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Remarkable March 14, 2013

Posted by doctorfive in Uncategorized.
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1. eamonncork - March 14, 2013

Brilliant.

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CMK - March 14, 2013

+1

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WorldbyStorm - March 14, 2013

+1

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2. beibhinn - March 14, 2013

LOL – excellent!

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3. itsapoliticalworld - March 14, 2013

So true

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CMK - March 14, 2013

Is ‘Political World’ offline? Haven’t been able to get access to it for the past two days.

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Feadog - March 14, 2013

Me neither. Has Rabbitte pulled the plug?

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doctorfive - March 14, 2013

moving server

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4. EamonnCork - March 14, 2013

Perhaps Pope JP2 will be looking down from above and seeing the accession of a representative of the Argentinian church which bent over backwards to see the Junta’s point of view as his final victory over Guttierez, Boff et al.
Penny Lernoux, the American journalist whose Cry of the People is the best book on the church’s role in the Third World during those years when priests at the parish level embraced Liberation Theology while sections of the hierarchy took the side of dictatorships is scathing about the role of the Vatican in Argentina. The Papal Nuncio to Argentina of the time Pio Laghi, later made a Cardinal by John Paul II, not only gave a sermon in which he justified the Junta’s repressive policies by reference to Catholic just war teaching, but was a regular tennis partner of Admiral Emilio Massera who was the chief architect of the Dirty War.
It will be interesting to see what kind of relationship he had with the new Pope. Should this be raised on RTE of course, I’ve no doubt the line taken would be, “Surely the most important thing is that it was a great occasion and that he’s apparently a very nice man.” But the new Pope;s background is not without a decided murkiness. We know of course that his attitude at the time would have been roughly ‘fuck them anyway, they’re all a pack of communists, I’m with the Junta on this one” but given that his supporters can’t actually say that, it will have to be finessed some other way.

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revolutionaryprogramme - March 14, 2013

+1

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5. Jolly Red Giant - March 14, 2013

24-year old Mzoxolo Magidiwana gave evidence at the Marikana inquiry into the murder of 34 mine workers at the Lonmin plant in Marikana. Magidiwana gave evidence over two days and produced a harrowing account of events that day. Magidiwana was shot 12 times by the police. He was on the big koppie when the police began to surround the miners, and tried to walk away when he and his friends realised that they were in potential trouble. He was one of those shot in front of the television cameras.

“As soon as we emerged on the other side of the kraal, we were met with rapid gunfire. I was hit on my left leg. I stumbled and fell behind the others who had been shot, including Noki,” he said.

“Shortly afterwards I could hear voices of policemen approaching the place where we had fallen. When they got to me, I was again shot several times from close range whilst I was on the ground.”

He was hit in his abdomen and testicles. He pleaded with the police to kill him rather than let him live with his wounds, Magidiwana told the commission. The police chose to mock him instead, and he lost consciousness on the scene, waking up in a Johannesburg hospital two weeks later.

A sworn affidavit presented by the miner said: “I am in severe pain from the wounds on my legs, abdomen, elbow and testicles. I have been advised that there is a strong possibility that I may never be able to father children.”

Under cross-examination from Lonmin’s Terry Motau SC, Magidiwana was asked why the company should have been expected to meet and negotiate with armed miners. He replied and said that had the company been willing to meet from the beginning, there would have been no escalation of tensions.

“If your child is hungry and wants food, you take notice of the fact that the child is hungry. You don’t put the dogs on the child for being hungry,” Magidiwana said.

Later there was uproar in the courtroom when Magidiwana was questioned by lawyers for the police. The manner in which Magidiwana was cross-examined disconcerted spectators at times. The aggression eventually prompted the Marikana Solidarity Campaign to ask Justice Farlam to protect witnesses from intimidation.

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doctorfive - March 14, 2013
6. Pidge (@Pidge) - March 15, 2013

This is great.

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