CHANGE THE WORLD BY CHANGING ME

THE SUFI BAYAZID SAYS ABOUT HIMSELF

I WAS A REVOLUTIONARY WHEN I WAS YOUNG
AND ALL MY PRAYERS TO GOD WAS:

“LORD, GIVE ME THE ENERGY
TO CHANGE THE WORLD”

AS I APPROACHED MIDDLE AGE, I REALIZED THAT HALF OF MY LIFE WAS GONE WITHOUT CHANGING A SINGLE SOUL.
I CHANGE MY PRAYER TO:

“LORD, GIVE ME THE GRACE TO CHANGE ALL THOSE WHO COME IN CONTACT WITH ME. JUST MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS, AND I SHALL BE SATISFIED”.


NOW THAT I AM AN OLD MAN AND MY DAYS ARE NUMBERED, I HAVE BEGUN TO SEE HOW FOOLISH I HAVE BEEN
MY ONE PRAYER NOW IS:
“LORD, GIVE ME THE GRACE TO CHANGE MYSELF”
IF I HAD PRAYED THIS RIGHT FROM THE START, I SHOULD NOT HAVE WASTED MYSELF.

EVERYBODY THINKS OF CHANGING HUMANITY, HARDLY ANYONE THINKS OF CHANGING HIMSELF.

Heartfelt condolences to family, comrades and the Palestinian people on the death of Comrade Dr. George Habash, Al-Hakim

By LUIS G. JALANDONI
NDFP Chief International Representative
Member, NDFP National Executive Committee

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) conveys its heartfelt condolences to the family of Comrade Dr. George Habash, Al-Hakim, to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestinian people on the passing away of the Founder of the PFLP and the Arab Nationalist Movement.

The NDFP joins the Palestinian and Arab peoples in mourning the death of an outstanding leader of their struggle for national and social liberation. His contributions over seven decades of struggle constitute an ineradicable legacy for all those persevering in the liberation struggle.

As stated by his comrades in the PFLP, not only did he demonstrate the highest level of care and dedication to his people, but he also consistently and clearly conveyed and developed a scientific vision and analysis both of the future of the revolution and the dangers and plans against it forged by the enemies of his people.

After the outbreak of the great Intifada in 1987, he called for upholding Palestinian unity as a necessary condition for the continuation of the struggle. He called for the convening of the Palestinian National Congress in 1988. Appalled by the massive uprooting of over 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, Comrade Habash and other Arab patriots founded the Arab Nationalist Movement. He firmly upheld and defended the vital and central right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their beloved homeland. He therefore strongly opposed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 for attacking this right to return.

At the Sixth Convention of the PFLP in 2000, Comrade Habash declared: “We cannot seize the future without having read our history well, not in order to be enslaved by that history, but in order to benefit from it as a necessary precondition for dealing with the future. The present is a qualitative extension of the past, while at the same time it constitutes the material and intellectual foundation for the building of the future.” On that occasion, when he relinquished the leadership of the PFLP, he announced his idea and plan of establishing a center for studies, which he said would be a “dynamic, social, intellectual and dialectic operation.” He added, “Recognizing the reasons for our defeat is a beginning step on the path toward the sphere of success and achievement, leaving behind the realm of failure, and getting closer to victory.” He highlighted the great role of women and youth in the Palestinian revolution.

At the end of his speech, Comrade Habash declared: “My aim in this closing speech has been to say to you – and not only to you, but to all the detainees, or those who experienced detention, to the families of the martyrs, to those who were wounded, to all who sacrificed and gave for the cause – that your sacrifice has not been in vain. The just goals and legitimate rights which they have struggled and given their lives for will be attained, sooner or later... And my aim, again and again, is to emphasize the need for you to persist in your struggle to serve our people, for the good of all Palestinians and Arabs – the good that lies in a just and legitimate cause, as it does in the realization of the good for all those who are oppressed and wronged. You must always be of calm mind, and of contented conscience, with a strong resolve and a steel will, for you have been and still are in the camp of justice and progress, the camp whose just goals will be attained and which will inevitably attain its legitimate rights. For these are the lessons of history and reality, and no right is lost as long as there is someone fighting for it.”

For the Filipino people persevering in their struggle for national and social liberation, the life and dedication of Comrade Habash is also an inspiration and further strengthens the solidarity between the Palestinian people and the Filipino people.

Long live the noble memory and inspiration of the outstanding and exemplary Founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Arab Nationalist Movement, Comrade Dr. George Habash, Al-Hakim!

Long live the Palestinian people’s struggle for national and social liberation!

Long live international solidarity for the revolutionary cause of the Palestinian people!

“Operation Peace” sows terror in north Brazil countryside

The Brazilian state, military and local government have launched massive operations against the peasants in the state of Pará in northern Brazil, resulting in grave violations of human rights.

