Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded May 17th and 22nd, 2024
Nearly eighty years after D-Day, the World seems no nearer peace. Serial wars since, none of them arguably "good" have come and come again, in a pattern of what the Declaration of the Soviet Government on General and Complete Disarmament of 1959 described as a 'chronicle of sanguinary wars'. But is the concept of disarmament, in a time of heightened martial bellicosity, where belligerents race to develop new and terrifying technologies and in every quarter are seen practicing and preparing for war, possible; can there be finally peace in our time?
Christopher Black is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer specializing in international war crimes cases. He’s also an executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress. Black’s writings on international law, politics, and World events appear at New Eastern Outlook among other places, it's where I found his recent article, 'Peace In Our Time: Complete And General Disarmament'. Christopher Black's novel, ‘Beneath the Clouds’, “a story of how people, acting collectively, can defeat tyranny” is published by Badak Merah.
Chris Black in the first half.
And; overshadowed by the horrors in Gaza, in Palestine's West Bank a modern day pogrom is being carried out by both the Israeli government and its "settlers" against the indigenous Palestinian population. Hundreds have been killed, and thousands summarily arrested and imprisoned through so-called 'administrative detention' measures; denied charge, trial dates, access to either lawyers or legal remedy, all while suffering grotesque abuses at the hands of their captors.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society says nearly 8,000 from the West Bank and Jerusalem are held in Israeli custody of one sort or another, including women and children, with reports of physical and sexual abuse cited by Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Council, who says,
“...[T]hese alleged acts may constitute grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and amount to serious crimes under international criminal law that could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute.”
Salam Hamdan is a Palestinian political activist and Social-Feminist from Ramallah in the West Bank. She recently spoke at UVic with Prof Martin Bunton about Palestine on 'Two States in Palestine: Solution or Fantasy?'
https://blog.ricksteves.com/blog/ramallah-palestines-de-facto-capital/
Salam Hamdan and Palestine's other humanitarian disaster in the second half.
But first, Christopher Black and tolling the Peace Bell in the face of World War Next.
Artists: David Rovics
Songs: ‘The Last Time the U.S. Invaded Russia’
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/
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