Feud Brews Over Katrina Housing Funds

by Sheila Byrd

JACKSON, Mississippi - A state agency wants to divert $600 million from a Hurricane Katrina housing program to a port restoration project, outraging advocacy groups who say the proposal shortchanges thousands of people still homeless on the Gulf Coast.

The Mississippi Development Authority has proposed taking the money from the $2.25 billion remaining in Gov. Haley Barbour’s Homeowners Assistance Grant Program, which is funded by federal block grants. Part of that program is dedicated to low-income and working poor homeowners.

“It’s just unfair,” Reilly Morse of the Mississippi Center for Justice said Wednesday. “We’ve been told affordable housing was supposed to be a priority. Don’t rob the displaced to build a port.”

Agency officials said there would be enough money in the housing fund to cover about 30,000 homeowners applying for grants to restore or rebuild property destroyed by the storm.

The development authority chose to tap the Homeowner Assistance Grant Program because it had excess funding, Donna Sanford, director of MDA’s disaster recovery division, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The proposal is open to public comment until Sept. 24, and organizations including Oxfam America and the Mississippi NAACP have said they will oppose it. The proposal needs approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The $600 million would be used to restore public infrastructure and publicly owned facilities at the State Port at Gulfport that were destroyed during the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane. It would also improve the operating capacity at the port, Barbour said in a news release.

Barbour said the restoration is “crucial to the economy of our state and essential to the revitalization of the Gulf Coast region.”

The port generates about 3,000 maritime jobs and is the third busiest container port in the Gulf of Mexico, said Don Allee, executive director of the Mississippi State Port Authority.

Thousands of families still live in FEMA trailers and affordable rental property is scarce. Roberta Avila of the Interfaith Disaster Task Force said many coast residents haven’t recovered because they don’t qualify for the governor’s housing program.

© 2007 The Associated Press

White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protesters

White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protesters

By Peter Baker
The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Not that they're worried or anything. But the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the president. As in, it doesn't want any.

A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around the country.

Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.

But that does not mean the White House is against dissent -- just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."

The "Presidential Advance Manual," dated October 2002 with the stamp "Sensitive -- Do Not Copy," was released under subpoena to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of two people arrested for refusing to cover their anti-Bush T-shirts at a Fourth of July speech at the West Virginia State Capitol in 2004. The techniques described have become familiar over the 6 1/2 years of Bush's presidency, but the manual makes it clear how organized the anti-protest policy really is.

The lawsuit was filed by Jeffery and Nicole Rank, who attended the Charleston event wearing shirts with the word "Bush" crossed out on the front; the back of his shirt said "Regime Change Starts at Home," while hers said "Love America, Hate Bush." Members of the White House event staff told them to cover their shirts or leave, according to the lawsuit. They refused and were arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed before local authorities dropped the charges and apologized. The federal government settled the First Amendment case last week for $80,000, but with no admission of wrongdoing.

The manual demonstrates "that the White House has a policy of excluding and/or attempting to squelch dissenting viewpoints from presidential events," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Miller. "Individuals should have the right to express their opinion to the president, even if it's not a favorable one."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that he could not discuss the manual because it is an issue in two other lawsuits.

The manual offers advance staffers and volunteers who help set up presidential events guidelines for assembling crowds. Those invited into a VIP section on or near the stage, for instance, must be " extremely supportive of the Administration," it says. While the Secret Service screens audiences only for possible threats, the manual says, volunteers should examine people before they reach security checkpoints and look out for signs. Make sure to look for "folded cloth signs," it advises.

To counter any demonstrators who do get in, advance teams are told to create "rally squads" of volunteers with large hand-held signs, placards or banners with "favorable messages." Squads should be placed in strategic locations and "at least one squad should be 'roaming' throughout the perimeter of the event to look for potential problems," the manual says.

"These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators," it says. "The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."

Advance teams are advised not to worry if protesters are not visible to the president or cameras: "If it is determined that the media will not see or hear them and that they pose no potential disruption to the event, they can be ignored. On the other hand, if the group is carrying signs, trying to shout down the President, or has the potential to cause some greater disruption to the event, action needs to be taken immediately to minimize the demonstrator's effect."

