Six arrested over shooting of Rwandan in South Africa

Lt Gen Nyamwasa used to be a close ally of President Kagame

Six people have been arrested in South Africa over the shooting of a Rwandan dissident, police say.

Police spokesman Govindsamy Mariemuthoo refused to give the nationalities of the suspects but said more arrests were likely.

Former army chief of staff Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa is recovering in hospital after what his wife called an assassination attempt.

Rwanda has denied any involvement in the shooting in Johannesburg.

The BBC's Karen Allen in Johannesburg says a Rwandan national known to Lt Gen Nyamwasa is believed to be among those detained.

FAUSTIN KAYUMBA NYAMWASA

• 
  

  1994: Helped bring Paul Kagame to power and end genocide

  
  

  1998: Appointed army chief of staff

  
  

  2006: French judge accuses him of shooting down plane of Rwanda's ex-President Habyarimana in 1994

  
  

  2008: Spain accuses him of links to death of Spanish nuns

  
  

  Feb 2010: Leaves post as ambassador to India, flees to South Africa

  
  

  Accused of links to grenade attacks in Kigali

  
  

  June 2010: Shot in Johannesburg

  
  

Brig Mariemuthoo said the six would be charged with attempted murder but declined to give any more details, saying the investigations had reached a "sensitive stage".

Sources close to Lt Gen Nyamwasa told the BBC on Sunday that he was recovering and should be able to leave hospital in a few days.

Once a close confidante of Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Lt Gen Nyamwasa fled to South Africa in February and has since accused the president of corruption - charges Mr Kagame denies.

Rwanda's government accuses Lt Gen Nyamwasa of links to grenade attacks in Kigali earlier this year and has previously tried to secure his extradition.

Lt Gen Nyamwasa has denied the allegations.

There have been several recent defections from the military ahead of elections due in August.

'Grabbed the gun'

 

The Nyamwasas had been returning from a shopping trip at around midday on Saturday (1000 GMT) when the gunman approached their car.

 

[Mr Kagame] said it in parliament that he will actually kill my husband Rosette Nyamwasa

 

"[The gunman] spoke to my driver, but he wanted space to be able to shoot my husband," Rosette Nyamwasa told the BBC.

"Then when my husband bent, he shot. And fortunately, it went into the stomach and not in the head.

"My husband got out immediately.

"And he grabbed the gun. In that kind of scuffle, the guy couldn't cock the gun."

She added that Mr Kagame wanted her husband dead.

"[Mr Kagame] said it in parliament that he will actually kill my husband, that wherever he is he will follow him and kill him," she said.

But Rwanda's Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in a statement that Mr Kagame's government "does not condone violence" and said she trusted South Africa to investigate the shooting thoroughly.

Lt Gen Nyamwasa also claimed the judiciary was compromised and told the BBC in a recent interview that the judges were now "President Paul Kagame's property".

A couple of months after Lt Gen Nyamwasa went into exile along with another top military officer, Mr Kagame reshuffled the military leadership.

At the time, two high-ranking officers were also suspended and put under house arrest.

Arrest warrants

Lt Gen Nyamwasa played an important role in the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Mr Kagame, which put a stop to the killing and which is now in power.

But France and Spain have issued arrest warrants against Mr Nyamwasa for his alleged role in the lead-up to and during the genocide, along with other senior RPF figures.

Mr Kagame, in power for the past 16 years, is viewed by many in the West as one of Africa's more dynamic leaders.

However critics have raised concerns about his more authoritarian tendencies and the government has recently been accused of harassing the opposition ahead of the elections.

India police say Maoists sabotage train, 65 killed

Maoist rebels sabotaged a high-speed train in eastern India on Friday that killed at least 65 people after it derailed and smashed into the path of a goods train, a top Indian police official said.

At least 200 people were injured and the death toll could rise as rescuers continue to free passengers trapped in the wreckage.

"This has been done by the Maoists," Bhupinder Singh, police chief of West Bengal state where the incident occurred, told reporters. Singh said the Maoists had claimed responsibility.

The incident will put further pressure on the Congress party-led government to bring in the military to tackle a four-decade-long Maoists insurgency that has spread across much of rural swathes of eastern and central India.

The crash occurred in an area known to be a stronghold of the rebels. Maoists, who say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless and want to overthrow the government, have stepped up attacks in recent months.
"It appears to be a case of sabotage where a portion of the railway track was removed. Whether explosives were used is not yet clear," Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in a statement.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier said a bomb had hit the passenger train, derailing it.

"As of now we have got information that 65 dead bodies have been recovered. There may be many more," Samar Ghosh, Home Secretary of West Bengal state, told NDTV news channel.

