INCITE! Newsletter, June 12, 2006

INCITE! Newsletter, June 12, 2006

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IN THIS NEWSLETTER (INCITE! ITEMS IN CAPS):

1.  INCITE! NEW ORLEANS CALL FOR ACTION! (NEW ORLEANS, LA)
2.  POOLING OUR SKILLS: HELP END LAW ENFORCEMENT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
&
TRANSGENDER PEOPLE OF COLOR
3.  Feminist Women's Health Center Workshops (Atlanta, GA)
4.  State Of Politics And Activism In The Black Lgbt/Sgl Community (NYC)
5.  Consciousness-Raising For Women Of Color (NYC)
6.  Reproductive Justice 101 (Green Bay, WI)
7.  Update On Political Killings In The Philippines From GABNET
8.  Native Feminisms Without Apology
9.  Fear Of Jail Silences Indigenous Rape Victims
10. Voices Of Resistance: Muslim Women Of War, Faith, & Sexuality
11. Pronouncement Of The Women Of The Sixth Declaration Of The Lacandon
Jungle
And The Other Campaign
12. Earthquake Relief Organizations In Indonesia
13. Stop Saying This Is A Nation Of Immigrants!
14. Louisiana Governor Plans To Sign Anti-Abortion Law
15. Racial Component Is Found In Lethal Breast Cancer
16. Hurricane Katrina Victims Protest Global Warming Cover-Up
17. Soldier Verdict Spotlights Rape In Ugandan Camps
18. How Does Surveillance Impact Political Participation? - A
Nationwide Study
19. How To Submit Announcements To INCITE!'S E-Newsletter

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1. INCITE! NEW ORLEANS CALL FOR ACTION! (NEW ORLEANS, LA)

In March 2005, the City of New Orleans, and specifically the Treme
Community,
one of the oldest communities of free Africans in America, generously
hosted
INCITE! for the Color of Violence III. Local residents, activists and
organizers
opened their homes, school, churches, community center, auditorium, and
hearts
to us, sharing their struggles while helping us create a unique space
for
organizing against all forms of violence against women of color in the
U.S. and
around the world.

Just six months later, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina
and its
aftermath, in which the many intersecting systems of oppression we
theorized and
organized around at COV III converged in the lives of survivors. The
Treme
Community, which for many of us was a temporary home for three
beautiful days in
March, was particularly hard hit by waves of water, racism, classism,
and the
impacts of U.S. imperialism abroad. Women of color, because of their
location at
the intersection of these forces, as well as their roles as caregivers
to young,
elderly, and disabled people, have been on the front lines of struggles
for
survival in the days and months following Katrina. However, the needs
of
low-income women of color struggling against poverty and powerlessness
resulting
from systemic racism and sexism have not been central to government or
non-profit responses.

INCITE! is now calling on women of color who participated in the Color
of
Violence, members of INCITE! chapters & affiliates, and women of color
allies,
to support the women of New Orleans through the work of the INCITE! New
Orleans
chapter.

* JOIN OR SUPPORT AN INCITE! DELEGATION TO NEW ORLEANS. The women of
INCITE! New
Orleans have been centrally involved in establishing and supporting the
Women's
Health Center.  They are also building toward the creation of a Women
of Color
Organizing and Resource Center, which will serve as a hub for
organizing among
low-income women of color for meaningful participation in the
reconstruction of
New Orleans, the rights of workers - both immigrant and non-immigrant -
who are
the backbone of reconstruction efforts, health, safety & housing rights
for
women of color returning to New Orleans, and community-based responses
to
violence and approaches to safety.

Volunteers with health care, education, community health promotion and
stress,
grief, domestic violence, and sexual assault counseling are urgently
needed to
support the work of the Women's Health Center.

Drivers and individuals willing and able to conduct intake, outreach,
and
provide childcare are also needed.

Individuals with fundraising & organizing experience with respect to

housing,
environmental justice, health and safety, immigrant and workers'
rights, and
violence against women are needed to assist in the development,
resourcing, and
establishment of the Women of Color Organizing and Resource Center.

INCITE! will be coordinating rotating delegations of 3-10 individuals
for stays
of a week or more throughout the early part of 2006 to support these
INCITE!
New Orleans initiatives. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE PRIORITIZING THE
PARTICIPATION
OF WOMEN OF COLOR IN THESE DELEGATIONS.

For more information, please contact incite_national@yahoo.com or call
and leave
a message at (484) 932-3166.

IMPORTANT! INCITE! NEW ORLEANS ASKS THAT YOU NOT TRAVEL TO NEW ORLEANS
WITHOUT
PARTICIPATING IN A COORDINATED DELEGATION. Resources, including
housing,
transportation, and food continue to be scarce in New Orleans, and many
are
being taken up by "relief" workers and contractors, to the detriment of
New
Orleans residents seeking to return to their homes.

Be aware that delegation participants will be housed under "rough"
conditions
(on the floor, no hot water, etc.) and will be asked to bring basic
supplies for
themselves and to meet local needs. We will be working long hours, and
will
likely participate in physical work needed to assist in rebuilding
basic
infrastructure.

* If you cannot travel to New Orleans, we still need your help! THE
WOMEN'S
HEALTH CENTER NEEDS SUPPLIES AND MATERIAL SUPPORT. Organize a
fundraiser or
supply drive in your community to help meet women's basic health needs
in New
Orleans in the face of collapsed infrastructure, widespread presence of
environmental contaminants, mold, and refuse, and failure of supplies
collected
by the Red Cross and FEMA to reach women most in need. For a list of
supplies
needed, please contact us at incite_national@yahoo.com or call and
leave a
message at (484) 932-3166. Send your financial contributions to
INCITE!, P.O.
Box 226, Redmond WA 98073 and put INCITE! New Orleans in the memo line.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ABOUT HOW TO TAKE ACTION:
http://www.incite-national.org/issues/katrinaaction.html

INCITE!'S STATEMENT ON HURRICANE KATRINA AND ITS AFTERMATH:
http://www.incite-national.org/issues/katrina.html

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2. POOLING OUR SKILLS: HELP END LAW ENFORCEMENT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
&
TRANSGENDER PEOPLE OF COLOR

POOLING OUR SKILLS:
Let's Assemble the Wheel, Rather than Re-Invent it!

Dear Friends and Allies of Incite!

As part of our ongoing work on the campaigns launched at the Color of
Violence
III, Incite's national collective is putting together a "Law
Enforcement (Police
and Military) Violence against Women and Transgender People of Color"
toolkit
for posting on our website.  Many of you are already working on these
issues,
and we need your expertise!  Together, we can assemble the wheel,
rather than
re-invent it.

In order to do so most effectively, we would like to begin by asking
those of
you who are active and/or activists in the field to contribute your
knowledge
and experience, so we can build our collective brainpower and
resources.

