Search Results for Toward Freedom Journal

Activists in Australia March with Aboriginal Flag

Australian Government Intervenes in Aboriginal Communities

Mneesha Gellman and Josh Dankoff January 24, 2008 Mneesha Gellman and Josh Dankoff

Activists in Australia March with Aboriginal Flag
On July 1st, 2007, Australia's Federal government sent police and military personnel into Aboriginal communities in northern Australia to combat high levels of child sexual abuse. Policing combined with alcohol bans and welfare restrictions constitute a short-sighted intervention that ignores the root causes of social dysfunction among historically oppressed people.

Sri Lankan Special Task Force

Sri Lanka: Efforts to Overcome a New Cycle of Violence

Rene Wadlow January 17, 2008 Rene Wadlow

Sri Lankan Special Task Force
On January 8, 2008, the Sri Lankan Minister for Nation Building, DM Dassanayake was killed when his convoy was hit by a powerful roadside bomb blast, allegedly planted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) near the capital, Colombo.  The killing follows the murder of LTTE's Political wing chief S.P. Tamilselvam and the Intelligence wing chief "Colonel" Charles by the Sri Lankan security forces.  On New Year's Day, a Tamil Parliamentarian Thiagarajah Maleswaran was assassinated inside a Hindu temple in Colombo. These deaths bring Sri Lanka's escalating conflict into sharp focus. 

Benazir Bhutto

Death in Pakistan Politics

Rene Wadlow January 3, 2008 Rene Wadlow

Benazir Bhutto
The continued mastery of death in Pakistan politics was evident in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 after her electoral campaign speech at Liaquat Square.  The square is named after the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was assassinated in 1953.  Liaquat Square is close to the Rawalpindi jail where Benazir's father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979. The jailhouse has now been torn down least it become a pilgrimage goal for devoted members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which Zulfikar Bhutto headed. 

Mining in DRC, Photo: KH Snow

Congo: Three Cheers for Eve Ensler?

keith harmon snow December 24, 2007 keith harmon snow

Mining in DRC, Photo: KH Snow
A major propaganda front has swept the Western media decrying the unprecedented sexual violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. As this story goes to press the war in Congo-claiming 1000 lives a day in the East and more than 7 million people since 1996-is escalating yet again. More than 1.2 million were reported displaced in June, with at least 8000 additional displaced persons on October 22 after fighting escalated-as Western-backed forces perpetrate genocide and terrorism to depopulate and secure the land for multinational mining interests.

Destruction in Palestine, Indymedia

A Gaza Development Corporation

Rene Wadlow December 18, 2007 Rene Wadlow

Destruction in Palestine
On December 17, 2007, eighty seven states, the United Nations Secretariat, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met in Paris for a one-day international funding conference for the Palestinian Authority. $7.4 billion was pledged over a three-year period - $3.44 billion for 2008.  The conference, planned well in advance, comes shortly after the Annapolis meeting whose aim was to restart serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that would lead to the creation of a sustainable Palestinian state by the end of President Bush's term in 2008. Financing an economic recovery and development program for Palestine is an obvious need for the creation of a state. However, it is often easier to raise funds than to spend them in ways that promote the desired ends.

Evo Morales, Photo: ABI

New Politics in Old Bolivia: Public Opinion and Evo Morales

Benjamin Dangl November 28, 2007 Benjamin Dangl

Evo Morales, Photo: ABI
Nearly two years into the presidency of Evo Morales, government officials and leftist social organizations are determined to break with the past and transform the nation. The opposition calls it a civil war. The government calls it a revolution. Other Bolivian activists and analysts call it business as usual. A look at public opinion and recent conflicts in Bolivia exposes the challenges facing Bolivia's first indigenous president.