'Getting, But Waiving, Due Process': Despite Cries of Unfairness, Trump Refuses Impeachment Hearing Invite

"If he has a defense, we on House Judiciary—along with the American people—are eager to hear it," said. Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Monday, December 02, 2019

Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/02/getting-waiving-due-process-despite-cries-unfairness-trump-refuses-impeachment

White House counsel Pat Cipollone informed the House Judiciary Committee late Sunday that President Donald Trump and his lawyers will not participate in the panel's first impeachment hearing this week, a move Democratic lawmakers highlighted as further evidence that the president's repeated complaints about lack of due process have been completely empty.

"Not one process complaint made by the president and his Republican allies in Congress so far has turned out to be genuine," tweeted Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).

In a letter (pdf) to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Cipollone described the impeachment proceedings as unfair and said the president will not take part in the scheduled Wednesday hearing, which will feature a panel of constitutional scholars and law professors.

"Under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate in your Wednesday hearing," Cipollone wrote to Nadler. "It is too late to cure the profound procedural deficiencies that have tainted this entire inquiry. We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings."

Cipollone's letter comes less than a week after Nadler formally invited Trump and his attorneys to attend and participate in the December 4 hearing.

"The committee's impeachment inquiry rules allow for the president to attend the hearing and for his counsel to question the witness panel," Nadler said in a statement last Tuesday. "At base, the president has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process."

Trump and his GOP allies in Congress have repeatedly decried the House impeachment proceedings as a "sham," even as Republicans have been allowed to participate in hearings and question witnesses both behind closed doors and in public.

In October, the president called the impeachment inquiry a "lynching," sparking widespread outrage.

"We're bending over backward to be fair," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted Sunday. "The onus is on President Trump to, for once, behave and engage with Congress. If he has a defense, we on House Judiciary—along with the American people—are eager to hear it."

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Dodges When Pressed About Details of White House Dinner With Trump

"No better example of Facebook's power than Zuckerberg being asked here whether Trump lobbied him, rather than whether he lobbied Trump."

Eoin Higgins, staff writer

Monday, December 02, 2019

Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/02/facebook-ceo-zuckerberg-dodges-when-pressed-about-details-white-house-dinner-trump

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview Monday morning that he wasn't willing to divulge what he and President Donald Trump talked about in a previously secret dinner at the White House in October, calling the conversation a "private discussion."

Zuckerberg was responding to a question from CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King on the dinner, which was made public on November 20. 

"We talked about a number of things that were on his mind and the topics that you'd read in the news around our work," said Zuckerberg.

King pressed the social media CEO on the conversation. 

"People will say the optics weren't good," King said of the dinner, which was also attended by Facebook investor and Trump supporter billionaire Peter Thiel.

"Did he try to lobby you in any way?" King asked, referring to reports that the president used the dinner as a venue to complain about his view of the treatment of conservatives on the social media platform.

"I want to respect that it was a private discussion," said Zuckerberg.

The framing of King's question—that Zuckerberg, not Trump, was the one at the dinner being lobbied—was notable to Financial Times reporter Kadhim Shubber.

"No better example of Facebook's power than Zuckerberg being asked here whether Trump lobbied him, rather than whether he lobbied Trump," Shubber tweeted.

As Common Dreams reported, news of the dinner set off a firestorm of criticism from progressives who found both the meeting and the secrecy indicative of what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called "corruption, plain and simple."

King also asked Zuckerberg about his company's policy on allowing ads spreading political lies without restriction. The Facebook CEO said that the public should be trusted to figure the truth out.

"What I believe is in a democracy is it's really important that people can see for themselves what politicians are saying so they can make their own judgments," said Zuckerberg. 

NBC News reporter Ben Collins pointed out that the transparency Zuckerberg was celebrating apparently didn't extend to his refusal to reveal what the president said during their dinner.

"Are these directly contradictory statements? Yes. Does it matter? Lol, no, of course not," tweeted Collins.

Watch the interview, via CBS:

Decrying 'Utterly Inadequate' Efforts to Tackle Climate Crisis, UN Chief Declares 'Our War Against Nature Must Stop'

"The point of no return is no longer over the horizon," António Guterres warned ahead of COP 25. "It is in sight and hurtling toward us."

Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Sunday, December 01, 2019

Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/01/decrying-utterly-inadequate-efforts-tackle-climate-crisis-un-chief-declares-our-war

On the eve of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres decried the "utterly inadequate" efforts of governments to curb planet-heating emissions and called for "a clear demonstration of increased ambition and commitment" from world leaders to tackle the crisis.