THE TOOLKIT COULD CONTAIN:
* Suggested documentation tools (local surveys, intake forms, interview
questions, consent forms, video tools, suggestions for women/trans
focused "cop
watches," other tools for documenting and challenging law enforcement
violence
against women and trans people/violence against women and trans people
by
military agents)

* Links to reports/articles which address law enforcement violence
against
women/trans people of color

* Specific "Know your rights" materials geared toward women and
transgender
folks (including those who are also immigrant, undocumented,
sex-workers, youth,
etc., or wear Muslim dress)

* Information about groups you know of who are documenting/organizing
around law
enforcement violence against women/trans people of color

* Recommended workshops and training for anti-violence and anti-police

brutality
groups on law enforcement violence against women

* Suggested actions for organizing for safety from cops/military forces
and for
community-based responses for violence

* Any other strategies you have used effectively to challenge law
enforcement/military violence and violence in our homes and communities

We are still in the early stages of putting together this toolkit, and
we cannot
do it without you.  Please send us some of your most effective
strategies,
reports, links, as well as your queries, questions, concerns, and good
wishes.

YOU CAN SEND YOUR INFO TO THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS: incitecampaign@gmail.com

As your messages come in, we will hopefully create a national database
of
information that any and all of you can refer to as needed.

Let us hear from you!

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3.  FEMINIST WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER WORKSHOPS (ATLANTA, GA)

Feminist Women's Health Center: June 2006 Workshops
Focus on Feminist Workshop *With Special focus and feminist critique on
the
corporate media's portrayal of the recent Duke rape scandal.
Wednesday, June 21, 6-9pm

"Focus on Feminist" is the first in a series of pro-choice workshops
offered by
the FWHC. Follow-up workshops "Voice for Choice" parts I & II will be
offered
later in the year. "Focus on Feminist" is a great opportunity to get
involved
with the FWHC and pick up grass-roots organizing skills.

The F-Word: Feminist Identities in Communities of Color What does the
word
"feminist" mean to you?  As a woman of color, do you identify as a
feminist?
What is the message in your community to young women of color about
feminism?
SESSION II.
Wednesday, July 5th from 6-8:30pm

RSVP to Bianca Frisby at nextwave@feministcenter.org. Some reading
materials
will be sent out beforehand.

All events held at Feminist Women's Health Center, 1924 Cliff Valley
Way,
Atlanta GA, 30329.  For information, please call Bianca at (404)
248-5452 or
email her at nextwave@feministcenter.org

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4. STATE OF POLITICS AND ACTIVISM IN THE BLACK LGBT/SGL COMMUNITY (NYC)

NYPL GLBT Programs at Schomburg Center
Series: ART & ACTIVISM: Contemporary LGBT Arts and Protest

The following programs will be held at:
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Blvd (at the corner of 135th Street and Lenox Avenue)

Both programs are free and open to the public
For information: 212.491.2226

Tuesday, June 13, 2006, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

The first of two programs co-sponsored by the Schomburg Center's Black
Gay and
Lesbian Archive will focus on political activity within the black same
gender
loving community over the past 30 years. Currently, politically active
LGBT/SGL
activists of African descent are a mix of seasoned and new thinkers,
engaging a
range of issues including marriage equality, homophobia in the black
church, and
hate crimes, among other issues. Panelists include Cheryl Clarke
(Author, Days
of Good Looks), Samiya Bashir (Freedom to Marry), Larry D. Lyons, II
(Rashawn
Brazell Memorial Fund), Kevin McGruder (Gay Men of African Descent),
and others.


Black LGBT/SGL Publishers Speak Out
Tuesday, June 27, 2006, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

The second of two programs co-sponsored by the Schomburg Center's Black
Gay and
Lesbian Archive will focus on cultural publications produced by
non-heterosexual
people of African descent in the United States. It is a little known
fact that
the majority of black LGBT/SGL books and periodicals have been produced
by small
presses or self-published. This panel will discuss the complicated
history of
the black LGBT/SGL press, and the challenges independent and
self-publishing
pose historically and currently. Panelists include Lisa C. Moore
(RedBone
Press), Charlene Cothran (Venus Magazine), Colin Robinson (Other
Countries), and
others. Steven G. Fullwood, project director for the Black Gay and
Lesbian
Archive, will moderate the panel.

=====================================================

5. CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING FOR WOMEN OF COLOR (NYC)

WOMEN OF COLOR CAUCUS PRESENTS
A Consciousness-Raising for Women of Color: Women, Are You Angry?

Has anyone ever told you to lighten your skin? Have you been pressured
to
straighten, relax, lighten, dye, perm or otherwise "fix" your hair? To
lose or
gain weight?  To wear "feminine"/ traditional/ Western/ uncomfortable
clothing
or shoes?
Have you ever changed your appearance for others?
If and when you have, who benefits?

Join us to analyze these and other unfair beauty standards from our own
personal
experience and address ways to combat our oppression as women of color!

When: Saturday, June 17, 2006, 2:30-4:30 p.m.
Where: 2504 Broadway at 93rd St., Advent Lutheran Church:  1, 2, 3
train, or B,
C to 96th Street.
Cost: $5-10 suggested donation

This meeting is open to all women of color. We will use
consciousness-raising as
a tool to analyze our experiences with racism and sexism in our daily
lives and
learn about the current work of women's liberation groups.

Free child care available on site
No one will be turned away for inability to pay.
For more information, contact us at 646-285-1723 or woccnyc@yahoo.com.

The Women of Color Caucus (WOCC) is an organizing think tank composed
of women
of color associated with Redstockings of the Women's Liberation
Movement and
Gainesville Women's Liberation.  We believe that women of color
involved in
women's liberation must also meet separately in order to address
problems
specifically affecting women of color.

=====================================================

6. REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE 101 (GREEN BAY, WI)

A New Vision For A Collective Movement

Hosted by Wise Women Gathering Place
Saturday, July 22nd
9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Thirty-three years after Roe v. Wade, the U.S. pro-choice movement
finds women's
rights to contraception and abortion threatened by the conservative
shift of the
nation.  Meanwhile, women of color are disproportionately affected by
cuts to
Medicaid, dangerous contraceptives, welfare reform, immigration
restrictions,
and more.  We are ready for change!

SisterSong is offering a new vision for a winning movement:
Reproductive
Justice! RJ calls for the complete physical, mental, spiritual,
political,
social, and economic well-being of women, girls, and individuals, based
on the
full achievement and protection of human rights.  During this training,
you will
learn:

* The history of Reproductive Justice and how to integrate the
framework into
your work
* How Reproductive Justice can help bring together constituencies that
are
multi-racial, multi-generational, and multi-class
* How to build a more powerful and relevant grassroots movement for
Reproductive
Justice

Registration Fees:
$25 - SisterSong members
$50 - Non-Members

Lunch provided
Limited space available on a first-come, first-serve basis with
priority given
to women of color
RSVP to Laura Jimenez via phone or e-mail to reserve yoru space
Logistics provided with registration confirmation

SisterSong Women of Color
Reproductive Health Collective
PO Box 311020
Atlanta, GA 31131

Phone: 404-344-9629
Fax: 404-346-7517
E-mail: trainings@sistersong.net


If you are unable to make this training in Wisconsin, don't dismay!
SisterSong
has 2 additional Reproductive Justice 101 trainings scheduled later
this year:

* September 16, 2006 in Los Angeles at our National Membership Meeting
* November 18, 2006 in Albuquerque, hosted by Young Women United

Additionally, SisterSong is available to come to you and provide RJ 101
trainings for you and your constituency.