The Gyaneshwari Express, which was going to Mumbai from the eastern metropolis of Kolkata in West Bengal state, was derailed in the state's Jhargram area at around 1:30 a.m. (9 p.m. British time on Thursday).

"The cries of women and children from inside the compartments have died down. They (railway staff) are still struggling to cut through metal and bring out those trapped inside," Amitava Rath, a local journalist at the scene of the crash, told Reuters.

The incident comes days after a passenger airliner crashed in southern India, killing 158 people.

The Maoists have increased attacks this year. In April, 76 police were killed in an ambush in one of the heaviest tolls in years. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the insurgency as India's biggest internal security challenge.

More than 1,000 attacks were recorded in 2009 and 600 people were killed. The Maoists regularly attack railway lines and factories, aiming to cripple economic activity.

The insurgency has created a sense that India is not fully in control of its territories and increased the risks for mining firms that operate mineral-rich areas controlled by rebels.

Work on a $7-billion steel plant by India's third largest steel producer, JSW Steel Ltd, has been delayed. Frequent rebel strikes have hit production and shipment at firms such as India's largest miner of iron ore, NMDC Ltd's and state-run National Aluminium Co Ltd.

The Maoists have won some support by siding with villagers battling land seizures by large companies and their attacks are a major distraction for a government wanting to get on with its economic agenda, including fighting high food prices.

"The government will have to react strongly and there has to be a well thought-out strategy, but I don't see that happening now. It will be usual posturing and if that happens the situation can get worse," said security analyst Uday Bhaskar.

The Maoists started their struggle in 1967 with a peasant revolt, armed with bows and arrows and some stolen rifles, but have since grown to a militant insurgency armed with automatic weapons, shoulder rocket launchers, mines and explosives.

The rebels, with an estimated 20,000 combatants, including 6,000-8,000 hardcore fighters, aim to overthrow the government by 2050, say Indian officials.

In March, police suspected their hand in the derailment of India's most prestigious high-speed Rajdhani Express. Maoists have also taken over trains in past years in a show of strength, holding them for hours.

The decades-old movement is now present in a third of the country. They are mostly spread in rural pockets of 20 of India's 28 states and hurt potential business worth billions of dollars.

Abuse Scandal’s Ripples Spread Across Europe

This article is by Katrin Bennhold, Nicholas Kulish and Rachel Donadio.

MUNICH — The fallout from the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church settled across Europe, as prosecutors said they were weighing criminal charges against a priest suspected of molesting children in Germany, and Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of a bishop accused of mishandling allegations of abuse in Ireland.

The possibility of criminal charges emerged from new accusations against a priest at the center of the child-molesting scandal rocking the church in Germany. On Wednesday, church officials in Munich said the priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann — whose transfer in 1980 to an archdiocese led at the time by Benedict, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, has drawn the pope himself into the nation’s child abuse controversy — had been accused of molesting a minor as recently as 1998.

The latest revelation comes as church officials in northern Germany say they have “credible evidence” of at least two other cases of sexual abuse committed by Father Hullermann in the 1970s, adding to a trail of accusations that suggest a pattern of abuse over two decades. During that time, church officials repeatedly transferred Father Hullermann to new parishes and allowed him to work with children, even after a 1986 conviction for sexually abusing boys.

Father Hullermann has not returned repeated calls and hung up without comment when reached briefly on Wednesday.

At the Vatican on Thursday, a small group of abuse victims gathered to demonstrate against the church’s refusal to defrock a priest in Wisconsin implicated in the abuse of as many as 200 deaf boys, and the role the pope had played in the case when oversaw the Vatican’s doctrinal arm.

“The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret,” Peter Isely, Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told the Associated Press. “This is the most incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get.”

The A.P. reported that some of the demonstrators were detained by police. In Ireland, Bishop John Magee, whose resignation was accepted by the pope on Wednesday, issued a statement of apology. In 2008, an investigation by a church panel into allegations in Cloyne found that Bishop Magee had failed to respond to accusations of abuse and that policies to protect children were severely lacking, setting off calls for his resignation.

“As I depart, I want to offer once again my sincere apologies,” said Bishop Magee, who had served as private secretary to three popes. He added, “To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon.”

Bishop Magee’s was the first resignation the pope accepted since issuing a long-awaited letter to Irish Catholics last weekend apologizing to victims of sexual abuse and expressing “shame and remorse.”

Yet Benedict’s letter did not call for any church leaders to be disciplined, feeding a growing sense of anger in Ireland. Many Catholics there are demanding that the leader of the Irish church, Cardinal Sean Brady, resign over his role as a young priest in the 1970s in urging two children to sign secrecy agreements and not to report abuse.