The military operation called “Operation Peace in the Countryside” was ordered by the governor of Pará state, Ana Julia Carepa, to hunt down peasants who are courageously fighting for their rights to own the land and against the abuses of the landlords. The military used 400 military and olice troops, 40 armored vehicles, four helicopters and one plane. The massive show of force was to intimidate and harass the peasant population to give up their struggle and to force them to give information about the activities and plans of the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) or Liga, a social movement fighting for peasant land rights.

More than 200 peasants were arrested and imprisoned. They were subjected to severe torture such as constant beatings, drowning and suffocation. The victims were also forced to swallow large quantities of fresh pepper with salt and onion which damaged their internal organs. Although a number of peasants were freed last 03 January, many peasants and their leaders are still missing. Their families and comrades have no information of their whereabouts and they continue to look for them.

A peasant leader from Redencao by the name of Rivaldo was killed. He was shot twice in the head. It is reported that the owner of the Forkilha Farm, Jairo Andrade ordered the killing of Rivaldo.

A series of articles were nationally distributed before the attacks, slandering and demonizing peasant activists and leaders and calling for harsh measures against the Liga.

Brazil is afire with the struggle of the peasantry for land rights. Peasants are evicted from their land to give way to big agricultural corporations. The state and local officials are in cahoots with the landlords in enforcing the eviction and criminalization of peasants.

But the peasants, their families and supporters are not intimidated by the military operations launched against them by the state, the landlords and the officials of the local governments. They know that for them to finally own the land that they and their ancestors have tilled for so long, they would have to continue organizing and preparing themselves for bigger struggles ahead.

Uribe government assassinates FARC commander Raúl Reyes

The Colombian military brutally bombarded an encampment of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) inside Ecuador on 1 March. The attack took the lives of the FARC’s number two commander, Raúl Reyes, and 16 other guerrillas.

Noted FARC leader Julián Conrado, member of the insurgent army’s general command, was also killed in the attack. The US Department of State had recently posted a US$2.5 million bounty on Conrado, 53, whose actual name was Guillermo Enrique Torres.

Reyes, 60, was the FARC’s actual ground commander and chief negotiator in the talks with the Andrés Pastrana government between 1998 and 2002. Reyes’ real name was Luis Edgar Devia Silva.

The encampment was one mile inside Ecuador’s border, just south of the Putumayo River near Santa Rosa. To justify its invasion of that country, Colombia’sright-wing president Álvaro Uribe claims that its military bombarded from within Colombia’s airspace.

But in a contrary statement, Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s defense minister, stated that the planes bombed the camp from a position two kilometers – over 1.2 miles – inside Ecuador. He also admitted that Colombian troops entered Ecuador to sequester the bodies of Reyes and Conrado and take them to Colombia to prevent their recovery by the FARC.

Uribe notified Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa only after the attack. Correa has ordered an investigation into the bombardment, and reiterated the call for peace negotiations.

Despite numerous offers by Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez and other international leaders to help negotiate a peace settlement of the 60-year-old Colombian conflict, the right-wing, pro-US Uribe has responded by calling for the FARC’s extermination.

The assassination of the FARC combatants came only days after the FARC’s second unilateral release of prisoners of war facilitated by Chávez’s government. The four high-profile prisoners immediately joined international calls for a political solution to the conflict, just days before the bombardment.

Uribe has refused any meaningful proposals by the insurgent army to carry out a humanitarian exchange of prisoners held by both sides. In particular, he rejects the call for demilitarizing two territories – Pradera and La Florida – for a period of 45 days, in order to facilitate the exchange of prisoners.

“I publicly challenge President Álvaro Uribe to demonstrate the success of his policy of democratic security and clear the military from the municipalities of Pradera and Florida,” said Luis Eladio Pérez, one of the four former Colombian legislators just released by the FARC. “The solution is political, Mr. President Uribe,” Pérez added.

There is good reason for the FARC’s demilitarization demand: During the previous FARC’s unilateral liberation of

former members of Congress – among them Clara Rojas – the Colombian military bombarded the route of the FARC release, almost killing the hostages as well as FARC soldiers.

It is clear that the US government’s intent is to continue hunting down FARC combatants using Colombia’s military as a proxy. Colombia’s efforts to exterminate the guerrilla army are fully under Washington’s direction, aided by Plan Colombia’s multibillion-dollar counter-insurgency program funded by the United States.

A political solution that might require any compromise on their part is not in the interest of the Colombian and US governments. The assassination of the FARC leaders was unambiguously intended to decisively derail the mediation efforts led by Venezuela once and for all.

In an interview to Kaosenlared.net completed just two days before his death, Commander Reyes said, “In Latin America we see a positive turn towards the revolutionary left with the leadership of governments that are anti-imperialist, progressive, independent, Bolivarian, moving towards socialism, and whose commitment is to fulfill the mandate of the Liberator (Simón Bolivar), that of attaining the greatest happiness for their peoples.

“Colombia will not be the exception. As Bolivarians who are in the midst of conflict with an ultra-right, fascist and paramilitary government, we are proceeding along the same road. Nothing and nobody will impede that.” [Party for Socialism and Liberation, www.pslweb.org] .

