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LIBERATE THIS! | Thank-you and goodbye | 'OIL 'AVE IT!' | Pre-emptive Strike | Crap Arrest Of The Week | IRAte | Peace Activist Shot | Cagey Dealings | Home Offence | Inside SchNEWS | SchNEWS In Brief | War Briefs | ...and finally...

LIBERATE THIS!

“25,000 litres of anthrax. 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin. 500 tons of sarin, mustard [gas] and VX nerve agent. Several mobile biological weapons labs. An advanced nuclear weapons development program.” - what George W. Bush reckoned Saddam was hiding under his moustache.

Remember why the US/UK went to war? Supposedly Iraq had a massive stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and was therefore a threat to world peace. Hans Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors went looking for them, Saddam Hussein grudgingly cooperated, and the inspectors found… er, not a lot.

But despite the blatant lack of justification, Emperor Bush invaded Iraq anyway (he’d been told to by his dad’s mates) and Iraq used its weapons to defend itself – not mustard gas or intercontinental ballistic missiles after all, but rifles and crappy old tanks against the world’s foremost military superpower. Someone should have listened to former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who described the Iraqi army as being “in total disarray, capable of little more than manning security pickets along the Iran-Iraq border… I have visited numerous Iraqi military barracks and have seen soldiers in tattered uniforms and bare feet.”

So, where DID all those supposed evil weapons of mass destruction get to? Well, your on the ball SchNEWS has managed to track down some of them at Britain’s own Faslane naval base in Scotland. 166 people were nicked at the base on Tuesday when hundreds of protestors blocked the gates for hours while others jumped the fences, sparking a security alert and waving banners that read “Here Blix, we’ve found them.”

Faslane is home to three of Britain’s four Trident submarines. Each submarine carries 48 nuclear warheads, each one 8 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima which destroyed the city and killed 140,000 people. British Minister of War Geoff Hoon was keen to use them, threatening Iraq that if they unleased THEIR weapons of mass destruction, his country would do the same. But Saddam never did unleash anything, which is a bit strange since he never seemed one for restraint.

And now, if Bush doesn’t turn up some weapons of mass destruction soon, he will be exposed as the bullying liar he truly is. Tony Blair is worried too - worried that no big bad weapons will be found, or that if they are, the Americans will be accused of planting them (surely not!). Last week, Blair said that “some sort of objective verification” of any weapons found might be a “good idea.” Smart boy, Tony.

Thank-you and goodbye

Saddam’s statue in Baghdad was pulled down by a US tank for the benefit of the Western corporate media, who fell all over themselves to show a crowd of happy Iraqis on the scene (Who wouldn’t be happy that a scumbag tyrant had been overthrown?). But if the TV cameras had panned out just a little, you’d have seen that the square was really quite empty. Maybe it was because those who had been maimed or killed by US bombs (we’ll never know how many cos’ the US can’t be bothered to find out) just couldn’t be asked to join in welcoming their liberators.

And now the army of “liberation” is all too quickly and predictably becoming an army of occupation. “No to America, no to Saddam, no to tyranny,” people chanted in Arabic on Tuesday during a religious pilgrimage organized by Shia leaders in Iraq. In the city of Kerbala on Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Shia protested at America’s first attempt to put together a puppet government, while in Mosul thousands protested and the pro-American governor’s car was torched. American soldiers killed at least 10 Iraqis and wounded dozens of others when they fired on the rally. One Iraqi demonstrator warned, “If the US prevents us having a religious leader as president, we will reject it. If al-Hawza [the Shia leadership] orders us to turn ourselves into bombs, we can make the US leave Iraq. We say, ‘Thank you for getting rid of Saddam. Now goodbye.’”

Respected journalist Robert Fisk observed, “All across Baghdad you hear the same thing, from Shia Muslim clerics to Sunni businessmen, that the Americans have come only for oil, and that soon - very soon - a guerrilla resistance must start. No doubt the Americans will claim that these attacks are ‘remnants’ of Saddam’s regime or ‘criminal elements’. But that will not be the case.” As Dr Wamid Omar Nadmi, a leading political scientist at Baghdad university commented “What we’re faced with today is not a choice between secularism and religion. We’re facing an invasion and foreign rule. We have to work together to end it.”

