Wrestling with the Khmer Rouge Legacy

Wrestling with the Khmer Rouge Legacy

 

By Tom Fawthrop

 

8-30-10

 

History News Network

 

http://www.hnn.us/articles/130706.html

 

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal delivered its first verdict in

July against Kaing Guek Euv, alias "Duch," the director

of the notorious S-21 prison, a torture and

extermination center under the rule of Cambodian

dictator Pol Pot.  After a 77-day trial, the five

judges--two international and three

Cambodian--unanimously convicted Duch of committing

crimes against humanity.  He was sentenced to

thirty-five years in prison.

 

This landmark decision came only days after the U.S.

Embassy in Phnom Penh celebrated the sixtieth

anniversary of the restoration of U.S.-Cambodian

relations.  U.S. officials made no mention of their

critical role in helping Pol Pot's forces come to

power.  Nor did the trio of former U.S.

ambassadors--Charles Ray, Kent Wiedemann, and Joseph

Mussomeli--issue any apologies during the two-day

celebration for the Nixon administration's secret B-52

bombings that inflicted massive destruction on the

Cambodian countryside or for U.S. diplomatic support

for the Khmer Rouge from 1979 to 1990.

 

During his trial, Duch testified that the Khmer Rouge

would have likely died out if the United States had not

promoted a military coup d'etat in 1970 against the

non-aligned government led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

"I think the Khmer Rouge would already have been

demolished," he said of their status by 1970, "But Mr.

Kissinger [then U.S. secretary of state] and Richard

Nixon were quick [to back coup leader] Gen. Lon Nol,

and then the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity."

 

Because of this alliance, the Khmer Rouge was able to

build up its power over the course of their 1970-75 war

against the Lon Nol regime, Duch told the tribunal.

 

At these two events--a condemnation and a

celebration--the media paid little attention to U.S.

complicity in the Cambodian tragedy.  In fact, the

Khmer Rouge Tribunal was set up in just such a way as

to avoid asking any of the uncomfortable questions

about U.S. policy.  The tribunal's mandate for

indictment only covers the period from April 17, 1975

to January 6, 1979, when the Khmer Rouge regime was

already in power.

 

Any investigation into the time period that covered

U.S. bombing before 1975, which directly caused the

deaths of 250,000 civilians, could open up former U.S.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to liability for war crimes.

 

After the fall of the Pol Pot regime in 1979, U.S.

foreign policy also played a major role in aggravating

the sufferings of the traumatized Cambodian people.  As

a result of the decision to focus only on that time

period during the rule of Pol Pot and his regime, the

Tribunal conveniently concentrates all the guilt for

the atrocities in Cambodia on the Khmer Rouge and

little on their enablers. After 1979

 

The toppling of the barbarous Khmer Rouge regime, which

ended the Cambodian nightmare, should have been cause

for international celebration.  But Washington and most

western governments showed no elation at all because

the "wrong country"--Vietnam--liberated the Cambodians.

Instead, western governments condemned Vietnam for an

illegal invasion.

 

Washington, meanwhile, joined China in keeping the

ousted Pol Pot regime alive by retaining its seat in

the UN General Assembly through its diplomatic

recognition as the legitimate representative of the

Cambodian people.  The Khmer Rouge then used its vote,

along with U.S. support, to prevent any UN agency from

providing development aid to a country trying to

rebuild itself from the abject ruins of Pol Pot's "Year

Zero."  UNICEF, a lone exception, was the only UN

agency permitted to have an office in Phnom Penh. Why the Delay?

 

Why has it taken thirty years to bring Khmer Rouge

leaders to trial?  The Hun Sen government's protracted

negotiation with the UN legal affairs department is one

oft-cited reason.  But, in fact, Cambodian Prime

Minister Hun Sen requested the UN to set up a tribunal

back in 1986.  From 1986-1987, Australian Foreign

Minister Bill Hayden called for Pol Pot to be put on

trial.  But the Reagan administration blocked his

initiative, claiming that any attempt to prosecute

Khmer Rouge leaders would "undermine" U.S.-Australian

relations and the united front, with the Association of

Southeast Asian Nations and China, against Vietnam.