For more information on any SisterSong training opportunity, e-mail
trainings@SisterSong.net or call Laura 404-344-9629!

=====================================================

7.  UPDATE ON POLITICAL KILLINGS IN THE PHILIPPINES FROM GABNET

GABNet Action & News Alert Service
29 May 2006

As of today, there's been 606 POLITICAL KILLINGS in the Philippines
under de
facto president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.  Sotero Llamas, 55, killed at

8:30AM,
5/29 (Manila time).  Noli Capulong, killed at 6PM, 5/27 (Manila time).

ALL-WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS LEGAL TEAM VISITS PHILIPPINES. The delegation
will meet
with the Batasan 6 and their legal defense team; listen to accounts and
testimonies regarding the assassination of over 600 activists,
organizers,
unionists, communist and church leaders, but most of all, to accounts
of the
assassination of some 70 politically active women. 26 May 2006. press
release |
press statement | letter to US Ambassador to the Philippines | letter
to
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

FREE EVENT FOR WOMEN: 17 June 2006, Saturday, 12noon-3PM.  KUWENTONG
BABAE /
WOMEN TALK about Filipina, Immigration and Women's Response.
Bluestockings
bookstore, 172 Allen St., NYC.  Women only.  more info

AUDIO: NEW on our website: Kana-Pinay Radyo. Podcast (i.e. audio files)
of past
speeches and interviews on women, war and the global sex trade.

http://www.gabnet.org/publicationsresources/multimedia/kanapinayradyo.htm
l

ALL-WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS LEGAL TEAM TO THE PHILIPPINES

We are pleased to announce the departure of an all-women human rights
legal team
from the United States to the Philippines.

This all-women human rights legal team is a joint project of GABRIELA
Network
and the Vanguard Foundation, in cooperation with the National Lawyers
Guild and
the Center for Constitutional Rights.

While in the Philippines, the team will be co-hosted by the GABRIELA
National
Alliance of Women and by the Gabriela Women's Party.  The team will
meet with
the Batasan 6 and their legal defense team; listen to accounts and
testimonies
regarding the assassination of some 585 activists, organizers,
unionists,
communist and church leaders, but most of all, to accounts of the
assassination
of some 70 politically active women.

GABRIELA Network initiated this project in the spirit of
internationalism and
global sisterhood. Alarmed by the continuing murder of both men and
women
actively engaged in the practice and pursuit of democratic rights,
GABNet is
seeking ways and means by which the human, civil and political rights
of the
people, as well as women's rights, be respected in the archipelago, in
the face
of governmental indifference to the Filipino people's right to be safe
and
secure in their homeland.

As a women's organization, the persecution and murder of women
activists,
organizers and leaders, as well as of women's organizations, cut us to
the bone.
Our members who are of Philippine ancestry know full well the role that
organizing for one's collective interests plays in the pursuit of the
optimal in
working and living conditions.

The Filipino workers of the plantations of Hawaii and California, of
the
canneries of Alaska, broke out of their serf-like conditions in the
1930s only
by organizing themselves and joining their brother workers in unions.
Filipina
nurses throughout the U.S. freed themselves from temporary worker visas
in the
1980s by organizing for their right to permanent residency. GABNet
began the
agitation against the traffic of women and the mail-order bride system
in the
1990s, work which bore fruit only in the last five years.

In the face of repression, exploitation and injustice, history shows us
that the
only way to freedom is through sustained activism and perseverance in
the
defense and advancement of the people's democratic and human rights.
But how can
we expect the 700,000 women exported from the Philippines in 2005, as
well as
all migrant Filipinas who now comprise over 65% of overseas Filipinos,
to seek
just working and living conditions, to struggle against abuse and
exploitation,
to oppose traffickers, to fight against racial and gender
discrimination, if
their own sisters in the archipelago are being killed for doing exactly
the same
thing? ###

------------
GABRIELA Network USA
PO Box 403, Times Square Station
New York, NY  10036
email: gabnet@gabnet.org
tel: 1.212.592.3507
web: www.gabnet.org

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8. NATIVE FEMINISMS WITHOUT APOLOGY

During this past semester, a diverse range of leading Native scholars
and
activists convened for an important conference at the University of
Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.  The purpose of the conference was to explore the
development
of Native feminist thought in the United States and Canada.

Because relatively little has been published by Native women on
feminist theory,
the scholarly and activist public tends to over- simplify Native women
activists' theories about feminism, the struggle against sexism both
within
Native communities and the society at large, and the importance of
working in
coalition with non-Native women.

This seminar provided a groundbreaking opportunity for indigenous women
to
develop indigenous feminist theory and politics, and centered around
questions
such as:  What is specific about indigenous articulations of feminism?
How do
these articulations vary among indigenous communities?; Many indigenous
nations
have instituted gender-discriminatory policies in the name of
"tradition."  What
do pro-sovereignty, indigenous feminists interventions into these
policies look
like?; How can critiques of gender oppression and violence be made
central to
anti-colonial, pro- sovereignty analysis and politics?

View the symposium online at:
http://www.nah.uiuc.edu/native_feminisms.htm

=====================================================

9. FEAR OF JAIL SILENCES INDIGENOUS RAPE VICTIMS

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fear-of-jail-silences-indigenous-
rape-victims/2006/06/07/1149359820568.html

Tim Dick
June 8, 2006

SOME Aboriginal victims of assault are locked up for outstanding minor
charges
after reporting domestic and sexual assault to police, discouraging
women from
reporting offences.

In one case last year, a woman went to a Sydney police station after
being
raped, only to be held in a cell overnight on an outstanding warrant,
the
Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women's Legal Centre, in Marrickville,
reported.

"Anecdotally, we know that this type of treatment happens a lot, but we
also
know that very few Aboriginal women make formal complaints about how
they were
treated by the police," said the centre's co- ordinator, Christine
Robinson.

It gave another example, from the mid-'90s, in which a woman was
assaulted by
her partner near the same police station. Police intervened, but
detained her
instead on an outstanding warrant, and let him go.

"It is difficult enough to report a sexual assault, let alone being
fearful that
you are going to risk being locked up for a warrant for some minor
matter," Ms
Robinson said. "The fear of being locked up deters many Aboriginal
women from
reporting sexual assault and domestic violence, whether they have
outstanding
warrants or not."

In 1996 a NSW parliamentary committee recommended that police be
instructed not
to act on a warrant if a sexual assault victim made a complaint, but Ms
Robinson
said it still happened.

Chris Cunneen, a criminology professor at the University of NSW and a
member of
the NSW Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce, gave the example of
a
Northern Territory woman who was raped in 1996.

When she reported it to police, she was detained on an outstanding
charge of
drinking in a banned area, and nothing was done about the rape
complaint.

Professor Cunneen said responses like that to sexual assault were
occasional,
but more likely to happen to Aboriginal women complaining of assault.

