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Piece for Presente.org on the historical ties between human rights abuses across latin america and the School of the Americas training facility (now renamed “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation”) in Fort Benning, GA. Click here to read the full comic.
Check out the recent demos in DC against the School of the Americas, whose involvement in human rights abuses across latin america continues to go unpunished. For more info on the School, renamed the catchier WHINSEC (much like Blackwater’s seismic change to Xe), check out these comics.
And speaking of creative action, kudos to the protestors who heckled Obama at a recent fundraiser in here in San Fran, urging him to reconsider the Pentagon’s harsh treatment of wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning, who has done 9 months of solitary in the brig (subject to regular sleep deprivation techniques and often forced to sleep naked) while Julian Assange continues on his PR blitz as the white Martin Luther King. Lyrics below. Admittedly, an expensive strategy (a table at the event reportedly cost $105,000 according to the Guardian UK), although how often is the President forced to stand mute and listen to dissenting (albeit not so tuneful) voices?
Dear Mr President we honour you today,
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins* to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where’s our change?
We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true,
Look at the Republicans – what else can we do?
Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties,
In what you seem content to call a free society.
Yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free,
To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy.
But at another location in this country,
Alone in a six by 12 cell sits Bradley.
Twenty-three hours a day and night,
The fifth and eighth amendments say,
This kind of thing ain’t right.
We paid our dues, where’s our change?
Last week saw the 20th anniversary of the protest, originally started by Father Roy Bourgeois, to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. The school’s magnetism for controversy stems from the number of its latin american graduates who have gone on to perpetrate crimes against humanity in their home countries. See above for part of my comic on the SOA (now thoughtfully renamed WHINSEC in a Blackwater to Xe-related case of PR). Stick SOA in the search bar above to read the whole comic, which I posted online a while back. It was printed in Presente! earlier this year, so if you mention that with your next Archcomix order I’ll pop a copy of the issue in with your purchase. Read more about the protest from the NYTimes here.
Miami Book Fair Part 2: Sunday saw panels from Dean Haspiel and Joe Sacco for Cuba: My Revolution and Footnotes in Gaza respectively. The Cuba panel, given the Miami location and proximity to Little Havana, was sparsely attended, but the room filled up for Joe’s talk. Although I haven’t read the Cuban book, it threw up some interesting questions for me, primarily to do with the trend in graphic biographies these days. David Axe touched on this in his talk, when he said part of the beauty of collaborating with artist Matt Bors is having him recreate the settings, environments and memories he’s described in words. He also described it as a kind of voodoo, whereby seeing his doppelganger recreated on the page meant he could empty all of the stress, pain and negative feelings he associates with the experience of war reporting into it. Click here for a C-SPAN video interview with him. Dean Haspiel told us that “image is text…artists are authors too”, and then went on to describe how in one of the book’s torture scenes, in which the protagonist is being brutally interrogated by Castro’s secret police, Dean drew himself in as the torturer to provide comfort for his collaborator (no pun intended).
Anyway – the Sacco talk, for better or worse, was far more focused on the content of his material as opposed to its form as comics. Joe emphasized his humble role as cartoonist chronicler, highlighting how pen and ink just happen to be his tools – if he were a filmmaker, he’d make films about what he’s seen. He did touch on a good point about the immersive experience of visual storytelling, where using “hundreds of pictures…[can] sum up the details of a story” in a way that a few photos can’t wholly capture. I also managed to ask him about his shorter (10-12pp) comics for magazines like the Guardian UK, to which he replied that he’d like to do more, but had trouble getting the funds together in order to get to where the story was. No mention of the use of comics on the web though. He also emphasized that he was not an activist, and that his next project would not be some explicitly political: instead, he’ll be turning to more of a sociological/anthropological look at human behaviour in conflict through history.
For those who read my previous post on Miami (click previous above to read it), here are some of the links to speakers I didn’t have time to include:
Bill Zimmerman’s use of drag and drop comics templates to encourage kids to tell stories is interesting: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
Good interview with James Bucky Carter over at Graphic Novel Reporter on the use of comics to guide literacy in the classroom: http://www.graphicnovelreporter.com/content/james-bucky-carter-behind-scenes
UPDATE: Scroll down if you haven’t read today’s post for the backstory on Oscar Romero’s assassination, 30 years ago today. For those of you that have, check out this video from the Daily Show’s recent segment on the Texas board of education members who are essentially in charge of dictating the national curriculum, given that their state orders the most copies of school textbooks. The worrying part involving Oscar Romero begins at 2:50, and shows Patrica Hardy from the Texas State Board of Education arguing that Romero should be omitted from text books…because no one knows who he is.
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the murder of Salvadorean Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered by paramilitary troops at the altar as he celebrated mass, and commemorated in the above snippet from my comic that featured in the latest issue of Presente! To read the comic, click back to the Archcomix archive here, or order your copy of the Honduran Coup: A graphic history using the button on the right sidebar. Here’s the report from the BBC.
Many have linked Romero’s murder to the work of Roberto D’Aubuisson, far-rightist national guardsman who is alleged to have led deathsquads during El Salvador’s bloody civil war, apparently earning him the nickname ‘blowtorch bob’. Here’s his obituary from the NYTimes, which quotes former Salvadorean President Cristiani as labelling D’Aubuisson, “a fighter to open political spaces and look for a democratic path in the country”. Is ‘opening political spaces’ a diplomatic term for “leading a deathsquad”? Use your readerly judgement. Either way, it’s better than “a pathological killer”, which was US Ambassador Robert E. White’s epithet for him. One thing that is undeniable is D’Aubuisson’s links to the School of the Americas (now WHINSEC), placing him in the company of a veritable who’s-who of Latin American military top brass who had a similarly proactive attitude towards “opening political spaces”. Visit the School of the Americas Watch to find out more and get involved.