The manual adds in bold type: "Remember -- avoid physical contact with demonstrators! Most often, the demonstrators want a physical confrontation. Do not fall into their trap!" And it suggests that advance staff should "decide if the solution would cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone."

The staff at the West Virginia event may have missed that line.

Click here to view story.

Remembering Puerto Rico’s Ponce Massacre

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March 22, 2007

Remembering Puerto Rico’s Ponce Massacre

In Puerto Rico, Wednesday marked the 70th anniversary of the Ponce massacre. On March 21st, 1937, 19 people were killed and more than one hundred wounded when police opened fire on a demonstration calling for independence from the United States. The day is considered a defining event in Puerto Rico’s history of struggle against US domination. [includes rush transcript]

Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua, Puerto Rican political analyst and radio host. He joins us on the line from Puerto Rico.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to Puerto Rico, where the seventieth anniversary of the Ponce massacre has passed. On March 21, 1937, nineteen people were killed and more than 100 wounded when police opened fire on a demonstration calling for independence from the United States. The day is considered a defining event in Puerto Rico’s history of struggle against US domination.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua is a well-known Puerto Rican attorney, radio host and political analyst. He joins us now on the line from Puerto Rico. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Juan-Manuel.

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: It’s a pleasure, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of this date, of March 21, yesterday, in fact?

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: It is no coincidence that on the date of the commemoration of the abolition of our slavery and of the Ponce massacre that intended to celebrate it, precisely today the American Congress takes up at a hearing in an hour what to do with the eight million Puerto Ricans. And I am sure Juan will know that in my column today in El Vocero here, I have requested that they hear him and that he should send all members of the committee a copy of his brilliant book Harvest of Empire that explains it all. So I am very glad to be with you today, and don’t forget to tune in at 10:00, because the Congress, for the first time in 107 years, is going to listen to the diaspora.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Juan-Manuel, for many Americans who don’t know anything about the Ponce massacre, it would be good to sort of give the framework of what happened. And clearly, I think, Albizu Campos, the great Nationalist leader, had just been sentenced to prison on sedition charges for ten years in prison, and this protest was actually a protest to free Albizu, wasn’t it?

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Well, the whole demonstration was directed at the commemoration of the abolition of slavery, and one of the examples that slavery had continued after its abolition was precisely that Pedro Albizu Campos was imprisoned by the United States. The important thing about this celebration, commemoration—however you want to call it—is that the governor, Blanton Winship, was the one that ordered the massacre, the American governor who was a military governor with experience in the killing of Sandino in Nicaragua, and that that particular order has been transformed into a brilliant movie here by one of our best authors, called Revolucion en el Infierno, which I recommend to anybody that has a CD, because you can ask for it at the Ateneo, and it will show. The fascinating thing about that, Juan, is that its author took up the experience that his uncle told him, because his uncle was one of the wounded in the Ponce massacre. So we have now a visual testimony of what happened that day, that I recommend to all your listeners. It is really espelosnante.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to actually ask Juan, Juan-Manuel, to read from his book Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Tell us who described this massacre, Juan.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, actually, I was born in Ponce, the city where the massacre occurred, and my family was from there, and so actually, as I was doing research on the book, I started interviewing my own family members. It turned out one of my aunts, Graciela Ramos, who just recently passed away, was a Nationalist at the time, was dating one of the Nationalist cadets who was supposed to participate in the protest that day. But he decided instead to go on a picnic with my aunt, who was sixteen at the time, and so both my aunts, a younger one, who was just a little girl at the time, described to me what happened that day. And I have about a paragraph or two in my book on it.

“The day was Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937. My aunt Graciela was sixteen and caught up in the Nationalist fervor at the time. Luckily, she decided to skip the march that day and go on a picnic with her sisters, Ana and Pura. They all trekked up to El Vigia, the magnificent hilltop estate of the Seralles family, owners of the Don Q rum distillery. From the rolling castle grounds you can look down on all of Ponce. Pura, who was a child at the time, recalls that shortly after the Nationalists gathered, the church bells began to ring, and when she looked down the mountain toward the plaza she saw people scattering in all directions. A young woman they knew ran up to them, screaming, "There’s a massacre in the town. The Nationalists and the soldiers are fighting. The hospital is full of wounded.” When the smoke had cleared, 21 were dead and 150 were wounded. A human rights commission would later report that all had been gunned down by police. It was the biggest massacre in Puerto Rican history.