 

Only after the Cold War ended and a Cambodian peace

deal was signed could Cambodians put a Khmer Rouge

tribunal back on the agenda.  In 1997, in his human

rights report, UN Special Rapporteur for Cambodia

Thomas Hammarberg included a request from Cambodian

leaders for a UN-aided tribunal.  The General Assembly

unanimously passed a resolution that noted for the

first time that crimes against humanity had occurred in

Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, and they needed to be

addressed.  This delay in bringing the Khmer Rouge to

trial stretched for nearly twenty years because

Washington blocked all attempts at setting up a tribunal.

 

Given this unhappy record of the United States and its

contribution to the Cambodian tragedy, the Cambodia

government had expected that their longstanding request

for the cancellation of a very old debt of $339 million

would receive a sympathetic hearing in Washington.

 

After all, this debt is based on original loans to the

military regime of General Lon Nol who came to power in

1970 with U.S. military support.  Cambodia's government

says that in part, these loans were used to buy weapons

and support that war, which caused great suffering to

the Cambodian people.  Much of the $339 million

represents interest accumulated over the last thirty years.

 

And yet, for all the recent improvement in

U.S.-Cambodia relations, Washington remains obdurate in

insisting that the current government in Phnom Penh

repay the debt.

 

To show some measure of respect for the Cambodian

people, the Obama administration should stop demanding

that Cambodians pay for the bombs used to kill so many

of  their fellow citizens.  Washington should reverse

current policy and cancel the debt.  Moreover, as

compensation for people killed and infrastructure

destroyed during the war, the United States should

extend considerably more humanitarian aid to Cambodian

war victims than the few small grants so far provided

to U.S. charities.  The United States can't undo all

the damage done by the secret bombing campaign and

support for the Khmer Rouge.  But at this late date,

Washington can at least help Cambodia deal with the

legacy of the war and the destructive political force

that grew out of it.

 

 

Tom Fawthrop is the co-author with Helen Jarvis of

Getting Away with Genocide? Elusive Justice and the

Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Pluto books distributed in the

United States by University of Michigan Press). He has

reported on Cambodia since 1979 for The Guardian (UK),

BBC, and other media. He is a contributor to Foreign

Policy In Focus, from where it is reprinted with the

kind permission of that organization.

 

_____________________________________________

 

Rights Groups File Challenge to Targeted Killing by US

Published on Monday, August 30, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Rights Groups File Challenge to Targeted Killing by US

Statement by ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.

According to today's legal complaint, the government has not disclosed the standards it uses for authorizing the premeditated and deliberate killing of U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield. The groups argue that the American people are entitled to know the standards being used for these life and death decisions.

The authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow, the groups charge. Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military "kill lists" through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.

"The United States cannot simply execute people, including its own citizens, anywhere in the world based on its own say-so," said Vince Warren, Executive Director of CCR. "The law prohibits the government from killing without trial or conviction other than in the face of an imminent threat that leaves no time for deliberation or due process. That the government adds people to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and leaves them on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the Constitution and international law."

The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged - without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists - also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.

According to today's legal complaint, the government has not disclosed the standards it uses for authorizing the premeditated and deliberate killing of U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield. The groups argue that the American people are entitled to know the standards being used for these life and death decisions.

"A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "We don't sentence people to prison on the basis of secret criteria, and we certainly shouldn't sentence them to death that way. It is not enough for the executive branch to say ‘trust us' - we have seen that backfire in the past and we should learn from those mistakes."

CCR and the ACLU were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi, whom the CIA and Defense Department have targeted for death. The complaint asks a court to rule that using lethal force far from any battlefield and without judicial process is illegal in all but the narrowest circumstances and to prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings except in compliance with these standards. It also asks the court to order the government to disclose the standards it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.

