Their 9-11's

By Nadrat Siddique

The majority of those in immigration detention are from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. What those in power—from the Trump administration to the liberal Left—fail to discuss or recognize is that starting from the 1980s (many would argue much earlier), the U.S. played a highly pernicious role in subverting the governments and economies of these countries. Their countries rendered effectively unlivable, it should come as no surprise that Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans make the dangerous and risky journey north, seeking asylum in the U.S. and other places. Far from incarcerating these indigents, the U.S. should be paying them reparations.

In Guatemala, the democratically-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by a CIA coup in 1954, and the country was plunged into turmoil. That turmoil resulted in a string of U.S.-supported military dictators, the most prominent of whom were Efrain Rios Montt and Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores.

The U.S. actively supported Efrain Rios Montt, who came to power through a 1982 military coup. He learned counterinsurgency techniques from his U.S. handlers at Fort Gulick (Panama Canal Zone) and Fort Bragg (North Carolina). Under Rios Montt, the Guatemalan army with U.S. support, went on a rampage to wipe out rural support for left wing guerrillas. Rios Montt is widely believed to be responsible for the brutal murders up to 70,000 indigenous Mayans in what was known as a “scorched earth policy,” and was eventually put on trial in Guatemala and Spain.

In 2013, Rios Montt received an 80-year sentence for crimes which included massacres in fifteen Ixil Maya villages in which 1,771 unarmed men, women, and children were killed. However, the conviction was overturned.

Rios Montt’s successor, Brigadier General Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores, came to power in 1983, and was also supported by the United States, He continued Rios Montt’s policies. In 2011, Mejia Victores was put to trial in Guatemala on war crimes charges stemming from the killings of thousands of indigenous Guatemalans. But—he was declared unfit to stand trial as the result of a stroke.

All told, 200,000 Guatemalans, the majority of them Mayan Indians, were killed between 1960-1996. According to exhaustive investigations by the U.N. and the Catholic Church—most of the dead were civilians who were killed by the Guatemalan Army. Of these, 132,000 died between 1978-1983, a period of undeniable U.S. involvement in Guatemala. The U.S. role in the destruction of Guatemalan society was never brought to bear.

In Honduras, a literal banana republic existed for decades. Starting in the late 19^th century, Cuyamel Fruit Company (an American company, despite the name), United Fruit, and Standard Fruit (which later become Dole) effectively ran the country. They were granted land and exemptions from tax liability and other legal obligations by the Honduran government. During this period, the U.S. repeatedly sent troops to Honduras, presumably to protect the interests of U.S. fruit corporations. U.S. troops landed in the banana republic in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925.

Following two decades of military rule, a populist physician named José Ramón Adolfo Villeda Morales came to power. He ruled from 1957 – 1963, and instrumented agrarian reform which included the transfer of land to poor peasants. He modernized Honduras, and established the country’s public education, public health, and social security systems. Villeda Morales announced plans to expropriate lands from United Fruit. But before he could do this, he was deposed in a 1963 military coup which returned the country to military rule. That military rule lasted for another two decades.

Honduras has long been used as a launch pad by the U.S. for military incursions and interventions in the region. For instance, the deposing of the democratically-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 was conducted from Honduran soil. The Nicaraguan Contras (counterrevolutionaries fighting the democratically-elected Nicaraguan government) received support from the U.S. military headquartered in Honduras. The Contras launched a campaign of terror in the Nicaraguan countryside, subjecting Nicaraguan peasants to arson, rape, murder, and other horrific crimes meant to deflate their support for the Nicaraguan government. In the course of the Contra war—a war fueled and funded by the U.S.—30,000 Nicaraguans were killed. The economies of both Nicaragua and Honduras were severely damaged as a result of the U.S. intervention.

Similarly, Honduras was used to send U.S. support to the Salvadoran military dictatorship in the 1980s.

The U.S. built the Soto Cano Air Base in the Honduran town of Palmerola in the early 1980s to facilitate these operations and others. Approximately 500 – 600 U.S. troops are housed there. Additionally, the U.S. military's Joint Task Force Bravo is headquartered at Soto Cano.

In El Salvador, the U.S. supported a repressive right-wing regime which was being challenged by leftist guerrillas. Under Reagan, the U.S. sent hundreds of millions of dollars of military and economic aid to El Salvador—more than to any other country except Israel and Egypt. At the time, the Salvadoran government frequently used death squads and paramilitaries to carry out their repression.

These death squads killed a popular Archbishop, Oscar Romero. They raped, then murdered four American nuns who were in El Salvador. In the tiny mountain town of El Mozote, a U.S.-trained Salvadoran army unit, called the Atlacatl Battalion, conducted a massacre of Salvadoran peasants, murdering around 1,200 men, women, and children.

The U.S. not only continued to fund the Salvadoran regime, but actively assisted in the cover-up of these atrocities. By the time the civil war ended in 1992, 75,000 Salvadorans, mostly civilians, had been killed with the help of U.S. tax dollars.

