Daily Archives: March 11, 2017

MISSOULA -- The second-largest segment of recent refugees to Missoula comes from one of the worlds fastest-emptying nations.

That those attempting to flee Eritrea have to dodge troops at the border with shoot to kill orders only underlines the desperate, despotic conditions in the northeast African nation on the Red Sea.

A one-party government jealously guards the independence it gained from Ethiopia in 1991, two experts from the Horn of Africas war-torn region told a crowd of 200 Wednesday evening at the University of Montanas University Center Theater.

Eritrea has a program of national service whereby the Eritrean population less than 50 years of age are obliged to serve in the military, said Solomon Gofie, a visiting adjunct at UM from Addis Ababa University.

Though intended to last just 18 months, national service can extend for decades, at the discretion of the government.

Theres no way they get out, Gofie said. After doing the (military) services, the government orders them to construct boats, to engage in projects like mining or manufacturing. It means the chance of a young Eritrean man or woman going freely after the service is almost nil. Authorities have to decide when one has to be set free. The family and the community dont have any say on that.

Often, way into their 50s, theyre still being paid $10 a month for their service in the military, said Kimberly Maynard, a UM Mansfield Fellow in International Affairs who spent 20 years in conflict zones in northeastern Africa and works part time for the United States Agency for International Development.

Since winter arrived in November, Missoula has become home to seven Eritrean families who found refuge first in Ethiopia or the Mediterranean island of Malta after sneaking out of their home country. Theyre outnumbered only by those from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who began arriving in August.

Gofie said hopes were high for a progressive future when Eritrea, the former northern province of Ethiopia, earned its independence in 1991. Its status as a nation was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1993.

But Isaias Afwerki, the enigmatic guerrilla leader who became the nations first president, remains in power. Eritrea, a small nation with between five and six million people, has lost half a million of those people prohibited outmigration, Maynard said.

The country has never held an election nor ratified a constitution. A United Nations commission has said the system of forced labor and other alleged human rights violations may constitute crimes against humanity.

One of the challenges is the ability to get information out of Eritrea, Maynard said. There is no foreign aid organization, no humanitarian organization, and the media is very, very controlled. Its only internal media, theres no foreign media. So its hard to get numbers.

What knowledge the outside world acquires of conditions in Eritrea comes mostly from those whove fled, she said. But even that avenue is unreliable as their access to in-country information is limited. Many fear reprisals against family and friends back in Eritrea who helped fund their escape.

War with Ethiopia in 1998-2000 resulted in nearly 100,000 deaths on both sides and devastated the Eritrean economy. Although there was a peace accord at the end, that didnt solve the hostilities between the two countries, Gofie said.

Eritrean officials accuse the United States of siding with Ethiopia, and while theres a chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in the capital of Asmara, a position Natalie E. Brown assumed last fall, an ambassador is not allowed.

Just two weeks ago, and last week also, the Ethiopian government is accusing Eritrea of sending armored people across the border, Gofie said.

All this, he added, makes outmigration one of very few options for the hopeless.

Maynard traced the common routes those fleeing Eritrea take, to Ethiopia and Sudan initially, and later on to Malta, Israel, Italy and other European nations. The journey involves dangerous and costly sea travel. In October 2013, a reported 366 Eritrean migrants drowned off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Most who survive end up in refugee camps, often separated from family and still facing uncertain futures.

A few navigate the vetting process and gain acceptance to the United States. Those whove landed in Missoula are by and large Christian Orthodox, and they're already sharing vestiges of a rich culture developed over thousands of years, which Maynard emphasized in her talk.

Its adding diversity and interest to our community, and most are heroes for having gone through what they went through, she said. But theyre also bringing so much, and the culture itself just offers so much.

By sharing such things as traditional foods, art and music in a sort of cross-pollination, the dignity of both cultures is realized, said Maynard.

I think thats when its a full welcome and theyre really now at home and living in Missoula.

Wednesday nights program, sponsored by UMs African-American Studies Program and Political Science Department, as well as Montana Model UN, was the third presented by Soft Landing Missoula in a series intended to foster understanding of the families arriving in Missoula through the auspices of international and United States refugee resettlement programs.

See the article here:

Eritrean refugees in Missoula fled a nation of oppression and military conscription - Helena Independent Record

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In an announcement this week, the UN said that Cuba, along with Ecuador and Senegal, will have their records reviewed by theUN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). The three nations have signed and ratified theInternational Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which requires the UN to check their records. An enforced disappearance is a government abduction of an individual in which their relatives are not provided information as to where they have been apprehended or why. Those disappeared are rarely seen again.

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Thefinal reports on all three nations will be published on March 17.

The last time the UN commission reviewed Cuba was in 2012. That report, written by a multidisciplinary working group made up of many government and/or State ministries and institutions, the National Assembly, NGOs and other relevant organizations, heaped effusive praise on the community autocracy.

