Bush claims victory, he gets shoes

Bush claims victory, he gets shoes

http://brusselstribunal.org/

Demand for the immediate release of Muntather Al-Zaidi

Statement by The BRussells Tribunal Committee (15 December 2008)

In one magnificent act, Muntather Al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist with Al-Baghdadiya television, epitomized the truth of the defeat of the United States in Iraq and lifted the spirit of resistance within the hearts of all Arabs, matching that of the Iraqi people who continue to resist imperialism and colonialism and who refuse humiliation.

It is Bush who is humiliated, and from it he cannot recover. He had snuck into Iraq, unannounced, to sign an illegal treaty with his puppet stooge aimed at institutionalizing the US occupation. Two flying shoes destroyed the façade upon which he and his cronies claim victory in Iraq.

For the orphans and widows

The greatest expression of contempt in Arab culture is wielding a shoe to an adversary. Bush and his criminal cronies deserve contempt. Bush claims not to know what Al-Zaidi’s “cause” is. Al-Zaidi made it clear: the shoes he threw at Bush were for the orphans and widows of Bush’s imperial war that to date has killed more than 1.2 million Iraqis and displaced six million more.

The shoes were thrown equally in the direction of Bush’s local puppets — proof that no government under occupation can be legitimate or gain legitimacy, that resistance expresses the sovereignty of the Iraqi people, exposing the Bush-Maliki agreement as worthless and devoid of legality. Two flying shoes expressed the paradise that is resistance in comparison to the ignominy of submission. Iraq is unbreakable, its people proven proud and invincible.

Al-Zaidi needs protection

Following five and a half years of relentless destruction and killing, it is clear that Muntather Al-Zaidi, in daring to challenge the imperial United States, took a step into that grey zone between the human right to life and the permanent threat of death wielded by imperialism. Given the Maliki government’s eagerness in summarily executing its political opponents — including their lawyers — and as he is reportedly in the direct custody of Maliki’s own security guards, we have firm reason to believe that Al-Zaidi is in immediate danger of being tortured and/or assassinated.

We remind all that Muntather Al-Zaidi is a protected person under international humanitarian law, which governs the US occupation, and has guaranteed rights under international human rights law.[1] International humanitarian and human rights law outlaws torture and summary execution, incommunicado detention, the ill treatment of detainees, or denial of access to legal counsel. The US occupation is directly responsible for Al-Zaidi’s welfare and must guarantee his security. As a journalist, he must be afforded extra protection.

Appeal for action

Following Al-Zaidi’s action, thousands have taken to the street in his support and countless statements are being written in his defence. We salute his courage, demand to know his exact location, and join millions in demanding his immediate release.

We join all patriotic Arabs and the Iraqi people who today celebrate their dignity, visually announced and reaffirmed in the public humiliation of a disgraced American president.

We call upon all human rights organizations and bodies, including responsible organs of the United Nations, along with journalists’ syndicates and associations, to defend the right to security and life of Muntather Al-Zaidi and work to ensure his immediate release.


The BRussells Tribunal Committee
15 December 2008

Please circulate this appeal widely.


* Bush gets shoes: http://www.youtube.com/v/OM3Z_Kskl_U

* Hel Laila Hilwa — Hussein Al-A’dhami: http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHasAMLQByk

[1] See Articles 6-7 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 113 and 116 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

Peace, Stability and Democracy in Iraq

To the peoples and governments of the world

We seek your endorsement for the statement

Peace, Stability and Democracy in Iraq

In vain, the US tries to cover the genocidal occupation of Iraq by calling it a ‘political process’. In vain, the US tries to cover up its anti-Iraqi-people sectarian killing policies and its endless shifting alliances with militias and warlords by calling it 'national reconciliation'. Also in vain, the US tries to hide its strategic defeat by waging new battles and surges against Iraqi cities and the civilian population.

Iraq, from the north to the south, is victim of US military operations and bloodletting. The latest besieged cities are Basrah and Sadr City and next will be Mosul and Kirkuk.

Iraq, from the north to the south, rejects and resists — each according to available means — the occupation, its plans and its policies.

The US tries to ignite civil war by dividing Iraq into sects and ethnicities, in order to abolish the concept of citizenship — the basis of any modern state and democracy — so as to plunder its resources by signing agreements, contracts and treaties with the warlords it installed. These warlords have no legitimacy and cannot gain any. The treaties they sign are null and void according to international law and to the will of the Iraqi people.

The US calls its installed warlords a ‘government’, and appeals to other governments to support it. Under their regime, their ‘political process’ and their ‘national reconciliations’, more than one million Iraqis died violently, and so far five million of Iraq's citizens have been forcefully displaced and made refugee both inside and outside Iraq. At least 400,000 Iraqis are either imprisoned or disappeared, and millions more maimed, widowed or orphaned. The neighborhoods of Iraqi cities became open-air prisons surrounded by walls and checkpoints. All public services have collapsed throughout the country while Iraq ranked 3rd among the most corrupted states in the world in 2006. In reality, there is no state in Iraq and the occupation cannot build a state.

The only solution in Iraq is the sovereignty of the Iraqi people over its life, land and resources via the withdrawal of all foreign occupying forces.

All peoples in the world aspire to democracy as it is supposed to be the expression of their will. There is no democracy in Iraq under occupation. The will of the Iraqi people is oppressed by force for the sixth consecutive year. The Iraqi Resistance is democratic by definition, because it is an upsurge of popular will, and is progressive by definition, because it defends the interests of the people.

Only the national popular Iraqi Resistance is capable and empowered, both as an objective reality and under international law, to determine a path towards peace and stability in Iraq and end this illegal occupation. Only the resistance can build, after liberation, a democratic state.
We must pre-empt US attempts to impose this lackey government, its institutions, plans and policies on the Iraqi population by recognizing the resistance as the sole representative of the will of the Iraqi people.

Retrieve recognition from this foreign-imposed backward 'government' and recognize the Iraqi Resistance!

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hanaalbayati@yahoo.fr
Abdul Ilah Al-Bayaty (Writer - Iraq / France)
Hana Al Bayaty (filmmaker / journalist - Iraq / Egypt / France)