Charles Taylor

Charles Taylor’s sentencing to 50 years’ imprisonment on 11 counts of war crimes is undeniably momentous. However, with Sierra Leoneans still suffering abject poverty and remaining in dire need of aid, it must be questioned for whose benefit the costly War Crimes Court really is, writes EMMA PURDY

Related Links: Charles Taylor (wiki) | Blood diamond (wiki) | The other end of blood diamond trade | Information on Sierra Leone

The Special Court for Sierra Leone will conclude this year on a triumphant note, with former Liberian president Charles Taylor now the first ex-head of state convicted by international justice since the 1946 Nuremburg trials.

The 64-year-old was found guilty this April of arming and supporting Revolutionary United Front rebels in exchange for illegally mined blood diamonds and thus “aiding and abetting” the country’s brutal civil war. He was sentenced on 30 May to 50 years’ imprisonment, having been held “criminally responsible” by judges after a protracted four-and-a-half-year trial.

From the outset in January 2008, after Taylor boycotted the initial 2007 proceedings, the trial was lauded as the first ever of a former African head of state in an international court. Taylor was the Court’s 11th defendant from a total of 21 indictments since its establishment in January 2002, its remit being to try “those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law” during the 11-year conflict.

Embedded Video Description: Agricultural investment or land-grab in Sierra Leone?

Nuclear armed and funded by diamonds

As the leaders of the global diamond industry gathered in Vicenza, Italy for the annual meeting of the World Diamond Council, Palestinians remained trapped in a surreal nightmarish existence under the cosh of a diamond-funded, nuclear-armed belligerent regime: "The Israeli forces used [taser guns] and I have bruises on my arms and legs. I saw them open a protester's mouth by force and spit in it, and they spit in my face as well. While being under custody, a police officer of Ramle district addressed both me and another female activist while being cuffed with verbal sexual harassment, threatening to rape us. I have to admit I burst in tears ."

Related Links:
De-Beers asked to remove blood diamond display from Tower of London | No Valentine for Kimberley Process | Israeli Blood Diamond Campaign claims another victory | Two global diamond retailers resort to censorship over Israeli Blood Diamonds issue | Marilyn Monroe launches ‘Boycott Israeli Blood Diamonds’ campaign in Dublin | Kimberley Process (wikipedia) | Amnesty US page on conflict diamonds

Basque trade union barricade during general strike in March

A political struggle in a European nation of less than three million, largely ignored by other socialists in Europe, has nevertheless come to the fore in the capitalist media repeatedly since the late 1960s. This has been largely as a result of the the Basque people’s struggle for socialism and independence from the Spanish and French states, a struggle led for decades by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the marxist armed organisation better known by its acronym, ETA. The organisation reawakened Basque national consciousness, has worked with others for the restoration of Euskara, the Basque language, organised Basque workers and faced the repression of the General Franco dictatorship in the Spanish state. Famously, in 1973 it assassinated the Prime Minister of the state, Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco’s right-hand man, which hastened the fragmentation of the dictatorship and its passage to partial democracy.

Related Links: The Abertzale Left makes big electoral gains in the basque Country – but is it being steered towards social democracy? | Basque Trade Unions Square Up To The Spanish State | Report on the largest demo ever in the Basque Country, estimated 100,000, Bilbao January this year -- in solidarity with political prisoners

Feb 20th - 27th

Israeli Apartheid Week is an annual international series of events held across the globe. The aim is to educate people about the nature of Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people and to build the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement locally and globally. Last year, IAW took place in over 60 cities across the globe and this year the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (http://www.ipsc.ie) is proud to again host a series of events in Ireland.

Leonard Peltier: Political Prisoner

Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist was born in 1944 in North Dakota on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. He is the 11th child of 13 children and from his early years suffered racism and brutal poverty at the hands of US government and its officials.

During his childhood, the Eisenhower administration passed a resolution by congress to “terminate” all Indian reservations and “relocate” Native Americans off their land pushing them into cities. This policy was later ruled illegal by US courts. To force Native Americans to leave the reservations, the US government cut off the supply of food and commodities that were promised to the reservations through treaties to recompense them for all the stolen land. Native Americans were now offered a small amount of money to move to inner city slums.

Related Links: The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee | News coverage of the Fort Lawton takeover | 'Trail of Broken Treaties' | Wounded Knee | The trial of Leonard Peltier| Ireland for Peltier Facebook page