On Sept. 22, a student protest at Cali's Universidad del Valle was brutally attacked by the Colombian National Police special anti-riot unit, the Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squad (ESMAD), which brought in an armored vehicle and fired live ammunition, hurled tear-gas cannisters and beat students with clubs. One chemistry student, Jhony Silva Aranjuren, 21, was mortally wounded and died later in the hospital; several others were also wounded. The students were protesting the cut-off of potable water to the Corregimiento de Villa Gorgona, a village in Candelaria municipality outside Cali, and aggressions against the civil population. (Red de Defensores No-Institucionalizados, Sept. 22)

Well, somebody, it seems, has found something more creative to do to protest the war in Iraq than march in orderly rows chanting monotonous slogans in unison. From New York Newsday, sept. 22:

NEW YORK -- A Manhattan judge Thursday dismissed the public nudity summons issued to an artist who was arrested after she protested the Iraq war by disrobing to display the words "STOP THE WAR" written on her naked body. [In Arabic too.—WW4 REPORT]

When a bomb exploded yesterday at the British embassy in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, causing minor injuries to a security guard, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader suggested it might be linked to Croatia's application to join the European Union. Britain is the current president of the EU, and one of several member states that has opposed Croatia's membership until it arrests its main war crimes fugitive, Gen. Ante Gotovina. (Reuters, Sept. 19) Croatian President Stipe Mesic condemned the incident as a "terrorist attack." But when an embassy employee, Damir Rovisan, was arrested today for smuggling in the device, Interior Minister Ivica Kirin said: "This indicates that this is not a terrorist act against the British embassy, but an act of an individual coming from criminal circles." Yet he admitted that no motive had been established for the bombing. (BBC, Sept. 20)

In a New York Times op-ed piece that ran Sept. 16 in the International Herald Tribune, Waleed Ziad of the Truman National Security Project questions Washington's interventionist consensus. In the piece, "Jihad's Fresh Face," Ziad writes:

The post-9/11 prevailing wisdom has held that military force and exporting democracy are the West's twin weapons against terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is the product of a "medieval" mindset, we are told, and if we can deliver elections to the Arab world, our enemies will cower before the spirit of the Enlightenment.

New York City's Union Square Park, which had been a symbol of free speech in the aftermath of 9-11, has now become a symbol of censorship. This AP account appears in today's Newsday:

On Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 7:30 PM, WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg will speak on "The Politics of the Anti-War Movement" in an event sponsored by the New SPACE (New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education):

Hard-left elements of the anti-war movement affirm the abstract right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation, but fail to grapple with the realities of Iraq's actually-existing armed resistance. The more moderate elements dodge the question entirely. Yet there is an active left opposition in Iraq that opposes the occupation, the regime it protects, and the jihadi and Baathist "resistance" alike. It is this besieged opposition, under threat of assassination and persecution, which is fighting to keep alive elementary freedoms for women, leading labor struggles against Halliburton and other US contractors, and demanding a secular future for Iraq. For all the incessant factional splits in the US anti-war movement, providing this real, progressive Iraqi resistance concrete solidarity is not even on the agenda. How can we build an effective anti-war movement which is based on principles of international solidarity, and loan a voice to our natural allies in Iraq? Join us in a discussion with award-winning journalist Bill Weinberg.

While 11 candidates (out of some 3,000) were barred from Afghanistan's parliamentary elections for ties to warlordism, many veteran Mujahedeen commanders with pasts tained by human rights abuses—or even ethnic cleansing—seem to have slipped through the cracks. Reported Newsday Sept. 19:

We recently aired first-hand accounts from paramedics in New Orleans that police from the suburb of Gretna had turned back refugees attempting to flee the devastated city at gunpoint. A Sept. 17 LA Times story, "A Roadblock to Compassion," reprinted by New York Newsday, confirms that this was the case:

GRETNA, La. - The city council of this mostly white suburb - heavily criticized for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans, trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city - has passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move.