Female Revolutionaries That You Probably Didn't Learn About In History class

Blanca Canales

Blanca Canales was a Puerto Rican Nationalist who helped organize the Daughters of Freedom, the women’s branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was one of the few women in history to have led a revolt against the United States, known as the Jayuya Uprising. In 1948, a severely restricting bill known as the Gag Bill, or Law 53, was introduced that made it a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government. In response, the Nationalists starting planning armed revolution. On October 30, 1950, Blanca and others took up arms which she had stored in her home and marched into the town of Jayuya, taking over the police station, burning down the post office, cutting the telephone wires, and raising the Puerto Rican flag in defiance of the Gag Law. As a result, the US President declared martial law and ordered Army and Air Force attacks on the town. The Nationalists held on for awhile, but were arrested and sentenced to life in prison after 3 days. Much of Jayuya was destroyed, and the incident was not fairly covered by US media, with the US President even saying it was “an incident between Puerto Ricans.”

9 more Female Revolutionaries That You Probably Didn't Learn About at Films For Action

Ukraine moves towards civil war

Two days of chaos and violence in east and south-east Ukraine appeared on Saturday to be pushing the country ever closer to civil war, as the death toll rose to 42 following a military counter-offensive launched by authorities in Kiev against pro-Russia rebels.

An angry crowd confronted police outside the trade union building in Odessa where dozens of pro-Russia activists died on Friday night in a blaze started during clashes with pro-Ukraine protesters. Fighting continued in the east as the Ukrainian army continued to oust pro-Russia rebels.

The region has been rocked by unrest since the new government in Kiev came to power following demonstrations that ousted pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych at the end of February. Many in Ukraine's east, which has strong economic and cultural ties with Russia, say they now feel marginalised. What began as small-scale unrest rapidly escalated into an armed rebellion as pro-Russia militia groups seized government buildings. Kiev and its western allies have accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the chaos, which follows a Putin-backed putsch that resulted in Crimea's annexation last month.

More at The Observer

Venezuela Rising

Revolution Or Unrest: How Venezuela Compares To Ukraine

As the world continues to watch events in Ukraine, a new wave of protests are taking place across the world in Venezuela.

Newsy

Kiev Demonstrators Being Shot Dead

Brutal footage of what appears to be Ukrainian special forces shooting dead protesters in Kiev has emerged. Residents in the capital have been warned not to go outside while snipers have been spotted firing into crowds.

Sky reporter David Bowden, who is in Kiev said: "Police are hitting back and are shooting – probably not at random – but they are shooting with live rounds at the protesters.

Huffington Post

Ukraine Protests Leave more than 20 Dead And Hundreds Injured As Riot Police Burn Kiev Camp

Thousands of riot police moved against the Maidan, the main protest camp in Kiev on Tuesday, attacking demonstrators with water canons and stun grenades, and setting fire to thousands of tents. Eighteen people have reportedly died in the fighting, a figure that includes several members of the Ukrainian police, while hundreds have been left injured as the clashes over the nation’s future turned into what increasingly resembles outright war.

Huff. Post

Three months of confrontation in Ukraine between the president and a large protest movement reached its peak on Tuesday night in the worst bloodshed since the country separated from Moscow more than two decades ago, with more than 20 people reported killed as riot police moved in to clear Kiev's Independence Square, the crucible of the anti-government activism.

Hopes for a settlement of the crisis went up in smoke amid scenes of rioting, burning buildings, police bombings and rubber bullets that also left up to 500 people injured.

The Guardian

In Brazil, a dual struggle against neoliberalism

In Brazil, students and the indigenous may be fighting different fights, but they are ultimately part of the same struggle against the neoliberal state.

While the world has been watching Turkey, another country is experiencing revolt: Brazil. Just like Turkey, Brazil has recently experienced relative success in economic terms. But just as in Turkey, the spoils of this economic growth are divided extremely unequally. Just like in Turkey, a relatively small provocation has sparked a much more widespread chain reaction. Unlike in Turkey, that provocation is a direct attack on living standards. But the anger exploding as a result of it appears to run just as deep.

According to the BBC, “the demonstrators were mostly university students, but the authorities said there were also groups of anarchists looking for a fight.” The idea that some students might be anarchists by conviction, and that some anarchists go to college because they like to learn, apparently does not occur to either “authorities” or the BBC. And the ones “looking for a fight” were above all the rabid police troops themselves, who used excessive amounts of teargas and rubber bullets against mostly unarmed demonstrators, some of whom did attack shops and set fire to tyres. But that’s what desperate people do if you make their lives even harder by rising the prices of public amenities in a context of rapid inflation.

Overall, more than 50 people were left injured and the number of arrests exceeded 200. According to the BBC, “police say they seized petrol bombs, knives, and drugs.” Sure. And yes, “police acted with professionalism”, according to the state governor. Obviously. After all, repression is their profession.