US troop “surge” a big failure

Iraqi resistance inflicts heavy toll on US occupation troops

Latest official US statistics document heavy casualties inflicted by the Iraqi Resistance on US occupation troops. As of 19 February 2008, 3,960 US soldiers have died: 3,225 killed in action and 735 through “non-hostile” fire. Wounded in action totaled 29,133, of which 13,013 did not return to duty within 72 hours.

According to data provided by the Defense Manpower Data Center, Statistical Information Analysis Division, from 19 March 2003 through 2 February 2008, the non-hostile deaths included 139 self-inflicted deaths. The great majority of those who died, 3,070 or 78% of the total were aged 30 years or below.

The number of US soldiers who undergo major amputations, toes and fingers not counted, reached 500 on 12 January 2007. This number comprised only 2.2%of the total wounded at that time, 22,700.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI), according to one expert cited in a February 2007 Discovery magazine article, affected over 7,500 soldiers. Mental illness or psychosocial disorder affected about 1/3 of the 103,788 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars of aggression diagnosed between 30 September 2001 and 30 September 2005. Among the effects of these psychosocial disorders were homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. The Pentagon reported in March 2006 that more than 8,000 US soldiers had deserted. The following year it said that the rate of desertions was even increasing.

Troop “surge” a big failure

The yearly statistics prove that the US troop “surge” proclaimed by the Bush administration as a great success is in fact a big failure.

The US Defense Manpower Data Center recorded the total deaths in the year 2006 as 704. After the so-called “surge” with the increase of 30,000 US troops, the deaths increased to 762 for year 2007. The rate of American deaths in Baghdad over the first seven weeks of the “surge” security escalation had nearly doubled from the previous period. According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Monitor, US troop deaths since the “surge” has been running at 3.14 per day. Moreover, reports indicate that even after the troop surge, more than two-thirds of Baghdad is under the effective control of various groups within the Iraqi resistance. In an attempt to crush the resistance in Baghdad, the US military dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs in the first ten minutes of a January 10 [2008] assault on the town of Arab Jabour on the southern outskirts of Baghdad.

Forty houses and the main road were destroyed and many civilians were killed.

More than a million Iraqis dead, more than 4 million refugees

The main victim of the US-led war of aggression and occupation in Iraq is however the Iraqi people. A survey made in August 2007 estimated over 1.2 million deaths since March 2003. The Opinion Research Business (ORB), a London polling organization, published the results of its survey on September 14, 2007. The ORB reported that “48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ ordnance.”

Besides the over a million deaths caused by the US-led war of aggression, Iraqis are subjected to torture, rape, and many other human rights violations. 60 to 70% of Iraqi children are reported to be suffering from psychological problems. 68% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water. Cholera and other epidemics are taking place, while half of Iraqi doctors have left the country.

According to a press briefing of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on 19 February 2008, there are some 2 million Iraqi refugees outside the country and about 2.4 million internal refugees. 95% of the refugees outside Iraq are in Middle East countries, with about 1.2-1.4 million in Syria and 500-750 thousand in Jordan.

At the end of his mission to Iraq and neighboring countries, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, appealed for international help for Iraqi refugees and for Syria and Jordan. Jordan announced it was spending US$1.7 billion yearly to assist the Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

Iraqi resistance grows in strength,condemns US scheme of sectarian civil war While the US says there were only 2000 attacks against US “Coalition” troops in September 2007 compared to 3200 attacks in September 2006, claiming that the “troop surge” was successful, an Iraqi resistance leader declared in an international solidarity conference in March 2007 that the Iraqi resistance was carrying out over 1300 attacks each week.

Abdul Jabbar al-Kubaysi, general secretary of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, described how large areas of Iraq and many of the smaller cities and towns are under the control of the Iraqi resistance and in the larger cities, fierce street battles rage daily. The conference held in Chianciano, Italy, also had Ayatollah al Sayyed Ahmed al-Baghdadi, a leader of the resistance among the Shiites, as a speaker by telephone. He condemned the US scheme of fomenting “sectarian civil war” between Sunnis and Shiites and claiming that US occupation is a “peace keeping” mission. He declared: “Confrontational clashes were never known before the occupation. It is a
confrontation planned by external powers to burn Iraq and the whole region.”

He added: “America will never be able to control Iraq because of the strength of the resistance. We will always reject the occupation. No mask could ever cover up its ugly face. The resistance will remove all the masks, and defeat the occupier’s project of civil war in Iraq.” Al-Kubaysi concluded his speech at the international conference: “With the heroic sacrifices of the Iraqi people, the American occupation has been stopped dead in its tracks. The shackles of occupation are crumbling, thanks to the courageous resistance of the Iraqi people.” (See Kosta Harlan, “Voices of the Iraqi Resistance”, Fight Back! Lucha y Resistir!, March 2007, www.fightbacknews.org).

A US armored military vehicle smoulders in the background after an attack by Iraqi resistance forces. file photo.