The rights to life, liberty and security of person have always been mainstays of the Cuban Revolution, its authorities and society at large, even though Cuba has had to face over 50 years of aggression, terrorism and a harsh economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the Government of the United States of America, the 2012 report reads. There have been no cases of enforced disappearance in Cuba since the revolutionary triumph of 1959.

The report goes on to claim that the concept of holding a detainee or prisoner incommunicado is alien to criminal and procedural practice in Cuba.

All three assertions that Cuba respects the sanctity of life of its prisoners, that no disappearances have occurred in Cuba since 1959, and that Cuba has never held prisoners incommunicado are demonstrably false. There is little reason to believe the 2017 update to this report will contain more believable challenges to the Communist regime, though all such reviews present an opportunity to condemn the authoritarian regime for its crimes.

The case ofHamell Santiago Maz Hernndez, who died in late February, contradicts the claim that Cuba values the life of its people. Maz Hernndez diedafter spending eight months in the notorious Combinado del Este maximum security prison, used to house political dissidents. The government claims cardiac arrest as the cause of death but his dissident organization, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), reject this assertion and have vowed an investigation.There is no evidence Maz Hernndez received medical care while in the prison. He was facing the charge of desacato, or disrespect a catch-all crime used against anti-communist protesters.

Another former inmate of Combinado del Este, Danilo Maldonado Machado, can testify to being held incommunicado. The artist, known by his pseudonym El Sexto, was transferred to Combinado del Este without his family being alerted. His fiance, he later said, only knew of his transfer because she arrived in time to see the van driving him away, and he was able to shout the name of the new facility to her. Maldonado, who was serving time without being charged following public celebrations of Fidel Castros death, later said he was beaten severely enough to trigger asthma attacks and not provided medical care.

A record also exists of forced disappearances since 1959, contra the UN report. According to Cuba Archives record of human rights crimes under the Castro brothers, at least 23 confirmed disappearances occurred between 1959 and 2014. One hundred other unconfirmed records exist. These numbers are low because, for most of its time in power, the Communist Revolution opted for openly executing its enemies via firing squad. Cuba Archive counts over three thousand firing squad executions and another 1,116 extrajudicial killings.

At the time of Fidel Castros death, the state had executed 5,775, including non-firing squad killings. Another 20,000 Cubans were believed to have died in the straits between Cuba and Florida, drowning in escape attempts from the island. Sixteen Cubans died while on hunger strike in prison; 209 died of health problems upon being denied medical care in prison.

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UN Has Another Opportunity to Condemn Cuba's Oppression with Disappearances Review - Breitbart News

March 10, 2017 at 3:16 pm |

With the election of our new president, I hope that this country returns to some degree of normalcy. We still have freedoms worth fighting for and, if need be, dying for. I hope that Americans can realize and appreciate this fact.

I believe that one of our most important freedoms is the right to bear arms. Without this freedom, our government could do anything that it can conceive to us. There are so many countries in the world where people are under enormous oppression by their governments. We would only join their pitiful plight, were it not for our right to bear arms. The first two battles of the American Revolutionary War with the British were over gun rights. The battle of the Alamo was partly due to gun confiscation. Even Jesus, at one point, told his disciples to sell their cloak and buy a sword. I sincerely believe that in telling them this, he was trying to emphasize a point, that point being, that you have a right to protect and defend yourself.

The police can only protect the public at large and the police usually arrive after a crime has been committed. This particular freedom to bear arms is currently being attacked by the UN. I pray that Americans understand that if there is the formation of a one-world government in our future, its inception would begin primarily because we have lost our right to bear arms. We must not lose this freedom to bear arms! Sinowa Cruz, Kalispell

In a divided country, our national parks continue to serve as common ground. Unfortunately, that ground is unsteady under the impacts of a $12 billion infrastructure repair backlog. With the recent confirmation of Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, hope remains that repairing our national parks will become a national priority.

During his recent address to Congress and the American public, President Trump called on Congress to pass an infrastructure bill. There is no better place to start rebuilding our infrastructure than fixing our parks. In Secretary Zinkes confirmation hearing, he stated that addressing the National Park Service backlog was one of his three top priorities. And Sen. Steve Daines, who recently became chairman of the subcommittee on national parks, has echoed the need to address the backlog.

The infrastructure repair backlog affects nearly every national park site. In contrast to the record-setting visitation that Glacier welcomed in 2016, the park faces a repair backlog nearing $180 million. This includes over $120 million in paved road projects and $11 million in trail repair needs.

National Parks Conservation Association calls on President Trump, Interior Secretary Zinke, Sens. Daines and Tester and all of our members of Congress to put their words into action. It is time for national parks to become a national priority again. Sarah Lundstrum, Whitefish

I would like to add to Brenda Andersons letter of thanks in the March 7 edition. Ms. Anderson was thanking the person or persons involved in helping find and rescue the dogs and mini-horses from the Creston area. Thanks should also go the Kalispell Police Departments animal warden, who acted on a tip from a passer-by noticing multiple dogs in a car in Kalispell. That investigation led to a joint effort with Flathead County sheriffs animal control officers. Those officers had to wear breathing apparatuses while they removed the distressed dogs from the horrific house prior to delivering them to the Flathead County Animal Shelter.