“After the Palm Sunday Massacre, hysteria and near civil war swept the island. Nationalists were hunted and arrested on sight. Some headed for exile in New York City or Havana. Graciela, our family’s only Nationalist Party member, decided that nothing could be won by fighting the Americans. With Albizu [Campos] in jail and the Nationalist ranks decimated, she abandoned the party.” And, of course, within a few years, most of my family then came to the United States. So it was clearly a—

AMY GOODMAN: Although they were part of the United States.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, but to the continental United States. And clearly it was the seminal event in Puerto Rico and had enormous impact on the independence movement, didn’t it, Juan-Manuel?

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Juan, I can’t describe much better than you, what you have just said. And that’s why I insisted in writing that you be cited and called to testify at those hearings either today or on April 25, when they continue, because the present congress of the United States does not know that story. And again, Ramos-Perea and his uncle and you and your aunt should be there. The dead still can’t speak, so please make an effort, Juan—you know how much I respect you and your work—to be there and testify and tell them this story, that today Democracy Now! transmits in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan-Manuel, we did a piece just before we turned to you about a family that just went to Canada. Their plane had been brought down in Puerto Rico because of an emergency on the plane, and they didn’t realize—they were an Iranian family—that they were in the United States when they came to Puerto Rico, which brings me to the question—and what Juan was talking about—for people who are not aware of Puerto Rican history, explain how it was seventy years ago that Puerto Rico was a part of the United States.

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Well, again, Amy, the problem with that is that in the case regarding the Guantanamo prisoners, just the 7th of February, the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia said that Puerto Rico is not part of the United States, has never been part of the United States, citing the case that said that, Balzac v. Porto Rico, that called Puerto Rico—and this is one of the most fantastic quotes that the Supreme Court of the United States has ever invented—“appurtenant [and belonging] to […], but not part of the United States” of America. So just a few days ago, again, the highest court under the Supreme Court of the United States said, again, what Balzac said: Puerto Rico is appurtenant to, but not part of the United States, and—and I’m quoting again from the decision in In re Guantanamo and Boumediene v. Bush—Puerto Rico is “foreign in a domestic sense.” Whatever that means. So that’s why the hearings are being called today, because the manure has hit the ventilator.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And also, that conclusion has also, to some degree, been reached by the Puerto Rican government itself, because recently—

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Exactly, Juan.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Maybe you can explain the whole issue that arose with Juan Mari Bras and the decision—I think it was last fall—of the Puerto Rican government to now issue citizenship papers that are distinct Puerto Rican citizenship papers, as opposed to American citizenship papers, in Puerto Rico. Could you explain that?

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Well, the interesting thing, Juan, is that the bills, both bills—HR 900 and HR 1230—that are being considered at the hearings today in an hour, both admit—and this is the most relevant thing of what’s going to happen today—that Juan Mari Bras was right and there is such a thing as Puerto Rican citizenship that is not American citizenship. And, again—

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Juan Mari Bras, for those people who don’t know him, was the former leader of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, who renounced his American citizenship and then was for a while stateless until this court decision on Puerto Rico came down.

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Exactly, and he was taken to court by statehooders, and he won the case in the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico that issues a brilliant opinion. And again, the fascinating thing, Juan, is that this development, the recognition of the Juan Mari Bras theory and the crisis posed by the cases of In re Guantanamo and Boumediene v. United States have been brought up in the Congress of the United States by two leaders of the diaspora—Jose Serrano, who, as you know, is a Mayaguez-Bronx combination, and Luis Gutierrez, who is a Chicago-San Sebastian combination. So I am very proud, and you’ll see my column in El Vocero today in the internet, of this enormous fact that for the first time in history, in 107 years, the initiative and the leadership on the future of Puerto Rico has gone to leaders of the diaspora. And so, I’m so glad.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan, very quickly, as you outline in Harvest of Empire, just a thumbnail history of Puerto Rico. 1898, what happened, to today, where Puerto Rico stands today.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, clearly, I mean, the Spanish-American War, which was a defining war in terms of creating an overseas empire for the United States, as a result of the Spanish-American War, one of the prizes that the United States got in the Treaty of Paris was the territory of Puerto Rico, which it occupied during the war, and initially General Nelson Miles came in promising freedom to the Puerto Rican people, but then the United States never left and continued to occupy the island, first under a military government, then under a civilian government with US-appointed officials running it. And then, until the 1940s, when it allowed a certain degree of autonomy, but always within the understanding that Puerto Rico was a territorial possession of the United States.