Benedict’s letter followed two scathing Irish government reports last year revealing decades of sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children and a widespread cover-up. The findings have shaken the Irish church to its core; some fear it has lost a generation to the crisis.

Bishop Magee’s resignation accompanied a steady drumbeat for more church leaders to step down. Beyond Bishop Magee, four other Irish bishops implicated in the government reports for failing to protect children have offered to resign, but Benedict has accepted only one’s offer.

Nor has Benedict addressed the German scandal directly. So far, no cases have emerged from the two-year period when Father Hullermann worked at St. John the Baptist Church in Munich and Benedict was archbishop. But accusations have now surfaced at every other stop between Father Hullermann’s ordination in 1973 and his criminal conviction in 1986, and during a later assignment in 1998.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Munich archdiocese said the most recent potential victim had contacted the church. “The likely victim was a minor at the time,” the statement said, noting that the case had been referred to the prosecutor’s office.

“We are currently investigating the circumstances of the case,” said Eduard Mayer, the head of the prosecutor’s office handling the matter.

Church authorities have also been alerted to two previously unknown potential victims in the northern town of Bottrop. “We have two tip-offs that are so conclusive that we must proceed under the assumption that these incidents took place,” said Ulrich Lota, spokesman for the diocese in Essen, where Father Hullermann was ordained, confirming that in both cases the victims were boys.

Father Hullermann was abruptly transferred from Bottrop to Essen in 1977, but, according to Mr. Lota, there are no references in his file to abuse from that time.

Two years later, three sets of parents told the priest in charge of Father Hullermann’s new church that he had abused their children, prompting his transfer to Munich for therapy, where he was returned to parish duties.

After just over two years in Munich he was transferred once again, this time to the nearby town of Grafing. There, he abused several boys, leading to his conviction in 1986, which resulted in a suspended sentence of five years’ probation and a fine.

He then spent one year working in a nursing home before he was sent to a parish in Garching.

On Tuesday, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, the archbishop at the time of Father Hullermann’s transfer to Garching, asked victims and their families to forgive him for allowing the priest to transfer to there during his tenure. “I am now painfully aware that I should have made a different decision at the time,” said Cardinal Wetter, who stepped down as archbishop in 2007.

Wolfgang Reichenwallner, the mayor of Garching, where Father Hullermann worked for 21 years after his 1986 conviction, said that the apology had come “awfully late” and that town officials had not been informed about the priest’s repeated transgressions.

Cardinal Wetter said he had “overestimated a person’s ability to change and underestimated the difficulties of therapeutic treatment for people with pedophile tendencies.”

The Munich archdiocese, in its initial statement on Father Hullermann’s case this month, said “the statements of the treating psychologist” were decisive in his return to parish duties.

But Dr. Werner Huth, the psychiatrist who treated Father Hullermann from 1980 to 1992, said last week that from the very outset he had repeatedly warned church officials not to allow the priest to work with children ever again.

Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.

“I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood,” Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. “I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.

The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.

Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.

Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest.

Even as the pope himself in a recent letter to Irish Catholics has emphasized the need to cooperate with civil justice in abuse cases, the correspondence seems to indicate that the Vatican’s insistence on secrecy has often impeded such cooperation. At the same time, the officials’ reluctance to defrock a sex abuser shows that on a doctrinal level, the Vatican has tended to view the matter in terms of sin and repentance more than crime and punishment.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was shown the documents and was asked to respond to questions about the case. He provided a statement saying that Father Murphy had certainly violated “particularly vulnerable” children and the law, and that it was a “tragic case.” But he pointed out that the Vatican was not forwarded the case until 1996, years after civil authorities had investigated the case and dropped it.

Father Lombardi emphasized that neither the Code of Canon Law nor the Vatican norms issued in 1962, which instruct bishops to conduct canonical investigations and trials in secret, prohibited church officials from reporting child abuse to civil authorities. He did not address why that had never happened in this case.

As to why Father Murphy was never defrocked, he said that “the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties.” He said that Father Murphy’s poor health and the lack of more recent accusations against him were factors in the decision.

The Vatican’s inaction is not unusual. Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church’s doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked, according to a recent interview in an Italian newspaper with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the chief internal prosecutor at that office. An additional 10 percent were defrocked immediately. Ten percent left voluntarily. But a majority — 60 percent — faced other “administrative and disciplinary provisions,” Monsignor Scicluna said, like being prohibited from celebrating Mass.

