May 2023 – Page 2

Details of British special forces global deployment revealed

23 May, 2023 16:53

Covert operatives took part in multiple foreign conflicts without any parliamentary approval or oversight, a newly published study has found

Details of British special forces global deployment revealed

British and Ukrainian special forces train during a NATO exercise in Denmark, October 6, 2021 © Flickr / NATO

The UK has sent its special forces to 19 countries since 2011, according to a report by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity that conducts research on global armed violence. The deployed British operatives trained foreign militants, carried out assassinations, and reportedly fought alongside child soldiers.

In a report published on Tuesday, AOAV stated that British operatives have been deployed to fight or surveil hostile forces in Algeria, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Somalia, the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.

Some of these deployments were into locations in which British troops were already fighting, as was the case in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, UK Special Forces (UKSF) continued their operations in both countries long after regular forces withdrew. In Afghanistan, hundreds of civilian deaths were attributed to night raids by British and American special forces between 2009 and 2012.

While parliament authorized military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, UKSF have deployed to other active conflict zones without the assent of lawmakers. Three days before parliament voted against a deployment to Syria in 2013, UKSF and MI6 operatives were on the ground targeting Syrian air defense installations and calling in American airstrikes, the report stated. Within months, they were training anti-government militants while assassinating Islamic State fighters.

Pentagon leak exposes NATO special forces in Ukraine

In Yemen, UKSF operatives conducted raids on Al Qaeda-linked militants, but, in some cases, fought alongside jihadists who had been recruited by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to attack Houthi rebels. Up to 40% of these jihadi forces, AOAV noted, were child soldiers.

Training missions and hostage rescue operations made up most of the rest of the deployments, while the UKSF operation in Russia focused on providing security for British athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Recently leaked Pentagon documents suggest that the UK has deployed 50 special forces personnel to Ukraine since Russia launched its military operation last February. Prior to the leak, multiple media outlets reported the presence of British and American special forces in Ukraine, while one general told The Times last year that as many as 300 British commandos were conducting “discrete operations” alongside Kiev’s forces.

“The extensive deployment of Britain’s Special Forces in numerous countries over the past decade raises serious concerns about transparency and democratic oversight,” said AOAV Director Iain Overton. “The lack of parliamentary approval and retrospective reviews for these missions is deeply troubling.”

Chiapas court sentences the “Cancuc 5” to 25 years in prison

Posted on May 21, 2023 by Chiapas Support Committee

Leave a Comment

Bulletin No. 10
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
May 17, 2023

The judicial power of the state of Chiapas condemns the five indigenous Tseltals from San Juan Cancuc to 25 years in prison for defending their territory

The criminalization of indigenous people, a constant issue in Chiapas

From this Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center, we denounce the criminalization of defenders of territory. The Chiapas government once again acts with impunity. Today, May 17, 2023, the Judicial Branch of the State of Chiapas found guilty Manuel Sántiz Cruz [1[, Juan Velasco Aguilar, Agustín Pérez Velasco, Martín Pérez Domínguez and Agustín Pérez Domínguez, five indigenous community defenders, of the Tseltal Maya people of San Juan Cancuc, arbitrarily deprived of their freedom for defending their territory, who were sentenced to 25 years in prison for a crime they did not commit.

To establish the sentence, the judge used legal criteria from 1993, that is, criteria from more than thirty years ago, despite all the legal reforms that have occurred in Mexico that should guarantee human rights. The judge gave probative value to the statements of the municipal police, when they should have been the first to be investigated, since the death occurred in the patrol car of the San Juan Cancuc municipal police. Another notorious fact was that he gave value to an altered death certificate.

On May 3, 2023, the five Indigenous Tseltals gave their statement before the Judge, where they mentioned that three of them were arbitrarily detained on May 29, 2022, in San Juan Cancuc, through a joint operation of the Municipal Police, the National Guard and the Mexican Army, to later be handed over to the Indigenous Justice Prosecutor’s Office, who first fabricated the crime of drug possession and then involved them in the homicide for which they were sentenced.