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Exactly.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And so that you’ve had this problem, this contradiction now for more than a century. Puerto Ricans were declared citizens in 1917, even though the entire legislature of Puerto Rico opposed the citizenship at that time—well, the majority did—so that you have a situation where Puerto Ricans are legally citizens is that they aren’t legally citizens but—they are legally citizens, but actually their territory is considered a possession of the United States, and therefore have lived in a second-class citizenship status, in a colonial citizenship status, in essence, now for close to a hundred years.

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Amy, if I can add just one thing to what Juan has just said, it is very important to understand that that condition, that reality that we are living today, for the first time again is being considered today in an hour in the Congress of the United States, as it exists. And the reason for that, Amy, is that the Gulf War has made it understandable that the United States is an empire and that it has colonies. Iraq is the latest colony. The thing is that Iraq was colonized because of its oil, and Puerto Rico was colonized because it was a calling station for the Navy. And that realization—and I quote the eight books in my column today from Harvard, Yale, Duke and other universities—eight books have admitted that the Gulf War invasion is equivalent to the Puerto Rican invasion of 1898, citizenship or not. So we’re in new times.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan-Manuel, we’re going to have to leave it there. But just very—in one five-second response, what is the poll of Puerto Ricans in their attitude to the war in Iraq?

JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: Oh, here, the sad thing is that only persons that look for jobs in the military have gone to that war for—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Puerto Rican analyst and radio host, speaking to us from San Juan.

---

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US judge halts the removal of more detainees from state

US judge halts the removal of more detainees from state
DSS, immigration agency ordered to sort out problem of left-behind children

By Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | March 10, 2007
A federal judge ordered immigration officials yesterday not to move out of state any of the remaining detainees from Tuesday's raid of a New Bedford sweatshop and to allow them access to lawyers.

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Judge Richard G. Stearns also instructed the state Department of Social Services and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to work together to solve the problem of detainees who are mothers or primary caregivers and have been separated from their children. He ordered those agencies to give him a progress report by Tuesday.

"We haven't won, but we have made progress," said lawyer Harvey Kaplan after the hearing at the Moakley Federal Courthouse in South Boston. Kaplan is representing a group of immigration advocates who filed an injunction against the agency Thursday afternoon.

Governor Deval Patrick said yesterday he was receiving more cooperation from immigration officials after several days of tensions over state officials' access to the detainees.

"We now have full names, addresses, and dates of birth," Patrick said at a press conference at a healthcare center in South Boston. He said state officials would compare the information with lists compiled by the advocates during extensive interviews with families affected by the raid.

Today, the Department of Social Services plans to send two teams of 18 people to Texas -- one to El Paso, and the other to Harlingen -- said spokeswoman Denise Monteiro . Commissioner Harry Spence will travel to Harlingen.

Patrick also said that officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement had agreed to release a mother who was flown to Texas. State officials learned the woman was a mother when her 7-year-old child called a hot line created to reunite families following the raid.

"I understand that the federal government has a job to do in enforcing immigration laws and there was a practical reason for them doing it the way they did it," Patrick said. "The problem is when they executed it, it turned into a race to the airport."

Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said during the press conference at the courthouse: "ICE really had no idea about the impact of their actions. They're trying to clean up a mess."

The raid Tuesday morning at Michael Bianco Inc. sent shockwaves through New Bedford's immigrant community, as 361 workers, mostly from Guatemala and El Salvador, were detained because they could not prove they were in this country legally. The owner of the company, Francesco Insolia, and three of his managers were arrested for conspiring to hire illegal aliens. The four posted bond, and the company was open for business the next day.

"I want to extend my most heartfelt sympathy to the families of our loyal workers whose lives have been terribly disrupted by the events of the last few days," Insolia said in a statement. "When the dust has settled on this unfortunate episode, I guarantee that everyone that can be hired and wants to return to work will have a job at Michael Bianco Inc."