More on ROAR Magazine

Turkish Workers Join Mass Protests

Confederation of unions, stage two day strike in solidarity with protestors, against police brutality and for a more democratic Turkey.

Hero Stéphane Hessel has died

Stéphane Frédéric Hessel (20 October 1917 – 26 February 2013) was a diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, French Resistance fighter and BCRA agent. Born German, he became a naturalised French citizen in 1939. He participated in the editing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers.

In October 2010, his essay, Time for Outrage! (original French title: Indignez-vous!), was published in an edition of 6,000 copies (ISBN 978-1455509720). It has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide and has been translated into Swedish, Danish, Basque, Catalan, Italian, German.Greek, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish, Croatian, Hebrew, Korean, and Dutch. Translations into Japanese, Hungarian, and other languages are planned. In the United States, The Nation magazine's March 7–14, 2011 issue published the entire essay in English.

Hessel's booklet argues that the French need to again become outraged, as were those who participated in the Resistance during World War II. Hessel's reasons for personal outrage include the growing gap between the very rich and the very poor, France's treatment of its illegal immigrants, the need to re-establish a free press, the need to protect the environment, importance of protecting the French welfare system, and the plight of Palestinians, recommending that people read the September 2009 Goldstone Report. He calls for peaceful and non-violent insurrection.

In 2011, one of the names given to the Spanish protests against corruption and bipartisan politics was Los Indignados (The Outraged), taken from the title of the book's translation there (¡Indignaos!). These protests, in conjunction with the Arab Spring, later helped to inspire other protests in many countries, including Greece, UK, Chile, Israel, and Occupy Wall Street which began in New York's financial district, but has now spread across the United States and numerous other countries. Ongoing protests in Mexico challenging corruption, drug cartel violence, economic hardship and policies also have been called the Indignados.

Wikipedia – Al Jazeera – NY Times – The Star

State of siege

Scenes from a very hard-to-find movie made in 1972: "State of Siege". It's a fictionalized account of a true story.
Using an "aid" program as a cover, the CIA trained police officers throughout South America to fight "subversives" using of torture, assassination, and police-staged explosives to blame on terrorists.

Brasscheck tv

Kenyans seek Mau Mau compensation in UK

A group of elderly Kenyans who say they were tortured by British officers during the suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s have taken their case to the High Court in London. The four claimants, three men and one woman in their 70s and 80s, are seeking compensation and a statement of regret for the treatment they suffered, including castration, torture, sexual abuse, forced labour and beatings. Lawyers for the group said their clients were subjected to "unspeakable acts of torture and abuse" at the hands of British officials.

"The treatment they endured has left them all with devastating and lifelong injuries," Martyn Day said before the case started on Thursday. "There is no doubt that endemic torture occurred in Kenya before independence."
The case, which is expected to last for two weeks, could open the door for claims from hundreds of other people who survived detention camps during the uprising, which saw Kenyans fighting against British rule in their country.

However, the British foreign ministry, which is being forced to release thousands of secret files from its former colonies, including Kenya, insists that Britain cannot be held legally liable. Robert Jay, a foreign ministry lawyer, admitted on Thursday that several Kenyans were "screened" - a system of interrogation to identify suspects - and tortured inside the detention camps.

However, he argued that Britain had not explicitly enacted a law that said prisoners were to be severely beaten or tortured, and it could not be held responsible for the abuses. Jay said the officers who ran the camps were under the jurisdiction of the colonial administration in Kenya, and that all its powers and liabilities had been legally passed to the Kenyan government on independence in 1963.

Al Jazeera - The Guardian - Timeline: Mau Mau Rebellion

 

TIME's Person of the Year 2011

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Syrian military vows to 'cut every evil hand' of attackers

The Syrian military has said it will "cut every evil hand that targets Syrian blood", and warned that recent attacks on elite security forces marked a dangerous escalation in the country's eight-month-old crisis. Six elite pilots and four technical officers were killed in an ambush on Thursday in Homs, the military said, in an unusually high-level strike.

"Our armed forces [will] continue to carry out our mission to defend the country's security, and we will hit back against anything that threatens us," the statement said. It is not clear who was behind the attacks. A largely peaceful uprising against the president, Bashar al-Assad, began in March and has become more violent as defectors from the army turn their guns on security forces and some protesters take up arms to protect themselves.

More on The Guardian

Former Mubarak man appointed Egyptian prime minister

Egyptian state media reported that 78-year-old Kamal al-Ganzouri, who served under Mr Mubarak from 1996 to 1999, had agreed in principle to lead a “national salvation” government after meeting with the head of the ruling army council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

While the appointment is highly unlikely to find favour in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, other Egyptians are likely to approve the choice of a man seen as a moderate. Nonetheless it will be seen as an act of desperation by the military.

