous prewar warnings to the Bush administration by Middle East experts was that removal of Saddam Hussein without the most careful political and social engineering would result in the breaking apart of Iraq into warring factions that would battle each other for decades. The hawks in the White House would not listen. They were so wedded to the fantasy scenario that the removal of Saddam in an act of "creative destruction" would result in the automatic emergence of democracy. They brushed aside all warnings. Present-day Iraq was three provinces of the Ottoman Empire before World War I. It was cobbled together by the British for their own convenience after that conflict. The British installed a king, the Saudi Arabian son of the chief religious official of Mecca (Faisal, of Lawrence of Arabia fame) and glued the whole mess together with the resident British Army. The three regions were incompatible in ethnicity, religious confession and interests. The Sunni Muslim Kurds occupied the north. The Sunni Arab Bedouins occupied the center and Southwest. The Shi'a Arab and Persian population occupied the South and Southeast. Of the three groups, the Shi'a were largest, with 60 percent of the population. With oil, an outlet to the Persian Gulf and good agricultural land, they would be the natural dominant force in the state the British created. The Kurds would be important, too, because they lived in the region of the country with the largest oil reserves. However, the British wanted the Sunni Arabs, the smallest faction of the population, to be dominant. They wanted this both to reward Saudi Arabians for helping them fight the Ottomans, and because they had existing clients in the sheikhs who ruled the Arab states of the Gulf. When the British were finally expelled, and their Saudi ruling family deposed in Iraq in a 1958 nationalist coup, the new Ba'athist Iraqi nationalist rulers had a supremely unruly nation on their hands. The only way to keep power in Sunni Arab hands, and away from the Shi'ites, was through ruthless dictatorship and oppression. Saddam Hussein was the supreme master of this political strategy. Ayatollah al-Hakim's family was victimized by this oppression. Virtually every one of the Ayatollah's male relatives was executed by Saddam's regime. He fled to Iran for years of exile, returning only after Saddam was deposed by the U.S. He became one of the principal leaders of the Shi'a community, and a symbol of rising Shi'a power in post-War Iraq. His triumphant return to Iraq and the holy city of Najaf was one of the most celebrated events in recent Iraqi history. It is still not known who set off the explosion that killed him at the shrine of Ali, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. It could have been Sunni Arab factions who fear the rise of Shi'a dominance in Iraq, or it could have been his own Shi'a supporters, disappointed with him for cooperating with American policies in Iraq. Or it could have been someone else. What is clear is that his death will now forever be a rallying cry for the Shi'ite community against its enemies. It is notable that in Shi'ism virtually all significant leaders have been "martyred." Of the 12 historical Imams of the Ithna 'ashara branch of Shi'ism dominant in Iraq and Iran (Ithna 'ashara means "12" in Arabic), 10 are buried in shrines in Iraq. Their tombs are ever-present reminders of the oppression and struggle of the Shi'a. Now Ayatollah al-Hakim will join them, and with the power of a saint, will inspire generations of grimly dedicated young warriors, determined to wreak vengeance and assert the power of their community. They will be led by his own paramilitary group, the Badr brigade. Shi'a fury will be directed at the Sunnis to the north. It will also be directed toward U.S. as the occupying force who both did nothing to prevent this tragedy, and further continued the British doctrine of Sunni favoritism by insisting that the Shi'a religious leaders would never be allowed to come to power. In any case, the forces of retribution are about to be unleashed in a manner hitherto unseen in the region. Could the U.S. have done anything to prevent this tragedy? Of course it could have. As the occupying power U.S. officials knew acutely about the danger to Ayatollah al-Hakim. Since Washington opposed the rise of Shi'a power in Iraq, charges of American indifference or even complicity in his death will soon be flying. The final question Washington must now face is: how to stop this inevitable civil war. When the factional shooting starts, where does the U.S. Army, caught in the crossfire, aim its own guns? Pacific News Service commentator William O. Beeman is director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. He is author of the forthcoming book, Iraq: State in Search of a Nation.
Kathy Dillon Twelve years ago, Willamette High special ed teacher Kathy Dillon served her first shift as a volunteer at the Eugene Celebration. "On my first day on the job at the volunteer booth, the coordinator invited me to be on the organizing team," she recalls. "I've stayed ever since." This year, as head of the Volunteer Management Team (VMT), Dillon began setting up schedules in May. "I start out with a blast from May through mid-June," she notes. "Then, because I'm a teacher, I'll take off for a while." Dillon originated the VMT concept — "middle management for volunteers." In mid-August, she began to assemble and train a core group of 40 volunteer managers, each of whom will put in at least one four-hour shift supervising volunteers at a celebration site. "We also have 1,200 slots for weekend volunteers," she adds. "A lot of them are still open." In return for one shift of three hours or less, weekend volunteers receive a celebration-entry wristband and a T-shirt. Call 681-4108 to sign up. "I love to contribute to the event I've always loved," Dillon says with enthusiasm. "I sit in this little booth, watch the world go by, and know I played a key part in making it happen." — Paul Neevel
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