"For many decades the human species has been at war with the planet. And the planet is fighting back," Guterres told reporters in Madrid Sunday. "We are confronted now with a global climate crisis. The point of no return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and hurtling towards us."

"Our war against nature must stop," he declared. "And we know that that is possible. The scientific community has provided us with the roadmap to achieve this."

Guterres referenced various U.N.-affiliated reports from recent years, including three released in the weeks leading up to COP 25, the climate conference that will begin Monday and run through Dec. 13.

The annual Emissions Gap report, published Tuesday by the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), warned that global temperatures are on track to rise as much as 3.2°C by the end of the century and countries' commitments under the 2015 Paris agreement—a key focus of the upcoming conference—are insufficient to avert climate catastrophe.

The latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, published Monday by the World Meteorological Organization, revealed that levels of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit record highs in 2018. The previous week, the UNEP and leading research organizations published The Production Gap, which found that planned levels of fossil fuel production through 2030 are "dangerously out of step" with the Paris accord goals.

"According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we must limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, reach carbon neutrality by 2050, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030," Guterres noted. "The commitments made in Paris would still lead to an increase in temperature above three degrees Celsius. But many countries are not even meeting those commitments."

Expressing concern about the "alarming rate" at which greenhouse gas emissions are growing, the U.N. chief highlighted The Production Gap's finding that the world is set to produce 120 percent more fossil fuels over the next decade than what is consistent with a 1.5-degree pathway.

As coal, gas, and oil production continues, "climate-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent, more deadly, more destructive, with growing human and financial costs," Guterres pointed out. "Drought in some parts of the world is progressing at alarming rates destroying human habitats and endangering food security. Every year, air pollution, associated to climate change, kills seven million people. Climate change has become a dramatic threat to human health and security."

Guterres called for ensuring that $100 billion dollars is available for developing countries to use for mitigation and adaptation to the climate crisis. He also emphasized the need for "more ambitious national commitments" to reduce emissions—especially from major polluters—and stressed that such commitments should "include a just transition for people whose jobs and livelihoods are affected as we move from the grey to the green economy."

Governments across the globe face growing pressure from the public—particularly young people—to step up their climate action to meet the level of the crisis, noted Guterres, whose remarks to reporters Sunday came just two days after a youth-led worldwide climate strike that aimed to push COP 25 attendees to pursue more ambitious policies.

"What is still lacking is political will," Guterres said. "Political will to put a price on carbon. Political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels. Political will to stop building coal power plants from 2020 onwards. Political will to shift taxation from income to carbon—taxing pollution instead of people. We simply have to stop digging and drilling and take advantage of the vast possibilities offered by renewable energy and nature-based solutions."

Although Guterres didn't criticize any nations or leaders by name—including U.S. President Donald Trump, who began formally withdrawing the United States from the Paris accord last month—the secretary-general chided the world's largest emitters for "not pulling their weight" and warned that "without them, our goal is unreachable."

Suriname President Bouterse convicted of murder for 1982 executions

Ank Kuipers. Reuters. November 30, 2019

PARAMARIBO (Reuters) - A court in Suriname on Friday convicted President Desi Bouterse of murder for the execution of 15 opponents in 1982 following a coup to seize power, sentencing the man who has dominated the former Dutch colony’s recent history to 20 years in prison.

Opposition parties called for Bouterse, currently in China on an official visit, to step down. The military court that found him guilty has not yet ordered his arrest.

Bouterse was expected to return to Suriname on Saturday or Sunday, skipping a planned trip to Cuba, the vice president of his National Democratic Party told local newspaper De Ware Tijd. Ramon Abrahams told the paper he was in telephone contact with Bouterse and called an emergency meeting of the party.

Bouterse led the South American country through the 1980s as head of a military government, then assumed office again in 2010 and secured re-election five years later.

The court ruled that Bouterse had overseen an operation in which soldiers under his command abducted 16 leading government critics - including lawyers, journalists and university teachers - from their homes and killed 15 of them at a colonial fortress in the capital Paramaribo.

One trade union leader survived and later gave testimony against Bouterse.

Bouterse, who has steadfastly denied the charges, is able to appeal the decision. The president, who was represented by a lawyer in the trial, has so far made no comment on his conviction.

In a statement, the Surinamese government said it had “taken note of the developments and calls on the community to keep the peace.”