The head of the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council, Terry Chenery,
said the
extent of the problem was unclear. "Reporting to police can be
difficult for
many women," he said. For Aboriginal women, as well as men, there is an
added
difficulty when it is perceived that reports from Aboriginal people
will be
dealt with less seriously or given less priority."

Immediate attention should be given to properly implementing the NSW
Police
policy of dealing with complainants as "victims first and foremost", he
said.

Notwithstanding recent improvements, Mr Chenery said the relationship
between
police and indigenous communities had a "long, and often ugly, past"
and more
was needed to protect Aboriginal victims of crime.

A spokesman for the Police Minister, Carl Scully, was not able to
comment
yesterday.

Professor Cunneen said the recent law-and-order response by the
Commonwealth to
the long-running violence in Aboriginal communities was "grossly
hypocritical".

He said authorities had known of the problem for years and that many
anti-violence programs had been started, were successfully operated,
but often
ran out of money.

=====================================================

10. VOICES OF RESISTANCE: MUSLIM WOMEN OF WAR, FAITH, & SEXUALITY

***NOW AVAILABLE TO ORDER***

In "Voices of Resistance," writers, poets, and visual artists work to
redefine
the stereotypical depictions of Muslim women that inundate current
western
discourse on the Islamic "other." By confronting war, empire,
homophobia, and
patriarchy, the contributors explore topics both personal and global
and
challenge the narrow perceptions about the contemporary realities of
Muslim
women.

"An eloquent, beautifully crafted testament to the courage,
reflexivity, and
spirit of Muslim women's resistance to the injustices and violence of
wars from
Palestine to the USA.... A book that moves, teaches, and challenges us
to deeper
understanding and to solidarity across the borders of nations,
religions, races,
and sexualities."
-Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Professor of Women's Studies, Syracuse
University and
author of Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing
Solidarity

"Voices of Resistance is a noisy and proud collection of Muslim women
writing
with boundless energy and enormous creativity from the United States
and around
the world. Sometimes it's angry.  At other times it's introspective.
But it's
mostly about faith, faith that a world free from racism and sexism and
defined
by justice is not just possible but absolutely necessary."
-Moustafa Bayoumi, Professor of English, City University of New York

"I loved it. It was fun, it was funny, it was profound, it was deep, it
was
frightening, it was awesome, it was an opening.  I could NOT put it
down."
-dr. amina wadud
professor of islamic studies
author of Inside the Gender Jihad.

Check out www.powells.com or www.Amazon.com, or www.Sealpress.com for
orders.

=====================================================

11.  PRONOUNCEMENT OF THE WOMEN OF THE SIXTH DECLARATION OF THE
LACANDON JUNGLE
AND THE OTHER CAMPAIGN

To the adherents and sympathizers of the Other Campaign, feminist
groups,
collectives, social organizations, the international community, workers
of the
world, those from below to the left in all corners of the planet.

We the compañeras of the women's sector of the Other Campaign
energetically
denounce and condemn the brutal acts and crimes of lesser humanity
perpetrated
against those detained the 3rd and 4th of May, 2006 in the
municipalities of
Texcoco and San Salvador Atenco by elements of the federal, state and
municipal
police.

For this we manifest that on the 3rd of May, 101 people were detained,
22 of
them women who suffered serious sexual aggressions, violations of their
human
rights, amongst which included torture, beatings, ill treatment of
their bodies,
as well as constant psychological violence.

The day following these events, the 4th of may, 2006, the occupation of
the town
of San Salvador Atenco took place through the implementation of the
military
operative "tapete" (known operative used by all of the fascist
governments as a
form of State-sponsored terrorism) by 4,500 police agents. The majority
of the
inhabitants of the town were in their homes and only a few of them
maintained
guard in a peaceful manner when the brutal attack was unleashed by the
"forces
of public order", at which point the withdrawal of the community guards
that
were in the plaza of the town of Atenco began. It is here that the
first
arbitrary and indiscriminate detentions of any person that transited

the site
took place. Also, with the pretext of locating the supposed kidnapped
agents,
the forces illegally entered the different homes (that were pointed out
by
helicopters and neighboring homes) where they looted, beat, terrorized,
threatened and detained the people they found.

The result was the detention of 106 more people, amongst them women and
children; of these 106 people, 29 of them were women of different
identities,
sectors of the population and nationalities; also highlighted are the
reports of
rape and multiple aggressions against women inhabitants who were not
detained.

The result of these police attacks was the incarceration of 52 women
whom were
treated in a brutal manner and subjected to sexual crimes. Many of them
were
housewives, mothers, indigenous women, students, workers all those from
the
Other Campaign and flower vendors farming inhabitants of the
municipalities of
Texcoco and San Salvador Atenco.

Considering these events, we denounce:

1) The tumultuary (performed by more than one person, sometimes at the
same
time, on one person) rapes of different women during the takeover of
San
Salvador Atenco and during the transfer of the detainees

2) The brutal beating, torture, and psychological abuse that they
received.

3) The lack of medical and psychological attention, which constitutes
in yet
another violation of their human rights as well as violates their
sexual,
reproductive and emotional health.

4) The lack of communication that they have been subjected to since
their
illegal detention up until this moment.

5) The sexual crimes committed against the women are not products of
isolated
acts, but are part of the systematic training of the police in order to
repress,
plant terror, and deactivate the autonomous political and social
movements,
especially the women's struggle of the Other Campaign.

6) The acts, specifically those here mentioned, in which we as women
are taken
as loot of war, in this case a fascist war used to plant the terror of
the
State.

7) The repression in San Salvador Atenco, particularly against the
women of the
Other Campaign, put to manifest the fascist character of the Mexican
government
and refers to the methods used by the Pinochet in Chile, Videla in
Argentina,
and the rest of the authoritarian governments that have devastated our
planet.

8) The violation and neglect by the Mexican State of the international
agreements and conventions against the discrimination, abuse and
practice of
violence against women.

9) The null participation, indifference, and lack of credibility of the
governmental institutions dedicated to the defense of human rights, to
women,
and to the attention of their denunciations, such as the commission of
Gender
Equality of the federal and state Houses of Representatives.

10) The crimes of lesser humanity committed against the compañeras who
were
incarcerated (as well as those who were not) who lived the most
atrocious
experiences
and damages of their lives. Although these atrocities are impossible to
repair,
we CANNOT leave them unpunished.

For that which has been expressed, we emphatically demand:

1) Impeachment and political trial of the President of the Government
of Mexico,
Vicente Fox Quezada; Secretary of Federal Public Security, Manuel Medina
Mora; Governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto; Secretary of
State
Government, Humberto Benitez Treviño; Head of the Greater State of the
PFP
(federal
preventative police), Ardelio Vargas Fosado; Commissioner of the Agency
of State
Security, Wilfrido Robledo; and Municipal President of Texcoco, Dr.
Higinio
Martinez Miranda.

2) The destitution, assigning of responsibilities and punishment of the
police
involved in the rape and aggression against the women.