To many, Father Murphy appeared to be a saint: a hearing man gifted at communicating in American Sign Language and an effective fund-raiser for deaf causes. A priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, he started as a teacher at St. John’s School for the Deaf, in St. Francis, in 1950. He was promoted to run the school in 1963 even though students had disclosed to church officials in the 1950s that he was a predator.

Victims give similar accounts of Father Murphy’s pulling down their pants and touching them in his office, his car, his mother’s country house, on class excursions and fund-raising trips and in their dormitory beds at night. Arthur Budzinski said he was first molested when he went to Father Murphy for confession when he was about 12, in 1960.

“If he was a real mean guy, I would have stayed away,” said Mr. Budzinski, now 61, who worked for years as a journeyman printer. “But he was so friendly, and so nice and understanding. I knew he was wrong, but I couldn’t really believe it.”

Mr. Budzinski and a group of other deaf former students spent more than 30 years trying to raise the alarm, including passing out leaflets outside the Milwaukee cathedral. Mr. Budzinski’s friend Gary Smith said in an interview that Father Murphy molested him 50 or 60 times, starting at age 12. By the time he graduated from high school at St. John’s, Mr. Smith said, “I was a very, very angry man.”

In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse.

However, it was not until 1996 that Archbishop Weakland tried to have Father Murphy defrocked. The reason, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, was to defuse the anger among the deaf and restore their trust in the church. He wrote that since he had become aware that “solicitation in the confessional might be part of the situation,” the case belonged at the doctrinal office.

With no response from Cardinal Ratzinger, Archbishop Weakland wrote a different Vatican office in March 1997 saying the matter was urgent because a lawyer was preparing to sue, the case could become public and “true scandal in the future seems very possible.”

Recently some bishops have argued that the 1962 norms dictating secret disciplinary procedures have long fallen out of use. But it is clear from these documents that in 1997, they were still in force.

But the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency.

In an interview, Archbishop Weakland said that he recalled a final meeting at the Vatican in May 1998 in which he failed to persuade Cardinal Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Father Murphy. (In 2002, Archbishop Weakland resigned after it became public that he had an affair with a man and used church money to pay him a settlement.)

Archbishop Weakland said this week in an interview, “The evidence was so complete, and so extensive that I thought he should be reduced to the lay state, and also that that would bring a certain amount of peace in the deaf community.”

Father Murphy died four months later at age 72 and was buried in his priestly vestments. Archbishop Weakland wrote a last letter to Cardinal Bertone explaining his regret that Father Murphy’s family had disobeyed the archbishop’s instructions that the funeral be small and private, and the coffin kept closed.

“In spite of these difficulties,” Archbishop Weakland wrote, “we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church.”

Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome.

Document Trail: The Predator Priest Who Got Away

Is this Love?

I cant seem to be able to get time these days. But, I have to.

Today is Friday. That is when we shall see whether or not the government in Kenya will be protecting its gay citizens in Mombasa against anti-gay attacks, which are supposed to occur after the Friday Prayers. 1pm today.

But, here is another, very personal development.

First, it would be instructive to read the whole report at LGBT Asylum news.

And, then you get to the bottom of the report, there is this poster.

David Kuria Mbote happens to be the director of Gays and Lesbians of Kenya. He wrote this article in response to some homophobic insult from a priest justifying the lynching of gay people.

And, for this poster, here is my translation of the Swahili above. It is not perfect, but I know I have it right.

Basically, besides the pic of David, with his full names, email address, GALCK phone number, a verse from the bible is quoted. 

'If a man sleeps with another man like he sleeps with a woman, both men have done something extremely bad. It is a must for them to be killed, and their blood shall be on their own heads' 

My swahili fails at the translation of what verse in the bible it is. Something, maybe Leviticus 20:23

Yeah, Isn't this love?

Just hope and Pray David, that you are safe after this kind of hate thing.

And, according to LGBT asylum news, do you want to know what ProjectSee is?

No. They are not Kenyans.
Ugandans? No, they are not Ugandans.
Then where the hell are these guys coming from who are nakedly threatening a poor Kenyan with death? Here is the answer.

ProjectSee.com, which is based in Kansas City, is raising funds to 'equip our Kenyan Brothers with Cameras, Banners, Fliers, Posters, Bus Fare; the Tools they Need to STOP Exporting Evil'.

Yes, they are Americans. At least that is what I surmise.

Surely, the Culture Wars, America's Culture wars are here in Africa.

Selektive Moral

Some people do think it is easy to get asylum.

No. It isnt. Even when one is gay. Part of the reason I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that I have exhausted all the necessary steps to stay in Uganda, and only seek asylum as a very last resort.