Critics have vilified the 74-year-old Bouterse as a dictator who has clung to power in the country of 560,000 people, which gained independence from the Netherlands in 1975.

Angelic del Castillo, head of the opposition Democratic Alternative ‘91 party, said Bouterse had “disqualified himself” from remaining Suriname’s leader and demanded he immediately resign. “This is in the interest of the dignity of the office and of our nation,” del Castillo said in a statement.

JOINT CONDEMNATION
In 1999, Bouterse was convicted in absentia of drug trafficking by a court in the Netherlands, though he has denied any wrongdoing. A Suriname judge in 2005 convicted Bouterse’s son, Dino, of leading a gang that trafficked in cocaine, illegal arms and stolen luxury cars.

As a junior military officer, Bouterse took part in the 1980 coup against Suriname’s first prime minister, Henck Arron, and immediately promoted himself to army chief-of-staff, becoming effective ruler of the government.

The court on Friday evening later convicted six other former military officers, including a former consul to neighboring French Guiana, of murder for their part in the episode, including forcibly removing victims from their homes at night or participating in the shooting.

In a joint statement, the diplomatic missions of the Netherlands, United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and France to Suriname said it was “critical” that the verdicts be “implemented and upheld in accordance with the rule of law.”

Bouterse left the army in late 1992 and went into business and politics, heading the pro-military National Democratic Party (NDP) and remaining a prominent if controversial national figure.

Bouterse and the NDP have consistently tried to obstruct court proceedings, which began in 2007. In 2012, the NDP-controlled National Assembly passed an amnesty law giving him immunity but that was later invalidated by a court ruling.

Once allies, Nicaragua's elite aim to unseat Ortega

Drazen Jorgic, Ismael Lopez. Reuters. November 22, 2019

MANAGUA (Reuters) - When Nicaraguan police pulled over his luxury SUV, businessman Jose Adan Aguerri thought it was a routine traffic stop.

Suddenly, a group of men rushed the vehicle as the cops stood by and watched. Rocks pounded the car. A large ball bearing shattered the driver’s side window. Aguerri hit the gas and escaped.

Recalling the September incident in the western city of Leon, which was corroborated by three passengers and mobile phone footage, Aguerri said he has no doubt who ordered the attack: the government of leftist strongman Daniel Ortega.

“It was a message to the private sector,” said Aguerri, the leader of Nicaragua’s most influential business association, the Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP).

The government and the police did not respond to requests for comment about Aguerri’s allegations.

What’s clear is that an unorthodox alliance between Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, and the nation’s most powerful capitalists has splintered. After a decade of working with the president to grow the economy, the business elite are now looking to unseat him after a violent state crackdown on anti-government protesters left around 325 people dead last year. More than 2,000 people were injured and around 600 jailed.

Ortega’s well-heeled adversaries include about a dozen of the nation’s wealthiest families known as the “gran capital.” Two people in this exclusive group, whose members rarely speak with the media, talked to Reuters, as did six prominent business people. Most declined to be identified for fear of retribution.

If Ortega does not heed calls by his opponents to step aside, they say they will fund opposition candidates in the next election, an effort some estimated could cost $20 million to $25 million.

“Money will start flowing. There is no doubt,” one businessman from a gran capital family told Reuters.

Political strife has battered the economy of this Central American nation of 6.2 million people. And it threatens the relative stability of a country that has largely avoided the mass out-migration plaguing its neighbors. Nevertheless, more than 80,000 Nicaraguans have fled the country since protests began in April 2018, according to the United Nations.

Ortega, whose term ends in January 2022, has derided his adversaries as coup-plotters and terrorists. He and his allies have denounced Nicaragua’s corporate elite as tax dodgers and “enemies of the people.”

Business people who criticized Ortega publicly say they have lost public contracts and had their enterprises investigated by tax authorities. Some say they have received death threats and had land seized by armed pro-government militias.

Michael Healy, a commercial fruit farmer and senior COSEP member, said these groups now occupy about 4,000 hectares of private land, including three of his family’s farms that were invaded last year.

“(The pressure) is not going to work,” said Healy, who said he was in the SUV with Aguerri during the September attack. He said the alleged intimidation has only hardened his resolve to change Nicaragua’s government.

Ortega remains in control. Still, unrest in other parts of Latin America, including this month’s toppling of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Ortega’s leftist ally, has heightened tensions in Nicaragua.