Today's lawsuit was filed against the CIA, Defense Department and the president in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Attorneys on the case are Jameel Jaffer, Ben Wizner and Jonathan Manes of the ACLU; Pardiss Kebriaei, Maria LaHood and Bill Quigley of CCR; and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the Nation's Capital. Co-counsel in Yemen is Mohammed Allawo of the Allawo Law Firm and the National Organization for Defending Human Rights (HOOD).

For more information on the case, including fact sheets and legal papers, visit: www.aclu.org/targetedkillings [1] and www.ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings [2].

Read Glenn Greenwald's take on these developments here [3].

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/30-6

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Peace Movement Pushes for End to War on Iraq

Peace Movement Pushes for End to War on Iraq
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/54599

As news stories are leading those still aware of the war on Iraq to believe it's over, it was encouraging to see Busboys and Poets restaurant in Washington, D.C., packed Sunday evening for a four-hour forum on actions needed to actually end that war, make reparations, and deter future wars of aggression.  The event was advertised with the following description:

"Is the U.S. military really leaving Iraq or just rebranding? What is the toll of seven years of occupation on Iraqis, U.S. soldiers and our economies? What is the status of Iraqi refugees around the world? Is it still possible to hold accountable those who dragged us into the war or committed crimes such as torture? What role did Congress and the media play in facilitating the invasion/occupation? We'll also look at the role of the peace movement -- its strengths and weaknesses -- and draw key lessons to make our work for peace, including in Afghanistan, more effective."

Serving as moderators for the event were Andy Shallal, an Iraqi artist and the owner of Busboys and Poets, and Felicia Eaves, a peace activist.  The event began with playwright and performer Kymone Tecumseh Freeman reading from "Letters from Iraq," which set the tone for the event with the view of the crime scene from one of its participants, a U.S. soldier.

The first of two panels included:
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
Raed Jarrar, Peace Action
Manal Omar, author
Gene Bruskin, US Labor Against the War

This first panel focused on the perspective of Iraqis and the state of the disaster in Iraq.  Bennis gave her usual excellent overview.  I say usual because of course we've been holding these events for a decade now, but Bennis provided new reason for energetic engagement by describing plans for a major march on Washington on October 2nd that will bring the peace movement together with those focused on jobs and economic justice, something that's been badly needed since before the current wars began, as the funding of global militarism has been hollowing our country out from the inside.  See: http://www.onenationforpeace.org

Raed Jarrar rebutted the idea that Iraqis are in any way grateful for what the United States has done to their country.  Iraqis, he said, see this invasion as the 21st foreign invasion of their country and as evil as any of the other 20.  As all the panel's speakers made clear, Iraq is now in worse shape than in 2003.  There's no safety, no electricity, no water, and millions of Iraqis are unwelcome in the nations they've fled to but unable to return home.  The Iraq of the 1980s with its advances in education and women's rights is long gone.  Manal Omar described grandmothers with college education and foreign travel whose granddaughters are illiterate and have never been far from their homes.  Gene Bruskin described the heroic efforts of Iraqi workers to organize, claim their rights, and block the privatization of resources -- the efforts to privatize being a key reason why Iraqis still lack electricity.  Jarrar stressed that Iraqis want a fully sovereign national government to provide their nation's services.  They want electricity, but do not want it in the way the government overseen by the United States wants to provide it.

Jarrar was very hopeful about the new Iraqi Parliament, expecting strong resistance to the occupation, but he also argued that there are no grounds to complain that the occupation isn't ending now, that it is supposed to end by December 31, 2011.  Jarrar seemed fully confident that, in some sense, the occupation would end by that date, although leaving behind a major presence in the form of the world's largest embassy, additional consulates, and soldiers and mercenaries whose presence would be justified as guarding those locations.  However, Bennis pointed out that Congress played no role in the creation of the unconstitutional treaty through which Bush and Maliki set the deadline for complete withdrawal, giving reason to question our ability to properly enforce compliance with it, assuming -- as I do -- that such enforcement will in fact be needed.

