At my homepage www.rolf-martens.com I've added today, under "News with
brief
comments":
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 (NWBC 341) A mail to MF and others: Let's send
our
protest petition
to the government of Pakistan soon
2008-01-23, 14:50 GMT:
I've recently sent the following e-mail,
[QUOTE:]
From:
Rolf Martens <rolf.martens@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Date:
Wed., 23 January 2008 14.41 GMT
To:
marxist front <marxistfront@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Cc:
modern_marxism@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bcc:
(Undisclosed recipients)
Subject:
Let's send to the Pakistan govt. soon our petition, though it didn't "take
off"
- what do you say?
Hello marxist front <marxistfront@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
and also Alexander, Stig, Norma, Charles, David and Amal,
I think it's suitable that we now soon send to the government of Pakistan
our
Internet petition, directed to that government,
Stop Crackdown on Democratic Forces in Pakistan,
at http://www.petitiononline.com/CraDoPak/petition.html.
What do you, co-creator marxist front (respectively, your group), say
about
this? And what's the advice, if any, of you other signatories? (I can be
reached at <rolf.martens@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>.)
I'm sending this intention/suggestion of mine publicly too - our petition
of
course already is a public one - not only to the Modern Marxism list (at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modern_marxism/)
which is noted at the
website of
the petition itself as the "origin" of us its creators, "MF, RM" - but
also for
instance to the Pakistan-based mailing list at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmkp_pk/,
for perhaps some advice from
people
there.
If you agree, MF, and if nobody else has a serious and well-founded
objection,
I shall send it, with all signatures, to that Musharraf etc gang on
Friday, 25
January.
True enough, we didn't set up any end date for signing (or a planned date
for
submitting), when this petition of ours was created on 10 January, saying:
"We the undersigned strongly condemn the crackdown on democratic forces in
Pakistan by the government of that country, about which we have been
informed
on 09 January 2008, and demand that this stop immediately."
And we so far are only 8 signatories, and it doesn't look as if there's
going
to be many more soon either. That is, this petition has not "taken off",
so to
speak, in the manner that I at least had hoped perhaps might be possible.
But I think that a sending off, now soon, and making this public, may have
some
small positive effect anyway.
It will show that in other countries, there are at least some people who
are
rather well-informed about the situation in Pakistan and take a keen
interest
in it and very much want to sup****t the Pakistani people in their
struggle.
There obviously is no point in our waiting, I think. And we cannot really
desist altogether from sending the petition. That would be unfair, in my
opinion, to those others who have signed it (and whom I'm addressing now
too).
Their (your) contributions, in such a case, would have come to naught.
A kind of "argument" saying, "Look, here it shows up that the Pakistanis
only
have 8 or so friends in all other countries in the world", that would be
false
and even ridiculous, I hold. Firstly, because our resources for making
this
petition known, all over the world, have been and still are very small.
This
all others who see it will understand or guess is a fact too.
Secondly, because of the thing I mentioned above here: There is, joined
together of some people from India, Sweden, France, the USA and Malaysia,
at
least - I happen to know some of you others more or less well - a kind of
"international iron gang", I think it may be called without our boasting
too
much, who's observing that crackdown in Pakistan, which obviously still is
going on, and who absolutely is opposing it.
On some earlier experience (this I want to add, for helping sup****t what
I'm
saying above; it's going to be rather long and only indirectly relevant,
so if
you don't have much time or much interest in those other political
questions
which this will mainly deal with, just skip the rest of this message):
I want to mention to you all that I on my part have a little experience
with
such petitions, having been in on the creating of two such before (both of
them
in Swedish, as it happens). Both of them got only relatively few
signatories
too, but I think that both of them did do some good anyway.
Although this was some years ago and those petitions with their signatures
long
since have been sent to their target (in both cases the Swedish
authorities),
they still today can be found on the Net.
On one earlier petition, and its context:
The first was/is the petition at
http://www.petitiononline.com/RelMSeek/petition.html,
"Frige Mijail
Mijailovic,
25! Efterspana Anna Lindhs mördare! [Release Mijail Mijailovic, 25! Search
for
Anna Lindh's murderer!]", as it says, also in English, at its top.
It was created in November 2003 by Yvonne B. Smith, of Scottsdale,
Arizona, the
USA(!) (an otherwise quite "unpolitical" Swedish-origin woman, married in
the
USA), and me, in November, 2003 (we thus formed a kind of "trans-Atlantic
united front", consisting of all of 2 people), and sent to the Swedish
authorities in February 2004.
The background was that the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Anna Lindh, had
been
assassinated in Stockholm on 10.09.2003. (By the CIA, it was possible to
calculate, with rather great certainty, though of course we didn't say
anything
about possible actual perpetrator(s) in our petition.) She was stabbed in
her
belly, by somebody obviously trained to kill people in that way, in a
department store, the NK, in central Stockholm, in the middle of the day,
with
dozens of witnesses close by, and could not be saved at the hospital
either but
died the next day. Before she lost consciousness, she got time to say,
loudly
enough for several people to hear: "Of course it [the stabbing of her] was
political!" (And guess, others, how many mass media in Sweden there were
who at
any time re****ted that statement. Yes, probably all of you will have
gotten
that number right.)
