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> Thur., July. 10, 2003
Pacifica's PeaceWatch
Today's Stories:
Secretary of State Colin Powell Holds
Press Conference in South Africa
President Bush’s Family Owned Enslaved Africans
Is Oil On The U.S. Agenda For Africa
Immigration Services Arrest Man for Being Unemployed for One
Hour
Civil Liberties Are Victims of The War on Terrorism
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Secretary of State Colin Powell Holds Press Conference
in South Africa
President Bush continues his five-day tour of Africa stopping
off today in Gabarone, Botswana.
Rising anti-American sentiment fueled by discontent over
the U.S.-led war in Iraq cast a shadow over President Bush's
visit to South Africa yesterday. Scores of disgruntled South
Africans have protested this week outside the U.S. Embassy
in Pretoria and the consulates in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Secretary of State Powel held a press conference in Pretoria,
South Africa and responded to questions from the press corps.
Liberia – the troubled African nation plagued by rebel
insurgency to oust President Charles Taylor, was an issue
that dominated the discussion. Powell was asked whether the
US would be sending peacekeeping troops to Liberia to ensure
the departure of Liberian President Charles Taylor who has
been granted asylum in the West African country of Nigeria.
Tape: Secretary of State Colin Powell at a press conference
in Pretoria, South Africa
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President Bush’s Family Owned Enslaved Africans
As the world contemplated Bush's epiphany without apology
on the subject of slavery during his brief visit to the Senegalese
coast, Peacewatch producer Robert Knight discovered that Bush
neglected to mention his own family's involvement with slavery.
In a report earlier today on WBAI's "Wake Up Call,"
Knight recounted the ownership in 1860 of 16 slaves in Hannibal,
Missouri by the family of Nancy Holliday, Bush's great-great-grandmother.
In addition, Knight traced Bush family patriarch Hendrick
Bosch, a Danish arms maker who immigrated to New York, and
whose heirs later moved northeast to Greenwich, Connecticut,
anglicizing the surname to Bush. There, according to records
of the first U.S. Census of 1790, there were enumerated four
"Bush" households, owning a combined total of 13
slaves. The White House had no response to Knight's repeated
inquiries about the Bush family's apparent historical involvement
with slavery.
Meanwhile, Bush left Senegal earlier this week, continuing
his African sojourn enroute to Uganda by way of Botswana,
after a controversial visit to South Africa. Peacewatch correspondent
Robert Knight has more.
Tape: Pacifica correspondent Robert Knight of WBAI’s
Wake Up Call
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Is Oil On The U.S. Agenda For Africa
As Bush travels around Africa, the world's spotlight is suddenly
falling on a part of the world that generally receives little
coverage in the American media. With the civil war in Liberia
looming in the background, Bush has pledged to deliver 15
billion dollars to combat AIDS and spur economic growth on
the African continent. Among Africa's most valuable assets
is oil, and it's been estimated that as much as 20-25 percent
of US oil imports will likely come from West Africa by the
year 2005. One of the main oil producers, and also Africa's
most populous country, is Nigeria.
Peacewatch spoke earlier today with Daphne Wysham, a Fellow
at the Institute for Policy Studies, about Nigeria's strategic
importance to the US, and the US's plan to send troops to
protect its oil interests in the region.
Tape: Daphne Wysham, a Fellow at the Washington-based Institute
for Policy Studies. We'll have more of our discussion with
her tomorrow on Peacewatch.
[top]
Immigration Services Arrest Man for Being Unemployed
for One Hour
As an unknown number of immigrants and political detainees
still linger in prisons and detention facilities across the
country, we hear the story today of Hasan Hasan, a Kuwaiti
national who attended university in Long Beach, California,
before teaching at Cerritos College. Last year, he was mysteriously
fired by the college, only to be arrested an hour later by
immigration authorities for violating his visa since he had
been unemployed for the past hour. Since then, he has been
physically harassed by law enforcement officials and eventually
spent time in a detention center, where he met other immigrants
who were similarly targeted.
Hasan's case is typical of the targeting of immigrants under
the USA Patriot Act. He was scheduled to appear before a court
last Monday, July 7th and Hasan and supporting activists had
mobilized a large support network to appear in court with
him, when the hearing was postponed to October 2003. Sonali
Kolhatkar of Pacifica station KPFK in Los Angeles spoke with
Hasan earlier this week.
Tape: Hasan Hasan is a Kuwaiti national who was detained
by immigration authorities. He spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar
of Pacifica station KPFK in Los Angeles.
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Civil Liberties Are Victims of The War on Terrorism
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond yesterday
declined to hear an appeal from Yasser Esam Hamdi, a U.S.
citizen captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. By
an 8-4 vote, the court let stand a January ruling that Hamdi's
confinement is justified. A lower court had told the government
to produce more evidence justifying his detention.
``The paramount right is that of the citizens of our country
to have their democracy's most vital, life-or-death decisions
made by those whom the Constitution charges with that task,''
wrote Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson. This decision is receiving
criticism from civil libertarians in the US. Soffiya Jill
Elijah of the Harvard Law School, an attorney for a number
of political prisoners who have been placed in lockdown following
9/11 spoke on this issue at the University of Boston at a
conference entitled “War on Terrorism or Assault on
Human Rights?”
Tape: Soffiya Jill Elijah of the Harvard Law School, speaking
recently at a conference at the University of Boston, Massachusetts.
Special thanks to Mark Weaver of community radio station WMBR
in Cambridge, MA for production assistance.
Credits
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