Congresswoman Donna Edwards spoke next.  She raised a fear I share that between now and the end of next year President Obama will attempt to put in place a new treaty to extend the occupation.  She also spoke of the upcoming elections.  I wish she'd advocated electing congress members who would defund the wars, or even Democratic congress members who would defund the wars.  Instead she advocated electing Democrats because a Democratic majority would make all the difference.  My concern is that we have had that majority in the House for the past five years.  We have 115 congress members who will oppose war funding, 103 of them Democrats.  We need to build those numbers, I think, more than any others.  And we need to establish our ability to follow through on commitments to unelect those who vote for the war funding.

Head-Roc, a hip-hop artist, performed next, his subject matter dealing with the attacks on public school funding, affordable housing, and child care in Washington, D.C., and the rest of this country -- the areas defunded by the funding of wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the rest of the corporate agenda driving our government.

The second and last panel included:
Josh Stieber, Iraq Veterans Against the War
David Swanson, author
Bill Fletcher, labor leader, scholar
Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK and Global Exchange

Stieber discussed, from the point of view of a soldier who believed the war lies and came to reject them, the incoherence of the bundle of excuses for this war that we've all been offered.  On the one hand this is a war to kill evil Muslims.  On the other hand it's a war to spread human rights.  We help people out by bombing them, something Stieber said many U.S. soldiers end up joking about, most of them quickly losing any belief in the morality of their cause. 

I argued for voting out of office those who fund the wars, and for holding the war makers criminally and constitutionally responsible, including through launching an effort to impeach Jay Bybee and open up a congressional review of war lies and the crime of aggression.

Bill Fletcher picked up where Head-Roc had left off, arguing for the need to make peace not just a preference people have when a pollster asks them, but something that resonates with them as central to the betterment of their daily lives.  He pointed to the Chicano Moratorium exactly 40 years earlier as a movement to learn from. 

Medea Benjamin inspired, as always, with tales of recent activism by CODE PINK to oppose the war funding, to build alliances, and to hold accountable war criminals including Karl Rove and Erik Prince.  And she pushed for participation on a massive scale in the march on October 2nd:
http://www.onenationforpeace.org

Sunday's event, which benefitted from lots of questions and participation from everyone in the room, was sponsored by the wonderful organizations CODEPINK, Peace Action, Institute for Policy Studies, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Global Exchange, Just Foreign Policy, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), U.S. Labor Against the War, ANSWER, World Can't Wait, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, War is a Crime, Rivera Project, and the Washington Peace Center.

--

David Swanson is the author of "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union"

http://davidswanson.org

http://warisacrime.org

http://facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319

http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson

http://youtube.com/afterdowningstreet

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/world/30bout.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1283166110-BP+bhBpa8R9Cl74sBvXShA

 

 

August 29, 2010

For Arms Sales Suspect, Secrets Are Bargaining Chips

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — Accused of a 15-year run as one of the world’s biggest arms traffickers, Viktor Bout is thought to be a consummate deal maker.

Now his future may hang on whether he can strike one last bargain: trading what American officials believe is his vast insider’s knowledge of global criminal networks in exchange for not spending the rest of his life in a federal prison.

Justice Department officials were relieved on Aug. 20 when a Thai appeals court approved the extradition of Mr. Bout (pronounced boot), a Russian, from Bangkok, where he has been incarcerated since 2008. But they are wary of declaring victory in a long diplomatic wrangle with Russia until Mr. Bout actually arrives to face charges in Manhattan, a development that could be days or weeks away.

Immersed since the early 1990s in the dark side of globalization, Mr. Bout has mastered the trade and the transport that fuel drug cartels, terrorism networks and insurgent movements from Colombia to Afghanistan, according to former officials who tracked him. And he is believed to understand the murky intersection of Russian military, intelligence and organized crime.

“I think Viktor Bout has a great deal of information that this country and other countries would like to have,” said Michael A. Braun, chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2005 to 2008, when the agency was engineering the sting operation that led to Mr. Bout’s arrest in Bangkok two years ago.

