On The Bright Side Neither Brown, Cameron & Clegg Presided Over The Murder Of 2,000 Citizens

The comparison doesn’t mean much, as is their wont, each country has its own specific conditions, for example the UK prefers to kill defenceless civilians on foreign fields, that way you get to travel to somewhere warmer and serve the establishment’s blood lust. Although must be said New Labour have been big fans of the death squads. But spare a thought for Colombians, the front runner in their presidential election Juan Manuel Santos a ‘centrist‘ conservative and Uribe & US approved former defence minister presided over a military that killed a couple of thousand civilians, made it look like they were guerrillas and the US Plan Colombia dollars kept rolling in. Although in better news, the Green candidate Antanas Mockus (ht2 Otto), is in second place!

(IPS) – The front-runner in the polls for Colombia’s presidential elections, Juan Manuel Santos, has come under fire from his rivals for his role in the scandal over young civilians killed by the army and passed off as guerrilla casualties, which broke out while he was defence minister.

“All you have to do is look at the statistics: the period when the highest number of non-combat killings was…when Santos was minister,” the opposition Liberal Party’s presidential candidate Rafael Pardo said in early March.

Santos, who was defence minister from July 2006 to May 2009, is the candidate backed by right-wing President Álvaro Uribe, in office since 2002.

The scandal, which broke out in September 2008, led to the removal of three generals and 24 other officers and noncommissioned officers, as well as the November 2008 resignation of then army chief Gen. Mario Montoya, regarded as one of the promoters of the so-called “body count” system, which used incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad to reward soldiers and officers for “results” in the counterinsurgency effort.

The magnitude of the phenomenon was such that more than 60 prosecutors have been assigned to the nearly 1,300 cases involving the murders of over 2,000 civilians – including 59 minors and 122 women – who were presented as battlefield casualties.

MORE

PS. Though as Commenter Mike points out–

No, not 2,000:

This research coincides with the Office for National Statistics announcement today that there were 22‚400 excess winter deaths of older people last year.

From:
http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/worry-warm-winter-271108.asp
Old figures admittedly, but politicians still kill thousands each year in this country with their genocide by omission policies.

Upsurge In Asylum Seekers In Industrialised World Is A Myth

It is a glaring fact the top three sources of asylum claims are from countries where the war-on-terror™ is being conducted, so a very important component of the demagogic attacks on asylum seekers is nationalists wanting to silence witnesses and survivors of the war crimes being committed in our names. Yes, I mean you Phil Woolas. Asylum policy as part of the war strategy, the collective punishment of entire civilian populations including denying them safe haven. Yes there are many other factors (resource curse, Capital predation, corruption) but as this shows there is not a ‘swamping’ and if you wanted solutions not blowing the shit out of peoples homes should figure somewhat higher than locking up children, unless of course we happily welcome being despotic imperial scum (or the Good Old Days as it is known to the Establishment).

UNHCR:- The overall number of asylum seekers in industrialized nations was stable in 2009, according to the UNHCR provisional statistical report that measures asylum levels and trends in industrialized nations.

“The notion that there is a flood of asylum seekers into richer countries is a myth,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “Despite what some populists claim, our data shows that the numbers have remained stable.”

Compared to 2008, the overall number of asylum seekers remained the same with 377,000 applications, despite significant regional disparities highlighted by the report. The number of asylum applications increased in 19 countries, while they fell in the other 25. Of note was the Nordic region that recorded a 13 percent increase with 51,100 new applicants, the highest in six years. By contrast, the number of applications in southern Europe went down by 33 percent with 50,100 claims, driven by significant declines in Italy (-42%), Turkey (-40%) and Greece (-20%).

Afghan claims on the rise

Afghans topped the list of asylum applicants with 26,800 submissions representing a 45 per cent increase over 2008. Iraqis dropped to second place with some 24,000 claims, while Somalis moved to third position with 22,600 asylum applications. Among the top countries of origin were also the Russian Federation, China, Serbia, and Nigeria.

The yearly UNHCR report analyses asylum levels and trends in the 27 European Union member states, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Turkey. It also covers the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.

The United States stayed the main destination country for the fourth year, with 13 percent of the claims representing an estimated 49,000 people, in particular from China. Second was France, receiving 42,000 new applications in 2009, a 19 percent hike compared to 2008, due to increasing claims from citizens of Serbia originating predominantly from Kosovo. Canada, while still ranking third among receiving countries, saw the number of asylum applications decrease by 10 percent in 2009 down to 33,000 after a drop in Mexican and Haitian claims. Following was The United Kingdom which also registered a drop in claims with 29,800 applications, one of the lowest in 15 years. On the other hand, claims in Germany increased by 25 percent with 27,600 applications recorded in 2009, making it the fifth largest receiving country. Together, these five top destination countries received 48 percent of the total claims recorded in 2009.

In terms of regions of origin, nearly half of the total 377,000 applicants originate from Asia and the Middle East (45%), followed by Africa (29%), Europe (15.5%), and the Americas (9%).

UK Is Worst For Making Fake ‘No Torture’ Deals

The UK has today been singled out for heavy criticism in a new report from Amnesty International on the practice among European countries of striking “no torture” deals with foreign countries as a means to deport people it labels a threat to national security.

In a 36-page report – Dangerous Deals: Europe’s reliance on ‘diplomatic assurances’ against torture – Amnesty documents how European governments are attempting to send foreigners alleged to be security threats to countries where they’re at risk of torture or other ill-treatment in exchange for unreliable, unenforceable “diplomatic assurances” that they will be treated humanely.

Describing the UK as “the most influential and aggressive” promoter of the policy of seeking “diplomatic assurances”, Amnesty is calling on the UK and 11 other European countries to immediately end the practice.

The call comes as the Special Immigration Appeals Commission is set to deliberate on the case of an Ethiopian national threatened with deportation based on a “memorandum of understanding” between the UK and Ethiopia that purportedly promises that the man will not be tortured on return. However, Amnesty has documented serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia and believes that diplomatic deals with Ethiopia are an extremely unreliable guide to future treatment in that country.

MORE

PDF here