* Read ‘War Plan Iraq’ by Milan Rai (Verso 2003)

‘OIL ‘AVE IT!’

Fancy that! Amnesty International has accused US-led forces of better “preparation to protect the oil wells than to protect hospitals, water systems or civilians.” Ever since US forces rolled into central Baghdad, one of the sole public buildings untouched by looters has been the massive oil ministry, which is under round-the-clock surveillance and guarded by 50 US tanks, with sharpshooters positioned on the roof and in the windows. “They came from the other side of the world. Do you believe they’re going to do much for me? They’ve just come for the oil,” fumed Salam Mohammad Hassan, a doctor who lives near the ministry. Just next-door, the Irrigation Ministry has been torched, with US soldiers apparently unable to do anything to help.

* The US is demanding North Korea halt its nuclear weapons programme, but the US has, after a 14-year break, recently resumed production of plutonium parts for nuclear bombs. Where’s Hans Blix when you need him?

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

Next Thursday is May Day, when hoards of rioting anarchists try to bring the very foundations of our society crashing to the ground….or something like that. This year it’s time for our very own war on terror, with pre-emptive strikes and “an attack on the real weapons of mass destruction: oil companies, the arms manufacturers, multinationals and banks.” In London there will be a number of autonomous actions with main meet ups at 2pm at Lockheed Martin - the biggest arms company in the world whose F-16 and F-22 fighter jets were used extensively by the US during the war in Iraq and whose profits have shot up accordingly. Meet 2pm Berkshire House, corner of High Holborn & Endell St. There will also be a critical mass bike ride meeting 11am under Waterloo Bridge, South Bank, and a 1pm Mayday Picnic at Queen Anne’s Gate. There is also a 2pm meet up at the Home Office, Birdcage Walk, SW1. Later, everyone will be meeting up at the headquarters of oil company Shell UK, on The Strand, 4pm.

• London Class War have called a picket of the Wilkinson store in Stratford, London. Wilkinson’s use prison slave labour to make many of their goods, picket 11.30am-1pm at Wilko’s, 78-102 The Broadway, Stratford.
• To help your day run smoothly send an SAE to BM Mayday, London WC1N 3XX www.ourmayday.org.uk
• For the incomplete history of the origins of Mayday www.midnightnotes.org/mayday
• There’s a Mayday benefit this Saturday (26), music featuring Headjam, The Lams, Fusing Naked and the Serum Soundsystem. At Eton Mission Social Club, Hackney Wick, London E9. 8pm till late. £4/3

Crap Arrest of the Week

For jumping in puddles!
A twelve year old boy was arrested in Florida for “purposely stomping in the water.” For his crime, comitted on school grounds, he was handcuffed on his way back to class, taken to jail, and charged with disruption of an educational institution. The boy spent two hours sitting by himself in a police holding cell before being released!

IRAte

As Tony Bliar presses the IRA to provide ‘crystal clarity’ as a prerequisite for restoring devolution in Northern Ireland, his own government continues to ensure that the £10 million Stevens 3 report - which details how senior-ranking British army officers and police helped Ulster Defence Association (UDA) paramilitaries commit murder - will never see the light of day.

Last Thursday, a 20-page ‘summary’ was all that was released of the massive 3000 page report (the result of 14 years of investigation) which centres on the murder of human rights solicitor Patrick Finucane in 1989, and details how this was just one of many killings by UDA paramilitary murder gangs acting on direct instructions from the British army’s Forces research Unit (FRU), targeting ‘IRA sympathisers’. In other words, the kind of state-sponsored terrorism that Bliar is so busy criticising when it happens anywhere else in the world.

The report also proves conclusively that MI5, Special branch (RUC), and the army colluded to ensure that nobody was ever investigated, let alone prosecuted for what Finucane’s son, Michael, has described as “a policy of state-selected assassination”. The report is known to contain the names of at least 20 army and police officers who, if the evidence ever reached the public domain, would certainly face prosecution.

