Category Archives: Viva!

United States Government Putting an End to Protection for Haitians

US ethnic cleansing 2.0…

By Alexandra Mendoza

Nearly 60,000 Haitian immigrants living and working in the United States are living with uncertainty once again after the federal government granted them 18 months to leave the country by ending their Temporary Protected Status.

This immigration program that was enacted in the 1990s to protect nationals from countries affected by natural disaster or civil wars was granted to Haitians in the wake of the earthquake that devastated their country in 2010.

However, the Department of Homeland Security announced that this benefit will expire on July 22, 2019, considering that living conditions have improved significantly in Haiti so is is time for the to return to home or apply for an alternative immigration status.

But Haitians and human rights activists in San Diego disagree with that observation and believe that this decision is based on politics and not facts.

“Many natural disasters have happened in Haiti, so people try to rebuild, so that could take a long time,” said Jean Elise Durandisse, minister of the United Methodist Church of Christ.

If Haitians are forced to leave the U.S., they most likely seek to settle in another country, because for many of them, Haiti is still in precarious conditions.

“If they return to Haiti it is because they have no other option, people will try to find another place for themselves and their families,” he said.

The decision of the U.S. government also puts the Haitian economy in check, since much of the reconstruction efforts depend on the remittances that come from abroad.

Hope now falls on Congress to intervene to protect the temporary status of the nearly 60,000 Haitians living in the country, half of which have American children.

“(Haitians) who live here pay taxes, work, take care of themselves, have children here, so at least the government could sit down and think about what can be done so that both parties win,” he said.

Although it is estimated that around 100 Haitians reside in San Diego, last year this region of the border was the gateway for thousands who arrived at the San Ysidro Port of Entry requesting entry into the U.S.

Once they were granted a stay, most of them moved to other parts of the country, such as Florida, where an estimated 32,000 Haitians live.

For Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Comittee, this decision by the federal administration goes against the spirit of the Country.

“Even the Statue of Liberty says to open the doors to all people who are seeking refuge and unfortunately, these policies say the opposite,” Rios said.

The decision comes weeks after the Department of Homeland Security announced the elimination of the Temporary Protected Status for 2,500 Nicaraguans and delayed a determination on 57,000 Hondurans residing in the country under the same program.

US calls Myanmar treatment of Rohingya ‘ethnic cleansing’

Of course, he is a part of an administration that continues several hundred years of ethnic cleansing of the people who lived on this land by invading refugee and adventurer Europeans. And these same people will try and use their newfound sympathy for these refugees to fend off criticism of how they support the ethnic cleansing by the right-wing governments in Saudi Arabia (against Yemen), Israel (against Palestinians) and Iraq/Turkey (against the Kurds).

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Rex Tillerson also hints at possible sanctions as UN envoy on sexual violence condemns ‘war crimes’

The United States has called the Myanmar military operation against the Rohingya population “ethnic cleansing” and threatened targeted sanctions against those responsible for what it called “horrendous atrocities”.

“The situation in northern Rakhine state constitutes ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” secretary of state Rex Tillerson said in a statement, using a term he avoided when visiting Myanmar last week.

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From inboxing to thought showers: how business bullshit took over

Attack on Bullshit in organizations is an often repeated part of the process of change and is related to being anti-PC – grin – AKA: we are stuck in trendy change, so… “let’s get back to basics.” The writer here does not seem to realise that his article is a repeat of many similar articles, speeches, songs or poems critiquing society and then becoming the next new PC. And so it goes until… smile.

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Vacuous management-speak is easily laughed off – but is there a real cost to talking rubbish? By André Spicer

In early 1984, executives at the telephone company Pacific Bell made a fateful decision. For decades, the company had enjoyed a virtual monopoly on telephone services in California, but now it was facing a problem. The industry was about to be deregulated, and Pacific Bell would soon be facing tough competition.

The management team responded by doing all the things managers usually do: restructuring, downsizing, rebranding. But for the company executives, this wasn’t enough. They worried that Pacific Bell didn’t have the right culture, that employees did not understand “the profit concept” and were not sufficiently entrepreneurial. If they were to compete in this new world, it was not just their balance sheet that needed an overhaul, the executives decided. Their 23,000 employees needed to be overhauled as well.

