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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
“At least when Saddam was here there may not have been
freedom but there was security: Democracy Now! producer Sharif
Abdel Kouddous reports from streets of Baghdad.
As President Bush names a new ruler of Iraq, humanitarian
groups say the US is more concerned with building an administration
than with the health and well-being of the people: Doctors
without Borders says the US is breaking international law
Iraqi civilians sue General Tommy Franks for war crimes:
we’ll hear from their lawyer in Belgium
Survivors of the worst industrial accident in world history
to confront Dow Chemical at shareholder’s meeting: over
20,000 people were killed in Bhopal, India
8:01-8:10 Headlines
8:10-8:11 One Minute Music Break
8:11-8:20 “AT LEAST WHEN SADDAM WAS HERE THERE MAY
NOT HAVE BEEN FREEDOM BUT THERE WAS SECURITY: DEMOCRACY NOW!
PRODUCER SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS REPORTS FROM STREETS OF BAGHDAD.
The Washington Post is reporting that U.S. occupation authorities
have allowed scores of Baath members to reclaim jobs including
some of the most senior positions inside such ministries as
trade, industry, oil, irrigation, health and education.
U.S. officials said the only Baath members automatically
disqualified are the 55 senior officials in Hussein's government
deemed most wanted by the United States, as well as those
believed to have been involved in human-rights violations
or terrorism.
We go to Baghdad to speak with Democracy Now! producer Sharif
Abdel Kouddous who just arrived in Iraq.
- Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! producer speaking
from Baghdad
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:30 AS PRESIDENT BUSH NAMES A NEW RULER OF IRAQ, HUMANITARIAN
GROUPS SAY THE US IS MORE CONCERNED WITH BUILDING AN ADMINISTRATION
THAN WITH THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF THE PEOPLE
Once again, Iraq has a new ruler.
President Bush yesterday named L. Paul Bremer the 3rd as
his special envoy to Iraq. That means Bremer will replace
retired General Jay Garner as the American in overall command
of occupied Iraq.
The New York Times reports the power shuffle is intended
to resolve a major dispute between the Pentagon and the State
Department over control of Iraq. The Pentagon is insisting
Iraq remain under military control while the State Department
says that a civilian with diplomatic skills and foreign policy
experience should be in charge.
Senior administration officials told The New York Times Bremer’s
appointment: “underscores the White House’s intention
to speed the transition from a military occupation toward
civilian administration.”
But Bremer will be reporting directly to Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. Anonymous officials quoted in the New York
Times say Rumsfeld personally chose Bremer and has known him
for years. Bremer is also close to leading neoconservatives
in the Pentagon.
L. Paul Bremer III served in the State Department for 23
years. He headed the counter-terrorism department under Ronald
Reagan. After leaving government, he became the managing director
of Kissinger Associates, a global consulting firm run by former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The power shuffle may also help the Bush administration in
its propaganda efforts. Even Jay Garner’s supporters
acknowledge he has not been a successful statesman. Last week,
reporters pressed Garner about the shortcomings in the effort
to restore civilian order and services to Iraq. Garner replied:
“We ought to look in a mirror and get proud, and stick
out our chests and suck in our bellies and say, Damn’,
we’re Americans!”
Still, National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack
told the Times while Bremer will guide overall reconstruction
policy, Jay Garner will still handle the day-to-day work.
All of this infighting comes as the international humanitarian
organization Doctors Without Borders says the US is breaking
international law in Iraq. As the occupying power, the US
is required to ensure the health and well-being of the Iraqi
people.
But Doctors Without Borders says the US is giving priority
to building an administration rather than meeting its humanitarian
obligations.
Well today, we are joined by Nicolas De Torrente, Executive
Director of Doctors Without Borders.
8:30-8:40 IRAQI CIVILIANS SUE GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS FOR WAR
CRIMES
As the Bush administration gives the leadership in occupied
Iraq a face lift, Iraqi civilians are preparing to sue Gen.
Tommy Franks and other U.S. military officials for war crimes
in Iraq.
Lawyer Jan Fermon says the complaint will be presented in
a Belgian court next week. It will state that coalition forces
are responsible for the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians,
the bombing of a marketplace in Baghdad that killed scores,
the shooting of an ambulance, and failure to prevent the mass
looting of hospitals.
