the citizen-viewer

Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark of The Guardian report on the single most devastating phenomenon happening to Cambodians now in Country for Sale.

Sang Run was out in his boat at 7am when disaster struck his village. He arrived back at 11am to find bulldozers had flattened his home and those of the 229 families who lived beside him. He heard from neighbours that it had happened in an instant. Uniformed men, sent in by governor Say Hak, used electric batons to chase terrified residents from the burning ruins; three of Sang Run’s neighbours were knocked unconscious. Village Number One - a mundane name that failed to capture the beauty of its uninterrupted sea views and vegetable gardens that ran to the beach - had been erased.

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“Never before has this happened,” said Anthony Bykerk, the secretary general of the International Society of Olympic Historians, of the protests surrounding the Olympic torch. “This is the first time that the torch relay has ever been an element of protest — it’s usually a very big celebration.”

While protests and political agendas have often come to the forefront during and leading up to Olympics, said Bykerk, the events of the past couple of days — and the San Francisco incident — are especially troubling.

“This is worse because now they are protesting against the torch relay, which has nothing to do with politics but is supposed to be a symbol of unity — not used as protest,” said Bykerk. “If these people want to protest against the human rights question in Tibet, they should have done it 50 years ago.”

In case the citizen-viewers have been inattentive today, the CIA has admitted (ahead of a New York Times article) destroying hundreds of hours of tapes of their interrogation of suspected Al Qaeda operatives they held.

The CIA’s defenders are claiming that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities — and the safety — of the interrogators. If the CIA is incapable of blurring the perpetrator’s faces on the tape, then we’re paying them way too much.

No, the real reason is pretty obvious. They didn’t want somebody to see the ugly, illegal, inhuman acts they were committing. Because even the ravening mobs out there, the listeners to Bill O’Reilly, the watchers of Rush Limbaugh, might be disgusted — many of them anyway — by the actual sight of a human being jerking helplessly as he feels himself drowning, helpless in the grip of his torturers. His American torturers.

So they destroyed the tapes.

The operative concept here is a legal one, omnia praesumuntur contra spoliatorem. It means “all things are presumed against the wrongdoer,” and is applied in cases where evidence is destroyed. It is assumed that those destroy evidence are those who know that the evidence would incriminate them.

President Bush’s spokesperson says that Bush can’t recall if he was told that the tapes would be destroyed and doesn’t remember if he saw them. If he had any interest in the question, he would find out, and if someone failed to tell him, he would have their head.

But that kind of accountability has never been demonstrated by this administration. Instead, they have the heads of people like acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin, who had himself waterboarded to see whether it was torture or not — and the law into the hands of people like Michael Mukasey, who said he didn’t know if it was or not.

Now he will never see those tapes. For him, and for the mobs, the torture we are guilty of committing will remain an abstraction. The screams will echo only within the walls of the CIA’s torture chambers, and in the broken psyches of the human beings that suffer by our hand.

SaveDarfur.org

Please support the uprising in Burma by making a donation to givetoburma.org.

Givetoburma.org is run by people who have channels to get money into Burma to support basic needs for the brave protesters such as food, drinking water, medicine and robes.

This is the fastest and most effective way for citizen-viewers to help. Do it now.

Citizen-viewer KT writes regarding the situation in Burma:

The latest - strategically brilliant - monk-led demonstrations could possibly actually bring about change in Burma. If the monks can maintain their impetus, the junta will be forced to make some sort of move, either towards conciliation and compromise or by a repeat of their 1988 tactics. People here on the border are the most optimistic I’ve seen ever since I got here.

So far the protests have been gaining momentum daily, and the generals seem to be just hoping people’ll get bored and go away. They have arrested the main student leaders, but are afraid to touch the monks. However the possibility of another 88 mass bloodbath is high. This, aside from the cost in lives, would likely set back the opportunity for change another 19 years.

Pressure needs to be applied to the generals to negotiate: release political prisoners including the leaders of the 88 Generation Student Group and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, lower fuel prices, hold tripartite dialogue, vanish.