"I urge you to withhold judgment until all of the facts come out and these accusations can be confronted in a less chaotic environment and in the proper forum," the statement said.

According to immigration officials, about 70 of the 361 workers detained Tuesday morning have been released . Ninety people are being held in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, at the Bristol County House of Correction , the Barnstable County House of Correction , and the Wyatt Federal Detention Center in Central Falls, R.I. There are 207 detainees in Texas, with 91 at the Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Harlingen and 116 at the El Paso Service Processing Center.

Eight minors were picked up during the raid. Three of them have been released, but the remaining five were taken to a facility in Miami. The immigration agency was in the process of getting them back to New Bedford, said spokesman Marc Raimondi.

"As we have been doing since before the enforcement operation began, we continue to coordinate closely with our federal, state, and local counterparts, including DSS," Raimondi said. "The fact that DSS has not notified us of a single child in a risky or inappropriate setting. . . . says that the cooperation between us has yielded the results intended."

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Struggle For Equality and Freedom In Developing Countries

Published on Thursday, March 8, 2007 by the Independent/UK

International Women's Day

Struggle For Equality and Freedom In Developing Countries
by Anne Penketh

Rosa Franca wants justice for her daughter. Five years ago, 15-year old Maria Isabel left home in Guatemala City for work and never returned. Her rape and murder was not an isolated case: in the past five years, 2,700 women and girls have been the victims of targeted killings in Guatemala, with the number rising each year.

But Rosa Franca is still campaigning for a police investigation, something which would have been taken for granted if she had lived in London or Paris.

When governments and women's rights campaigners mark International Women's Day today, spare a thought for the plight of women in impoverished developing countries where campaigners are taking huge personal risks to work for equality and freedom. Across Guatemala, women will be demonstrating to demand that their government takes action to halt the slaughter of women which has reached such levels that it has been named a "femicide."

The statistics are stark: everywhere you look in the developing world, women's rights are under threat, be it from sex trafficking, denial of education or job discrimination.
Figures compiled by the British government, development agencies and human rights groups resemble a roll call of shame:

Two-thirds of the world's 800 million illiterate adults are women as girls are not seen as worth the investment, or are busy collecting water or firewood or doing other domestic chores.

Two million girls aged from five to 15 join the commercial sex market every year.

Domestic violence kills and injures more people in the developing world than war, cancer or traffic accidents.

Seventy per cent of the world's poorest people are women.

Violence against women causes more deaths and disabilities among women aged 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war.

Women produce half the world's food, but own less than two per cent of the land.

Of the more than one billion people living in extreme poverty, 70 per cent are women.

Almost a third of the world's women are homeless or live in inadequate housing.

Half of all murdered women are killed by their current or former husbands or partners.

Every minute a woman dies as a result of pregnancy complications.

Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, yet earn only a tenth of its income.

One woman in three will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

43 million girls are not able to go to school.

Last year, one million HIV-positive women died of AIDS-related illnesses because they could not get the drugs they needed.

Human Rights Watch, in reports on 15 countries including Afghanistan, Brazil, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Togo and South Africa, has identified violence against schoolgirls, child domestic workers and those in conflict with the law as on the rise.

Women across the developing world are the victims of systematic abuse.

Despite pledges at the landmark 1995 Beijing women's conference to boost the number of women in government, progress has been scant and slow. According to a report compiled by the international think tank, the Salzburg Seminar, only 13 out of 193 countries have 25 per cent or more women in government decision-making positions. In 1994, the percentage of women holding ministerial rank was 6.2 per cent. In 2005, the figure was 6.8 per cent - a rise of 0.6 per cent.

Charities such as ActionAid say that women's rights have slipped off the international agenda in recent years at the expense of the campaign to end poverty. They have made women's rights their top global priority and campaigned for the issue to be placed at the heart of government development policies.

"Thirty-five years of working with communities on the ground has taught us that unless we support women in recognising and claiming their rights, we have no hope of creating a fairer and more just world. There isn't a single development issue that isn't a women's rights issue - that's why women are still on the march," said the ActionAid policy director Jessica Woodroffe.
Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for International Development, will confirm in a speech today that his department is responding. He will outline how Dfid is to shortly change its focus to "put more emphasis on the vital role women play in preventing conflict and securing peace". Dfid will also work with governments to have "fair opportunities" in trade and employment through micro-credit schemes and enhance their human rights. A £100m Governance and Transparency Fund will help people in developing countries to hold their governments to account so that women can secure their rights without fear.