In recent days, 16 Nicaraguan women launched hunger strikes in two churches, including the cathedral in the capital Managua, to press for the release of relatives they say were jailed for protesting Ortega’s rule. Police quickly surrounded the churches and arrested 13 activists who brought water to the hunger strikers. Authorities later charged the activists with trafficking weapons, charges the United Nations has called “trumped up.”

“People like Ortega who have somewhat questionable grip on power are nervous,” said Javier Gutierrez, a regional analyst and former trade diplomat. “It’s a very delicate situation.”

‘SLOW COOKER THAT EXPLODED’
Animosity between Nicaragua’s wealthy and 74-year-old Ortega isn’t new.

A Cuba-trained former rebel commander, Ortega was part of the resistance that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, nationalized banks and seized holdings of industrial moguls and land barons while battling U.S.-backed Contra forces attempting to overthrow the new socialist revolutionary government.

Elected president in 1984, Ortega was voted out of office after a single five-year term as the economy floundered. The business elite, many of whom had fled abroad, watched nervously as Ortega was re-elected in 2006.

This time he wooed them with a business-friendly agenda. COSEP members were appointed to a slew of government boards, where they helped draft pro-market legislation.

Critics say the business elite said little as Ortega abolished presidential term limits and gained control of the courts and police.

“They just wanted to keep doing business, which isn’t a crime, but they didn’t realize the price they were going to pay for that in terms of damage to democracy,” said Eduardo Enriquez, the editor of La Prensa, Nicaragua’s biggest newspaper.

Aguerri said COSEP did challenge Ortega’s moves to weaken institutions, and that it chose to engage with his government to help Nicaragua. Between 2010 and 2017, Nicaragua’s economy expanded by about 5% annually, one of the fastest rates in Latin America. Foreign investment poured in.

But the good times ended abruptly last year. What began as demonstrations by retirees challenging social security taxes morphed into wider dissent against Ortega’s rule. Televised images showed police shooting unarmed protesters, and pro-government militias assaulting pensioners and students with baseball bats.

The Organization of American States denounced state-led violence as “crimes against humanity.” The United States imposed sanctions on Ortega’s family and allies.

Ortega says Western powers engineered the demonstrations to topple his democratically elected government.

Nicaragua’s economy contracted 3.8% last year and is expected to shrink another 5% this year, according to a World Bank forecast.

“We were so blinded by this growth and stability and security,” said a member of a prominent business family in northern Nicaragua. “It was like a slow cooker that exploded.”

AID TO POLITICAL PRISONERS
Five Nicaraguan magnates, including billionaire Carlos Pellas, owner of the Grupo Pellas conglomerate, held private talks with Ortega earlier this year. They urged the government to negotiate with the Civic Alliance, a coalition that includes students, farmers and civil society groups as well as COSEP.

But those discussions broke down. COSEP says it is no longer in communication with the government.

Businessmen say they’re now focused on bankrolling an opposition candidate in the hopes of defeating Ortega at the polls.

To have a chance, the opposition would need to settle on running a single, unity candidate to avoid splitting the vote. But any candidate deemed close to the gran capital would likely be shunned by the poor, who make up the bulk of the electorate and view Nicaragua’s entrenched elites with suspicion, said Enriquez, the La Prensa editor.

“After Ortega, big business is the second most mistrusted figure in politics,” he said.

Wealthy Nicaraguans did help pay medical bills and legal fees of some protesters, three prominent businessmen told Reuters.

Assistance to anti-government demonstrators has earned the enmity of Ortega, who has condemned “those who are financing terrorism.” His government last year passed sweeping anti-terrorism laws with lengthy prison penalties.

Business leaders say they worry that legislation will be trained on them as they build a war chest to defeat him.

“It’s going to get nasty,” a Nicaraguan businessman said.

Providence man accused of torture in Guatemala is deported

Amanda Milkovits. Boston Globe. November 30, 2019

PROVIDENCE — A Providence man accused of leading a paramilitary unit in Guatemala that tortured and murdered dozens of indigenous Mayans in the 1980s was deported Wednesday to face prosecution.

Juan Alecio Samayoa Cabrera, 69, had fled Guatemala and entered the United States illegally in 1992, eventually settling in Providence and applying for asylum.

Despite being rejected and ordered deported years ago, Samayoa fought to remain — arguing that he would face torture, not justice, in his native country.