At one Internet forum, there was discussion by some people about this
atrocity
and enormous event, here in supposedly "peaceful" Sweden, because really
everybody, in our country at least, could see that the "official story",
yelled
out by all the mass media, about "no doubt a lone madman", could not
possibly
be true, and that the eventually arrested, and "main", scapegoat, Mijail
Mijailovic (who was already scapegoat No. 2; the first person whom the
miserably, incredibly long-tongued US-imperialism-bootlicking
"authorities"
here arrested and tried to "hang" this assassination on had to be
released,
after no more than two weeks), could not possibly have had anything [I
wrote by
mistake, "nothing"- sorry about that] to do with that murder.
In was in the course of this Internet discussion, in Swedish, that Yvonne
B.
Smith, in the USA, and I, here in Malmö, Sweden "met" and formed our
perhaps
not impressively large, personell-wise, united front. (But what I want to
say
with this added part of this posting of mine too, about earlier
experience, is
that sometimes, "a single spark kan cause a prarie fire", or "a snowball
can
cause an avalanche" - or well, OK, something of a start of one, at least.)
That
petition got only 73 signatures, as you can see for yourselves, and
perhaps you
can also see that most of them were added by some ill-intentioned
saboteur(s)
too, pretending to be "Napoleon" or people like that, and in many cases
actually being vilifications directed against us who had created this
petition.
Only 22 of the signatures were obviously genuine, as I wrote when sending
in
that petition too.
And I think that it was the experience concerning that petition (perhaps,
among
others) in part having been sabotaged that made the PetitionOnline
community
soon change their rules for hosting such, so that from 2004 on, this kind
of
sabotage is being prevented.
What happened, then, with the "investigation", here in Sweden, of that
murder
of the Foreign Minister here in 2003, and with the arrested scapegoat?
Well,
that scapegoat, maintaining his innocence, was "cooked" in prison for
three
months, repeatedly lied to by the interrogating police (and probably by
his
"defence lawyer" too), that the "evidence against him" was "overwhelming",
and
that he thus "could just as well confess", in order to "save his family
etc
further embarrasment", since he "would have no chance in court anyway".
"Never mind" that one police spokesman already on the day of the stabbing
had
said that the perpetrator had "acted coolly", had "known what he was
doing",
that "this was not an act of madness".
"Never mind" that a certain person, who had been videophotographed by
surveillance cameras in the department store in question as walking around
aimlessly on the floor above that where Anna Lindh was stabbed, minutes
before
it, those tapes later being shown again and again on Swedish television,
and
the person in question, soon publicly known as "the NK man", "identified"
(also
quite absurdly) by the police as the scapegoat (No. 2), Mijail Mijailovic,
had
been dressed in a manner completely different from that of the person who
did
stab Anna Lindh (as no less than 14 witnesses testified to, according to
the
police investigation re****t itself - relevant parts of which did become
["theoretically"] public, in January 2004; only, not one of the mass media
ever
re****ted on those statements by those 14 witnesses, nor were any of those
persons ever called to testify in any of the three - kangaroo! - courts in
2004
summarily declaring the scapegoat "guilty" after 2½ days(!) of
"proceedings" in
each of them).
"Never mind" that the police even secured the hand prints of the actual
perpetrator, both of his right and of his left hand, and that these - of
course
- did not match those of the scapegoat (No. 2) at all either (something
which
all the persons involved in the "legal" proceedings and all the mass media
managed to "forget" too).
"Never mind" that the scapegoat even had an alibi, supplied by members of
his
family. (This not mentioned, though, in the public part of the later
police
"re****t".)
On 06 January 2004, that scapegoat finally had gotten pressured
"sufficiently"
for him to "confess".
And what do you think that a couple of ministers in this country, Sweden,
namely, the prime minister, Göran Persson, and the minister of justice,
Thomas
Bodström, did in connection with this? They both made public
statements[!!]
concerning this supposedly "legal" affair, both saying that they "were
relieved
at"[!!] that "confession" - that is, they publicly "instructed" the courts
here
how to decide in this case!
Now there is some recent experience in Pakistan, I've heard and read, with
such
matters, in the form of Musharraf's having illegally "deposed" some judges
in
im****tant institutions.
But those who might think that such things are "unknown" for instance here
in
Sweden, with its likewise bourgeois dictator****p, or that the politicians
here
perhaps are any "less" crooked or any less closely connected with that
"Big
Brother" of all bourgeoisie in the world, than those in Pakistan,
absolutely
should think again.