One such prominent army figure is former head of the FRU, Brigadier Gordon Kerr, recently spirited away to the ‘theatre of war’ in the Gulf. What’s more the key witness in any such prosecutions would have been the main double agent, Brian Nelson (codenamed 1033), who infiltrated the UDA whilst working for the FRU. Conveniently he ‘passed away’ last week just days before the Stevens 3 report was due to be released. What a strange coincidence!

Metropolitan police commissioner John Stevens (who headed the investigation detailed in the report) has openly complained of obstruction, being spied on, and betrayed by police and army colleagues. An arson attack destroyed his first report Stevens 1, in 1990.

As early as February this year, N. Ireland’s Chief cop Hugh Orde predicted that the Stevens 3 report - which has cost £10 million in tax payers’ money - would never be published in full due to ‘intelligence issues’. With Human rights groups protesting this blatant cover up, the call is out for justice and a ‘full, transparent public enquiry.’ Now surely ‘crystal clear’ Tony Bliar can’t have a problem with that? Can he?

Read all about it in the book they tried to ban: “The Committee: Political Assassinations in Northern Ireland” by Sean McPhilemy and “Ten-Thirty-Three” by Nicholas Davies.

Find out more: www.relativesforjustice.com

PEACE ACTIVIST SHOT

British peace activist Thomas Hurndall is still in a coma after an Israeli sniper shot him in the head two weeks ago as he shielded children from the line of fire in the Israeli occupied Gaza strip. Thomas is the third International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist to be killed or seriously injured in the region over the past month. The Israeli military has so far refused to comment.

It now appears that international peace activists may be being specifically targeted by the Israeli military, but volunteers are still continuing their work in the region.

London ISM: 07817 554 814 www.palsolidarity.org

CAGEY DEALINGS

After a 30 month battle, the animal rights group Uncaged have overturned a court order and won the right to publish over 1000 leaked pages of details on animal experiments.

The leaked documents relate to xeno-transplantation, the use of animal organ transplants in humans. The company involved, Imutran, now part of Novartis, had claimed back in 1995 that it was on the verge of successful xenotransplants. But the documents, detailing work done at Huntingdon Life Sciences, reveal a different picture - pig hearts were transplanted into baboons, who all showed signs of organ rejection. The baboons then suffered spasms, vomiting, diarrhoea, grinding teeth and uncontrollable eye movements.

The research was sloppy, fraudulent and cruel - all with the backing of the Home Office inspectors whose job it was to regulate the experiments. At least 520 errors and omissions occurred in the research and Imutran made lots of false claims - so that they would be granted more licences by the Home Office. The Home Office then failed to prosecute for breaches in the law, instead sending letters of “admonishment” and working with Imutran to underestimate the degree of suffering caused.

Read the reports at www.xenodiaries.org

* The campaign to close Huntingdon Death Sciences continues: 0845 458 0630, www.shac.net

HOME OFFENSE

Now that we’ve ‘liberated’ their country, the UK government has started to draw up plans to bribe Iraqi asylum claimants in the UK with offers of £3000 to go back to their once beautiful but now barely functioning country. A similar scheme that was put in place after they’d flattened Afghanistan unsurprisingly didn’t get many takers, so instead the Home Office has now had to resort to forcibly repatriating Afghanis, despite aid agencies describing the situation in Afghanistan as far from safe. The Home Office are hoping that by declaring Iraq and Afghanistan safe, they will be able to kick out enough people and increase their chances of meeting the target of halving the number of asylum applications by September.

* On Wednesday the trial of eleven asylum seekers, accused of involvement in the fire that destroyed part of Yarlswood Detention Centre in February last year, began at Harrow Crown Court (See SchNEWS 348). The eleven face charges of Arson and Violent Disorder, the trial is likely to be totally biased as many witnesses to the events on the day have since been deported. The case is expected to last 8-12 weeks. The Campaign For Justice in the Yarlswood Trial desperately need volunteer observers to watch court proceedings each day - 07786 517379 observer_yarlswoodtrial@yahoo.co.uk

* Over Easter a camp was set up against the Baxter refugee detainee centre in the South Australian desert. The camp was forced to move 3km away though after police rode their horses over people’s tents. At the new site police arrested one person for flying a kite! - Kite flying was banned under the Taliban, who obviously no longer in control of Afghanistan now run the Australian police. Armed police also stormed the camp when they mistook a camera tripod for a gun!

