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Suppressed News Concerned with the Prevention of Genocide

By j. b. Gerald and Maas Night’s Lantern

November 19, 2012 – Gaza: this phase of the attack on Gaza began November 14th, 2012 with a targeted killing of Ahmed Al-Ja’bari, the leader of Hamas. Eight other civilians died with him. The attack on Gaza continues with air strikes on civilian areas reported by the international media. Israel’s air targeting has moved from identified rocket launchers to civilian infra structure and individual homes of those suspected as militants. The high rate of civilian casualties exceeds “collateral damage”. (Link to the article [1])

Democracy Now! (Nov. 19, 2012) reports nearly a hundred Palestinians dead, 700 wounded and among these 200 children. With Israel’s reservists called up the military machinery is in motion toward a more complete destruction of a civilian area host to a substantial portion of the Palestinian people. Media and NATO human rights organizations refuse to discuss Israel’s policies and actions within a perspective of genocide.

See the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [2], particularly Article II, a, b, c and through the effects on child-bearing women d. Military attacks on civilian targets continue to be a war crimes without statute of limitations. Targeting “suspects” for death or assassination is a war crime (in effect, the targeting applies to an entire family or neighbourhood). Within a confined civilian population the targeted strikes on militants have parallels to extra-judicial executions of political prisoners.

The International Criminal Court refusal (April 3, 2012) to consider Israel’s crimes against Palestinians during Israel’s attacks on Gaza Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009, with 1400 Palestinian deaths (see previous [3]), suggests international law is rendered useless, allowing worse crimes. Because Israel’s intention to abide by fundamental human rights law is in doubt, genocide warning [4]. As a program of intentional destruction of the Palestinian people (previous [5]) advances, a threatened invasion of Gaza without legal recourse available for the victims reveals impunity, and Israel which calls itself the Jewish State risks setting itself outside/beyond protections of moral law. The genocide warning in place for the people of Gaza, extends by consequence and effect to the moral teachings of Judaic culture.

Argentina: trials continue for crimes against humanity during the military takeovers of the Seventies. Previous [5]. Three naval officers, Luis Sosa, Emilio del Real, Carlos Marandino, were found guilty of executing political prisoners and sentenced to life imprisonment by Federal Court, October 12, 2012. The court has tried to extradite a fourth officer accused with them, former Lt. Roberto Bravo, who is said to have delivered the death “coup” to prisoners. His extradition was refused by a U.S. judge in Miami.

Historical note on the Trelew Massacre: an escape attempt of over a hundred inmates from the prison at Rawson in Chibut Province, 1972, resulted in freeing six revolutionary leaders to Allende’s Chile and the surrender to authorities of 19 of their cadre who missed the plane. These were taken to Amirante Zar naval air base prison near Trelew, where they were held and tortured. The fate of the remaining 89 prisoners is not mentioned in accounts.

The 19 at Amirante were proclaimed shot attempting a second escape on August 22nd, 1972, according to a discredited official account supported by the U.S. Embassy. In fact they were shot repeatedly by a military squad in the prison corridor and in their cells. Of the 19, three survived who described an unprovoked slaughter. Maria Antonia Berger, shot in the stomach, wrote on the floor with her blood “Libres o muertos, jamás esclavos,” before she was shot again in the head. Of three survivors, she was disappeared in 1979, Alberto Miguel Camps in 1979, and Ricardo René Haidar in 1982. So many connected with the escape were killed the death toll suggests ongoing retaliation by the military to conceal a crime.

Of Argentinian Naval Lieutenant Roberto Guillermo Bravo, now a U.S. citizen, he was identified in 1974, then hidden by the Argentinian Navy, reportedly supplied papers by Washington’s naval attaché and in 1977 flown to Washington and hidden by the U.S. Navy (unverified) until provided with papers to set up in Florida. An American citizen since 1987, Bravo’s Miami based company RGS is a U.S. military supplier, contracting with USAF, DOD, the Bureau of Prisons, and clients in thirty States. RGB showed a 6 million dollar profit from government contracts in 2000 (Página|12).

Argentinian courts dealing with “dirty war” cases rarely pursue evidence of U.S. involvement. Former Argentinian officer Adolfo Scilingo (previous [5]) who murdered political prisoners by “death flights” (prisoners were injected with pentothal and dropped out of helicopters over the Atlantic or River Platte) is in a Spanish prison. In 2005 he was sentenced to 640 years which was limited by law to 30. Contested in 2007 the sentence was increased to 1084 years to serve 25.