Who Will Speak For Jeju Coral?

By Staff, Save Jeju Now. A South Korean naval-base project for U.S. missile defense warships on Jeju Island threatens to destroy one of Earth’s last great soft coral reefs, numerous endangered species, and centuries-old sustainable communities. The leadership of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress (WCC) taking place near Jeju has refused to criticize the naval base or grant the villagers access to an information display booth. In addition, WCC speaker Imok Cha, who supports the conservation of Jeju, was denied entry into Korea. (Videos)

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U.N. Uses Private Military and Security Contractors

By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans, IPS | UPDATE from Haiti Chery. The United Nations is increasingly hiring Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) for its missions across the world, raising concerns over the use of firms known for participation in human rights abuses, as well as an overall lack of accountability structures governing these contractors within the U.N. system. UPDATE 1: DynCorp boasts of having trained 400 “Haitian police” and is awarded a $48.6 million contract to insert 100 contractors and 10 advisors into the “UN police force” in Haiti.

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Suspected ‘Thieves’ Lynched In Port-au-Prince. Why? | Présumés ‘voleurs’ lynchés à Port-au-Prince. Pourquoi?

By Staff (spp), Radio Kiskeya | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. In two incidents on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Saturday July 7, angry citizens lynched three suspected robbers before burning their bodies with lit tires. (English | French | Kreyol)

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Latin-American Soldiers, ‘Peacekeepers’ to Train in Urban Warfare at New US Base in Chile

By Joaquín Rivery Tur, Granma | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A new U.S. base was hurriedly built in Fort Aguayo, Chile, in 60 days. The facility will train United Nations ‘peacekeepers,’ and Latin-American soldiers and police, in urban warfare. Chilean civil society has denounced the supposed military college as a center to train future repressors and torturers.

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UN Documents and Belgian Peacekeeper Implicate French Authorities in Rwanda Genocide | Des documents de l’ONU et un casque bleu belge impliquent les autorités françaises dans le génocide à Rwanda

By Linda Melvern, Liberation | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Belgian peacekeeper Yves Teyssier testified that the night before the April 6, 1994 attack he was blocked by the Rwandan army from entering the Camp Kanombe area, and the next day he heard a UN colleague’s voice report on UN radio that two missiles were fired at president Habyarimana’s plane from the camp. (English | French)

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Charlemagne Peralte: Haitian Hero, ‘Supreme Bandit’ of First US Occupation – Part III

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. “These Southerners have found Haiti to be the veritable promised land of ‘jobs for deserving democrats’…. In Port-au-Prince many of them live in fine villas. Many of them who could not keep a hired girl in the United States have a half-dozen servants. All of the civilian heads of departments have automobiles furnished at the expense of the Haitian Government… It is interesting to see with what disdain, as they ride around, they look down upon the people who pay for the cars.” – James Weldom Johnson

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Charlemagne Peralte: Haitian Hero, ‘Supreme Bandit’ of First US Occupation – Part II

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Charlemagne Peralte organized the Cacos after escaping his enslavement by the U.S. occupation. The revolutionary Cacos soon grew to thousands of guerillas, including many Dominicans won over by Peralte to the anti-imperialist cause, and a provisional Caco government was declared in northern Haiti.

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Charlemagne Peralte: Haitian Hero, ‘Supreme Bandit’ of First US Occupation – Part I

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. After more than a century sailing along as an independent black nation, Haiti collided with the Monroe Doctrine in the person of U.S. kingmaker Roger L. Farnham in 1915. He soon met his match in Haitian hero Charlemagne Peralte.

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Saramago’s ‘Lost and Found in Time’ 2nd Novel Claraboya Published | ‘Claraboya’, novela inédita de José Saramago, se publica en español

By Walfredo Angulo, Prensa Latina | Granma | Haiti Chery. Jose Saramago wrote Claraboya in the 1950’s but received no word from the publisher for 40 years. The dictatorial regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal had probably censored the novel. It has just appeared in Portuguese and Spanish (English | Spanish).

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Paramilitary Gangs Join UN Force in Preying on Haitian Population

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. It is hardly worthwhile to entertain some notion that the U.N. force MINUSTAH and the new paramilitary gangs are somehow at odds with each other. Both are supported by the U.S. and France, and both prey on the Haitian population and National Police. MINUSTAH’s abuses are given as the reason why a Haitian army is needed to defend the national sovereignty, and the threat of abuse by paramilitaries serves to justify MINUSTAH’s continued stay.

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Brazilians Push to Prosecute Military Junta’s Human Rights Crimes, Pushed Back by Judge | Crece movimiento jurídico para burlar ley de amnistía en Brasil | Cresce movimento jurídico para evitar a lei de anistia no Brasil

By Fabiana Frayssinet, IPS | Colin M. Snider, Americas South and North. In the first serious move by Brazil to confront the horrors of its junta years, Transitional Justice plans to prosecute the forced disappearances during the 1964-1985 dictatorship. Brazilian federal prosecutors announced they would first try retired Col. Sebastião Curió Rodrigues de Moura for aggravated kidnapping for his alleged role in five enforced disappearances in Pará state in 1974. (English | Spanish | Portuguese)

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6,060 Years for Guatemalan Ex-Soldier Who Massacred Indigenous and Fled to California

By Staff (sc/jg/jsr/mgt/jf), Prensa Latina | By Rachel Rickard Straus, Daily Mail. Pedro Pimentel, a former instructor of an elite Guatemalan military force called kaibiles, extradited from the US last July, has been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in killing 201 indigenous people in the Dos Erres massacre of December 6 to 8, 1982.

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The Illusion of Aid

By Muhammad Mustafa, al-Ahram | English translation by Magda Gilpin with editing by Peter McGuire for Watching America. In exchange for every dollar spent by the U.S. on development in Egypt, Egypt spends $37 on U.S. imports. Is it possible for Egypt to renounce U.S. aid? The short answer is yes.

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Student from School of Anthropology Wins Freedom From Haitian National Penitentiary By Hunger Strike | Grève de la faim d’un étudiant de la faculté d’éthnologie au pénitencier national

By Hilaire Yvince, Le Nouvelliste | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Psychology major Jaksy Fritzbert, from the School of Anthropology and a father of two, began a hunger strike on Mar 6, 2012 to protest his incarceration in Haiti’s National Penitentiary since February 24. The students say that this was a political arrest to intimidate them after they refused to allow Martelly and a group of armed men into an international symposium. (English | French)

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