3) The veto of the Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of
United
Nations of the recent naming of Mexico as one of it's founding members,
as well
as sanctions derived from the violation and neglect of the agreements
and
conventions against the
discrimination, abuse and practice of violence against women, signed by
the
Mexican government.

4) The appropriate medical and psychological attention on behalf of
professional
independent teams that respond to the necessities of the incarcerated
compañeras
and that guarantee their health and emotional and physical integrity.

5) The immediate end of the low-intensity war and terrorist tactics by
the
Mexican State against social fighters of the Other Campaign and other
social
movements.

6) The immediate stop of the violence that the State has practiced
against women
in Mexico and systematically covered up, that which is translated as
tumultuary
rapes, femicide throughout the height and length of the country,
feminization of
poverty,
incarceration, disappearances, and murders of social fighters and human
rights
activists.

7) That given the severity of the rapes, they be considered a crime of
lesser
humanity by the corresponding petitions.

La Otra Campaña: VA!

Sincerely,
The women of the Other Campaign,
from below to the left, with all heart

=====================================================

12. EARTHQUAKE RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS IN INDONESIA

Thanks for asking for information about opportunities to donate to
local groups
doing earthquake relief work in Jogjakarta.  There are two groups I
particularly
recommend.  Below are descriptions and bank accounts for these
organizations.
If it's easier for you to write a check than do an international
transfer, I
will be doing another transfer this week and am happy to "bundle" any
donations.


1) Tanda Baca is a collective of young activist writers, artists, and
filmmakers.  They produced our five Indonesian worker profile
videoclips.  The
director of those clips, Rachmat, jumped out of his room just before
the roof
fell in.  He's OK, but his Vespa and the place where he lives were
totally
destroyed.   Tanda Baca is providing emergency aid.  They are using
funds to buy
large, heavy-duty tents for temporary housing, since there are more
domestic
donated food and clothes but few donated tents.    If you donate to
Tanda Baca,
please write senoradinero@yahoo.com to let the treasurer know that you
sent a
donation for the Jogjakarta earthquake.

2) Urban Poor Consortium: a leading progressive NGO that does urban
poor
organizing throughout Indonesia.  I did tsunami reconstruction work
with them in
Aceh.  They work harder than anyone else I know and have experience
doing
emergency relief work in a way that emphasizes community strengths and
sets the
stage for organizing (rather than making it harder to organize, which
often
happens).  They've worked with poor vendors, domestic workers, street
singers,
and other sectors of the urban poor in Jogjakarta for years.  Their
website is
www.uplink.or.id (national) or www.urbanpoor.or.id (Jakarta and Aceh) .
If you
donate to UPC, please write upc@centrin.net.id and let them know that
it's a
donation for the Jogjakarta earthquake.

Any donation would be very much appreciated - as you all know, the
money goes so
much further there that it does here, so every little bit really helps.

Thanks,
Jess

=====================================================

13. STOP SAYING THIS IS A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS!

http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
A nation of immigrants: This is a convenient myth developed as a
response to the
1960s movements against colonialism, neocolonialism, and white
supremacy.  The
ruling class and its brain trust offered multiculturalism, diversity,
and
affirmative action in response to demands for decolonization, justice,
reparations, social equality, an end of imperialism, and the rewriting
of
history -- not to be "inclusive" -- but to be accurate.  What emerged
to replace
the liberal melting pot idea and the nationalist triumphal
interpretation of the
"greatest country on earth and in history," was the "nation of
immigrants"
story.

By the 1980s, the "waves of immigrants" story even included the
indigenous
peoples who were so brutally displaced and murdered by settlers and

armies,
accepting the flawed "Bering Straits" theory of indigenous immigration
some
12,000 years ago.  Even at that time, the date was known to be wrong,
there was
evidence of indigenous presence in the Americas as far back as 50,000
years ago,
and probably much longer, and entrance by many means across the Pacific
and the
Atlantic -- perhaps, as Vine Deloria jr. put it, footsteps by
indigenous
Americans to other continents will one day be acknowledged.  But, the
new
official history texts claimed, the indigenous peoples were the "first
immigrants."  They were followed, it was said, by immigrants from
England and
Africans, then by Irish, and then by Chinese, Eastern and Southern
Europeans,
Russians, Japanese, and Mexicans.  There were some objections from
African
Americans to referring to enslaved Africans hauled across the ocean in
chains as
"immigrants," but that has not deterred the "nation of immigrants"
chorus.

Misrepresenting the process of European colonization of North America,
making
everyone an immigrant, serves to preserve the "official story" of a
mostly
benign and benevolent USA, and to mask the fact that the pre-US
independence
settlers, were, well, settlers, colonial setters, just as they were in
Africa
and India, or the Spanish in Central and South America.  The United
States was
founded as a settler state, and an imperialistic one from its inception
("manifest destiny," of course).  The settlers were English, Welsh,
Scots,
Scots-Irish, and German, not including the huge number of Africans who
were not
settlers.  Another group of Europeans who arrived in the colonies also
were not
settlers or immigrants: the poor, indentured, convicted, criminalized,
kidnapped
from the working class (vagabonds and unemployed artificers), as Peter
Linebaugh
puts it, many of who opted to join indigenous communities.

Only beginning in the 1840s, with the influx of millions of Irish
Catholics
pushed out of Ireland by British policies, did what might be called
"immigration" begin.  The Irish were discriminated against cheap labor,
not
settlers.  They were followed by the influx of other workers from
Scandinavia,
Eastern and Southern Europe, always more Irish, plus Chinese and
Japanese,
although Asian immigration was soon barred.   Immigration laws were not
even
enacted until 1875 when the US Supreme Court declared the regulation of
immigration a federal responsibility.  The Immigration Service was
established
in 1891.

Buried beneath the tons of propaganda -- from the landing of the
English
"pilgrims" (fanatic Protestant Christian evangelicals) to James
Fennimore
Cooper's phenomenally popular "Last of the Mohicans" claiming "natural
rights"
to not only the indigenous peoples territories but also to the
territories
claimed by other European powers -- is the fact that the founding of
the United
States was a division of the Anglo empire, with the US becoming a
parallel
empire to Great Britain.  From day one, as was specified in the
Northwest
Ordinance that preceded the US Constitution, the new republic for
empire (as
Jefferson called the US) envisioned the future shape of what is now the
lower 48
states of the US.  They drew up rough maps, specifying the first
territory to
conquer as the "Northwest Territory," ergo the title of the ordinance.
That
territory was the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region, which was
filled with
indigenous farming communities.