The last two stated that they were arbitrarily detained by members of the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection and the Specialized Police on June 1, 2022, outside the State Center for Social Reintegration of Sentenced No. 5 (CERSS No. 5) of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, when they visited their compañeros and in retaliation for having witnessed the operation and arbitrary deprivation of liberty. None of these arbitrary elements were taken into account, so once again they give evidence of the constant action of criminalization towards the native peoples who defend the territory.

Top part of the sign reads: “The Native Peoples Reject the SCLC-Palenque Highway.” The bottom part says: “No to the installation of the National Guard barracks.” It is this protest against the highway mega-project and the military installation to protect it that led to the arrest, falsification of crimes and sentencing.

This case is part of a model of complicity that exists between municipal, state and federal authorities, along with judges and prosecutors to manufacture guilt and keep innocent people in prison, so the lack of access to justice is a burden of the Mexican legal system.

Frayba demands freedom and justice for the five indigenous Tseltals of San Juan Cancuc, since we have fully documented the existence of serious human rights violations, including due process of law, noting the ineffectiveness of the investigations of the State Attorney General’s Office, which are devoid of legal value, in addition to the partiality of the Judiciary that acted ignoring the clear evidence of the arbitrary deprivations of liberty, and that the five defenders of territory were targeted. Finally, we refer to the arguments of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which mentions that widespread or systematic imprisonment or other serious deprivation of liberty in violation of the norms of international law may constitute crimes against humanity. [2]

[1] Manuel Sántiz Cruz “has been president of the San Juan Evangelista Human Rights Committee, which promotes actions around defense of territory against construction of the highway stretch between San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Palenque. They are also opposed to the presence of the National Guard (GN, Guardia Nacional) in the municipality, as well as against the sale of alcohol and drugs in the municipal seat.” Click here to see article on the arrests.

[2] Opinion number 43/2021 of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, adopted on September 10, 2021, regarding Adrián Gómez, Germán López, Abrahám López, Juan de la Cruz and Marcelino Ruiz (Mexico). https://www.dof.gob.mx/nota_d

Originally Published in Spanish by Frayba, Wednesday, May 17, 2023, https://frayba.org.mx/el-poder-judicial-del-estado-de-chiapas-condena-25-anos-los-cinco-indigenas-tseltales-de-san-juan and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee

US regime still desperately hopes to Snatch victory from Jaws of Defeat in Ukraine

from thefreeonlinetps on 23rd May 2023 by M.K.Bhadrakumar at INDIAN PUNCHLINE

The G7 Leaders’ 2700-word statement on Ukraine, issued in Hiroshima after their summit meeting glossed over the burning question today — the so-called counter-offensive against the Russian forces.

It is a deafening silence, since rumours are swirling about the disappearance of the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Significantly, President Vladimir Zelensky himself is making himself scarce from Kiev touring world capitals — Helsinki, Hague, Rome, Vatican, Berlin, Paris, London and Jeddah and Hiroshima. It does seem that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

As the G7 summit ended, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Saturday that the Russian operation to capture the strategic communication hub of Bakhmut in Donbass region of eastern Ukraine lasting 224 days, has been brought to a successful completion, overcoming the resistance by more than 80,000 Ukrainian troops.

It is a painful moment for Zelensky, who had boasted before US lawmakers in Capitol Hill last December that “just like the Battle of Saratoga (in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War), the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.”

Meanwhile, to distract attention, there is talk now about a subtle shift in the US policy regarding supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in an indeterminate future. In reality, though, no one can tell what the Ukrainian rump state will look like when the jets arrive.

Unsurprisingly, the Biden Administration still seems to be in two minds. F-16 is a hot item for export; what happens if the Russians were to blow it out of the sky with their hi-tech weapons and rubbish its fame ?

The Rage of the Wind: As Fascism invades Europe again – Remember their Atrocities in Gran Canaria

from thefreeonline on May 21,2023 by Tulio Riomesta at RecueRda RepúBlica, read en Castellano aquí

The 4 men went down the narrow alleyway of the San Roque neighborhood with their hands tied behind their backs.

The Falangists did not stop hitting them with the butts of the Mausers. The landlord’s son Bonny’s weapon cut the skin just by touching it.