Below is footage from multiple witnesses of the shooting, eerily chronicling the turn of events from both the shooters’ and the congregation’s perspectives. Thanks to Tim’s ElSalvador Blog for the video.
Here’s the rest of the first page of the School of the Americas comic, which will be featured as the centrefold spread in the next issue of Presente! As the death toll continues to rise in Haiti, check out this episode of Democracy Now! below on how the crippled country and its hamstrung government is coping with the biggest natural disaster in two centuries.
Next three panels of my piece on the School of the Americas. To start at the beginning, just hit previous for an intro to the SOA and its heinous past.
Remember, this piece and the Honduran coup comics I put together with Nikil Saval are available in hard copy format via the chipin widget on the right hand side bar, shipped directly to your door for $5 plus $2 shipping. Or you could just click here.
Below is a film I highly recommend, viewable free online, about the SOA and the part Father Roy Bourgeois has had in fighting to get it shut down:
I’m pleased to announce that one of the interactive multimedia comics that I worked on during my Knight fellowship is now live over at Cartoon Movement. To read the piece, click here. (Above is a sample tier). The piece tells the story of the Nisoor square shootings that took place in Sept 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq involving US contractor Blackwater (now renamed “Xe Services”). The tragic event saw 17 Iraqis killed and 24 wounded during the controversial shootings, which civilian witnesses argue was unprovoked. The case was dismissed by US courts in 2009 but reopened just a few months ago, in April 2011.
Meanwhile, Xe’s polemical CEO Erik Prince has moved to Abu Dhabi to export his unique brand of mercenary training:
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times…
Stay tuned for a separate post on what looks frighteningly like a School of the Americas for the middle east.
Chaos erupted in Ecuador yesterday as members of the police and military protested budget cuts proposed by the government. 150 troops occupied Quito (Ecuador’s capital) airport to contest the move made by Congress, but it was when President Correa became involved that things truly got ugly. At an address to the disgruntled police and troops outside the Presidential Palace, a volley of tear gas canisters were fired at the President’s entourage, and members of the police were caught on video attempting to assault him. Clearly struggling to breathe from behind his gas mask, the President was bundled from the scene to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for tear gas inhalation. He immediately responded to what many have commented on as the early tremors of a coup attempt:
PRES. RAFAEL CORREA (VOICEOVER TRANSLATION): If you want to kill the president, here I am. Kill me. Kill me if you’re not happy. Kill me if you’re brave. But we will continue with one policy, one of justice, dignity, and we will not take one step backwards.
Thankfully, Ecuador didn’t follow Honduras’s lead (for more on the 2010 military coup that ousted President Zelaya, visit the Honduras page) as one of the top military chiefs has come out in defense of Correa. Let’s hope he doesn’t go the same way as Chilean Army Chief of Staff Rene Schneider, who was murdered in a bungled kidnapping attempt co-sponsored by the CIA for standing behind Chilean President Salvador Allende. His death led the way for Augusto Pinochet to take the reins and lead the now infamous coup that plunged Chile into a military dictatorship. To read that story in comics form, click here. For an interesting debate on the US’s level of involvement, read this post from Foreign Affairs.
Courtesy of SOAW (School of the Americas Watch):
In his radio address the President did talk about this being a Coup attempt lead by the Police, Military close to an ex-President, but also by the Opposition and the ex-President Lucio Gutierrez. He stated that there is an attempt to destabilize the democratic citizen revolution that has happened in Ecuador. At this moment, the pro-democracy movement is gathering in the thousands in the capital but in all the plazas across the country. There are also people marching to the hospital to protect the President.
For more on the story, check out Narco News’s coverage here.
Opening page of Pika-Don by the Stanford Graphic Novel Project
Friday marked the 65th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the first time that a US representative has attended any of the memorial services held in Japan. US Ambassador John Roos was at the service in Hiroshima to observe the moment of silence at 8:15am – the time that “Little Boy“, the most inappropriately named piece of ordinance ever, detonated some 300m above ground level, instantly incinerating an estimated 70,000 people. Click here to read an extract from Pika-Don (“flash-boom”, from the Japanese term for the atomic bombs), created by the Stanford Graphic Novel Project based on double atomic bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi‘s ordeal and experience the horror of being at ground zero (within 3km) for both blasts. Today at 11:02am will mark the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing, which was actually 3 times more powerful (20 kilotons) than the Hiroshima blast. Be sure to check out this excellent digital resource from the Nagasaki Archive: a patch for Google earth that lets you explore the shell of the city in the the atomic aftermath.
In more surreal news, ex-Fugee Wyclef Jean is running for Haitian President. Seriously. Despite alleged mismanagement of his charity, his support for the US-backed coup of 2005 that ousted then-President Jean-Betrand Aristride, or – the fact that being a successful pop star does not qualify you to run a country, despite what it may do for your record sales. One-time…
Last but not least, the SOAW (School of the Americas Watch) delegation to Colombia is continuing their protest around US military installations (see video below) in the run up to the Aug 17 Constitutional Court decision that will determine the legal basis of the US military presence in the country and its use of Colombian bases. All the more dramatic, given Saturday’s inauguration of new Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who is decidedly more pro-Chavez than outgoing President Alvaro Uribe. Then again, U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield’s comments to local radio station La FM demonstrate the US’s attitude towards the Constitutional Court’s ruling. When asked if a negative decision from the Constitutional Court could affect bilateral relations, Brownfield said, “in absolute terms, I think not.”