Once the conquest of the "Northwest Territory" was accomplished through
a
combination of genocidal military campaigns and bringing in European
settlers
from the east, and the indigenous peoples moved south and north for
protection
into other indigenous territories, the republic for empire annexed
Spanish
Florida where runaway enslaved Africans and remnants of the indigenous
communities that had escaped the Ohio carnage fought back during three
major
wars (Seminole wars) over two decades.  In 1828, President Andrew
Jackson (who
had been a general leading the Seminole wars) pushed through the Indian
Removal
Act to force all the agricultural indigenous nations of the Southeast,

from
Georgia to the Mississippi River, to transfer to Oklahoma territory
that had
been gained through the "Louisiana Purchase" from France.  Anglo
settlers with
enslaved Africans seized the indigenous agricultural lands for
plantation
agriculture in the Southern region.  Many moved on into the Mexican
province of
Texas -- then came the US military invasion of Mexico in 1846, seizing
Mexico
City and forcing Mexico to give up its northern half through the 1848
Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo.  California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah,
Texas were
then opened to "legal" Anglo settlement, also legalizing those who had
already
settled illegally, and in Texas by force.  The indigenous and the poor
Mexican
communities in the seized territory, such as the Apache, Navajo, and
Comanche,
resisted colonization, as they had resisted the Spanish empire, often
by force
of arms, for the next 40 years.  The small class of Hispanic elites
welcomed and
collaborated with US occupation.

Are "immigrants" the appropriate designation for the indigenous peoples
of North
America?  No.
Are "immigrants" the appropriate designation for enslaved Africans?
No.
Are "immigrants" the appropriate designation for the original European
settlers?
No.
Are "immigrants" the appropriate designation for Mexicans who migrate
for work
to the United States?  No.  They are migrant workers crossing a border
created
by US military force.  Many crossing that border now are also from
Central
America, from the small countries that were ravaged by US military
intervention
in the 1980s and who also have the right to make demands on the United
States.
So, let's stop saying "this is a nation of immigrants."

Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz is a long-time activist, university professor,
and writer.
In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles, she has written
three
historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), Outlaw
Woman:
Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 (City Lights, 2002), and Blood on
the Border:
A Memoir of the Contra War (South End Press, 2005) about the 1980s
contra war
against the Sandinistas.

=====================================================

14. LOUISIANA GOVERNOR PLANS TO SIGN ANTI-ABORTION LAW

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/us/07abort.html

By Jeremy Alford
The New York Times
Wednesday 07 June 2006

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's office said
Tuesday
that she would shortly sign into law a strict ban on abortion that
would permit
abortion only in the case where a woman's life was threatened by
pregnancy.

The bill, approved by both houses of the Legislature and sent to the
governor on
Monday, would go into effect only if the United States Supreme Court
overturned
Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to
abortion,
and allowed states to criminalize abortion.

In March, South Dakota enacted a law criminalizing abortion, hoping to
create a
case that would lead the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. Eleven other
states are
considering similar measures. Six other states have bans, similar to
the
Louisiana bill, that would be put into effect by the end of Roe.

A sponsor of the Louisiana bill, Senator Ben Nevers, Democrat of
Bogalusa, said
he had led the effort because the Supreme Court had grown more
conservative and
the time was ripe for change.

"I had a strong belief that we could finally protect the innocent life
of an
unborn child," Mr. Nevers said. "This is about the US Constitution
granting
every person the right to life."

Jacqueline Payne, assistant director of government relations for
Planned
Parenthood, a nationwide provider of abortion services, said the
trigger
provision allowed the Legislature and Ms. Blanco to inflict policy on
future
generations they had no authority to represent, since Roe could take
several
years to overturn, if ever.

"We think Louisiana is hiding behind South Dakota, which took more of a
direct
affront," Ms. Payne said.

Roderick K. Hawkins, deputy press secretary to the governor, said that
the
abortion bill had not yet reached Ms. Blanco, but that she planned to

sign it as
soon as possible.

Although Ms. Blanco, a Democrat, has supported exceptions for rape and
incest in
the past, Mr. Hawkins said she found solace in the bill's "safety
measures" that
protect the life of the pregnant woman.

"The governor has always been a pro-life person," Mr. Hawkins said,
"and this
fits into her beliefs of supporting life and being anti-abortion. Plus,
this had
overwhelming bipartisan support of the Legislature."

If signed by the governor, Louisiana's measure would allow the
prosecution of
any person who performed or aided in an abortion. The penalties include
up to 10
years in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.

=====================================================

15. RACIAL COMPONENT IS FOUND IN LETHAL BREAST CANCER

June 7, 2006
By DENISE GRADY

Young black women with breast cancer are more prone than whites or
older blacks
to develop a type of tumor with genetic traits that make it especially
deadly
and hard to treat, a study has found.

Among premenopausal black women with breast cancer, 39 percent had the
more
dangerous kind, called a "basal like" subtype, compared with only 14
percent of
older black women and 16 percent of nonblack women of any age.
Researchers are
not sure why.

The study, being published today in The Journal of the American Medical
Association, is the first to measure how common the different genetic
subtypes
of breast tumors are in American women, and to sort the subtypes by
race. The
authors said more research was needed to test their conclusions.

The finding has no immediate effect on treatment, because there is no
treatment
that specifically concentrates on basal-like cancer. But scientists are
trying
to create drugs that will zero in on it.

The study helps explain something that was already known: although
breast cancer
is less common in blacks than whites, when black women do develop the
disease,
they are more likely to die from it, especially if they are under 50.
Among
those younger women, the breast cancer death rate in blacks is 11 per
100,000,
compared with only 6.3 in whites.

The new data about tumor types is not the whole story, researchers say,
because
some of the disparity may also result from a lack of access to health
care among
blacks or differences in nutrition, personal habits or environmental
exposures.

The genetic discovery is "somewhat alarming," but also a "good thing,"
because
it exposes details about the cancer that should help doctors identify
specific
drugs to fight it, said the study's main author, Dr. Lisa A. Carey, the
medical
director of the University of North Carolina-Lineberger breast center.

Several research groups including her own have already begun testing
new drugs
against this type of breast cancer, Dr. Carey said. The work involves
finding
drugs to block specific molecules that these tumors need to grow. If
the trials
succeed, new treatments could be available within a few years, perhaps
even as
soon as a year from now, she predicted.

These tumors are identified not by looking through a microscope, but by
special
tests that measure patterns of genetic activity.

"Things that to my eye and a pathologist's eye look similar turn out to
be
biologically very different," Dr. Carey said, adding that the tests
were now
strictly a research tool and were not done routinely in women with
breast
cancer.

Dr. Larry Norton, a breast cancer expert at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer
Center in New York who was not part of the study, said the research was
extremely well done and important. He said there was preliminary
evidence from
other studies that basal-like tumors were the most common kind found in
Africa,
and that understanding what caused them could help point the way toward
better
treatments and methods of prevention.

Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, director of the center for clinical cancer
genetics at
the University of Chicago, said she had found high rates of basal-like
tumors in
young women in Nigeria and Senegal, most of whom died.  In many, the
disease ran
in their families.

The work has not yet been published, but Dr. Olopade said the message

to black
women, and to women of all races, was that if their mothers, sisters or
daughters developed breast cancer at an early age, they needed to start
screening for it well before age 40, to seek genetic counseling and to
consider
preventive drugs and perhaps preventive surgery if they proved to be at
high
risk.

Basal-like tumors tend to grow fast and spread quickly, and they are
more likely
than other types to be fatal. They are not fed by the hormone estrogen,
and so
cannot be treated or prevented with estrogen-blocking drugs like
tamoxifen or
raloxifene. Herceptin, another breast cancer drug, is also useless
against these
tumors. The tumors are not stimulated by the hormone progesterone,
either. For
that reason, cancer specialists call them "triple negative."