This report of a Gay Ugandan asylum seeker is the one which has set me off.

Fact, I will need to have a very good reason for leaving Uganda to face the indignity that is described in this article. A reason like the loss of my life. Yes, I know, (sighhhhh!), another reason to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich. Dont worry, life is too precious for me to throw away. Inspite of the Bahati Bill.

Frank Mugisha talks about being Gay in Uganda, here. I havent watched the film. My link is too slow. But, I am sure he says all the good things....! Or the bad things, whatever your take. And, Julius Kaggwa on NPR radio.

But, since the topic is selective morality, let me get back to it.

You, of course have heard of Uganda's Gay Porn showing Pastor. If you havent, where have you been hiding? Come out, here is the feed. And, the reactions.

Did I point out that the Honourable minister for morals in Uganda, Minister of Ethics and Integrity, the Honourable James Nsaba-Buturo is a very close friend of the Gay Porn Show pastor? Maybe it did skip my mind. But, I wrote to the press, and had that letter copied to the Minister of Morals. As the 'Concerned Citizen' gug.

But, the Minister of Uganda's Morals is a very interesting guy. These days, he doesnt speak so much about the huge evil immorality of the homosexuals who he wants to forget about human rights, and surrender their right to life and liberty.

I think someone asked him to shut up. But, I may be wrong.

He still speaks about corruption.

Do you know who the Ugandan Public think are the most corrupt politicians? Museveni, Mbabazi, Muhwezi - Top Most Corrupt Politicians? They are effectively the dear President, the Minister of Defence, and the Minister for something. I think one or the other of those is related to the President.

Who defends the President? the Rt, Honourable Nsaba-Buturo.

However, the Minister in charge of instilling Ethics and Integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, dismissed the ACCU's findings as unscientific. "It is dangerous, wrong to make such bold statements about people of high authority basing on people's opinions which may not be informed. It is not a reliable measure in any way. ACCU needs to move to scientific methods of gathering evidence and needs to make wider consultations before making such accusations. They need hard evidence to make such a case. In which corruption case has the President been cited, for example?" Buturo asked.

Has enough been said without bringing the heavy eye of authority on me? It can be scathing. Burning.... but my beef is with the Minister of Ethics whose view of morality is very, err, selective.

But then, he is a politician, not so?

Intellectual Dishonesty. I dont speak English as a first language. Sometimes the words just fail to roll off my tongue.

I was looking for that particular duo, Intellectual dishonesty, and I did fail to get it. It was in relation to some people who vehemently support Ssempa, and his doings... the porn show plus. And, Bahati, who seems to be convinced that the bill he wrote will not kill me. Or, is that the exact translation and what I want to mean by 'intellectual dishonesty'? Telling a lie, for the lie's sake. Dishonouring ones own intelligence, to gain your way.

I have to go and think about that.

Me, when I am dishonest, I try to be a good hypocrite. Of course, I do tell lies....

Be well, and have a lovely day

Here, it is raining cats, dogs, and assorted other livestock. Be good.

PS.

One cannot talk about selective morality without mentioning some of our own pastors. Ugandan pastors, I mean. (Oups, I have mentioned one, havent I?)

Anyway, during the Pastor Wars, 5 pastors ganged up to accuse one of their colleagues of being a homosexual. So, the accusations stood for some time, and their fellow fought that war, and they found themselves on the back burner. According to the police report, these pastors had actually paid money to the men who were accusing the prominent pastor rival.

Are you with me?

Ok. Now, Benny Hinn is reported to be dealing with divorce papers. And, so says the red rug rubbish, sodomy on a trip to Uganda is cited. I hate not to be able to confirm things, but the red rug writes lies for the sake of selling the paper. Anyway, the red rug headline yesterday; 'Benny Hinn Sodomised Top Kampala Pastor.'

Today, one of the articles is that Male and Kyazze, two of the pastors that accused their rivals of sodomy take this as vindication. So, they took the chance to say they know the pastor who was so 'sodomised'

I think, soon is coming another episode in the Pastor Wars. If you want to really know more of those, search Pastor Wars on this blog.

And, yes, the selective morality of Uganda's 'Christian Pastors' is sometimes overwhelming. They do embarass even me, sodomite as I am. What intellectual incompetence! It is breathtaking. But, what have they done wrong?

Be well

Have a great day, chill and all.

Ahmadinejad’s Security Cabinet

Photo: Sadegh Mahsouli (standing) says he is worth $160 million.
He was a penniless IRGC officer at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles

[TEHRAN BUREAU] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced the list of people who will fill key cabinet positions, including those who will deal with security issues.