The amazing, hard-working care staff at the shelter, along with the countys veterinarian, has been caring for these dogs since their arrival, getting the healthiest few adopted out to loving homes, supported by the fundraising efforts of Flathead Shelter Friends Inc. These heroes deserve recognition as well. But the real heroes are the supportive citizens of Flathead County (and other parts of Montana) who have generously sent donations to be used for the care and rehabilitation of those animals as they make their way back to recovery.

Sometimes we may forget that along with the beautiful scenery that we are graced with in this valley, we are also graced with some of the most beautiful people found anywhere on this planet.

Thank you to all of the area heroes who time and again come together to overcome adversity. Cliff Bennett, Lakeside

I read with great interest Dr. Jason Cohens recent letter to the editor: Discussion Points of the Future of the Affordable Care Act. One of the most damaging forces in the universe is the illusion that expensive things can be had if we just want them bad enough. People often buy college educations, automobiles, and homes that the rational person can see are outside the realm of financial possibility, but the excitement of owning the shiny new thing often short circuits the brain just long enough for a family to destroy its financial future for a generation. That is exactly what we are witnessing with the ironically named Affordable Care Act.

Like the ski boat salesman encouraging an excited family to buy with funds they dont have, Dr. Cohen is selling us a health care policy we cant afford. I concede many of the things the Affordable Care Act intended to accomplish are admirable (unlimited lifetime coverages for everyone, no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, low or no cost to the poor, increased medical coverage in sparsely populated areas, required coverage of health screenings, free birth control, substance abuse counseling); unfortunately, they are not economically possible from a centrally planned bureaucracy.

Good people like Dr. Cohen are claiming the law is a resounding success. They state that millions of people who once were denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions or expensive premiums now have access to it. What the Affordable Care Acts supporters dont admit is that millions of other Americans are rapidly finding health insurance so unaffordable they and/or their employers are dropping coverages due to its unaffordability. Because of the problem of adverse selection, insurance programs dont survive when unhealthy, expensive people sign up by the millions at the same time millions of healthy, inexpensive people stop paying their premiums.

While it is true the American health care system is in need of a complete overhaul, the Affordable Care Act is not the answer. Due to the immutable economic laws of adverse selection and supply and demand, the Affordable Care Act, is failing financially. When the program does fail, I hope we learn from our mistakes and consider using free market solutions such as those provided by health-care sharing ministries and cash-only surgical clinics that have reduced prices and increased quality and access wherever free markets have been allowed to operate. The private insurance/government partnership model is incapable of delivering on its promises, and it is now time to let the Affordable Care Act die with dignity before it financially cripples us. Joseph D. Coco Jr., Whitefish

Original post:

Letters, published on Match 10, 2017 - Daily Inter Lake

Written by: Kate Westrick

Ive often heard people complain of oppression at the hands of government. Many times, citizens stand by as if they were mere hapless victims subject to whatever their elected officials deem appropriate. This attitude has been on the rise, especially in regard to the 2016 presidential election. There was an air of righteous abstinence; the idea that governmental participation was inherently dirty and deceptive colored many potential voters worldviews as they stayed home from the polls. Unfortunately, no matter how upright this standpoint may appear, it is attitudes like these that lead to the downfall of liberty and prosperity.

Our government was not created to operate outside of the will and participation of the people. This is precisely what the Founders of our nation abhorred about their mother country. To abstain from the political process, to simply wash your hands of it,, is in many ways no more than freedoms death sentence.

All too often, people resort to armchair complaints and Facebook soapboxes to vent their political frustration overlooking their very opportunity to impact real, visible change in their local, state and national government.

Over the past couple months, I was able to work on a local mayoral campaign. The work I did was far from glamorous. It mostly consisted of phone banking, door knocking and planting various signs throughout the greater Chattanooga area. Although it was not entertaining or riveting, it was important work that needed to be done. Furthermore, instead of simply suffering at the hands of government, I made the active choice to become the hands of government. This very idea of every citizen taking on a role and responsibility in government is exactly the reason the United States of America has fostered so much success. Granted, not everyone needs to get involved in a campaign or volunteer for their county commissioner; but citizens should strive for participation albeit, in most cases, small. There are thousands of opportunities in hundreds of organizations and districts throughout the nation. Instead of complaining or abstaining, take action and participate in the nation you are blessed to call home.

Bio

Kate Westrick studies political science, history, and any public policy she can get her hands on. She serves as a political correspondent for the Bryan College Triangle, participates in intercollegiate debate, and occasionally serves on the campus worship team. She can usually be found in the library drinking La Croix and talking about politics, the Myers-Briggs personality test, or her future tiny house.

Category: Features, Opinion

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At the hands of the government - Triangle