Meanwhile, the BBC has uncovered evidence that US troops
not only failed to prevent mass looting in Iraq, but encouraged
it. Eyewitnesses told the BBC US troops encouraged looters
to storm the campus of Nasiriya's Technical Institute. The
institute's acting dean, Dr Khalid Majeed, said he appealed
to US troops to prevent the looting. They refused. When his
colleague manage to rouse some Americans based near the local
fire station, they arrived in five vehicles and fired several
dozen rounds at the college's south wall. Now the college
of higher education is a shell, its laboratories and lecture
rooms charred almost beyond recognition.
Washington has reacted angrily to the lawsuit. The US State
Department has told Belgium not to allow its laws to be used
for "political ends". A senior Bush administration
official warned there will be “diplomatic consequences”
for Belgium if the complaint is taken up by a court.
- Jan Fermon, Belgian lawyer who is filing a complaint against
General Tommy Franks on behalf of 19 Iraqis who say he committed
war crimes in Iraq.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 SURVIVORS OF THE WORST INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT IN WORLD
HISTORY TO CONFRONT DOW CHEMICAL AT SHAREHOLDER’S MEETING:
OVER 20,000 PEOPLE WERE KILLED IN BHOPAL, INDIA
Tomorrow, the survivors of the worst industrial accident
in world history will confront the company responsible at
its annual shareholders’ meeting.
On the night of December 2nd, 1984 in the city of Bhopal,
India, unknown tons of lethal gases leaked from a U.S. pesticide
factory into the air. The factory’s safety systems were
either malfunctioning or turned off. Clouds of suffocating
gases blanketed the city of half a million people. Residents
awoke with throats burning and tears streaming. They began
a desperate flight through the dark streets. The gases produced
so much fluid in people’s lungs that many drowned in
their own body fluids. Many fell dead as they ran. No alarm
ever sounded a warning and no evacuation plan was prepared.
When victims arrived at hospitals breathless and blind, doctors
did not know how to treat them because they had no idea what
chemicals they were dealing with.
It was only when the sun rose that the magnitude of the devastation
became clear. Dead bodies of people and animals lay in the
streets. Leaves on trees had turned black. Thousands of people
had died and unknown tens or hundreds of thousands injured.
To date, more than over 20,000 have lost their lives due
to the Bhopal disaster.
The factory was owned by a U.S. company called Union Carbide.
In 1987, the Bhopal District Court charged Union Carbide and
its officials, including CEO Warren Anderson, with culpable
homicide, grievous assault and other serious offences. Union
Carbide and its officials have repeatedly ignored the Court's
summons.
In 1989, Union Carbide and the Indian Government arrived
at a negotiated settlement of $470 million for all gas-disaster
related injuries. The average pay out for personal injury
was between some $400 per person.
In comparison, the penalty for the Exxon Valdez disaster,
where no human lives were lost, was $5 billion.
In 2001, Union Carbide was bought out by US multinational
Dow Chemical.
Dow Chemical is holding its annual shareholders meeting tomorrow
in Midland, Michigan. Well, a few days ago I had the opportunity
to talk two people about the Bhopal disaster.
Rashida Bee survived the disaster. But she has lost members
of her family to cancers from the gases. She is partially
blinded by Carbide’s gases, suffers from psychiatric
problems and is on continuous medication despite which she
has been on several hunger-strikes over the past 18 years.
In Bhopal, she is legendary for having once led over hundred
women from her organization and children on a month-long march
to India’s capital city, New Delhi, to present a petition
to the Prime Minister.
And Satinath Sarangi is a metallurgical engineer turned activist
who arrived in Bhopal a day-after the disaster and stayed
on to become a key figure in the struggle for justice in Bhopal.
He also translated Rashida Bee.
- Rashida Bee, is a survivor of the Union Carbide gas disaster
in Bhopal. She has lost five gas-exposed members of her
family to cancers. She is partially blinded by Carbide’s
gases, suffers from psychiatric problems and is on continuous
medication despite which she has been on several hunger-strikes
over the past 18 years. In Bhopal, she is legendary for
having once led over hundred women from her organization
and children on a month-long march to India’s capital
city, New Delhi, to present a petition to the Prime Minister
demanding their rightful wages. Starting on June 1st 1989
in the middle of a brutal Indian summer they covered a distance
of 750 kms (468.75 miles) on foot. (http://www.bhopal.net/longwalktodelhi.html)
More recently, in October 2002 as a leading member of the
International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, she went to
Italy and Belgium to deliver brooms to Dow officials and
in January 2003 to Netherlands to return tons of solid toxic
waste from Carbide’s abandoned factory site to its
new owner Dow Chemical which has till date refused to clean-up
its mess in Bhopal.
