A snake by any other name is still...
Today and tomorrow in Washington, activists from across the hemisphere have gathered to organize around and lobby against the School of the Americas (SOA), which continues to play a central role in the global spread of U.S. militarism. Some years ago, the U.S. government officially changed the name of the institution, based in Fort Benning, Georgia, from SOA to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). The diversion in language didn't change its negative impact on human rights, however.
Now, this past weekend, came the news that Blackwater Worldwide corporation — the private security company made infamous for its mercenary work in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, and elsewhere (I urge you to read Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army) — is changing its name to "Xe." The new name sounds more like a video game, which is perhaps the idea, as the company is renowned for how its employees characterize the brash, arrogant, and hard-core aesthetic of today's popular and violent game industry.
One of the incidents for which Blackwater received international notoriety occurred a few years ago in Iraq when four of its for-hire American contractors were kidnapped by Iraqis, murdered, and viciously hanged. The use of kidnapping in Iraq became big business for various unaffiliated militias, as has often been the case in conflicts throughout the world. Three kidnappings in other countries have shocked the peace and human rights community over the past fortnight.
On Friday, February 6th, an Egyptian-German human rights activist living in Egypt disappeared. Philip Rizk had been a vocal supporter of the rights of Palestinians, especially for those living in war-torn Gaza — Rizk maintains a blog titled Tabula Gaza. His disappearance sent shock waves through the peace community, since only a month earlier he had helped longtime U.S.-Middle East activist Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, in her attempts to get into Gaza. Rizk was released by his captors, who appear to have been Egyptian government agents, but deep questions remain about the role of the government and its efforts to crackdown on various types of outspoken activism.
One week later, a Sri Lankan peace worker, Jaalil Umar, was abducted from him home. Umar is working with the Nonviolent Peaceforce, an NGO (which the Fellowship of Reconciliation helped found) that seeks to maintain civilian peacekeeping agencies in conflict zones around the world. The kidnapping happened amidst a massive effort by the Sri Lankan government to destroy the rebel Tamil Tigers guerrilla force, and a wave of killings and injuries of innocent civilians by both militarized groups.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official working for UNHCR, the refugee support agency of the United Nations, was shown in a video this weekend pleading for his life. The man, John Solecki, was kidnapped in Pakistan near the Afghani border by a group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front.
What is especially distressing about all of these incidents is how international human rights workers who are working in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, and advocating for foreign policy changes that have created these conditions, have become the targets of violent guerrilla movements. It is reminiscent of the capture and murder of the Christian Peacemaker Team worker Tom Fox in Iraq, of the kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston in Gaza, and of other such terrible incidents. We hold all the innocents in war in our prayers.