Standard chemotherapy does help, and women with basal-like tumors
benefit more
from it than women with other breast cancers. But even with treatment,
those
with basal-like tumors are less likely to survive.

Women with mutations in a gene called Brca1 tend to develop this kind
of
aggressive breast tumor. In the past, researchers thought Brca1
mutations did
not occur in black women, but Dr. Olopade dismissed that notion as a
myth,
saying the mutations were found just as often in black women as in
other
populations. She and Dr. Carey said other mutations, not yet
discovered, might
also predispose black women to the basal-like tumors.

Dr. Carey's research was based on stored tissue samples from 496 women
who had
breast cancer diagnoses from 1993 to 1996 and who were included in a
project
called the Carolina Breast Cancer Study. Their average age was 50, and
40
percent identified their race as African-American.

The researchers used new techniques of molecular biology to find
patterns of
gene activity in the cancer cells, to classify the tumors accordingly
and then
to sort the genetic subtypes by race, menopausal status, other tumor
traits and
survival.

"The same technology that identified the subtypes also tells us about
the
biology of the subtypes," Dr. Carey said. "Once you know what makes it
tick, you
can figure out how to stop the ticking. It's opened up a window on it."

The goal is to find particular molecules in a cell that drive
proliferation or
tumor survival, and to block them.

"If it looks like a particular cancer cell is dependent on a certain
pathway to
live or grow, and if you can shut it down preferentially in that cancer
cell,
you can stop it," Dr. Carey said.

Newer cancer drugs like herceptin and Gleevec, which is used for
certain types
of leukemia and gastrointestinal tumors, work in this so-called
targeted
fashion, and so does Tykerb, a new breast cancer drug described last
weekend at
a meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. For certain
cancers,
targeted treatments are far more effective than standard chemotherapy,
more of a
buckshot approach.

Breast cancer experts hope to find better treatments than chemotherapy
for many
types of the cancer, and Dr. Carey said, "That's the challenge, getting
away
from chemo for this subtype."

The next step in the research is to look for risk factors for the
basal-like
subtype, in hopes of finding ways to prevent it, she said.

"There's a lot of smart people working very hard on this," Dr. Carey
said.  "I'm
very optimistic."

=====================================================

16. HURRICANE KATRINA VICTIMS PROTEST GLOBAL WARMING COVER-UP

Calls for resignation of agency heads who see "natural cycle" in severe
storms.

WorldNetDaily
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50450

Wednesday 31 May 2006

Protesters, including survivors of Hurricane Katrina, launched a
37-hour vigil
outside the headquarters of the National Oceanic Atmospheric
Administration
today, calling for the agency's head to resign for "covering up" an
alleged
scientific link between severe storms and global warming.

The demonstrators, noting the start of the hurricane season, also want
the
resignation of the National Hurricane Center's director, Bill Gray.

Gray, featured in a Washington Post article Sunday, believes global
warming is a
hoax.

"I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever
perpetrated on
the American people," he told the Post.

The protest in Silver Spring, Md., near Washington, will continue
through
tomorrow at midnight, with picketing during the day and a candlelight
vigil at
night.

It is organized by a newly formed non-profit group called the US
Climate
Emergency Council, which argues that of the six most powerful
hurricanes ever to
hit the US in the past 150 years, three occurred within 52 days last
year.

"Yet, despite a flurry of peer-reviewed scientific studies linking
planetary
warming to storms like Katrina, leaders at NOAA and the NHC continue to
claim
that the recent hurricane devastation is part of a 'natural cycle,'"
the group
says.

US Climate Emergency Council says it condemns the response as an
abdication of
government responsibility when "millions of Americans are increasingly
vulnerable to violent storms in a warmer world."

Climate scientists at NOAA are being intimidated from talking to the
press and
their papers are being withheld from publication under the directorship
of
President Bush's friend and political appointee, Vice Admiral Conrad C.
Lautenbacher Jr., the group contends.

"These actions at NOAA and the NHC are part of an obvious political
campaign
orchestrated by the White House to avoid the serious cuts in fossil
fuel use
scientists say are needed to fight global warming. But by ignoring the
science
and denying the warming on behalf of Exxon Mobil and other major oil
corporations, the Bush administration is putting millions more
Americans this
year and for years to come at great risk for experiencing the kind of
suffering
and loss seen throughout the Gulf Coast in 2005."

=====================================================

17. SOLDIER VERDICT SPOTLIGHTS RAPE IN UGANDAN CAMPS

By Rachel Scheier
WeNews correspondent

KAMPALA, Uganda (WOMENSENEWS)--Like most of the female residents of
Awere
Internally Displaced Persons camp in northern Uganda, the girls rose at
dawn
that morning in 2002. They set out on foot, with their mother, to
harvest crops
several kilometers away.
The two sisters, both teens, had called the camp home for most their
lives.
Along with about a million and a half of their neighbors, they were
moved from
their village to the camp by the Ugandan government in the mid-1990s to
protect
them from a murderous rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army.

For two decades, the rebels have been terrorizing the arid region south
of the
Sudan border, murdering villagers during night raids, kidnapping
thousands of
children and turning them into soldiers and concubines.

For nearly as long, the Ugandan government has been trying to crush the
LRA,
which is led by a self-proclaimed mystic named Josephy Kony, who wants
to
replace the government of President Yoweri Museveni with one based on
the Ten
Commandments.

Assailants Were Soldiers
But the two men who attacked the sisters that morning as they walked to
the
harvest were not rebels. As the girls later told authorities, they were
government soldiers.
Human rights groups say that sexual abuse--by husbands, strangers and
soldiers--is rampant in the camps. Such incidents are seldom reported
and rarer
still is justice sought for the accused or the victims involved.

But last month, in an unusual ruling, a judge ordered the Uganda
People's
Defense Forces to compensate the girls a total of 82 million Uganda
shillings
(about $45,500). The girls said the two soldiers threatened to shoot
them and
then took turns raping them as their mother looked helplessly on.

The eldest sister, who was 18 at the time, later tested negative for
the HIV
virus. But her sister tested positive. She was 13.

"They should have gotten more money," said James Otto, executive
director of
Human Rights Focus, based in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, which
monitors
abuses in the camps and was responsible for bringing the 2002 rape suit
against
the army. "These soldiers were supposed to protect these girls and

instead they
ended up being their assailants."

Advocate Turns to Civil Courts
Frustrated by what it says is the unwillingness of Ugandan military
authorities
to prosecute soldiers for such abuses, Otto's organization is trying to
win
justice for victims via another avenue, the civil courts. The group has
sponsored some 18 cases on behalf of victims of alleged human rights
violations
that range from torture to unlawful arrest. The strategy is likely to
be an
important test of the independence of the judiciary in Uganda.
The case of the rape of the two girls has also highlighted the problem
of sexual
abuse by soldiers in the camps in northern Uganda, which a number of
human
rights groups say are on the rise. A June 2005 report by UNICEF found
rape to be
the most common form of violence in the sprawling Pabbo camp, with some
60,000
residents, the largest of the "protected villages" that were set up by
the
government at the height of the conflict. A Human Rights Watch report
in
September 2005 found that "soldiers prey upon women and girls they find
traveling outside the camps out of necessity--to collect firewood or
water or to
sow, tend or harvest crops. In such situations they are risking not
only an
attack and abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army but also rape and
physical
abuse by the army."