The author had already identified four candidates likely to be the next Minister of Intelligence (MI). One of the two top candidates, Heidar Moslehi, was announced as Ahmadinejad’s choice to head Intelligence. Moslehi is a mid-rank cleric who is currently the head of the Organization for Islamic Endowments (vaghf) and Charities, which runs a vast network of mosques, endowed Islamic charities, and other endowed organizations. When Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, he appointed Moslehi as his adviser for clerical affairs. At that time Moslehi was the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in the Basij militia. But, his appointment was protested by many because he was involved with the Basij and, thus, he resigned after three months. Ayatollah Khamenei then appointed Moslehi to his present post.

If approved by the Majles (parliament), Moslehi will probably enhance dramatically the influence of the military in the security and intelligence apparatus because of his ties to the Basij. As previously reported by the author, the increasing influence of the military, particularly the intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been a prime reason for the resignation of many senior figures in the MI.

When former Intelligence Minister Gholamgoseein Mohseni Ejehei and two of his deputies submitted a report to Ayatollah Khamenei, in which they rejected the claim by the IRGC and Ahmadinejad that linked the demonstrations after the rigged presidential election of June 12 to a plan for a “velvet revolution,” Ahmadinejad reportedly said during a gathering of the senior staff of the MI, that, “I am not happy with the Ministry of Intelligence.” He now has his own man at the Ministry.

The current Minister of Defense (MD), Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, will take over the Interior Ministry. There was already a clue that Najjar would leave his position at Defense and be moved to a new cabinet position: in the Majlis ceremony two weeks ago when Ahmadinejad took the oath of the office, Mohammad-Najjar, a Brigadier General, had appeared in civilian clothes.

Mohammad-Najjar was born in Tehran in 1956. He was active in the 1979 Revolution and joined the IRGC at its inception, three months after the Revolution’s victory in February 1979. There was some unrest in the Kurdistan province at that time, and Mohammad-Najjar actively participated in quelling that unrest (which had resulted in extensive bloodshed). He was then an IRGC staff officer responsible for the Sistan and Baluchestan province in southeastern Iran on the border with Pakistan. After Iran’s armed forces successfully pushed Iraqi forces from most of Iran in the spring of 1982, Ayatollah Khomeini approved the establishment of a Middle East Directorate, and Mohammad-Najjar, who speaks Arabic fluently, was appointed as its first director. The IRGC dispatched an expeditionary force to Lebanon in the summer of 1982 (after Israel had invaded Lebanon), which was stationed in the Biqa Valley in the eastern part of the country, where it trained the future fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah, which was officially founded in February 1985.

Mohammad-Najjar returned to Iran in 1985. At that time, the IRGC was under the control of the Ministry of the Guards, and Mohammad-Najjar held various positions in the armament industry that the IRGC was setting up. In 1989, the Ministries of Defense and Guards merged under former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Mohaamad- Najjar was appointed the head of the armament section of the Organization of Defense (Military) Industries (ODI), a position that he held until 2005, when he was appointed the Minister of Defense. During his tenure, the ODI was turned into a relatively efficient organization that has played a key role in Iran’s rapid advancement in the area of developing new missiles, and turning self-sufficient in producing a large part of its conventional ammunition. He has also played a key role in the expansion of military ties between Iran and Russia, having traveled there several times.

Mohammad-Najjar has a B.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from the Khajeh Nasireddin Toosi in Tehran, and an M.S. in executive management from the Organization of Industrial Management. He is considered a hardliner among the top commanders of the IRGC.

Mohammad-Najjar’s post at the MD will be taken up by Sadegh Mahsouli, the current Minister of Interior. He is known in Iran as the “billionaire minister.” When he was proposed by Ahmadinejad to be his first Minister of Oil in 2005, Mahsouli admitted in response to questions asked during his confirmation proceedings in Majlis that his net worth was about $160 million (or 1.6 billion touman in Iranian currency, hence the nickname), although many believe that his net worth is probably much higher. The Majles rejected his nomination as the Minister of Oil, partly because Mahsouli could not provide a satisfactory answer to the question of how he, a dirt poor IRGC officer in 1988 at the end of Iran-Iraq war, could amass such a large wealth during such a short time.

Ahmadinejad then appointed Mahsouli as his adviser. In November 2008, after Ali Kordan, Ahmadinejad’s second Minister of Interior was impeached by the Majles when it was revealed that not only did he not have a doctoral degree from Oxford University (as he had claimed), but that his most advanced degree was a simple Associates Degree, Ahmadinejad appointed Mahsouli as his Minister of Interior. (Ahmadinejad’s first Interior Minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, was fired). Mahsouli’s appointment was narrowly approved by the Majles. As the supervisor of the election, Mahsouli played a key role in events leading up to June 12.