Contact: www.bhopal.net
- Satinath Sarangi, (known as Sathyu) is a metallurgical
engineer turned activist who arrived in Bhopal a day after
the disaster and stayed on to become a key figure in the
struggle for justice in Bhopal. He is a founding trustee
of the Sambhavna Clinic, a non-profit clinic dedicated to
the holistic treatment of gas-affected persons in Bhopal.
He is also an organizer with the Bhopal Group for Information
and Action.
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
Governments across Latin America have launched investigations
after it has been revealed that a US company is obtaining
personal information on millions of citizens in the region
and selling it to the Bush administration. The company? ChoicePoint
– the same company that disenfranchised thousands of
people in Florida because their names resembled the names
of felons.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader criticizes President Bush’s
proposed $550 billion tax cut
9:01-9:06 Headlines
9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break
9:07-9:20 U.S. is Buying Data on foreign citizens –
and Choicepoint is selling it.
Governments across Latin America have launched investigations
after it has been revealed that a US company is obtaining
personal information on millions of citizens in the region
and selling it to the Bush administration.
The London Guardian reports that documents show the company,
ChoicePoint, received well over $10 million last year in return
for the information. The information includes Mexico's entire
list of voters, including dates of birth and passport numbers,
as well as Colombia's citizen identification database.
ChoicePoint’s advertisements for the Justice Department
promised, for example, to deliver a QUOTE "national registry
file of all adult Colombians, including date and place of
birth, gender, parentage, physical description, marital status,
passport number, and registered profession".
But it is illegal under Colombian law for government agencies
to disclose this information, unless it is in response to
a request for data on a named individual.
Our listeners and viewers may remember Choice Point from
the contested 2000 election. The state of Florida hired a
subsidiary of ChoicePoint, Database Technologies, to remove
convicted felons from the state’s voter registration
lists. BBC investagive reporter Greg Palast revealed the company
disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters, most of whom
were poor, and black. Thousands of people were scrubbed from
the voter roles simply because their names resembled the names
of felons.
- Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal. He
is also a journalist and author of several books on privacy
issues including War Stories: Accounts of Persons Victimized
by Invasions of Privacy.
Link: www.privacyjournal.net
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:40 CONSUMER ADVOCATE RALPH NADER CRITICIZES PRESIDENT
BUSH’S PROPOSED $550 BILLION TAX CUT
As President Bush pushes for a $550 billion tax cut, 2000
Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader discusses his
view of the economy
A week ago President Bush decked out in a flight suit, landed
on an aircraft carrier to declare the war in Iraq over. As
a sign he is afraid to follow his father’s footsteps,
this week his focus is no longer war but the economy.
A decade ago President George H.W. Bush lost the 1992 election
despite being victorious in the first Gulf War. The lagging
economy was the often cited reason.
Now his son is attempting to portray the economy as his top
concern. Last week he met with the chief executives of the
big three automakers -- General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and
the Chrysler group. They all endorsed his $550 billion tax
cut.
Well today we’re going to hear from the man who began
his career as an activist promoting auto safety, Ralph Nader.
For more than 35 years, Nader has been an advocate and activist
around issues related to health, safety, economics, environmental
pollution, workers rights and corporate influence. He has
been an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration’s
economic policies and spending priorities -- the tax cut for
the wealthy and the massive build up in military spending.
Nader founded the Public Interest Research Group and the
Women’s Policy Stidies among other groups He was the
Green Party presidential candidate in 2000.
- President George W. Bush, recorded May 5, 2003
- Ralph Nader, 2000 presidential candidate for Green Party,
speaking in New York at the American Spirit, Values &
Power: Resisting "Empire," Affirming Our Vision.
The conference took place at the CUNY Graduate Center in
New York.
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:58 NADER cont’d
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press
with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed,
Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau,
Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen
Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.
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