I’m not quite sure what can be done from NZ or wherever you are, but please do something, either to show your support for the people in Burma protesting, and/or to let the generals know that brute repression is unacceptable.

Here’s a few vague ideas:

- Media. I assume there’s very little about events in Burma in NZ. Those of you with access to media sources, can you make sure Burma is being adequately reported and analysed?

- Most Burmese are avid listeners to BBC world service, DVB and VOA Burmese language services. Do something that makes the international media showing solidarity for the protestors. If anyone is contemplating burning effigies of General Than Shwe or some such, make sure you tell BBC, DVB and VOA Burmese language services about it.

- There is a nascent boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics movement to try to stop China’s support for the regime. Pressure here could be very effective.

- Monks make great stencil images. Use dark orange spraypaint.

- A sharply worded letter from the Anarchist Alliance of Aotearoa to General Than Shwe is likely to cause him a few restless nights. Perhaps those of you with entree to government circles might suggest that they send one too.

- If you’re in touch with senior figures in the UN, US State Department, Bavarian Illuminati or CAC, tell them that now’s a good time to DO SOMETHING USEFUL to justify their bloated salaries.

Chea Vichea, a top union leader in Cambodia, was professionally executed as he read the newspapers on a Phnom Penh sidewalk in 2004. Head shot, heart shot, done.

Convicted of the murder, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun are serving 20-year sentences. The problem is that it’s hard to find evidence to support their guilt. Witness after witness placed both men far from the newsstand where Vichea was shot to death. The prosecution didn’t bother to present a case. But it was good enough for the judge. Two innocent men rot away in prison so the real killers can remain in the shadows.*

Now, after three and half years of Samnang and Sam Oeun’s imprisonment, Bradley Cox has produced a short but intense documentary about the case. Plastic Killers is packed with the kind of intrigues that make Cambodia a place where legal reformers and human rights workers never lack for challenging work.

This may be the most compelling documentation yet of the twisted version of justice served up in Cambodia — even as its government revels in increased international aid and loans. Oh yes, and empanels the majority of judges for the foreign-funded Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Cox writes:

This is not the big movie, but a smaller version that I rushed out to help the two guys in jail. It’s geared towards a Cambodian audience so it’s heavy on the detail.

Citizen-viewers who aren’t current on Cambodian events should still be able to follow the story—despite the detail—because it unfolds so dramatically. Cox seems to have followed up every lead and every witness. The truth is revealed piece by piece as the the official version falls in tatters in front of Cox’s lens. What becomes obvious is that the official version is not even intended to convince Cambodians. Rather it’s intended to let them know, once again, that any opponent of the regime can be killed…or framed.

Of course, Cambodia’s Ministry of Information is threatening to ban the film, which is already on sale in bootleg versions in Phnom Penh’s markets in addition to being on the Web.

This film, big or small, and the witnesses who appear in it honor Vichea’s memory. In Vichea’s words: “I need to fight—I not afraid. If I afraid, like I die.”

Watch The Plastic Killers in lo-res above, or in hi-res at http://plastic-killers.blip.tv/.

* Well, there’s a decent chance they’ve been killed too.

…for them!

Two bills in the US Congress would restore some of the rights that the (so-called) USA PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act stripped away — not just from US citizens, but from anyone eligible to rot away without legal recourse in American shackles. That includes you.

The ACLU and Amnesty International support the bills. As described by the ACLU:

The Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 (H.R. 1415, S. 576) - making clear that no president can make up his or her own rules regarding torture and abuse.

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (H.R. 1416, S. 185) - restoring the constitutional due process right of habeas corpus that was eliminated by the MCA.

To his credit, Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Arlen Specter, was an original sponsor of S. 185. To his discredit, he has not signed on to S. 576. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator, hasn’t signed on to either one. That’s an embarrassment. He should not be too busy to defend human rights and what used to considered American values.

Click on the bill numbers above to see whether your senators and your representative have co-sponsored the bills. Their contact info is here.