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New footage shows police assaulting Arab MK at deadly home demolition

Police initially denied using force against Odeh, who was shot in the head and back with sponge-tipped bullets moments after a Bedouin man and a police officer were killed in a tragic incident.

MK Ayman Odeh lies wounded from sponge-tipped bullets next to Israeli police in the Bedouin village of Umm el-Hiran, Negev, January 18, 2017. (Keren Manor/Activestills.org)

MK Ayman Odeh lies wounded from sponge-tipped bullets next to Israeli police in the Bedouin village of Umm el-Hiran, Negev, January 18, 2017. (Keren Manor/Activestills.org)

Newly released footage shows Israeli police assaulting Palestinian member of Knesset Ayman Odeh at a home demolition during which one Bedouin man and a police officer were killed earlier this year. Police told +972 Magazine that Odeh had been struck by protesters’ stones at the time, only to change their story in the hours and days that followed.

The video, shot by an Al Jazeera cameraman, appears to show a group of Israeli riot police trying to block Odeh’s path as he sought to check on possible injuries after gunshots were heard. After a bit of pushing, officers use pepper spray against an unidentified man accompanying Odeh, and then spray Odeh directly in the face.

Moments later, after Odeh appears to fall to the ground in pain, officers throw stun grenades toward him and others. Police later shot Odeh in the head and back with sponge-tipped bullets, although that part of the incident was not caught on camera. The Israeli internal affairs department, part of the Justice Ministry, is currently investigating the assault on Odeh and the killing of Yaqub Musa Abu Qi’an and police officer Erez Levy.

MK Ayman Odeh holding the sponge-tipped bullet he says who shot at him by Israeli forces in Umm al-Hiran, January 18, 2017. (Joint List)

MK Ayman Odeh holding the sponge-tipped bullet he says who shot at him by Israeli forces in Umm al-Hiran, January 18, 2017. (Joint List)

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Police initially declared the killings to be a terrorist incident and even attempted to tie Abu Qi’an to ISIS, before it became clear that police unnecessarily opened fire on his vehicle, causing him to loose control and veer into a group of police officers. An investigation by +972 Magazine partners Activestills, along with Forensic Architecture, played a central role in refuting the police’s claims about the killings.

The violence took place as police came to demolish a number of homes in the Negev Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran. The entire town is slated to be demolished so that a Jewish development, called Hiran, can be built almost directly on its ruins.

“The police and government’s lies and incitement continue to be exposed. Everything we claimed from the get go has turned out to be true. The responsibility for the terrible losses of the Abu Al Qi’an and Levi families is entirely on [Public Security Minister Gilad] Erdan and [Police Commissioner Roni] Alsheikh,” MK Ayman Odeh said about the footage released Wednesday.

“The only justice what we can expect to offer the Abu Al-Qi’an family is to uncover the truth, to recognize the village of Umm al-Hiran, and to allow its residents to remain on their land,” Odeh continued. “And toward that goal we will continue to struggle.”

Asked whether police were aware of the incident or whether the officers involved have been punished, a police spokesperson referred +972 Magazine to the Justice Ministry’s internal affairs department.

Asked whether on principle the Israel Police has a policy or position on the use of force against members of Knesset, the spokesperson responded: “The law applies equally to everyone. Nobody is above the law.”

A Justice Ministry spokesperson did not respond to +972 Magazine’s questions by the time of publication. If and when a response is received, it will be added here.

Despite being established by virtue of an Israeli military order, Israel has never actually recognized Umm al-Hiran, and has therefore never provided it with any basic services or infrastructure such as water, electricity, health services, or schools.

The Israeli government now wants to move the residents of Umm al-Hiran to the nearby urban area of Hura, one of seven townships built to concentrate the Bedouin population in the area.

Construction of Hiran began in mid-2016, when the state, along with the Jewish National Fund (JNF), began breaking ground just meters from the Bedouin villagers’ homes.

The Israeli government has made several attempts in recent years to “formalize” land ownership in the Negev, where the vast majority of Israel’s Bedouin population lives. The goal is to “Judaize” the Negev — that is, to build more Jewish towns in areas that are currently populated mostly by non-Jews.

In 2013, the Prawer Plan, which sought to forcibly relocate some 40,000 Bedouin citizens living in dozens of so-called unrecognized villages, was scrapped following immense pushback by Bedouin residents and activists.

Edo Konrad and Mairav Zonszein contributed to this report.