More on Telegraph

Egyptian Military rulers have 'crushed' hopes of 25 January protesters

Egypt's military rulers have completely failed to live up to their promises to Egyptians to improve human rights and have instead been responsible for a catalogue of abuses which in some cases exceeds the record of Hosni Mubarak, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

In Broken Promises: Egypt's Military Rulers Erode Human Rights (PDF), the organization documents a woeful performance on human rights by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) which assumed power after the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in February.
The report's release follows a bloody few days in Egypt that has left many dead and hundreds injured after army and security forces violently attempted to disperse anti-SCAF protesters from Cairo’s Tahrir square.
"By using military courts to try thousands of civilians, cracking down on peaceful protest and expanding the remit of Mubarak's Emergency Law, the SCAF has continued the tradition of repressive rule which the January 25 demonstrators fought so hard to get rid of," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Acting Director.

Amnesty International

Egyptian call to revive revolution

Egyptian activists have called for an international day of action to defend their country's revolution, as global opposition mounts towards the military junta.

In a statement appealing for solidarity from the worldwide Occupy movement that has taken control of public squares in London, New York and hundreds of other cities, campaigners in Egypt claim their revolution is "under attack" from army generals and insist they too are fighting against a "1%" elite intent on stifling democracy and promoting social injustice.

The announcement came as Alaa Abd El Fattah, the jailed Egyptian revolutionary who has become a rallying figure for those opposed to the junta, had his appeal against detention refused by a military court. He and 30 other defendants accused of inciting violence against the military will remain in prison for at least 10 more days. The authorities could then choose to extend their incarceration indefinitely. This week a secret letter written by Abd El Fattah from inside his cell at Bab el-Khalq jail was published by the Guardian and the Egyptian newspaper al-Shorouk, laying bare the growing chasm between the ruling generals and grassroots activists who believe that their revolution has been hijacked. The Guardian

Alaa Abdel Fattah: Portrait of an Egyptian Revolutionary - VT

Hypocrisy USA

India's Silent War

A 40-year long civil war has been raging in the jungles of central and eastern India. It is one of the world's largest armed conflicts but it remains largely ignored outside of India. Caught in the crossfire of it are the Adivasis, who are believed to be India's earliest inhabitants. A loose collection of tribes, it is estimated that there are about 84 million of these indigenous people, which is about eight per cent of the country's population. 

For generations, they have lived off farming and the spoils of the jungle in eastern India, but their way of life is under threat. Their land contains mineral deposits estimated to be worth trillions of dollars. Forests have been cleared and the Indian government has evacuated hundreds of villages to make room for steel plants and mineral refineries.

The risk of losing everything they have ever known has made many Adivasis fertile recruits for India's Maoist rebels or Naxalites, who also call these forests home. The Maoists' fight with the Indian government began 50 years ago, just after India became independent. A loose collection of anti-government communist groups - that initially fought for land reform - they are said to be India's biggest internal security threat. Over time, their focus has expanded to include more fundamental questions about how India is actually governed.

More (with video) on Al Jazeera English – More on Indian Vanguard

Occupy Wall Street Protests Continues

Hundreds of people protesting Wall Street abuses were penned in and arrested by police Saturday, two weeks into an ongoing demonstration that has become known on Twitter as #OccupyWallStreet.

Centered at Zuccotti Park since September 17, the gathering that began as a call to arms from anti-consumerist magazine AdBusters has shown no sign of a slowdown.

The movement aims to "express a feeling of mass injustice," according to the group’s declaration for the occupation of New York City released Friday. The injustices include the foreclosure crisis, work place discrimination and student loan debt, among a list of others.

As HuffPost reported recently, the movement is less about specific policy demands and more about an expression of opposition to ever yawning economic inequality driven by Wall Street and its allies in Washington. - huffingtonpost.com

More than 700 people were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening during a march by anti-Wall Street protesters who have been occupying a downtown Manhattan square for two weeks. – The Guardian

More deaths reported as Syrian security forces mount crackdown in cities

Syrian security forces have killed 47 people when they stormed cities across the country looking for army defectors and seeking to prevent the breakout of mass protests following the weekly Friday prayers, the revolution commission said.

At least six people were killed in the flashpoint city of Hama when troops and security forces raided the town. “They raided Hilfaya at 6:30 a.m. (0330 GMT), with troops and security police descending from buses and trucks equipped with machine guns,” one of the activists told Reuters by telephone. “They stayed for two hours, firing at random to frighten the inhabitants. Among the six who were killed were two cousins from the al-Jammal family who were on their way to Hilfaya from the nearby village of Taybeh,” the activist said.

alArabiya