Detainees inside the centre, were subject to a lockdown during the weekend. http://adelaide.indymedia.org

Inside SchNEWS

Two Danish activists who threw paint at their Prime Minister in protest at their country’s involvement in the war on Iraq have been remanded in custody awaiting trial. Messages of support can be sent to them- Lars and Runes at antikrig@ulydighed.dk

SchNEWS in brief

• Anarchist punk band CONFLICT will release an anti-globalisation anthem ‘Carlo Giuliani’ on Monday (28), a call to arms in memory of the protester killed by Italian police at the G8 summit in Genoa. Order it through your local DIY record shop or from www.sisterray.co.uk
• On Workers’ Memorial Day, Monday (28), there will be events around the country, www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-6445-f0.cfm
• Film showing of ‘Evolving Minds’ about psychosis, spirituality and mental health, this Saturday (26) 7pm at Cinemateque, Middle St., Brighton. Donation
• Tribute concert for friends of Pete Shaughnessy, May 4th at the Foundry, Great Eastern Street, London (Old Street tube). Pete, a legendary figure for all those involved in the world of mental health, died tragically last Christmas. Check out the new website in honour of him www.peteshaughnessy.org.uk
• Annual Cannabis march and festival, Brockwell Park, London. Saturday, 3rd May, Carnival style march from Kennington Park, meet at noon. Festival starts 1pm, £3 donation. Info: 07931 243 855 www.ccguide.org.uk/cannabisfestival.html

War briefs

• The peace camp at Welford in Berkshire has been re-established. Bombs from Welford are regularly transported to nearby Fairford to be loaded onto B52s which are still flying missions over Iraq. Campers have vowed to stay at the camp until the B52s leave the UK. More people are always welcome. Info: 07736 964653/ 07984 290842.
• In the run-up to Mayday, Campaign Against the Arms Trade Direct Action Network is organising a series of protests in London aimed at stopping the corporations that are profiting from the war on terrorism, including a visit to BAE Systems AGM next Wednesday. Meet 30th, 9.30am at QEII Conference Centre, Tothill St, London. More info on other actions 020 7281 0297 action@caat.demon.co.uk
• Enraged by local newspaper magnate Sir Ray Tindle’s decision to stop printing anti-war stories once the war began in the 100 local newspapers he owns, a group in Totnes have produced their own anti-war spoof newspaper ‘Troubled Times’ Copies at http://images.indymedia.org/imc/uk/the_paper.pdf or send an SAE with 44p of stamps to the SchNEWS office.
• Taking Sides is a website that takes a critical look at news about the war from around the world http://takingsides.blogspot.com
• The producer of a US television mini-series called “Hitler: The Rise of Evil” has been sacked for comparing the situation in Germany which gave rise to Hitler and his evil plans to the current situation in the US. In an interview he said, “I can’t think of a better time to examine this history than now.”

...and finally...

We all know that anti-French frenzy in the US of A has led some Americans to rename French Fries ‘Freedom Fries,’ but now there’s an American online petition dedicated to “Sending back Liberty”. No not THAT kind of Liberty - they mean the Statue of Liberty! The designers of the petition are claiming to want the New York landmark, which was once a gift from the French, returned to France. And what do they want to replace Lady Liberty with? Why a giant statue of Ronald Reagan, of course-“The greatest president the world has ever seen.”

The website also recommends that ‘patriots’ chuck out any French wine and cheese they’ve got stored, just one of many helpful ‘deFrenchyfying self-help methods’. Surely its a piss take, isn’t it?

See for yourself at www.sendbackliberty.us

Disclaimer
SchNEWS warns all weapons inspectors not to go looking for weapons of mass destruction at Faslane. Honest!

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