Samayoa had claimed that he and his wife were victims of guerrilla fighters because of his political views, according to court records. In 2011, Samayoa received a temporary U visa, which is meant for victims of crimes who assist government officials in investigations or prosecutions.

When that visa expired in 2017, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Samayoa at his home in Providence’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Samayoa and his wife of nearly 50 years had been quietly living.

To the new friends he’d made in Rhode Island, Samayoa was a humble family man who worked as a gardener and fathered eight children with his wife.

To the investigators in Guatemala, the former cattle businessman from Chinique had led a unit of about 500 people that raided the villages of indigenous Mayans during the country’s bloody civil war.

Some survivors also settled in Providence and New Bedford, and recognized Samayoa as the man who’d led patrols that committed atrocities in their villages.

After his arrest, Samayoa appeared in US Immigration Court in Boston early last year and admitted knowing the man alleged to be his coconspirator.

Candido Noriega had died in 2017, after serving some of a 50-year sentence for committing more than 100 war crimes.

Noriega and Samayoa were accused by the Supreme Court of Justice of a litany of atrocities: torture, kidnap, and rape of adults and children; burning people; burying people alive; starving people; robbing people; and causing people to “disappear.”

Samayoa was afraid to go back. He had testified and argued in court documents that his notoriety in Guatemala would make him a target in prison, and that he would face torture.

The immigration judge rejected his argument in early 2018.

Last month, so did the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Exactly two years after Samayoa was arrested at his home on Webster Avenue, the court issued a decision denying part of Samayoa’s appeal and dismissing the rest.

Samayoa’s argument that he, in particular, was likely to be tortured in prison “is not persuasive,” the court said.

“Samayoa does point to documentary evidence that shows that he is alleged to have committed crimes in Guatemala, that the government has issued warrants for his arrest, and that he would be targeted for prosecution in that country if he were removed there,” the court said.

“But, although this evidence is specific to Samayoa, it concerns only his likelihood of being imprisoned in Guatemala and not his likelihood of being singled out once imprisoned there for especially harsh treatment in comparison to other inmates in that country.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Homeland Security turned Samayoa over to authorities in Guatemala.

A photo showed him handcuffed, and his weathered face serious, as the government prepared to return him to his native country for the first time in 27 years.

Guatemala to try more former top military officials for Maya genocide

Sofia Menchu. Reuters. November 29, 2019

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala’s human rights prosecutor on Friday indicted another former top military official for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the bloodiest phase of the Central American country’s 36-year civil war.

A military operations chief under deceased Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, Luis Enrique Mendoza Garcia will be tried in March for his role in an operation in the early 1980s that killed at least 1,771 Maya Ixil and displaced thousands.

Judge Jimmy Bremer on Friday formally received the charges the prosecutors presented against the 76-year-old in a court in Guatemala City.

Mendoza Garcia is the fourth top military official facing justice in less than a week after Benedicto Lucas Garcia, Manuel Callejas and Cesar Noguera were indicted in a separate case of genocide against the same community.

“I was not the one who ruled,” Mendoza Garcia said in a declaration given by video conference, adding that he had had no means to plan or carry out such an operation. Reuters was unable to contact the accused, all of whom have denied the allegations.

Mendoza Garcia was captured six months ago after having been on the run since 2011. Guatemala’s human rights prosecutor said there were more victims and witnesses who could testify against him than in other processes.

Former military intelligence chief Jose Mauricio Rodriguez was acquitted last year of charges of genocide and crimes against humanity after the court said it had insufficient evidence.

During the civil war, from 1960 to 1996, an estimated 200,000 mostly Mayan civilians were killed and another 45,000 went missing.

Rios Montt, who ruled during the war’s bloodiest phase, between 1982 and 1983, died in April last year. At that time, he was facing renewed charges after his conviction for genocide and crimes against humanity was overturned.

Lucas Garcia is the brother of former president Romeo Lucas Garcia. Guatemala’s human rights prosecutor accuses him of having planned one of the operations in the Maya Ixil region some 225km northwest of the capital.

Separately on Friday, Guatemalan President-elect Alejandro Giammattei regretted the decision of a Swiss court to uphold a 15-year prison sentence for Swiss-Guatemalan Erwin Sperisen for his role in a 2006 prison operation.

Giammattei himself faced accusations of human rights violations for the same incident, during which seven prisoners but no government officials died; he was later exonerated for lack of evidence.

“An act of injustice,” Giammattei said. “I would have liked to testify in the case.” Sperisen’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment but told local media they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.