“It’s a question of whether he sees his wife and kid again someday, after 10 or 15 or 20 years,” said Mr. Braun, now with Spectre Group International, a private security firm. “I think there’s potential for a deal.”

Mr. Bout, who has lost about 70 pounds while imprisoned in Thailand, has shown no inclination to cooperate with investigators. In interviews, he has portrayed himself as an honest businessman who would transport whatever he was paid to carry, whether disaster relief supplies or attack helicopters. On his Web site he calls himself “a born salesman with undying love for aviation and eternal drive to succeed.”

He has labeled as “ridiculous” American charges that he agreed to sell shoulder-fired missiles to D.E.A. agents posing as members of a Colombian leftist guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. “I have never traded in weapons,” he said in a statement released Friday. His wife, Alla, who has visited him in Bangkok with their teenage daughter, Elizabeth, has told reporters he traveled to South America “for tango lessons.”

But if the bravado falters when Mr. Bout faces prosecutors in New York, he has plenty to tell, said Douglas Farah, co-author of a 2007 book about him, “Merchant of Death.”

“He knows a great deal about how weapons reach the Taliban, and how they get to militants in Somalia and Yemen,” Mr. Farah said. “He knows a lot about Russian intelligence as it’s been restructured under Putin,” he added, referring to Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister.

Rumors in Bangkok have suggested that the Russians and the Americans engaged in a bidding war over the American extradition request, with Russia offering Thailand cut-rate oil and Americans offering military hardware.

Both sides have denied such bargaining. Thai officials say they must process a second United States request for extradition on a separate indictment for money laundering before Mr. Bout can be put aboard the American jet that arrived last week to pick him up.

The legend of Mr. Bout, 43, a former Soviet Air Force officer and gifted linguist who speaks English, French, Arabic and Portuguese, may have outgrown even the facts of his career, the basis for the 2005 movie “Lord of War.” Operating a web of companies, at times calling himself Viktor Bulakin, Vadim Aminov or other pseudonyms, he rose in the global arms underworld after the Soviet collapse freed aging aircraft and huge weapons supplies.

“What you have in Viktor Bout is a prime figure in the globalization of crime,” said Louise I. Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University. “He epitomizes the new type of organized crime, in which the person is educated, has international ties and operates with the support of the state.”

By the mid-1990s, Mr. Bout’s growing private air force had come to the attention of Western intelligence agencies. By 2000, when Lee S. Wolosky became director for transnational threats at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, Mr. Bout’s web of companies was turning up in country after country, Mr. Wolosky said.

“My colleagues who worked on Africa noticed that he was popping up in each conflict they were trying to resolve: Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola,” said Mr. Wolosky, now a lawyer in New York. “He had a logistics capability that was matched by very few nations.”

Mr. Bout developed ties with such notorious figures Charles Taylor of Liberia, bedded down next to his plane in African war zones and sometimes took payment in diamonds, bringing his own gemologist to assess the stones. His arms escalated the toll of the fighting. “Wars went from machetes and antique rifles to A.K.’s with unlimited ammunition,” Mr. Farah said.

Former American officials say they worked on a plan to grab the arms dealer and deliver him to either Belgium or South Africa to face criminal charges, a procedure known as “rendition to justice.” Before they could act, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made Mr. Bout a lower priority.

Mr. Wolosky said he and his colleagues were astonished to learn from later news reports that Mr. Bout’s companies were used as subcontractors by the American military to deliver supplies to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, earning about $60 million, by Mr. Farah’s estimate.

“I read those reports with shock,” Mr. Wolosky said. “Personally, I attributed it to the disorder of the Iraq war effort.”

In Afghanistan before 9/11, Mr. Bout had long supplied Ahmed Shah Massoud, the ethnic Tajik warlord who spent years fighting the Taliban. Later, he supplied the Taliban, said former American officials, who believe his only real allegiance was to money.