The Count’s nephew stayed back in the house of old Anselmo Fariñas to abuse his two daughters, fourteen and fifteen years old. Lucia, the youngest, couldn’t stand the multiple rape and bled to death.

Brutales asesinatos falangistas en Canarias / Más de 20.000 cuneteados …..

The destination of the four trade unionists from the Workers’ Federation was the municipality of Telde, where they were going to be thrown that same night into the Sima de Jinámar.

Fariñas found out from the comments of the uniformed officers about the death of his daughter. He began to struggle, to shout all kinds of insults at the henchmen.

He went crazy, he even let go of the pitera thread from his wrists, until they hit him on the head with an iron bar, leaving him on the ground in a pool of blood in the Plaza de Santa Ana, next to the cathedral in the colonial neighborhood of Vegueta.Bonny gave the immediate order to collect the body. The neighbors began to crowd around, to lean out of the windows. The order of the military commanders was that each murder be carried out with complete discretion, that no one find out directly, so that the precise moment of the crime was not seen.Old Fariñas had convulsions. He was throwing blood and foaming at the mouth. He was still alive when they put him in the truck. He emitted some unintelligible moans, he kept insulting the rapists and murderers of little Marta.

San Lorenzo municipal police sergeant Juan Pernía finished him off with a blow to the head from the butt inside the vehicle. The rest of the detained men, sitting on the ground, watched in horror as they took his life with a frightening methodology and the coldness of a butcher in a slaughterhouse.

The Conde de la Vega’s nephew took out the bottle of cane rum and toasted Bonny’s son, commenting on something about the most holy and “Great Crusade” that they had started since the night of July 18, 1936, where they had already assassinated more than 500 men from the island of Tamaran.

– This is just beginning Borja, in a few months we will have finished with all these fucking red sons of bitches, -he said with the bottle of alcohol in his hand.

Map of known mass graves of nazi victims in Spanish State

The men looked terrified. The three from San Roque, two from Tamaraceite, four from Arucas and one from Agaete, all inside the truck that was already climbing the slope of Sima de Jinámar amidst the smoke and deafening noise of the dilapidated vehicle that smelled of bunches of bananas.

Once the Falangists and Civil Guards parked, they beat them down. Pedro, the son of Saro Alemán, fell on his head and became semi-conscious. They kicked him up. It looked like a sinister procession. In a single file, tied up, walking towards the abyss of death.

The night was silent. Hot like almost all of August in the Canary Islands. The men did not speak, they only moved slowly between the blows and insults of the fascists. Bonny kept drinking with the Conde de la Vega’s nephew, they made fun of the smell of the inmates, of how two of them had shit on themselves.

“How filthy and cowardly are these fucking reds,” he said as he lit a Virginio.

Remembering what happened in Jinámar

They reached the edge of the volcanic hole and Pernía approached the youngest of the detainees, Pedro Bencomo, a day laborer in the Betancores tomato fields

He took him by the arm and the young man told him not to touch him, that he would throw himself. He advanced a few steps and threw himself into the void, nothing was heard for a few seconds as long as a galaxy, until the moment of the roar, blow after blow against the walls of the abyss.

The rest of the men were crying loudly. They begged for mercy, they begged for their children and their wives, but the fascists were implacable, throwing them out one by one, playing jokes, mocking how cowardly they were.

CRIMENES DE LESA HUMANIDAD COMETIDOS EN CANARIAS

The bodies fell like stones, some even remained hanging on a ledge of the cliff. Their moans, their cries, their screams of pain were heard.

That’s good. That’s how the son of a bitch suffers more,” said the son of the tomato landowner.

It was almost dawn when they shot the last one.

– Let’s go to the village bar. I invite you, -said the nephew of Conde la Vega.

The uniformed men shouted with joy.

Arriba España! Long live Franco!

Original by Francisco González Tejera in Canarias-Semanal.org. Image in Sima de Jinámar de Wambo on Google maps

In MEMORY of the women and men of the Army of the Spanish REPUBLIC

Share: share here

Share: share here

Share: share here

Share: share here

Share this:

Related

Leave a Reply

Latest Posts

Browse Posts by Category

Browse Posts by Month

Archived Content

Blogroll

Meta

Share: share here

Share: share here

Share: share here