True enough, the conditions here in Sweden, for ordinary people, may be
better,
in some respects, than those for the people in Pakistan - obviously, on
the
whole, a better standard of living (and "only" a few thousands of homeless
people here), which is due, not least, to the fact that Sweden is among
the
exploiting countries in the world and Pakistan, for instance, is among
those
exploited, and the conditions concerning the right of free speech no doubt
considerably better too - rights which have been won, not least, due to
the
long fight of the working-class movement here in Europe, and which the
bourgeoisie here in Sweden too constantly are trying to infringe on. (The
present prime minister here, Reinfeldt, or "Hesa Fredrik", recently said,
for
instance, that "of course, the government must be given the right to spy
on
each and every telephone and Internet communication here", and this "not
least
in order to protect our [flagrantly illegally dispatched, and aggressor]
troops
in Afghanistan". (Today, some
350.)
To sum up a little about the earlier "Lindh petition", I think and hope
that
its very existence on the Net, earlier and even today, may help some
people get
some more information about some "not at all very nice" things which
actually
are going on, in part "under the surface", in such country as Sweden.
Do some of you others find this "aside" of mine, on some earlier
experience in
connection with petitions, "too long"? Well, those who want to can skip it
of
course anyway, but I want to go on a little, about the other earlier one
that I
was in on too.
On a second earlier petition, and some of its context:
That was/is the petition which you can still today find on the Net too,
likewise directed to Swedish Authorities, at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/SaveBbNP/petition.html.
It says, as you can see:
"Stäng inte Barsebäck 2! ****a angripa kärnkraftverken! [Don't shut down
Barsebäck 2! Stop attacking the nuclear power plants!]"
It was created, as shows up at the bottom of its website, in October 2004,
by
the Committee Save Barsebäck (which since April 2005 has a website of its
own
too, at http://www.save-nukeplant-barsebaeck.com/).
And probably also
non-Swedish-readers can make out that co-writers of its (actual) petition
text
and (added) information text were two of us who now have signed the
petition
against the crackdown on democratic forces in Pakistan, namely, Stig Ek
and
myself.
(You, Stig, by the way - this perhaps might interest some others too - of
course are also one of the founding members of our Lindh Committee here in
Sweden, created in March 2004 for investigating further that assassination
of
the [of course bourgeois] Foreign Minister of this country and for helping
justice be done concerning it. That committee of ours so far has no
website but
at least an e-mail address, <lindh_committee@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>. There also is a
mailing list, created by me, at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mordetpalindh/.)
That Don't Shut Down Barsebäck 2 petition - set up when it was not
possible to
sabotage it in the way the earlier Lindh petition was, since the
PetitionOnline
community had then already changed its rules so as to prevent such - got
631
signatures. This was rather few too, considering that at least some 90% of
all
the 9 million people living in Sweden were strongly opposed to the
government's
seemingly quite mad and crazy plan to shut down that big and quite
well-functioning nuclear power reactor, which was providing 3% of all
electricity here in Sweden.
(Whose building, incidentally, I even can see, across the Lomma Bay, from
the
beach here in Malmö - it's also on a photograph at our website's main
page.
Btw, perhaps some of us present signatories, having been convinced by
certain
stories in the media, on TV etc, concerning the question of nuclear power,
disagree with Stig, David and me on this particular point, and hold it was
"a
good thing" for most of us in the Malmö region to "get rid of" that plant.
If
so, my lines here below won't help convince you of the positive nature of
that
particular petition, then. But it's clear that all of us are not in
agreement
on all possible other questions anyway, and anybody can just stop reading
my
message from this point on, of course.)
Unfortunately, that very im****tant plant here in Sweden was shut down
anyway,
by those criminal and, as I already wrote, miserably and incredibly
long-tongued US-imperialism-bootlicking bourgeois politicians here - in
this
respect, clearly even much worse than any "Mush" etc in Pakistan for
instance,
where the bourgeoisie at least is smart enough to keep a few nuclear
weapons
too, which also helps the people against such ideas or plans as we know
those
"Big-Big-Brother" s***bags in the world - the ones who in fact "ordered"
the
shutdown of Barsebäck too - are always hatching in their miserable swine
heads:
"Now we need to send some troops, and a few war****ps and/or
fighter-bombers or
helicopter gun****ps, etc, to this country or that one, in order to help
keep
the peace there, you know." (Just a small further aside here, concerning
"nookular" policies of some various bourgeoisies.)
What I wanted to say concerning this is, that, hopefully, also the still
remaining Barsebäck petition on the Net may have had and still has a
certain
positive at least informative effect - difficult to say how big, of
course.
And, once more, if you or others don't object, MF, I shall send our
petition
with signatures to the "Mush" people on Friday, 25 January.
Rolf
(rolf.martens@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
_____________________
Message posted by:
Rolf Martens
Malmö, Sweden
Phone and fax:
+46 - 40 - 124832;
rolf.martens@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|