In 2007, Mr. Braun, then the D.E.A. operations chief, said he was asked by Bush administration officials about prosecuting Mr. Bout. The agency lured him into a trap in which the agency said he agreed to sell surface-to-air missiles and other military gear to agency informants posing as FARC operatives.

At a meeting in a Bangkok hotel in March 2008, according to court records, Mr. Bout scribbled price estimates and doodled an aircraft, telling his ostensible customers “that the United States was also his enemy.”

“It’s not, uh, business,” Mr. Bout said on tape, the records say. “It’s my fight.”

Thomas Fuller contributed reporting from Bangkok.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

A Bleaker House

A BLEAKER HOUSE

 

BLEAK HOUSE, the renowned novel by Charles Dickens, is about the exhaustive case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and is the author's skewering of the British legal system.  Dickens was both a law clerk and a litigant seeking to preserve his copyrights, so he knew something about courtrooms.

 

I and three other peace activists are going through our own Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Superior Court of the District of Columbia.  Our case started on Sept. 26, 2006 with our arrests during an antiwar protest near the U.S. Capitol.  And it is still alive, as we are scheduled for a show cause hearing on Aug. 30, 2010.

 

  After being convicted of "crossing a police line" or "unlawful assembly" in February or March, 2007, eleven defendants wrote to Rufus King III, the trial judge, informing him we would not pay $50 in court costs.  Our principal reason was that he unfairly found us guilty.

 

  Judge King's reaction came on May 11, 2007, when he held us in contempt for refusing his order.  He was prepared to jail us, but attorney advisor Mark Goldstone, a First Amendment expert, informed the judge the defendants should have the right to defend themselves at a trial.  After about 30 minutes in his chamber, King returned to the bench and agreed with Goldstone's legal analysis.  The case was then sent to Judge John Ramsey Johnson.

 

"Not to speak is to speak ... not to act is to act." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hanged by the Nazis April 9, 1945

 

  The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR] continues to organize actions aimed at ending U.S. military involvement overseas.  Four NCNR activists were arrested, for example, on Aug. 9, 2010 at the Pentagon.    Because of its experience, NCNR was approached by the Declaration of Peace to help organize mass actions on Sept. 26 and 27, 2006 in Washington, D.C.  

 

  On the 26^th, I was with the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore affinity group which tried to take a commemorative coffin decorated with photographs of the dead and wounded in Iraq to the steps of the U.S. Capitol.  Sixteen of us were arrested when the police stopped us.  Others were arrested near the Russell Senate Office Building and inside the Hart Senate Office Building. Seventy-one anti-war activists were taken into custody.  

 

  The following day I joined the procession to the Rayburn House Office Building and carried a coffin with a friend.  We placed our coffin with others in the courtyard in front of the building, and were not arrested.  The 26 who were arrested engaged in a die-in around the coffins. 

 

 Some 50 people requested a trial, and all but one defendant were convicted in either February or March 2007.  During the February trial, I tried explaining I did the same thing each day.  So why was I arrested on the 26 th? King did not allow me to raise the issue, and in both trials sided with the police who argued it was necessary to arrest so that we did not disrupt Congress.  His decision was an affront to the Bill of Rights.  Granting more power to the police must be resisted, and eleven of us voiced that perspective in letters to King.

 

  While the contempt case was now with Judge Johnson, the convictions were appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals.  During his time with the case, Johnson scheduled several status hearings, but the matter could not move forward until a decision was reached on the appeal.  As a veteran of the legal process, I was astonished as the government did not appear at these hearings.  Why was the contempt charge not dismissed?

 

 Goldstone handled the appeal.  But after we were held in contempt, I retained an attorney, as did Michelle Grise.  We both qualified as being indigent.  Before the appeals court ruled, the case was moved to a third judge.  Again every six months or so, there would be a status hearing.  This judge was ornery in contrast to Johnson who was amiable and allowed the defendants to speak in court.  The third judge nearly took my head off when I tried to explain something to him.  

