The Struggle For Justice In Manipur by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
May 3, 2013

The primary colours of any civil democracy are we would agree, social justice, freedom of expression, freedom to protest and participation. India, with a population of 1.3 billion people is regularly hailed as the largest democracy in the world. At first glance the governments pretentions to democracy would appear to be justified, after all there is, on paper at least, an independent judiciary, a free press – freely owned from top to toe by corporations – a thriving civil society and, of course, the cornerstone of any democratic state: the haloed parliamentary elections, totally funded and (therefore) fully owned, top to toe, by the same corporations that count the national and regional newspapers, radio and television networks as their own, as well as growing portfolios of natural assets; rivers, forests, water supplies, mountains (full of bauxite), and other mineral resources.

Under Darkness in the Somali Region of Ethiopia by Graham Peebles

Warning

This article may contain language depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read by a mature audience.

Image by CharlesFred via Flickr

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
April 18, 2013

State criminality

No matter how tightly truth is tied down, confined and suffocated, she slowly escapes. Seeping out through cracks and openings large and small, illuminating all, revealing the grime and shame, that cowers in the shadows.

Corporate India–Violence in the Name of Development by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
April 4, 2013

Image by lecercle via Flickr

Consistent with the unjust, decaying economic model of our deficit times, the commodification of everything and everyone proceeds apace in India. The commercialisation of the land is shattering the lives of millions of India’s poorest, hungriest most malnourished people, who are being murdered and raped, violently displaced and falsely arrested as huge multi-nationals, financially favoured and militarily armed by the Indian government, ravage the land.

Rape and Torture as a Weapon of Control by Graham Peebles

Warning

This article may contain language depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read by a mature audience.

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
March 7, 2013

The Pain of the Ogaden Somali People

Image by CharlesFred via Flickr

Hiding from the truth

“Every night, they took all of us girls to [interrogations]. They would separate us and beat us. The second time they took me, they raped me… All three of the men raped me, consecutively”. Along with 15 other female students, Human Rights Watch (HRW)[i] report in Collective Punishment, this innocent 17 year-old Ogaden Somali girl, was held captive for three months in a “dark hole in the ground” and raped 13 times.

The Green Green Gold of Ethiopia by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
March 7, 2013

Indian multi-nationals in clover

Ancestral land that for generations has served as home and livelihood for hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in Ethiopia is being leased out, on 99-year renewable contracts at nominal sums to foreign corporations. The land giveaway or agrarian reforms as the government would prefer to present them began in 2008 when the Ethiopian government, under the brutal suppressive Premiership of Meles Zenawi invited foreign countries/corporation to take up highly attractive deals and turn large areas of land over to industrial farming for the export of crops.

Displacement, Intimidation and Abuse–Land Loyalties in Ethiopia by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
February 27, 2013

Image by STARSFoundation via Flickr

With the coming of industrial-size farms in Ethiopia, local people, villagers and pastoralists (deemed irrelevant to the Government’s, economically-driven development plans) are being threatened, and intimidated by the military; forcibly displaced and herded into camps, their homes destroyed. Along with vast agricultural complexes, dams are planned and constructed, water supplies re-directed to irrigate crops, forests burnt, natural habitats destroyed. Dissenting voices are brutally silenced – men beaten, children frightened, women raped, so too the land.

India: Growing Inequality and Destructive Development by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
February 15, 2013

Image by dietmut via Flickr

Upon a foundation of deep spirituality and philosophical treasures, proclaiming unity, justice and service, New India, horns honking in violation of the good; is racing, no time to spare towards the Alter of Materiality and Market Fundamentalism.

Under the careful guidance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the Indian government has for the last twenty years or so, (during which time the BBC 7/12/11[i] found “inequality has doubled”), embraced market liberalization and the global market; garlanded corporations with all manner of subsidies and damned the poor to greater poverty, destitution, suffering and, suicide in the case of farmers:

Ethiopian Annihilation of the Ogaden People, by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
February 6, 2013

Image by STARSFoundation via Flickr

Besieged, abused, ignored

In the harsh Ogaden region of Ethiopia, impoverished ethnic Somali people are being murdered and tortured, raped, persecuted and displaced by government paramilitary forces. Illegal actions carried out with the knowledge and tacit support of donor countries, seemingly content to turn a blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by their brutal, repressive ally in the region; and a deaf ear to the pain and suffering of the Ogaden Somali people.

Indian Farmers Trapped and Desperate by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
January 24, 2013

Image by coquetboy via Flickr

India has the largest number of smallholder farmers in the World, 600 million by some estimates. From this army of workers one impoverished desperate man, or indeed woman, with a noose of debt around their neck takes his or her own life on average every thirty minutes, A statistic barely comprehensible, representing the tidal wave of suicides that has swept through the farming community in the last 15 years.

Daughters of India Violated and Abused, by Graham Peebles + The ‘Genocide’ of India’s Daughters

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
January 6, 2013

Image by Imagens Evangélicas via Flickr

A woman’s lot

In the ancient land of India, where female deities deeply revered, Kali and Lakshmi, Sarasvati and Parvati, are held high upon the alter of Hinduism, where each day thousands of Hindu’s ritually bathe in the Holy waters of the Ganges, cleansed within and without by the Goddess Ganga, women and girls; in the forests, cities, villages and towns, on buses and trains, in the street, the office, at school and in the home are being violated, abused, raped and trafficked into prostitution and domestic slavery.

Ethiopian migrants abused and unwelcome in Yemen by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
December 17, 2012

Desperately seeking a future

Year on year the numbers of men, women and children leaving Ethiopia in search of work and freedom from repression in one of the Gulf States and beyond is increasing. Lured by the often hollow prospect of earning enough money to support their family, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)[i] estimate around 85,000 men women and children, desperate and naïve, have this year, no matter the severe risks, made their way to Yemen, the hub of migration out of the Horn of Africa. In the last six years around 250,000 Ethiopians have made the dangerous journey into this very poor, deeply divided country besieged with internal problems, which has limited resources, the second highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in the world and where 45% of the population live in poverty.

Inequality and Poverty America Style–In Richness and in Health by Graham Peebles

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
December 7, 2012

Irrespective of ones circumstances or stage of life, illness is never welcome, in America if you’re poor it can prove to be a total catastrophe, ending often in personal bankruptcy. “According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60% of the personal bankruptcies in the United States“[i]. Health care insurance an unaffordable luxury, for the 15% or 50 million people now living in ‘official’ poverty in America, anxiously relying on good luck and a poor diet to keep sickness at a bay.

Perpetual Conflict By Israeli Design by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
November 27, 2012

Image by folkehjelp via Flickr

And so for a moment or two the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and the destruction in Gaza City has ceased; the oppression, intimidation and terror throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories though continues unabated. The ‘Pillar of Cloud’ has done its destructive work and blown over, until the next time Israel feels the urge to wreak chaos, kill civilians and tear families apart. How many times must we watch this slaughter, how many more tears will be shed, lives ruined, futures denied, as the peace activist Izzeldin Abuelaish in The Observer 18/11/2012[i] asks “How many more massacres can Palestinians stand? How many can onlookers tolerate?”