Ms Woodroffe welcomed the shift. "It's great that a state has decided to give a place to women's rights," she said. You can't fight poverty without a women's rights campaign."

Four women, four examples of rights under threat

Divya, India: 90 PER CENT OF CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL IN INDIA ARE GIRLS
Ten-year-old Divya works 14-hour days searching through slag for waste metal, carrying heavy weights and mixing concrete on building sites. "We have a food problem at home. We are hungry. This is why my father sends me to work," she says. From 5am to 7pm, Divya scavengesfor bits of material that can be sold and works as a labourer. After work she collects water and helps out at home.

Maggy, Burundi: EIGHT OUT OF 10 PEOPLE DISPLACED BY CONFLICT ARE FEMALE
Maggy was displaced by the war. Her neighbours were slaughtered by Hutus. "One morning I heard banging on the roof - it was a Tutsi crowd armed with machetes. I recognised some of them, they were my cousins, screaming: 'Open the doors or we will burn you all!'" Maggy, a teacher, now builds homes where Hutu and Tutsi orphans live together. "I took them all in ... they were just children."

Musarrat, Pakistan: VIOLENCE AT HOME CAUSES MORE DEATHS THAN CANCER, MALARIA AND WAR
Musarrat, 21, was snatched at gunpoint by the local feudal lord and raped three times after she had married a man her father disapproved of.When she went to lawyers, she was told the case was not worth pursuing. "I don't know how long I will be allowed to live," she said."My life is finished. The law only helps my rapist."

Thu, Vietnam: 30 MILLION ASIAN FEMALES TRAFFICKED FOR SEX TRADE IN 30 YEARS
Thu, from Vietnam, was smuggled over the border into China when she was 18. She was beaten and starved until she agreed to work in a brothel. "I was taken to a family in Lang Soon. They locked me in, beat me, and told me I must sleep with Chinese men." Thu eventually escaped, but after returning to her village, she was ostracised. She now makes a living from making and selling cushion covers.

BLACK PRIDE by Tego Calderon

BLACK PRIDE

By TEGO CALDERON
New York Post.com

February 15, 2007 -- Just this morning, I was listening to radio host Luisito Vigeroux talking about a movie project that I am working on which co-stars Mayra Santos Febres and he was saying, "Her? She's starring in it?"

Questioning her Black beauty.

I remember, too, when Celia Cruz died, a newscaster, thinking she was being smart, said Celia Cruz wasn't black, she was Cuban. She was pretty even though she's black.

As if there is something wrong with being black, like the two things can't exist simultaneously and be a majestic thing. There is ignorance and stupidity in Puerto Rico and Latin America when it comes to blackness.

In Puerto Rico, Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" was only shown in one theater and unlike all the other movies shown here, there were no subtitles. It's as if they don't want the masses to learn.

But it's not just here - in Puerto Rico - where I experience racism. When I lived in Miami, I was often treated like a second class Boricua. I felt like I was in the middle - Latino kids did not embrace me and African American kids were confused because here I was a black boy who spoke Spanish. But after a while, I felt more embraced by black Americans - as a brother who happens to speak Spanish - than other Latino kids did.

Because I am well known, sometimes I forget the racist ways of the world. But then I travel to places where no one knows Tego Calderón I am reminded.

For instance, when I travel first class, the stewardess will say, "Sir, this is first class," and ask to see ticket. I take my time, put my bags in the overhead, sit, and gingerly give them my ticket, smiling at them. I try not to get stressed anymore, let them stress themselves.

And the thing is that many white Puerto Ricans and Latinos don't get it. They are immune to the subtle ways in which we are demeaned, disrespected. They have white privilege. And I've heard it said that we are on the defensive about race.

Those things happen and it's not because of color, Tego, but because of how you look, how you walk, what you wear, what credit card you have. Then, they spend a couple of days with me, sort of walk in my shoes, and say "Damn negro, you are right."

When I check into hotels and use my American Express they call the credit card company in front of me saying the machine is broken. This happens a lot in U.S. cities but it's not because there is more racism there, it's because they don't know me. When I'm in Latin America, I am known, so it's different. That is not to say that there is less racism. The reality for blacks in Latin America is severe, in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Honduras ...