Mahsouli was born in 1959 in Orumieyeh, located in Western Azerbaijan province. He received a B.Sc. degree in civil engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran, where he was a classmate and friend of Ahmadinejad. He joined the IRGC, fought in the Iran-Iraq war, and held high military positions, such as the commander of the 6^th Special Forces division, head of the inspection of the IRGC, and deputy MD in charge of planning. He was also the governor of Orumiyeh, and deputy governor-general for the Western Azerbaijan province.

It was during his work in Western Azerbaijan that Mahsouli amassed his initial millions. At that time Ahmadinejad was the governor-general of Ardabil province, which is on Iran’s border with the Republic of Azerbaijan. The two nations were swapping oil: Iran would buy oil from Azerbaijan for local use, and deliver equivalent amounts to its southern seaports for export. Ahmadinejad helped put Mahsouli in charge of oil swaps, which made him close to $10 million and got him started in his business ventures. Later, Mahsouli used his connections to illicitly take control of 17,000 square meters of land in one of Tehran’s best neighborhood, worth millions of dollars.

Saeed Jalili, Iran’s current chief nuclear negotiator and secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, will be appointed the new Foreign Minister (FM). The current FM, Manouchehr Mottaki, a career diplomat, will apparently leave the government.

Jalili was born in 1965 in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran. He has a Ph.D. in political science from Imam Sadegh (Sadeq) University in Tehran. The University was established in 1982 by the powerful conservative clergy, Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, the head of the Society of the Militant Clergy. The conservatives’ goal in establishing this university (and others, such as the Islamic Azad University, and the Payaam-e Nour University) has been educating and training conservative students to fill Iran’s bureaucracy. Jalili’s research was on political thinking according to the holy Quran.

From 2001-2005, Jalili was the director-general of the office of the Supreme Leader, where he worked closely with hardliners in that office. An old friend of Ahmadinejad, Jalili was his first choice for the post of FM in 2005, but after he was opposed by various factions within the conservative camp, Jalili was appointed the deputy FM for European and American affairs. In October 2007, after Ali Larijani, the current Speaker of the Majles, suddenly resigned from his posts as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, Jalili was appointed to both posts. But his inexperience in the nuclear area was so glaring that after his appointment, Larijani accompanied him to Rome for a negotiation session with the European Union.

Jalili has a reputation for being extremely arrogant. He is known to have given long lectures to his European counterparts in nuclear negotiations, repeating himself and his claims without paying much attention to what his counterparts say. He is, of course, a hardliner.

Jalili has played a key role in the June 12 election coup. Together with a few others, such as Hossein Taeb, the Basij militia commander, he was a major player in the “control room” leading the election coup, apparently led by Mojtaba Khamenei, and Major General Mohammad Ali (Aziz) Jafari, the IRGC’s top commander. His key role in that affair is now apparently being rewarded by Ahmadinejad.

Troops arrest Honduran president

Troops detain Honduran president

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Troops arrest Honduran president

Troops in Honduras have detained the president ahead of a referendum on plans to change the constitution.

President Manuel Zelaya's secretary said he had been taken to an airbase outside the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Mr Zelaya, elected for a non-renewable four-year term in January 2006, wanted a vote to extend his time in office.

The referendum, due on Sunday, had been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and was also opposed by Congress and members of Mr Zelaya's own party.

Reuters news agency reports that soldiers fired teargas at about 500 supporters of Mr Zelaya who had gathered outside the presidential palace, as air force jets flew over the capital.

'Coup plot'

Early on Sunday, a reporter for the Associated Press news agency said he had seen dozens of troops surround Mr Zelaya's residence.

MANUEL ZELAYA Won the Honduran presidential election for the Liberal Party in November 2005, beating the ruling National Party's candidate Has moved Honduras away from its traditional ally the US Enjoys the support of Venezuela's leftist President, Hugo Chavez A civil engineer and rancher by profession

The arrest comes after President Zelaya defied a court order that he should re-instate the chief of the army, Gen Romeo Vasquez.

The president sacked Gen Vasquez late on Wednesday for refusing to help him organise a referendum.

Mr Zelaya, who under current regulations leaves office next January, also accepted the resignation of the defence minister.

The referendum was to ask the population if they approved of a formal vote next November on whether to rewrite the Honduran constitution.

In an interview with Spain's El Pais newspaper published on Sunday, Mr Zelaya said a planned coup against him had been thwarted after the US refused to back it.