And yet, the U.S. has the gall to incarcerate and prosecute the people fleeing from the fallout of these dirty wars. And to take their children from them when they seek asylum here. If that is not hubris, I don't know what is.

© 2018 Nadrat Siddique

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui Supporters Hold Iftar, Pray for Her Release

By Nadrat Siddique

June 1, 2018

Baltimore, MD – Very nearly half way through Ramadan, supporters of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui held an iftar in her honor.  Close to 30 committed Muslim activists from DC, Maryland, and Philadelphia discussed her case, made du’ah for her (and for other Muslim political prisoners), performed maghrib prayers, and shared dates and a Middle Eastern meal.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a petite Pakistani Muslimah, is a political prisoner of the U.S. government. By all accounts, she has been raped, tortured, and separated from her school age children—who were also detained for years—in the course of her incarceration. Aafia is a neuroscientist with degrees from Brandeis University and MIT. She is being held as if she is a dangerous criminal in Carswell, TX, on trumped up charges which include attacking U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan. But supporters, like the ones gathered at the Baltimore iftar tonight, say the charges are preposterous, and that even the U.S. government knows it erred in its dealings with her, but is too arrogant or stubborn to reverse its actions.

Dr. Kaukab Siddique, an independent Pakistani journalist, who also teaches journalism at Lincoln University, was at the iftar. He had been writing about Aafia’s case almost since its inception. In opening remarks to the iftar, Dr. Siddique referred to the Muslim organization he helped found decades ago: “Jamaat al-Muslimeen has always been in the forefront of fighting for Muslim women’s rights under the rubric of Islam, and women have often been at the helm of the organization.”

He recognized Ashira Na’im, Masjid Jamaat al-Muslimeen administrator; Sr. Chekisha El-Amin, a long-time Baltimore-based Jamaat al-Muslimeen activist; Nadrat Siddique, a DC-based Jamaat al-Muslimeen activist and political prisoner advocate; and Sr. Fatima Abdullah, a founding member of the organization, who, along with her husband Amin Abdullah, had come to the iftar from Philadelphia, PA.

“And Jamaat al-Muslimeen has always supported political prisoners, those who are imprisoned unjustly or because of their beliefs. So, when we learned of the plight of Dr. Aafia, it was only natural for us to support her case,” he concluded.

Mauri Saalakhan, a long time DC-based human rights activist and head of the Aafia Foundation (formerly known as the Peace and Justice Foundation) was the guest speaker at the iftar gathering. He had travelled to several continents to raise awareness of the Aafia case, and organized rallies for Aafia outside the Carswell, Texas prison where she is being held—on very hostile turf, as well as at the Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons, and other key locations.

Saalakhan said that it was the Islamic responsibility of Muslims to speak out against injustice, particularly during Ramadan. The organizer-activist, who is also known as El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan because he has completed the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, had worked on a litany of political prisoner cases. But—Aafia’s case, he said, was one of the worst cases of injustice he had seen. She was alive, he said, negating the recently circulating rumor that she had passed away. But she was not well. She was held under sordid conditions, a travesty of justice, he said.

Saalakhan said he was very disappointed by the lack of action on the part of most Muslims to come forward. Muslims who could have done something to help Aafia, but didn’t—would be held accountable for their inaction in the Hereafter, he told iftar attendees. He pointed out the Pakistani government’s insidious role in first aiding Aafia’s kidnapping, and then subverting efforts to release her.

Imam Ali Siddiqui, a lifelong peace and justice activist currently based in DC, attended the iftar along with his family. His organization, the Muslim Institute of Interfaith Studies and Understanding, has effectively dialogued with churches and synagogues in the DC area. Addressing the iftar gathering briefly, he mentioned recent work with the DC Poor Peoples Campaign, a rekindling of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement for social justice. Imam Siddiqui has long protested Aafia’s detention as well as that of other political prisoners, and participated in rallies and meetings to free her.

This writer, DC-based blogger, runner, and activist Nadrat Siddique organized the iftar. Siddique, who has run three marathons to call attention to Aafia’s case, said that as Muslims were eating and praying, praying and eating—at many, many iftars throughout Ramadan, they ought also think about the Muslim prisoners and political prisoners, being held under horrendous conditions in American prisons and secret prisons. What were the prisoners eating for iftar? Were they even conscious and able to fast? If they were fasting, did they have access to halal (Islamically permissible) food with which to open their fast?

“Muslims ought to ask the imams of their respective masajid to mention the political prisoners in their khutbas. We should write letters raising concern for the welfare of the political prisoners to corporate media, and on the social media sites of these corporate media. Give zakat to the families of the political prisoners. And make du'ah for them. There is added barakat in doing this during Ramadan,” she concluded.

Dr. Kaukab Siddique closed out the evening with a du’ah asking for the acceptance of the fasts of the iftar attendees, and remembering all the political prisoners, including Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

© 2018 Nadrat Siddique