 

 As the case wore on, some of the defendants paid the $50 fee.  And two of the defendants were removed from the case by the government, with no explanation given.  Again as there was no decision from the appeals court, the case was moved to a fourth judge, the very conservative Craig Iscoe.  

 

 Finally, the D. C. Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Apr. 2, 2009 from pro se appellants Johnny Barber, from Bozeman, Montana, and me.  Using the Goldstone brief, we argued that the convictions should be overturned, as the U.S. Capitol Police pre-empted our First Amendment rights to petition the government. We urged the court to curb police powers, which proved to be excessive around the country during the Bush-Cheney administration.

 

Unfortunately, on July 30, 2009, Associate Judges Vanessa Ruiz and Noel Kramer and Senior Judge Michael Farrell rejected almost all arguments in a very poorly-reasoned decision. The convictions were upheld, though Ruiz dissented in the Rayburn unlawful assembly arrests.  Two of three judges rejected the argument made by the appellants that there must be a breach of peace element to be convicted of unlawful assembly. However, as Judge Ruiz pointed out in her dissent, the other judges misunderstood what happened at the Rayburn Building. The evidence showed that there was never an intent to block the entrance, and the actual main door to Rayburn was never blocked. 

 

 Reading the decision and the dissent, I was astonished how confused the judges were to what happened during the protests. And I was very disappointed that three Court of Appeals judges would support a police line on the presumption that the protesters may later engage in lawbreaking.    

 

  What is revealing about the decision is that it quotes liberally from the Capitol Police officers who testified during the trials.  Yet not one defendant who testified is quoted in the decision.  This suggests the Court of Appeals deferred to the testimony of the police officers and did not hold the testimony of the defendants in the same light.  What is particularly galling is that the government’s prosecutor was ill-prepared and somewhat ignorant of case law.  His argument was that police must be trusted to make the right decisions.  

 

 We believed we had strong arguments, so we petitioned the entire Court of Appeals to hear our case.  On Mar., 2, 2010 our petition was denied for an en banc hearing.  It was assumed Iscoe would now schedule a trial at an April 25 status hearing.  Instead, he adopted a grind-them-down strategy in an attempt to get the defendants to pay the fee. His strategy did work, as activists in Arizona, Michigan and Montana did pay. 

 Our lawyers filed a motion to dismiss with Iscoe on the grounds that crossing a police line is not a serious misdemeanor. It seems that in D.C., those convicted are not obligated to pay the court costs, unless the charge was a felony or a serious misdemeanor.  On July 9, Iscoe heard oral arguments, but it was clear he would rule against the motion to dismiss.  He also dismissed the earlier contempt charge and gave us until Aug. 13 to pay the court costs, now at $100.  

 

  Failure to pay meant we were obligated to attend an August 30 show-cause hearing. This seemed at variance to his earlier order that defendants did not have to attend hearings with a promise they would appear for trial. Michelle and I intend to appear, but Maria Allwine, who is the Green Party candidate for governor in Maryland, and Joan Nicholson from Pennsylvania will probably not appear. It remains unclear how he will handle their absence. 

 

 The judge’s ruling that we were convicted of a serious misdemeanor has been appealed.  So it is possible that the appeal will halt the contempt process once again.  Then again on Aug. 30, he may rule that two of us are in contempt and issue  warrants for the other two.  I will be prepared to be sent to the D.C. Jail, just in case Iscoe intends to proceed even though an appeal was filed.  I am assuming there would have to be a trial before being sent to jail.  But this case rivals Jarndyce and Jarndyce in complexity.  If I am sent to jail by the judge for refusal to pay, how long can I be confined?

 

 If there are any Charles Dickens wannabees interested in our legal morass, let me know.  It is much too early to predict when we can announce case closed.

 

Max Obuszewski is a Baltimore peace activist, who risks arrest with the Pledge of Resistance and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.  He can be reached at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.