"Everything was in place for the coup and if the US embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not," Mr Zeleya said.

"I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States."

The arrest of Mr Zelaya took place an hour before polls were due to open.

Chavez condemnation

Ballot boxes and other voting materials had been distributed by Mr Zelaya's supporters and government employees throughout the Central American country.

Mr Zelaya's ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, reportedly denounced the arrest as a "coup d'etat", urging US President Barack Obama to speak out.

Mr Chavez said "the Yankee empire has a lot to do" with developments in Honduras, according to AFP news agency.

The European Union called on the Honduran military to release the president and restore constitutional order, AFP also reported.

Rumours swirled in the Honduran media about the president's fate.

Rafael Alegria, a union leader and Zelaya ally, told Honduran radio Cadena de Noticias, shots had been fired during the president's arrest.

Meanwhile, Honduran radio station HRN said Mr Zelaya had been sent into exile, and possibly flown on the presidential plane to Venezuela.

On Thursday, the Honduran Congress approved plans to investigate whether the president should be declared unfit to rule.

Earlier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had urged Honduras' leaders to "act with full respect for the rule of law and democratic institutions".

The president had vowed to transform democracy in Honduras, saying the system currently favours the wealthy elite.

But his opponents accused him of seeking to rule indefinitely.

The political crisis has stoked tensions in Honduras, an impoverished coffee and banana-exporting nation of more than 7 million people.

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THE STATE MURDERS!

On Saturday December 6, 2008, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year old comrade, was murdered in cold blood, with a bullet in the chest by a cop in the area of Exarchia.

Contrary to the statements of politicians and journalists who are accomplices to the murder, this was not an “isolated incident”, but an explosion of the state repression which systematically and in an organised manner targets those who resist, those who revolt, the anarchists and antiauthoritarians.

It is the peak of state terrorism which is expressed with the upgrading of the role of repressive mechanisms, their continuous armament, the increasing levels of violence they use, with the doctrine of “zero tolerance”, with the slandering media propaganda that criminalises those who are fighting against authority.

It is these conditions that prepare the ground for the intensification of repression, attempting to extract social consent beforehand, and arming the weapons of state murderers in uniform!

Lethal violence against the people in the social and class struggle is aiming at everybody’s submission, serving as exemplary punishment, meant to spread fear.

It is part of the wider attack of the state and the bosses against the entire society, in order to impose more rigid conditions of exploitation and oppression, to consolidate control and repression. From school and universities to the dungeons of waged slavery with the hundreds of dead workers in the so-called “working accidents” and the poverty embracing large numbers of the population… From the minefields in the borders, the pogroms and the murders of immigrants and refugees to the numerous “suicides” in prisons and police stations… from the “accindental shootings” in police blockades to violent repression of local resistances, Democracy is showing its teeth!

From the first moment after the murder of Alexandros, spontaneous demonstrations and riots burst in the center of Athens, the Polytechnic, the Economic and the Law Schools are being occupied and attacks against state and capitalist targets take place in many different neighborhoods and in the city centre. Demonstrations, attacks and clashes erupt in Thessaloniki, Patras, Volos, Chania and Heraklion in Crete, in Giannena, Komotini and many more cities. In Athens, in Patission street –outside the Polytechnic and the Economic School- clashes last all night. Outside the Polytechnic the riot police make use of plastic bullets.

On Sunday the 7th December, thousands of people demonstrate towards the police headquarters in Athens, attacking the riot police. Clashes of unprecedented tension spread in the streets of the city centre, lasting until late at night. Many demonstrators are injured and a number of them are arrested.


We continue the occupation of the Polytechnic School which started on Saturday night, creating a space for all people who fighting to gather, and one more permanent focus of resistance in the city.

In the barricades, the university occupations, the demonstrations and the assemblies we keep alive the memory of Alexandros, but also the memory of Michalis Kaltezas and of all the comrades who were murdered by the state, strengthening the struggle for a world without masters and slaves, without police, armies, prisons and borders.

The bullets of the murderers in uniform, the arrests and beatings of demonstrators, the chemical gas war launched by the police forces, not only cannot manage to impose fear and silence, but they become for the people the reason to raise against state terrorism the cries of the struggle for freedom, to abandon fear and to meet –more and more every day- in the streets of revolt. To let the rage overflow and drown them!

STATE TERRORISM SHALL NOT PASS!

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL THE ARRESTED IN THE EVENTS OF SATURDAY AND SUNDAY (7-8 DECEMBER).

We are sending our solidarity to everyone occupying universities, demonstrating and clashing with the state murderers all over the country.

The Occupation of the Polytechnic University in Athens