Puerto Rican (and Latin American) blacks are confused because we grow up side by side with non-blacks and we are lulled into believing that things are the same. But we are treated differently.

My parents always celebrated our history. My dad always pointed things out to me. He even left the PIP (Pro-Independence Party) because he always said that los negros and our struggle was never acknowledged.

Maelo (Ismael Rivera) and Tite Curet did their part in educating and calling out the issues. Today, I do my part but I attack the subject of racism directly.

It makes me so happy to see Don Omar call himself el negro and La Sister celebrate her blackness. Now it's in fashion to be black and to be from Loiza. And that is awesome, it makes me so happy. Even if they don't give me credit for starting the pride movement, I know what I did to get it out there.

Young black Latinos have to learn their story. We also need to start our own media, and forums and universities. We are treated like second class citizens. They tell blacks in Latin America that we are better off than U.S. blacks or Africans and that we have it better here, but it's a false sense of being. Because here, it's worse.

We are definitely treated like second class citizens and we are not part of the government or institutions. Take for instance, Jamaica - whites control a Black country.

They have raised us to be ashamed of our blackness. It's in the language too. Take the word denigrate - denigrar - which is to be less than a negro.

In Puerto Rico you get used it and don't see it everyday. It takes a visitor to point out that all the dark skin sisters and brothers are in the service industry.

It's hard in Puerto Rico. There was this Spaniard woman in the elevator of the building where I lived who asked me if I lived there. And poor thing - not only is there one black brother living in the penthouse, but also in the other, lives Tito Trinidad. It gets interesting when we both have our tribes over.

Black Latinos are not respected in Latin America and we will have to get it by defending our rights, much like African Americans struggled in the U.S.

It's hard to find information about our people and history but just like kids research the newest Nintendo game or CD they have to take interest in their story. Be hungry for it.

We need to educate people close to us. I do it one person at a time when language is used and I am offended by it. Sometimes you educate with tenderness, as in the case of my wife, who is not black.

She's learned a lot and is offended when she sees injustices. She gets it. Our children are mixed, but they understand that they are black and what that means. My wife has taught her parents, and siblings, and they, in turn, educate the nephews and nieces. That is how everyone learns.

This is not about rejecting whiteness rather; it's about learning to love our blackness - to love ourselves. We have to say basta ya, it's enough, and find a way to love our blackness. They have confused us - and taught us to hate each other - to self-hate and create divisions on shades and features.

Remember that during slavery, they took the light blacks to work the home, and left the dark ones to work the fields. There is a lot residue of self-hatred.

And each of us has to put a grain in the sand to make it into a movement where we get respect, where we can celebrate our blackness without shame.

It will be difficult but not impossible.

As told to Sandra Guzman

Return to Sender' sweeps begin

Return to Sender' sweeps begin
Federal immigration authorities take seven San Mateo County residents into custody
By Michael Manekin and Kelly Pakula, STAFF WRITERS
Article Last Updated: 02/07/2007 02:56:05 AM PST


REDWOOD CITY — Two children walked out the door of their Redwood City elementary school last week, expecting their mother to pick them up. Only, she was nowhere to be found.

Between the start of the school day and the ring of the final bell, the woman had been taken into custody by federal immigration agents.

The kids, both U.S. citizens, are among dozens of family and friends feeling the brunt of a recent federal immigration sweep targeting Latinos in San Mateo County, according to the International Institute of San Francisco, an immigrants-rights group with an office in Redwood City.

The raids have detained at least seven residents, say local police, some of whom have expressed concern that the federal campaign could hinder hard-won efforts to forge bonds with immigrant communities by deterring victims or witnesses of crimes to assist departments in solving crimes.

The sweeps, conducted by U.S. Department of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are part of a national campaign dubbed "Operation Return to Sender." Launched in June, the operation is cracking down on illegal immigrants with outstanding deportation orders or criminal records.

So far, "Operation Return to Sender" has arrested 13,000 nationwide, according to Virginia Rice of ICE. Last year, immigration officials detained 1,077 individuals in the Bay Area, of whom 813 were deported. Although Rice could not confirm past local operations, immigration advocates and local law