Baltimore police officers must be mindful that peaceful and orderly picketing or other lawful assembly and/or speech are not prohibited

http://www.investigativevoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5696:zero-tolerance-for-zero-tolerance-baltimore-police-officers-get-new-orders-for-qaulity-of-life-arrests&catid=25:the-project&Itemid=44

 

Baltimore police officers must be mindful that peaceful and orderly picketing or other lawful assembly and/or speech are not prohibited but are in fact constitutionally protected rights and therefore do not fall under the auspices of disorderly conduct. — Excerpted from new orders issued to Baltimore City Police officers, July 2010

 

By Stephen Janis

 

Make no mistake about it, the Baltimore Police Department no longer supports the zero tolerance arrest policy that led to tens of thousands of people being busted but released without charges that embroiled the agency in controversy and lawsuits.

New orders distributed to police officers earlier this month as the result of a lawsuit settlement with the ACLU and the NAACP make it clear the days of arresting someone for spitting on the sidewalk, urinating in an alley, or simply loitering may be over.

 

In fact, the orders urge city officers to avoid arrests whenever possible for minor crimes like loitering, littering, and disturbing the peace, infractions that in the past usually earned residents in poorer neighborhoods a night in Central Booking and an arrest record.

 

“A verbal warning is preferable to a criminal/civic citation,” states the new orders issued by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld 3rd.

 

“The Baltimore Police Department does not support a policy of Zero Tolerance Policing.”

 

REVIEWS AND CLARIFICATIONS OF EXISTING LAWS

 

The orders included reviews of existing laws that determine when littering, loitering, even public assembly on a sidewalk are illegal, along with clarifications of the law in some cases and recommendations of alternatives to the reflexive arrest policy that led to 100,000 arrests per year in the middle of the decade.

 

The oft-used loitering law, for example, a favored tool of the zero tolerance era, now comes with limitations, the orders state:

 

“An officer cannot lawfully arrest anyone for refusing to obey an order to move on after he told that person, along with other individuals, that they were loitering in a public place and if they didn’t move they would be arrested.”

For trespassing offenses, the department has raised the bar as well:

 

“Members must first ascertain whether an individual has any legal right to be on the premises before making an arrest.”

Most intriguing is a First Amendment primer for officers, who in the past have arrested picketers and protesters for disorderly conduct:

 

“Officers must be mindful that peaceful and orderly picketing or other lawful assembly and/or speech are not prohibited but are in fact constitutionally protected rights and therefore do not fall under the auspices of disorderly conduct.”

 

DISORDERLY CONDUCT CHARGE HAS BEEN CONTROVERSIAL

 

Also addressed is the often-evoked disorderly conduct charge, which in the past has been used to move people off sidewalks in drug-torn neighborhoods, but has also been controversial for targeting innocent bystanders.

 

“Generally one person cannot obstruct an entire sidewalk,” the order states blithely.

 

One of the most controversial laws used to make thousands of arrests is the charge of failure to obey a lawful order from a police officer, a charge that the ACLU argued has been widely abused. But the new orders say that officers cannot arrest people for failing to obey any order, clamping down on the practice.

 

“Member must refrain from charging an individual with ‘failure to obey,’” the order states, noting that officers must believe someone is a threat to public peace to make an arrest for failing to respond to an officer’s order.

 

The city’s zero tolerance policy was instituted at the beginning of the decade by the administration of then-Mayor Martin O’Malley, an extension of the so-called broken-windows theory of policing that urged arrests for petty crimes to discourage more serious infractions.

 

The policy accelerated in the middle of the decade when police arrested over 110,000 people; meanwhile prosecutors declined to charge up to one-quarter of those arrests.

 

Under the administration of Mayor Sheila Dixon the police department began to ease up on the policy and to focus more on targeting violent offenders.

 

Still, in 2006 the NAACP and ACLU sued the city on behalf of a dozen people who had been arrested who claimed their detainment was illegal. This year the city settled the suit for $870,000, admitting that the arrests were in fact illegal.

 

sjanis@investigativevoice.com

 

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