The army vehemently denies that is lenient with soldiers who abuse
civilians.
"We do not condone such behavior and we are very harsh to army
personnel who are
found to be abusing girls," said Maj. Felix Kulayigye, the army
spokesperson,
who explained that there is a clear and strict policy of automatic
court martial
for soldiers who are found to have committed abuses. They are subject
to much
harsher punishments than civilians would be, he said. The usual penalty
for a
soldier convicted of rape, for example, is death.

Sex Traded for Necessities
In the camps, which are filled with poverty, disease and overcrowding,
however,
human rights groups say that young girls frequently trade sex with
soldiers in
exchange for a little money or protection. Parents sometimes even
"marry off"
their daughters to soldiers as concubines in exchange for such favors.
AIDS
rates in the camps are among the highest in the country. Health workers
have
estimated that about 12 percent of camp residents are HIV positive,
twice the
national rate.

The root of the problem, say critics, is the lack of accountability in
the
Ugandan military. When complaints are filed against government
soldiers, they
are rarely followed up and investigated, according to the Human Rights
Watch
report. Even when a victim identifies her violator, it said, in many
cases,
nothing happens to him or he is transferred elsewhere.
That is what happened after the 2002 rape of the sisters in Awere camp,
according to Donge Opar, the Kampala lawyer who represented the sisters
in their
suit against the government. Though the girls identified the two
soldiers who
attacked them soon after the incident, to date, neither has been
charged with
any crime, he said.

"There is a complete culture of impunity," said Olara Otunnu the former
U.N.
Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and an
expatriate Ugandan
who has become one of the most outspoken critics of Museveni's policies
on the
conflict in the North. "The soldiers feel that they own the women in
the camps;
that they can do anything with them."

-- Elizabeth Dwoskin also contributed to this report.

Rachel Scheier is a freelance writer based in Kampala. Elizabeth
Dwoskin is a
writer and radio producer based in New York.
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at
editors@womensenews.org.

For more information:
Human Rights Focus:
http://www.humanrightsfocus.org/

Human Rights Watch report:
"Uprooted and Forgotten Impunity and Human Rights Abuses in
Northern Uganda":
http://hrw.org/reports/2005/uganda0905/

IRINNews.org--
IRIN Web Special on the crisis in Northern Uganda:
http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/uga_crisis/

Note: Women's eNews is not responsible for the content of external
Internet
sites and the contents of Web pages we link to may change without
notice.

=====================================================

18.  HOW DOES SURVEILLANCE IMPACT POLITICAL PARTICIPATION? - A
NATIONWIDE STUDY

Solicitation for participation in a national study being conducted by
the
Institute for the Study of Dissent & Social Control, a research group
founded in
2005 to examine the policing of protest and related issues. (You can
read more
about who we are and what we have done before at www.dissensio.org.)
With
recent revelations of pentagon, NSA, and other federal surveillance on
peace
groups, we decided that we should document the impacts of surveillance,
infiltration, and related "intelligence" activity on all kinds of
organizations
and political activity. No studies have been made of the impacts of
surveillance
since the era of COINTELPRO. Scientific reports will be available for
community
and legal use.

We are interested in hearing stories from a diversity of groups about
experiences with surveillance, infiltration, databasing, and how
activists,
groups, and movements are being affected. We are also interested in
hearing
about how fears about surveillance are affecting your work.

*Even if your group does not seem to have been targeted for
surveillance, your
participation in this study is very important!

*Even if you feel that other activists/groups have suffered more or had
a harder
time, please participate!

*If you or others you know are scared, this is a chance to participate
in doing
something about it.

Please consult with your group and have a member contact us with regard
to this
study!

Some details about the study:
Our methodology requires that we focus on *groups*, not individuals. We
prefer
the interviews to be 3 or more persons from the same group, since it
increases
the accuracy of the information as people collectively remember dates
and
details.

Having lots of members from one group is fine for the interview - in
fact it has
led to excellent conversations. And it's ok to have 2 groups
represented in one
interview, but more than 3 groups means the interview could take many,
many
hours, so try to avoid that.

We are interested in defunct groups. If possible, please assemble a
group of
former members to reflect on the group's experience.

We are also interviewing individuals when it is not possible to
assemble several
members of your group for one reason or another or when you have had
severe
experiences and prefer a private interview.

Since we have very limited resources, we are only interviewing in
person in a
few regions. We are also doing telephone interviews and encrypted IM
interviews
with activists in other regions.

All information gathered will be promptly anonymized.

Interviews take approximately 2 hours.

The results of the study will be published in appropriate scholarly
journals and
made available to the public on the Institute's website in Fall 2006.
Members
of the research team will be able to speak and do interviews with
regard to the
research findings after that date.

Amory Starr
Luis Fernandez
Manolo Caro
John Noakes
Brian Klocke
2006 Surveillance Study
Institute for the Study of Dissent & Social Control www.dissensio.org
office@dissensio.org

when, where & who to contact

SF Bay Area: contact starr@trabal.org
FLORIDA:  contact manolo@dissensio.org
Arizona:  contact luis@dissensio.org
NY: mid July . contact office@dissensio.org
CO: contact briank@riseup.net
PacNW: early July contact office@dissensio.org
other regions: ongoing phone & IM .   luis@dissensio.org

you may forward this message.
------------------------------
Posting by:
Melissa Mendez-Garcia
Assistant Research Scientist
Young Women of Color Policy Program
New York University
295 Lafayette, Rm. 3076

New York, NY 10012
(212) 998-7561

=====================================================

19. HOW TO SUBMIT ANNOUNCEMENTS TO INCITE!'S E-NEWSLETTER

We invite you to submit announcements to post on INCITE!'s
bi-weekly(ish)
e-newsletter. Please e-mail your announcement to
incite_national@yahoo.com. We
prioritize announcements that promote a progressive or radical agenda
for women
of color. We primarily include events. However, if room permits, we
also include
longer items such as statements, news articles, press releases, or job
announcements. If possible, please send your announcement in an e-mail
friendly
format (announcement within e-mail, simple font, no graphics, etc.).
Thank you
for your help!

Back issues of our e-mail newsletters can be found on
< www.groups.yahoo.com/group/incite-members> and at
<www.lists.riseup.net/www/arc/incite>.

**END OF NEWSLETTER**
[IMPORTANT NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this list by
individuals
and organizations that are not from INCITE are solely those of the
authors
and/or publications, and do not necessarily represent or reflect the
political
positions of INCITE!.]

****
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national activist
organization of
radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against
women of
color and their communities through direct action, critical dialogue
and
grassroots organizing. For more information, see our website at:

www.incite-national.org <www.incite-national.org>