Flashpoints June 4: Anne Gwynne: 1000 kids throw stones in Balatal; Roadmap to ?

Wednesday, June 4, 2003 stream / download
-xx:xx Dennis Bernstein: introduction:
-00:00 Robert Knight and the Knight Report.. Robert: Bush headed for Qatar today.. earlier met with Sharon and unelected Palestinian PM Abbas.. not mentioned, Israel's rejection of the unalienable 'Right of Return' of Palestinian refugees.. Paul Bremmer meets with UN rep.. limited role for UN and Iraq citizens.. ongoing resistance and attacks on US troops.. about the collective propaganda before the war.. CIA to fabricate more 'evidence'?.. US official: "false weapons claims were a scandal".. in the UK, an inquiry into the rationale for going to war.. massive protests over wages.. protests in Zimbabwe.. in NY, Kofi Annan.. EU approves dispatch of peacekeepers to the Congo.. Taylor of Liberia..
-05:12 Dennis: now on the phone w Welsh nurse and ISM member Anne Gwynne (Anne's home page) on the streets of Balata refugee camp near Nablus.. Anne: they've sealed every single road.. amazing.. with piles of rubble old cars.. two story bulldozers.. then they parked their armored vehicles.. they shoot a barrage at the young boys who throw stones.. 15 injured today.. I've been shot at by three bullets on one occasion, and four bullets on another.. they are sealing us in.. they are systematically smashing doors, searching houses, wrecking them.. marking them with red paint.. THIS IS PEACE?!!.. why do the kids throw the stones?.. they fit in the palm of a hand.. they have no dignity without the stones.. the humiliation here is 100%.. is absolutely total.. they come shooting.. they only thing.. can do is throw stones.. AIH! shooting.. I am with the bravest fighter in Balata.. seven ambulances chasing me.. all lights flashing.. they move toward the shots.. in front of the ambulances two jeeps, bristling with weaponry.. $4500 US tax dollars for one M16.. I saw a bulldozer pick up a Chevrolet Savana and dumped it on top of a pile of earth to make a roadblock.. in every single hiding place are 1000's of children who come out and throw stones.. why do their mothers let them?.. there is no way to stop them.. I cautioned a thirteen year old.. he replied, 'without my stone I have no dignity'.. the ambulances are always stopped.. no one allowed in, no one allowed out.. I have not met a single man in this city who has not been shot.. everyman here has been in the prison.. unbelievable the crimes that have been committed against these people, and still they smile at you.. Why am I risking my life?.. (details).. about what one of these huge bullets does to the body of a child.. children 11 years old, with dum dum bullets exploding in their mouth.. heads blown off.. ribs explode.. there is no way to understand these crimes unless you are here.. for the last three months, not any journalists here.. email me at: annegwynne@yahoo.co.uk
-17:18 Dennis: about Bush's so-called *Roadmap to Peace*.. now w Ali Abunemah of Electronic Intifada.. Sharon said he would dismantle all 'unauthorized settlements'.. Ali: a conjuring trick.. fewer than a dozen settlements.. he has given up nothing.. like removing a goat from a crowded corral.. settlements are Jewish only outposts placed in Palestinian territory to prevent the end of occupation.. Israeli housing minister said the number of settlements are growing and will continue to grow.. Sharon is going to dismantle a few trailer homes.. the unelected Palestinian PM is playing into US Israeli hands.. Sharon did not utter one word about Palestinian suffering.. Abbas went further than any Palestinian expected, when he criticized legitimate resistance.. ample reasons to be skeptical about Bush's intentions.. but Bush didn't confront Sharon over the settlements.. but he shied away.. the Roadmap may have reached the end of the road.. Dennis: about the expanding occupation in Iraq.. Ali: the occupation of Iraq starting to look like the occupation of Palestine.. a parallel.. the reality of increasing hostility against the occupiers.. last weeks Amnesty International report.. dire situation in Afghanistan.. hard to say things are better now than under the Taliban.. the US backed government in Kabul only controls Kabul.. the status of women, the reality is that Afghanistan is ruled by warlords (US calls them 'regional commanders').. the US has supported bringing into the government war lords with horrible human rights records.. this is dire.. if your record is as bad as the Taliban.. well.. and things are moving in the wrong direction.. on the Guardian website.. Wolfowitz in Singapore said the reason for the war was oil.. they have just disbanded the Iraqi army, but before the war they said they would keep it.. the US Army left holding the bag.. generating animosity between Rumsfeld and the army.. Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, had 30,000 police before the war.. now 2,000 soldiers trying to maintain public order.. becoming heavy handed and violent.. Dennis: more anger coming on the Arab street?.. Ali: utter disgust among Arabs.. none of the countries backed by the US are democracies.. like a structure undermined by termites, looks fine, but may suddenly collapse..
-35:06 music break
-35:49 Dennis: NYC has had the most draconian drug laws, ie the Rockfeller drug laws.. today a massive march, sponsored by Mothers of the NY Disappeared.. now w organizer Anthony Popell.. Anthony: 60,000 marched today.. movie stars, Mariah Carey, Tim Robbins, Puff Daddy, Susan Saranden, lots of politicians too..
-52:00 Marvelous Mary Bishop: wrapup
-52:33 End today's show. today's review by john lionheart

Tuesday, June 3, 2003

introduction: Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi abducted and disappeared by the Burmese junta; Flashpoints special correspondent Anne Gwynne on the shooting today of over 50 children in Nablus, even as *peace talks* take place in neighboring Egypt; Ed Rosenthal faces sentencing tomorrow for providing medicinal marijuana for the very ill.

while the US president select meets Mid East leaders, violence continued in the West Bank.. now w Welsh nurse and ISM member Anne Gwynne in Nablus.. Anne: anything but peaceful here, peace is what we wish for more than anything.. over 50 people wounded today.. 2 tanks, 2 APCs, other jeeps.. occupied homes all day.. shoot the door down, burst in, put everyone in one room.. then they go the rood of the homes, a wonderful view of the children in the street.. today the first day of school holiday.. hundreds, thousands of children in the street.. they would drive up and down provacatively, and when the children threw stones, the soldiers opened fire.. 43 wounded.. large bullets.. eight fighting for their lives.. horrible wounds.. all four hospitals full.. almost every casuality was a child under 16.. shot with large live bullets.. then they exploded a bomb in each of the homes they had occupied, destroying one room, and then they left.. children on the roof of a school, under 11 years of age.. the soldiers opened fire on them, shot some.. then threatened the ambulance workers with live fire.. everyperson who has to go through a checkpoint, says this is the worse ever.. Nablus is surrounded by more than two dozen roadblocks now.. about the outrageous concept of 'closed villages'.. any 'colonist' is legally permitted to shoot dead anyone they 'suspect' of anything on the 'Jews Only' roads.. at one checkpoint today, a friend, ambulance worker taking a year old baby, was hit, threatened with shooting dead.. yesterday he was held by the captain.. his head banged very hard four times on the ambulance.. then hit in the solar plexus.. very alarming, these are ambulance drivers.. Dennis: Bush's *Roadmap to Peace* really a *Roadmap to Hell*?..