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Ondanks de onvoorstelbare chaos die in het Midden Oosten is veroorzaakt door onze bondgenoot in de 'war on terror' blijft de Nederlandse regering dit terreurbeleid onverstoorbaar steunen. Democracy Now bericht: 'The Washington Post is reporting 1,300 Iraqis have died in violence since Wednesday’s bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samara. In his first interview since returning from Iraq, John Pace, the human rights chief for the the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, reacts to the mass killings on the ground. Pace says he believes the U.S. has violated the Geneva Conventions, is fueling the violence through its raids on Iraqi homes and is holding thousands of detainees that are for the most part innocent of any crimes. We turn now to the War in Iraq. In the latest news at least 31 people have been killed and 75 wounded in three bomb blasts in Baghdad. The attacks come a day after the lifting of a daytime curfew imposed to curb widespread violence over the past few days. The Washington Post is reporting 1,300 Iraqis have died over the past week making this one of the bloodiest periods since the U.S. invaded the country nearly three years ago. The mass killings began on Wednesday after a bomb destroyed the gold dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra - one of the holiest sites to Shiite Muslims. While the bloodshed appears to have at least temporarily subsided, the outbreak of violence last week has raised new concerns about where Iraq is headed. Most of those killed in the past week did not die in roadside bombings or suicide attacks but at the hands of militias and death squads including some units working out of the Ministry of the Interior. The Washington Post published this dispatch out of Baghdad: "Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound." Meanwhile the Independent of London is reporting that hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad by death squads working out of the Ministry of the Interior. John Pace, Former U.N. Human Rights Chief, Iraq. Up until earlier this month he was the human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq. He has worked at the United Nations since 1966 and is the former Secretary to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He joins us on the phone from his home in Sydney Australia. AMY GOODMAN: It is good to have you with us. First, your reaction to what has taken place in these last few days in Iraq. JOHN PACE: Well, I'm not surprised at all, as a matter of fact, because we have been trying to explain to the world at large that there has been a generalized deterioration in the situation of protection of people in Iraq. There is a breakdown of law and order which is characterized by, technically by the nonfunctioning of the police, of the judiciary, and of the penitentiary institutions. Not to mention the military intervention and the various other factors that provoke a breakdown in protection in Baghdad and most of the country. So I think it is a problem related to the relay of accurate information on the -- how serious the situation is in regard to the person in the street in Iraq. The ordinary Iraqi. Who has absolutely no protection whatsoever from the state or from the authorities.' De uitzending van Democracy Now kunt u hier beluisteren:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/28/1427244