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Loads of news to fill you in on today – Honduran Resistance Members’ insights into the situation on the ground and the gathering momentum for the constitutional reform petition; the Dalai Lama’s talk at Stanford this morning (off to the next one this afternoon) and about to go to veteran US intelligence officer Ray McGovern’s talk at the Stanford Law School. Only at Stanford could you go from a CIA officer to the Dalai Lama via a brief stroll across campus. I’ll type it all up this evening in between the gargantuan amount of comics I have to spray paint ahead of APE this weekend.
The more observant among you will notice the addition of a subtle “support comics journalism” widget on the left-hand sidebar. If you’re a regular visitor to the site or have enjoyed what you’ve read then please help keep the site going by chipping in a few cents. Every little micropayment helps. If you’re into the big bucks, then just head to the store and you’ll get a hard copy of the comics for your hard-earned cash.
More for Torture Awareness Month: Just when the US’s “checkered” (read: conspicuous) history of using “coercive techniques” (read: torture) to protect national security in the wake of 9/11 had your constitutional spidey-senses collectively tingling, recently published evidence suggests that government agents went even further. Physicians for Human Rights are behind a mini-site called “The Torture Papers”, which claim that “CIA medical personnel allegedly engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture.” Their goal? To make the process as effective and invisible as possible. Apparently the scope they’d been afforded by the Torture Memos wasn’t broad enough. That is, that in order to constitute torture, the pain suffered must be:
“equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
Read the full memos for yourself below.
At last the US has successfully brokered a deal between Zelaya and Micheletti. Hopefully this will also result in an investigation of the de facto regime’s litany of human rights abuses over the past four months, which are still continuing on the streets of Tegucigalpa. Articles about police ‘meowing’ and firing sonic blasts of pig noises at the Brazilian embassy in total impunity to keep the Zelaya party deprived of sleep sound both surreal and horrendous: here’s a great article by Joe Shansky at Pulsemedia.org on the worrying use of psychological weapons by police, both in the US and abroad.
Today’s comic is the first page of a new piece based on Diego Garcia, which many are labelling ‘the new Guantanamo’ for its role as one of the prime US Military bases for Iraq/Afghanistan, not to mention in interrogating ‘enemy combattants’. I’d entered it in the Observer Graphic Short Story Competition 2009, but perhaps as Joe Sacco was mysteriously taken off the judging panel in their final press release announcing the winners, it may have led to a bigger step away from any non-fictional entries. Who knows.
Although it’s been in the papers as a popular transit point for illegal rendition flights run by the CIA and MI6, my piece concentrates on the backstory to the island, more specifically how the UK and US governments conspired to illegally evict the island’s inhabitants from their home in the 1960s. Two invaluable sources were David Vine’s Island of Shame and John Pilger’s Stealing A Nation, which I thoroughly recommend. As always, the whole comic is posted on the COMIX page, so please forward the link around to raise awareness for the Chagossians’ campaign to return to their homeland.
Here’s the first page of a graphic history of the Honduran Coup that’s been published online at Alternet – click here to read the whole story or on the thumbnails below.
[GALLERY=10]
The last page of the prologue seals the perhaps predictable fate of Rene Schneider as part of a botched kidnapping attempt. Almost 40 years later there is a case still pending as Schneider’s family attempt to bring Kissinger to justice for his part in Schneider’s murder. Review the court documents here or find a more comprehensive overview here.
Many thanks to Adam Johnson for the pointer about spent Uzi rounds (and everything else!) and a hearty morale-boosting salute to the Stanford Graphic Novel Project Team, who are sweating away on their congolese graphic novel as I tap. The newest edition of my minicomic is almost done now so I’ll post snippets of it soon – and of course, feel free to get your orders in via the store page above!
So much for my regular post promises – but it’s been worth it to focus on the first splash panel in a while. For those new to the site, this is the 2nd page of the prologue, featuring Chilean Army Commander Rene Schneider. As you can tell, things aren’t about to end well.
All sorts of other gigs on at the mo, likc illos for Profile books in the UK and the Stanford Graphic Novel project, now at the 30 inked page mark. In other news, my now ancient piece in Julia Wertz’s missed connection anthology (published by Random House) has finally seen the light of day!
I’m kickstarting the Chile strip again, so here’s where we left off, in the CIA field office in Santiago, Chile. Late Summer, 1970. Office chief Henry Hecksher and Field Agent David Atlee Phillips are discussing what to do next when a telegram arrives from Washington (the words AP reads out are direct quotes taken from the now unclassified files).
Apologies for the delay in getting this next page up – as you can see, there’s a lot more going on, panel-wise. This scene shows Hecksher and Atlee Phillips, both CIA operatives based in Santiago, as they report back to Langley/Washington the current plan of action and situation on the ground. Dissatisfaction clearly arose from the diplomatic ‘Track 1’ route that Atlee Phillips mentions here, which refers to the non-confrontational means of preventing Allende’s inauguration as President. DCI Helms, AP’s boss back at the CIA, had proposed this two-track path under the ominous sounding project FUBELT, but as you will see in the next page, a far more harebrained scheme of direct action was already on the cards…
You’ll notice the title has changed too. This is to reflect the change of focus onto what happened before Allende’s inauguration as opposed to the now infamous coup that culminated in his murder.
Start at the beginning of this comic by clicking on the right hand nav bar link.The action has now moved to Chile and the CIA station where Field Agents Henry Hecksher and David Atlee Phillips are directing the CIA’s misinformation campaign against Allende.
